roof
that it sounded like a continuous roll of thunder above their heads.
     The Professor and the children every so often looked  up with alarm and
then involuntarily tried to bury their heads in their shoulders.
     Suddenly Karik shouted:
     "There's  another one! Ooch,  what a  big one! Look  then! It is coming
down on us."
     Above them along the fleshy underside of the mushroom hat there crawled
lazily  some  sort  of  naked,  fat  animal. It was like  a tightly stuffed,
dirty-looking  mattress. The back of  this monster was glossy  as if  it had
been smeared with grease.
     "What's that?" demanded Valya who, taking no chances, was hiding behind
the Professor's back.
     "A  slug!" replied the  Professor very calmly. "A  very ordinary  snail
without a shell."
     "Will it also fall on us?"
     "Oh,  no!" The  Professor started to laugh. "That one won't fall! Don't
worry! He's stuck on tight."
     "Is he another wrecker?"
     "What, a slug? Shame on you! The slug is the mushroom's best friend. He
certainly  destroys  the mushrooms,  but by that means he gives them  a  new
life."
     "How is it possible to be destructive and useful at the same time?"
     The Professor stroked his beard and replied in a leisurely way:
     "The  slug  swallows  pieces of  mushroom in which there are  spores  -
mushroom  seeds. These spores pass through  the stomach of the slug and fall
finally on the soil where  they take root. You would not have many mushrooms
but for the slugs."
     "There you are,  Valya," grinned Karik, "we called our shelter 'Valya's
Wonder Tent': we must call the mushroom roof 'The Slug's Hat.' "
     Valya was about  to say something witty  when  the Professor raised his
finger  in  warning  and listening to  something said  with  some agitation:
"What's that? Do you hear?"
     The travellers got up.
     Through the noise and rumble of the gale they could hear a  dull roar -
somewhere quite close it seemed, as if the sea was breaking against cliffs.
     The noise as  if of breakers became closer every minute and grew louder
and louder.
     "Can it be thunder?" whispered Valya, listening.
     Suddenly there  was a roar  and  whistle. From somewhere unknown  there
swept a torrent of water  and from all  directions foaming streams broke  in
from this muddy sea.
     The  Professor  and  the  children stood  upon  a small island  pressed
closely to the stem of the mushroom.
     The water dashed past them sweeping everything out of its way, breaking
the grassy trees or bending them to the very ground.
     The mushroom stood like a tower  on the  island, but the water rose and
rose, threatening  to submerge  not only the  island but  the towers-It  was
already splashing their feet.
     "Somewhere  near  here  there  must  be  a  river  flowing,"  said  the
Professor, "and in  all probability  it has flooded over its banks  and here
you are. . . ."
     He waved his hand helplessly.
     "Will the  water  wash us  away?" asked  Valya  uneasily. The Professor
didn't answer.
     Knitting  his brow he  silently  looked down at his feet and worked his
blue, frozen fingers.
     The water  continued to rise  -  like  dough. It threatened clearly  to
sweep the travellers away off the island and to carry them  into the jungle,
and there to drown them in some deep ravine.
     Having looked  at the  Professor it dawned on  Karik  that  their guide
could see no way of saving them.
     "Listen," said  Karik  with  decision,  touching the  cold  hand of the
Professor. "I don't think our position is so terrible."
     "What do you suggest?"
     "We   must  climb  up   the  mushroom!"  answered  Karik.  "Yes,  yes,"
gruff-gruffed the Professor absent-mindedly. "Let's try and climb up."
     But having  examined  the round thick  stem of the  mushroom which rose
vertically into the air  he sighed and shook his head: it wasn't possible to
climb up the mushroom.
     "No, it won't  work, my  dears," he said, rapidly winking his eyes. "We
cannot climb that."
     "What about the roof of this wonder  tent?" asked Valya, looking at the
hanging strip of mushroom skin. "Would it hold us?"
     The Professor looked upwards.
     "Marvellous!"  he  rejoiced. "My goodness,  that's  a  wonderful  idea.
Quickly, my dears! It's simply grand!"
     He helped the children get up on his shoulders. From his shoulders they
were able to scramble on to the roof of the wonder-tent - first Valya,  then
Karik.
     Valya got down on  her knees, hung her head over the edge of the canopy
and stretched out her hand to the Professor.
     "Give us your hand !"
     The Professor just blinked his  eyes good-humouredly. "Well,  what  are
you up to?"  shouted Valya.  "Nothing, nothing! I'll stay here," said  their
guide. He knew that the children had not the strength to pull him up, and in
any case the roof would probably not stand the extra weight.
     The water, however, still continued to rise. It had already flooded the
island on which the mushroom stood and was lapping over his feet.
     The wind was blowing cold.
     Grey-leaden waves  were  rising  in the water. These waves,  started to
break  against  the  stem  of the mushroom spraying  the Professor,  already
shaking with cold, from head to foot.
     What could he do? Swim?
     But where to? Would he  ever reach dry land  when he was already numbed
and frozen. Yes, and how could he leave the children alone?
     He  stood,  with  his  teeth  chattering,  gazing  at  the stormy  lake
surrounding him, in deep depression.
     The water was up  to his knees by  now. The strong current  was already
clutching at  his legs, but he pressed his back against  the cold  slippery,
mushroom stem.
     Logs came floating towards him. They jostled him and painfully hurt his
knees.
     His legs were soon covered with deep scratches.
     The water now reached to his waist.
     He stood, with  his lips, frozen  with  cold, tightly  clenched, trying
just to think of nothing.
     The water rose higher and higher.
     "The children  will  have to find their own way home alone," drummed in
the Professor's mind.


        CHAPTER X


     After the  flood - In  search  of  a night's  lodging - Valya finds the
forest hotel - The Professor attacks the landlord - The  first  night in the
new world


     "CLIMB UP HERE!" SHOUTED the children,  anxiously looking down at their
guide from above.
     "Don't worry! Don't worry!"  replied the Professor, who  was now  quite
blue with the cold.
     With her neck craning forward and her mouth open, Valya on the point of
tears gazed  at the Professor. Karik, knitting his  brows,  bit his lip. and
turned away. He could not in  any way  help his guide and  could not bear to
watch the kind old man perish before his very eyes.
     "My friends,"  said the Professor, "if  anything  happens to me  do not
forget the landmark.  You must hurry to get to it. The only possible way for
you to get home again I have already described to you. There is no other way
for you."
     Neither of them answered him  but both children started to  look wildly
from side  to side. It looked as  if they hadn't  even  heard him. But their
eyes  were filled with tears. The Professor prepared to die. And undoubtedly
he would have died before nightfall  had  not the  rain suddenly  ceased. So
suddenly that a great silence descended upon them.
     Ragged clouds were  still sweeping across the heavens but clear sky had
started to show. A huge red sun could be seen sinking behind the hills.
     Odd drops of rain  still fell noisily on the roof of the mushroom but a
cheerful summer evening warmed by the sinking sun  had now set in and a warm
mist started to rise from the ground.
     All around the  Professor the  waves  sparkled.  They were red like the
disappearing sun and at the same time violet like the evening sky.
     In the turbid flood  logs were floating and turning  this way  and that
way. Grass trees came past torn out by the roots.
     The  Professor  stood  with his legs wide  apart and  pushed  the  wet,
slippery logs aside with his numbed hands. They kept on  coming at him as if
they were alive.
     The water started to fall.
     A huge  tree floating past the mushroom seemed  to shake itself  in the
waves and slowly came to  rest aground.  The Professor quickly clambered out
of the water and stood with his frozen feet on the wet trunk.
     "It's  all  over!" Shouted  Karik with joy. "The  water is  going down.
Going down!"
     Valya  was clapping her hands.  "Look, there  is  dry land.  Can we get
down?"
     Their guide  worked his shoulders in a chilly way and stepping first on
one foot then on the other he coughed hoarsely and replied:
     "Yes, yes, climb down. We must be going."
     The children nimbly made their way to the ground.
     "Oy, you're absolutely frozen!" said Valya, turning  to  the Professor.
"Let's run. We shall soon get warm running."
     "Good idea,"  he  nodded his  head. "But  let's see first  which way we
should run. Now then  Karik,  you, my  dear, climb up a tree and have a look
for our landmark."
     "Right you are, Professor !"
     Karik  dashed  to  a  tall  trunk  covered with  short, sharp,  pointed
branches. Clinging to  these giant  prickles  he rapidly made his way up the
tree.
     The tree rocked.
     The leaves  poured a  floor  of  cold water on him just as if they were
gutters.
     Karik  shivered  and  pressed  himself  to  the trunk,  but immediately
afterwards shook himself like a dog and went on climbing.
     At last he made the top of the grass tree.
     It bent under his weight  and he slowly  rocked  backwards and forwards
turning his head now to the right and now to the left.
     Below him as far as eye could  see stretched forest, forest, forest. It
was no  longer, however, as it  had  appeared  formerly. All  the trees were
sloping to one side as if they were half cut down.
     Big leaves could  be seen bending  under the  weight of great globes of
water  which looked as  if  they were made of crystal glass. The rays of the
setting sun were reflected by them, which gave their surface a purple hue.
     The whole forest flamed with a thousand such reflections.
     Shaking with the cold, Karik twisted around  the slippery, wet tree top
and looked the other way.
     Far in the west he could see a solitary mast. From its top there hung a
limp flag.
     "There it is!" he shouted, waving his arm towards the forest.
     "We must go that way. Over that side !"
     "O.K.! We can see!" Valya yelled from below.
     Karik rapidly climbed down to the ground. The travellers started off on
their journey and were soon deep in the heart of the grass jungle.

     * * * * *

     The forest  was quiet. Every so often a water globe  would fall  to the
earth  with  a  rumble and slosh, then, once  again, there would be complete
silence.
     There was not a single living creature to be seen or heard.  A sleep of
death seemed to  have fallen on  everything, just as it did in the  story of
Sleeping Beauty.
     "What's happened to them all?" demanded Valya.
     "Who do you mean?"
     "Why, all - the wild animals."
     "The  insects?  They're  somewhere   around!"  answered  the  Professor
shivering. "They've hidden themselves."
     "Are they asleep?"
     "They are drying themselves !"
     Their guide rubbed his  frozen hands vigorously and increased his  pace
of walking.
     "All those  who  fly," he continued as they went along, "and  all those
who jump are now sitting waiting for the sun to dry them, when they  will be
able to start running and jumping and flying once again.  In  this  way they
wait  patiently every morning  for the  rising  sun,  sitting in  the  grass
covered with the heavy dew."
     "That's fine !" grinned Karik. "They can dry themselves out for a whole
year and I shouldn't be the least bit sorry."
     "We  certainly seem quite alone in the  forest at present," said Valya.
"But  what does  frighten  me is that when we  lie  down to sleep  they will
attack us in the night. I am not frightened now."

     * * * * *

     The children became cheerful.
     They talked  incessantly as  they went along  and then  started to play
some sort  of game chasing each  other through  the forest,  calling to each
other and hiding behind the great trunks of the grass trees.
     Karik ran on far  ahead whilst Valya bravely poked her nose  into every
crevice  and peered into  every hole. She wanted to see what the monsters of
the grassy forest looked like after the rain.
     The Professor watched them with growing anxiety and at last said rather
crossly: "You  mustn't think,  my  dears, that all  the insects will now sit
peacefully waiting  for sunrise. It  has only got to get really dark and all
the ruffians of  the night  world will  come creeping out of their holes and
crevices.  These  night ruffians are much  more  fearsome  than the day-time
ones. Generally  speaking, I don't advise  you to poke your nose into  every
crack."
     The children looked at each other.
     "We," hesitated a subdued Valya, "we didn't know about the night ones."
     They  now held hands and followed behind  their guide, neither dropping
back nor running ahead.
     The sun sank.
     In  the forest  it now became quite  dark and in some  way particularly
silent.
     The dark trees rose up around the travellers like a wall. Away up above
their tops the wind now started  to make a  mournful sound. At odd intervals
heavy drops of rain fell on the ground with the thud of a falling rock.
     It became difficult to make their way in the dark.
     The Professor  and the children more and more frequently bumped against
trees or stumbled and fell.
     "Wait a  minute," said  the Professor, stopping. "Here we are wandering
about when  it is clearly time to look for  a lodging place for the night. I
think we  had  better  spread  out  and  sweep  the wood like  a  chain, but
naturally not losing each other."
     '"It's so dark," whispered Valya. "We may easily get lost."
     "We'll call to each other."
     "What have we got to do?"
     "Well, we must carefully look for  some sort  of  a comfortable cranny.
Whoever finds a suitable place for a night's lodging must shout. Agreed?"
     "Agreed!" answered Karik and Valya together.
     The  travellers dispersed in different directions.  Valya  went along a
broad stream. Further on her left was Karik, and beyond him the Professor.
     "Keep a careful look-out!" came the voice of the Professor.
     "Coo-ee," shouted Valya.
     "Coo-ee," replied Karik.
     Suddenly it seemed to Valya that something quite close to her moved.
     She started running, but at once heard hasty steps behind her.
     She stopped and hid behind a tree. She was becoming scared.
     "Coo-ee," she yelled.
     "Ahey! ahey!" came back two voices from quite near her amid the trees.
     The Professor  and Karik were quite near. Valya became calmer  and once
again resumed her walk but once again she heard behind her cautious steps.
     "Who is that? Who is there?"  Valya jerked  out, and not waiting for an
answer dashed ahead into a dark thicket.
     She ran on stumbling, fearing to stop and not daring to look around.
     Suddenly in the darkness a high  wall rose  up. In her flight Valya all
but collided with it, luckily she stretched out her arms in time.
     Her hands met a cold mass of rock.
     "Coo-ee," she shouted.
     "Coo-ee," Karik at once replied.
     Breathing heavily, Valya started to move along touching the  rocky mass
with her hands. The ground beneath her  feet became muddy. Her feet stuck in
the clay.
     After going a few steps she  stopped.  In front of her lay a  big broad
puddle.
     "I'll  go  around the other way,"  thought  Valya,  and turning sharply
retraced her steps. She got to  the  dry ground and feeling the granite mass
with her  hands started to  go round it  the other way, but had only taken a
few steps when she suddenly felt her hand go into space.
     She stopped.
     In the dark she could make out the black entrance to some cavern.
     "Here we are !" shouted Valya. "Come quickly! I've found it!"
     "Where are you?" yelled back Karik, running out of the trees.
     "Here! Over here! I've found it!"
     Karik  looked  at  the rocky mass  and then  at  Valya,  and then  said
angrily:
     "What are you shouting for? That is a rock. A big rock. Do you think we
can shelter under a rock?"
     "Inside it,"  replied Valya. "Just look  here." She pushed  her brother
towards  the  wide, dark entrance which led  into the interior of the  rocky
mass.
     Karik stepped back a little from the rocky  mass, stopped, put his arms
akimbo  and started to examine it with the eyes of one who might be about to
purchase it as a residence.
     "H'm, yes!"  Karik gravely nodded his  head. "That's  not  bad! Quite a
hotel!"
     It appeared to be a long block of granite rather like a cigar.
     It lay  amidst  the trunks of huge  bamboo-like trees. Some fairy story
giant  must  have  been carrying it and dropped it  here. It was practically
suspended in mid-air. You could put your hand between it and the ground.
     Karik made a trumpet of his hands and yelled:
     "Professor! Professor! We have found a place."
     "Goo-ee, I am coming. Coming!"
     Karik turned to Valya. Patting her on the back, he said:
     "Excellent young woman! This is like an aeroplane hangar made of  rock.
. . . We should certainly be able  to lodge in it for the night. . . . Let's
try and get into it."
     At the very entrance to the cavern there was a  stump of a tree cast up
against it by the flood. Karik clambered on to this and started to gaze into
the darkness beyond.
     "It's  a pity we  haven't got a match," he complained.  "I  can't see a
thing."
     He stretched out his hands and started to move forward into the cave.
     "What's it like?" Valya was impatiently waiting behind him.
     Suddenly Karik sprang backwards and came spinning like  a top over  the
wet stump of the tree.
     With one bound away  from  the cavern he grasped Valya  by the hand and
quickly sat them both down behind a tree.
     "It's  occupied! There's something  in the hole," he whispered.  "Huge!
terrible!"
     At that moment two enormous feelers poked out of the cavern followed by
a round black head. It  turned first to the right, then the left, and slowly
withdrew again into the hole.
     "Did you see that!"
     "Oo hoo! What whiskers! They were its whiskers, weren't they?"
     "Yes, feelers, of course. They all have feelers here."
     "We must get hold of the Professor."
     "Coo-ee," yelled Karik.
     "Coo-ee," came back the voice  of the Professor. "Where are you? How am
I to get to you?"
     "Here! here!"
     "Over here !"
     There was a noise of rustling leaves, heavy steps and a cough.
     Their guide appeared from behind some trees.
     "Well, what luck? You've found something."
     "We've found something."
     "We've practically found it."
     Valya pointed to the cavern.
     "I found that," she said proudly.
     The Professor went nearer and poked the rocky wall with his stick.
     "I recognise  it.  Very successful.  Simply marvellous! Just  the  very
thing we needed. An excellent hotel for travellers like ourselves."
     The Professor got up on the stump and gazed into the cavern.
     "Stop! Stop!" screamed Karik, and seized him by the arm.
     "What's up? What's happened?"
     "The  hotel is occupied. Something is already in  it. Got there  before
us."
     "Enormous, it has . . . oh it's really terrifying!" whispered Valya.
     "Don't worry! don't worry!" replied the Professor quite calmly. "I know
this lodger quite well.  . . . It's an  old friend of  mine. . . .  It won't
take us more than a minute to get it out of that."
     The Professor went back around the puddle  and came  to a stop near the
narrow  end of the rocky mass. Squatting down on his heels  he felt the rock
with his hands.
     "There we are! There we are!" The children heard him exclaim.
     "Just as I thought." Muttering something under his breath the Professor
jumped up and dashed off into the depths of the forest.
     "Where has he gone?" asked Valya.
     "I don't know."
     "Where are you off to. Professor?" shouted Valya.
     "Stay where you are. I'll be back in a minute," came his  voice through
the darkness.
     The minute  passed but the  Professor  didn't come  back.  The children
could hear his steps and mutterings but what  he was doing in the forest was
difficult to guess.
     At last he reappeared.
     "Here I am!" he shouted, dragging behind him a long pole.
     Having  dragged the pole up  to  the  rocky mass he once again felt the
surface of the rock with  his hands and having found a round hole pushed the
sharp end of the pole into it.
     Karik and  Valya watched every movement  he made, but  neither of  them
could understand what he was up to.
     "It looks as if there'll be a fight," said Valya.
     The  children bent  down and searched on  the ground with their  hands.
Karik got hold of a heavy club. Valya  found a rock and firmly grasped it in
her hand. Now  they were ready  to  go at any  moment  to  the  help of  the
Professor.
     "Now, my dears. Just move on one side!" said their guide, straightening
himself up.
     The children not  hurrying moved away from the cavern and stood holding
hands.
     "And  now,"  grinned  the  Professor. "Just  watch how  this  huge  and
terrible creature will take to its heels."
     He twisted the pole  to the right and  to the left, then thrust it deep
into  the  narrow crack and then  started to use it just like a  poker  in a
fire.
     The monster then began to get restless.
     A black  head covered with spines stuck up out of the main entrance  to
the cave and rocking dropped down again.
     "Come on now!" shouted the Professor, throwing his  full weight against
the thick end of the pole.
     The  giant shuddered as if stung, moved out of the entrance,  producing
three  pairs  of legs, then  proceeded to drag  out behind it a long jointed
body and made off towards the stream.
     The children had hardly been able to observe the details of the monster
before it went over the edge of the bank  and fell  with  a dull splash into
the  water.  The  rapid  current  at  once  seized  it  and  it  immediately
disappeared in the darkness.
     "That was  very  neat!"  grinned Karik.  "It won't creep into a strange
hotel another time."
     "That's fine!" gruffed the Professor good humouredly. "We won't go into
details now as to who seized the territory - whether it took ours or we took
its. In any case it didn't argue with us."
     "What!" Karik guessed. "You  mean we have taken its own  personal house
from this giant?"
     "Something  like it!" replied the Professor, "but it's  too late now to
repent. Yes, and it is  not worth while in any  case. Now,  my dears,  let's
prepare our sleeping quarters. Collect twigs and leaves and little branches.
Pile them by the entrance."
     The work became fast and furious in the dark.
     The  Professor  and the  children dragged together  leaves,  roots  and
stumps of grass trees.
     It wasn't at all an easy job.
     It took  two of them to drag a single leaf, and a blue  petal from some
flower proved almost beyond the capacity of the three of them.
     The Professor started to shout.
     "Now, now, make haste! Valya, don't walk  in the water! Karik,  give up
that leaf! You can never lift it. . . . Now help me to drag these twigs!"
     All the same he was contented now. He had feared  that they would  have
to spend the night  under the open sky and now they had  had this unexpected
luck.
     "Ah,  my  dears,"  he said,  with some solemnity, "how very fortunately
this  day has turned out  for  us.  Really, we seem  to have been  born with
silver spoons in our mouths, as  they say in England. Just wait  till we get
into this refuge and you will yourselves see how lucky we are. . . ."
     "What about the flood?" exclaimed Karik.  "B-r-r-r! It is terrible even
to think of it. There wasn't much silver spoon about that."
     "The flood. That certainly was  our darkest hour. However,  we were not
drowned and, my dears, it did us  a useful turn. In fact, but for the flood,
I do  not  know  where we should  have  spent the night  and what might have
happened to us during the night - it was the flood that deposited the Caddis
fly larva on the bank of the stream, together with its rocky home."
     "And  it did not even defend itself!"  said Valya. "So huge and  yet so
peaceful."
     "What! the Caddis fly larva peaceful?"
     The Professor laughed.
     "Well, it could hardly be described  as peaceful," he continued, "under
water  there is nothing it fears. This greedy ruffian  attacks  small crabs,
the larvae of insects and not infrequently devours its own children."
     "A sort of brigand!"
     "A  very  real  brigand. Just  think  how  it  sets out  to  hunt.  How
marvellously equipped it is -  the villain is clad  like a knight in strong,
impenetrable armour. But what a knight! Knights  have  helmets, breastplates
and chain armour, but this gentleman drags around a regular fortress."
     "You mean he is sitting in it like in a tank?" asked Valya.
     "No, not quite," replied the  Professor, "because  the  tank driver  is
carried by his tank. Whereas this creature drags its tank with it."
     Valya gazed at the rocky mass and shook her head.
     "My word, what a weight!"
     "Not  all of them have  such heavy  houses," said the Professor. "Where
there  are reeds growing, small pieces  of dead reed fall  to the bottom and
these creatures make their houses inside these pieces of reed;  but when the
bottom is sandy or rocky they construct houses out  of crab shells and sand.
Besides these, you come across them using houses made of simple leaves which
have fallen into the water."
     "But  why  do they have two entrances to  their house, one  big and one
small?"
     "In order to allow the water to circulate freely through the house."
     "But why let it in?"
     "How do you mean,  let it  in?"  puzzled the Professor. "Of course  the
house is always full of water,  and  if this was  not frequently changed the
walls would get covered  with moulds and the fortress of this  ruffian would
be taken by the assault of millions of bacteria. Bacteria thrive in stagnant
water, it is just as necessary to them as air is to us."
     "But how cunningly  you  managed  to  get  it  out!"  exclaimed  Karik,
admiringly.
     "Oh,  that wasn't my invention,"  replied the Professor,  modestly.  "I
remembered how as  children we used to  deal with these  creatures. You just
poke a straw  in at  the back door  and the creature  would look out  of his
front door. You wriggled it about and the creature fell out into the palm of
your hand."
     "What did you do it for?" asked Karik, surprised.
     "We used to fish with them. They are the most excellent bait."
     "Fish?" questioned Karik, "but it would jump off;  how could you attach
it?"
     The Professor smiled.
     "You  are not much of a  fisherman, are you? Wait  until  you start the
craze."
     "Oho !" Karik waved his hands. "Why, I would sit fishing for a month if
I could."
     "Well! are you a successful fisherman?"
     "No," acknowledged Karik, humorously. "Somehow I don't have any luck."
     "There you are. Now I am telling you.  You should try fishing  with the
larvae of a  Caddis fly. I  do not know any better bait for a hook than this
particular larva."
     "I must try it."
     "But what happens to the Caddis fly larva now, without its case?" asked
Valya. "Will it die?"
     "It  won't die,"  replied the  Professor, heartlessly. "Whilst we  have
been talking, in all probability it has already  built itself  half a house.
You  needn't  worry, it won't perish. It will grow up and  then  turn into a
flying insect."
     "It - into a flying insect?"
     "Just so," said the Professor, dragging a rose-coloured petal along the
ground.  "It will  turn into  an insect  very like  a moth.  By the way, the
Caddis fly  doesn't only fly. It can run about quite well,  both on land and
on the water.  When it is time  for it to lay eggs  it  goes down under  the
water and then fastens its spawn eggs to water plants."
     The  Professor took  a look at the mountain of twigs, leaves and petals
which they had dragged together during their conversation and said:
     "That'll do. We have so  filled up the entrance that  we can hardly get
into the cave ourselves. Let's climb in."
     Karik  and Valya did not need a  second invitation. They clambered over
the heap of  twigs  and made their  way  into the  semi-darkness  of  a  low
passage.
     At the very end of this it was  just possible  to see the light  coming
through a narrow chink.
     The children went forward in the  darkness feeling the walls with their
hands. Their feet sank in what appeared to be a soft, delicate carpet.
     The  walls were  of the same  softness and silkiness.  Karik raised his
hand and felt the ceiling. "It is just as soft," he marvelled.
     The children reached the end of the corridor and  stopped in front of a
round hole.
     Cold wind whistled round their legs.
     "We must stop up this window!" said Karik.  "Mother never let us sit in
a draught."
     He turned and fetched a soft petal, crumpled it up and pushed it firmly
into the hole.
     "It won't blow now," said  Valya,  "but it makes it very dark. Let's go
back."
     The children returned  to the mouth of the cave where the Professor was
arranging the twigs, leaves and petals.
     "Well! What do you think of it? Does  the  house please you?" asked the
latter. "Do you think we can live in it?"
     "It is carpeted all over, carpets  everywhere," said Karik, cheerfully.
"This creature did  itself pretty well  !" few  "Not at all bad!" agreed the
Professor.  "By  the way, these  carpets  are not quite so simple. If anyone
tries to pull the creature out of its house it catches  the carpets with its
claws  and then no effort can make it budge. However, we must  attend to our
business,  my dears. Help me to close the entrance or  else some unexpected,
uninvited guest may wander in upon us in the middle of the night."
     He succeeded with the help of the  children in tumbling a heap of roots
into the entrance,  and  on top  of  them  laid twigs and on  the twigs laid
petals.
     They had now got a real barricade. There was only a narrow chink at the
top of it through which the blue light of a moonlit night filtered.
     "Excellent,"  said the  Professor. "Now  nothing  can get  at us.  Make
yourselves .comfortable, my dears. Have a good rest."
     The children found a suitable spot in  the angle of the wall, stretched
themselves out on the downy carpet and huddled ever so close to each other.
     The Professor lay beside them.
     The gallant travellers  now became still  as they listened to the night
wind  moaning sadly outside their house and heard the dismal creaking of the
grass trees.
     From above, from  the wet leaves, heavy drops of water fell on the roof
as if someone was emptying a huge bath again and again.
     It was warm and dry in the little house. The Professor and the children
were stretched out full  length. The carpet beneath them was soft as if made
of down. But they could not sleep.
     This was  their first night in the  new world, so completely strange to
them, in which during the course  of  one day they had  endured so  much and
encountered so many dangers.
     Through the  chink above the barricade the night sky  could be seen and
this sky was full of huge stars.
     Valya lay there with open eyes. She gazed fixedly at a bluey star which
hung above the entrance to the cavern.
     This star was as big as a full moon, but now and then it twinkled.
     It was  just like  lying in bed at home and seeing swaying outside your
window some cheerful great moon-like street lamp.
     Valya recalled  the rumbling squeaks  of  the trams, the  hoarse, angry
hooting of the motor-cars, and the rapidly-moving beams of light which  came
through the window and chased each other on the bedroom walls.
     She closed her eyes.
     For  a moment  it seemed that she was in her own  warm bed at  home and
could hear these familiar noises of the street.
     The  door to  the neighbouring room was closed but a yellow  streak  of
light shone under the door.
     In the  dining-room mother was washing up the dishes.  Plates and  cups
chinked and teaspoons jingled.
     Having washed up  the dishes, mother brushed the crumbs off  the  table
and covered the table with a clean white tablecloth.
     Valya sighed.
     She  remembered the  crumbs of cheese which remained on the table after
lunch and she swallowed the water her mouth was making.
     Ah! if only one of those crumbs of  fresh tasty cheese was in the cave.
The one crumb would be sufficient for Karik, the Professor  and herself, and
after they had breakfasted there would be some over.
     And Valya again sighed.
     But perhaps they would have to stop in this strange world for ever now?
Would they ever get home? Would they ever see mother again?
     "Mother will certainly cry," said Valya, quietly to herself.
     "She will cry," agreed Karik. "She certainly will cry."
     The children started to  think.  What would mother  be doing now? Maybe
she was  lying fully  dressed on the bed and would raise  her  head from the
pillow at every rustle, listening, listening. Were the children coming?
     On the table  covered with a  napkin  would be the  supper left out for
them. The clock would  be ticking quietly  in  the dining-room.  In her dark
corner the cat would be lying asleep.
     Tears sprang to Valya's eyes. She quietly wiped them away with her fist
and frowned deeply.
     "No! I won't cry!"
     Outside the little house the midnight wind moaned.
     The travellers  lay, each of  them  thinking of the big  world in which
they so lately lived.
     "It's all nonsense!" sighed the Professor noisily. "It  is not possible
for us never to get back. We'll get back, my dears. Don't get downhearted!"
     Karik and Valya did not reply. They already were deep in sound, healthy
sleep.
     Then  the Professor yawned pleasantly, turned on his side, put his fist
under his head as a pillow and started to snore deeply.

     * * * * *

     The travellers slept so soundly that  they never even heard the torrent
of rain which beat down upon their house once again.


        CHAPTER XI

     A cold  awakening - The Professor entertains the children to omelette -
He opens a dressmaking  establishment - The Andrena bee - The  Professor and
Karik vanish

        A WHITE FOG WAS ROLLING OVER THE COLD EARTH IN DENSE WAVES.
     It  was  almost as  if milk was being  poured over  the  silent  forest
filling the ravines and valleys.
     The  tops of the trees were now engulfed in the fog  and now struggling
above it.
     The morning coldness and damp  made its way into  the  cave through the
chinks  of  the barricade,  and it soon became as chilly  within as  it  was
already cold without.
     The  children turned in their sleep restlessly and drew  their knees up
to their chins, but despite all this they could get no warmer.
     At last  Karik could stand  it no longer, jumped  up, rubbed his sleepy
eyes, shivered in a chilly fashion and then started to  examine  the sloping
walls  with  amazement.  They  were silvery white  exactly  as if  they were
covered with hoar frost.
     He touched them.
     "No,  it is  not frost.  It's  - a carpet.  A  silvery  carpet. Br-r-r!
co-o-old!"
     Valya was lying on the floor on the carpet rolled up in a ball. She had
her knees up to her closed eyes and was clasping her head with her hands. In
her sleep she quietly groaned and sobbed.
     Karik started jumping  up and down  on the one spot trying to get warm,
then he ran along to the end of the corridor.
     He began to feel a little warmer. He turned back and  did a  somersault
once, twice, thrice and came down on Valya's feet.
     "What  is  it?  What's  up?"  screamed  Valya, jumping  up.  "Are  they
attacking us?"
     Shaking  and shivering, she stood  there gazing at  Karik  with sleepy,
frightened eyes.
     "What's the  matter?" Karik was surprised. "It's only me. Wake  up. You
are absolutely frozen - quite blue. Come on, let's wrestle. You'll soon  get
warm. Here we go!"
     He jumped towards Valya and dancing around her tried to pull her about.
     "Get away!" Valya pushed him hard. As he fell to the ground he  held on
to his sister, and they both rolled on the soft downy floor.
     Valya sobbed.
     "Go away! No one is fighting you and you mustn't fight."
     "Oh, you touch-me-not snail! I only wanted to warm you up."
     "And I only want to sleep !"
     "All right, go to sleep," snapped Karik.
     Outside someone was moving, knocking against things,  coughing and then
suddenly started singing:
     "Where did you dine, sparrow hen?
     In the zoo with the lion in his den -
     I found he left quite a bit -
     And I drank with a seal in her pit."
     It was the Professor; very, very out of tune.
     "There you see,"  said Karik. "Everyone is up  and singing, but you are
still wallowing in bed - "
     He ran to the entrance and shouted.
     "Professor, where are you?"
     "Here! here! Get up, my dears, breakfast is ready."
     "What is there for breakfast?"
     "A magnificent omelette."
     "An omelette?"
     Oho! this was more interesting than being frozen, and Valya was soon on
her legs. She seized Karik by the hand. "Let's go!"
     The children pushed aside the twigs and leaves which had blocked up the
entrance to the cavern and burst out into the fresh  air. But no sooner  had
Valya got out than she at once started to clamber back.
     "Whatever is it, Karik? Where have we got to?" she  whispered croakily,
holding Karik's hand tightly.
     There was no earth or sky or forest to be seen.
     In the air there floated  a  cloud of glittering  bubbles.  The bubbles
twisted around, collided with one  another, slowly  descended, and then once
more were wafted upwards.
     A snowstorm of chalky white bubbles was swirling around them.


     "Professor," shouted Karik. "Whatever  is all this? What is it  that is
swirling around?"
     "Fog," replied the voice of the Professor.
     He was quite near the children but they could not see him.
     "You don't mean that an ordinary fog is like this?" said Valya.
     "Yes, my little  Valya. This is an ordinary fog  but as we usually only
see it like this under microscope."
     The Professor's voice sounded muffled as if he was down in a deep hole.
     The children stretched out their hands trying to catch the bubbles, but
they only broke and trickled cold water along their fingers.
     "Well,  where have you got  stuck now?" came the voice of the Professor
through  the  turbid  fog.  "Hurry  up,  I  have  got  something  here  more
interesting than a fog."
     Karik and Valya, proceeding cautiously, headed towards the voice of the
Professor.
     "Have you got lots of omelette?" shouted Valya.
     "If you hurry there may be  a little left for you to try - you'd better
come quickly before I have eaten it all."
     Through the fog a queer light flickered.
     "A fire!" yelled Karik.
     Could  the Professor  have lit  a  wood fire? But where did he  get the
matches from?
     Valya dashed towards the fire in great spirits.
     "A camp fire, a real fire ! We have got a camp fire!" she shouted.
     Before them,  weaving  through  the clouds of fog bubbles, there danced
the flames of a camp fire.
     A tall column  of greenish flame rose to the very tops of the dark, wet
forest.
     The  Professor was squatting by  the logs. He was tending the brushwood
which was crackling in the fire, using a thick stick as a poker.
     "Hurrah!"  cheered the  children in unison. They ran up to the fire and
holding each other's hands started to dance some sort of a wild dance.
     "Hop-la!" yelled Valya, jumping.
     "Hop-la-la-la," bounced Karik, red in the face.
     "Quieter, quieter!" The  Professor tried to stop them.  "You will break
the dish in pieces. Far better sit down and eat!"
     The ashes gave out such heat that it was quite impossible to stand near
them. All  the same there was  not much wood burning. Valya seized an armful
of  brushwood  and made to throw  it on the fire, but  the Professor stopped
her.
     "It is not necessary, the omelette is cooked."
     "But the fire. It is going out."
     "No it  won't go out  - sit down,  my dears, and have  breakfast." With
that  he  placed  before them just on  the ground a  huge  white  dish  with
irregular edges; it was full to the brim with a steaming omelette.
     Without waiting further invitation the children greedily set to.
     Having burnt themselves and blowing  from time to time on their fingers
they swallowed mouthful after mouthful.
     Valya became bright red  in the face. Karik's nose  was glistening with
perspiration. The Professor was  the only  one who did not hurry  his eating
but used a piece of folded petal as a spoon.
     The children had not got half way through the omelette before they felt
stuffed full.
     "Well," said the Professor, wiping his  beard with a tuft of petal.  "I
hope you are satisfied now!"
     "I'm more than that," grinned Karik. "My tummy is over stretched."
     "And mine is very tight, too," said Valya.
     "Excellent!  Splendid!"  smiled  the  Professor. "I  am jolly glad  the
omelette pleased you."
     "But whatever did you concoct it out of?" questioned Valya.
     "Obvious what one uses for an omelette - eggs," interrupted Karik.
     "That's simple. But how did you get the fire alight. Where did you find
the matches? And again why  does the fire rise in  such a column? Why is the
flame green? And why does the fire burn without twigs?"
     The Professor threw some twigs on the fire and arranged  them with  his
poker, cheerfully winking at the children.
     "You thought I spent a lazy  night. Not  at all. All night long  I  ate
fried ham with green peas,  hot  pies, beefsteaks,  soup, fruit  tarts.  But
unfortunately all  these dishes were only  dreams.  I awoke as  hungry as  a
wolf. Well, I jumped up and ran around looking for  something  to eat. I was
afraid to go very far away from our palatial residence. You can see what the
fog is like.  I could not see  more than two paces.  I would get lost at the
best or  fall  over  some precipice or other. What could  I do? Wait for the
dawn or take a  chance on it.  I thought and thought  and decided to build a
fire. As luck  would have it I  found  two flints in the forest  last night.
Those came to my rescue. I collected dry twigs, piled them in a heap and set
to work."
     "Like a pre-historic man!" whispered Valya.
     "Exactly,"  smiled the Professor.  "But  I'm telling you that  it's  no
light work. I had pretty well tortured  myself before I succeeded in getting
the  sparks  to start  a  fire.  I  now  appreciate  much  better  how  very
uncomfortable our forebears must have been."
     "But all the same why is the flame green?" asked Valya.
     "Why? Just because  it is  burning gas.  Ordinary  marsh  gas-methane -
which  forces its way out of the  earth  in numerous places. I was  lucky. I
started  the fire  accidentally in a place where there was a quantity of the
gas below the surface of the earth. Even the omelette came out of the fire!"
     Valya exclaimed.
     "Came by itself?"
     The Professor looked at Valya, gravely stroked his beard and continued:
     "Just as the fire started to burn up, something near me began to make a
noise, and suddenly a strong blast of air blew me off my legs. All around me
the air whistled  as if I had  accidentally uncorked a  hurricane. It was  a
bird. The hurricane  was caused by its wings. The fire must  have frightened
it off its nest."
     "It was not burnt?"
     "No, it flew away," answered the Professor. "I then started to look for
its nest.  And  it  turned out that it  had not been sitting so  quietly for
nothing."
     "You found it?"
     "Of course - and it was out of this nest I got the egg."
     "It wasn't a crow."
     "No, by its markings it is the  egg  of  a hedge  sparrow - white  with
speckles. Have you ever seen the eggs of a hedge sparrow. They are not  much
bigger  than a big pea. But I had a tolerable job moving  it. I rolled it in
front of  me like a barrel but I had to  rest at least ten times on the way.
But it  was even  more difficult  to break  the shell.  For  a whole  hour I
hammered  at it with  stones.  At  last  it  broke suddenly and I was nearly
drowned in the white of  the egg. . . . Fortunately, I just  managed to jump
aside."
     The  Professor  looked  at the children  smiling.  "Well,  the rest was
simple.  The  white poured itself out  and the yolk I cooked  on the  shell,
using the shell as a frying-pan."
     Karik leant  over  to Valya and said something in her car. Valya nodded
her head approvingly.
     "Certainly say it."
     Karik rose and gathered his forget-me-not shirt  about himself and with
his arms in suitable positions made a little  speech, smiling in a  superior
way.
     "On behalf of two pioneers of the Froonzensky detachment I beg to thank
you for the delicious omelette and the fire!"
     The Professor bowed.
     "My  dears,  in  actual  practice  it  is possible  even here  in  this
lilliputian  world  to exist,  and to exist  in moderate comfort. Just  wait
until we have got a little more accustomed to things and see how cosy we can
make ourselves."
     "What?" asked Karik, with alarm in his voice. "You  don't think that we
shall never get home and shall have to stay like this?"
     "No, I don't think that," replied the Professor, "but we must, however,
be prepared for the very worst. Our landmark might be blown down by a storm;
or, perhaps worse,  some curious fellow  might take  the plywood box home to
examine it more carefully. After all, anything might happen."
     "And what then?"
     "Nothing particular,"  the Professor shrugged his shoulders. 'We should
live in the  grass as Robinson  Crusoes and,  my  dears,  we should  be much
better off  than the  real Robinson Crusoe. He had to start up  his own farm
himself,  but  we  have  it  all handy.  Milk, eggs,  honey, scented nectar,
berries, meat, are all awaiting  us. We can live with very little trouble in
summer  but  we shall have to  store  things for  the  winter;  we  can  dry
bilberries, strawberries, mushrooms, and store honey, jam, bread. . . ."
     "Bread?"
     "Why, certainly. We have  only to  sow one grain of  wheat and we shall
have a harvest which will last us for a whole winter."
     "But where can we get meat from?"
     "Oh, we'll eat insects."
     "Insects? You can't eat insects, can you?"
     "Well, think!  Even in  our  big  world plenty  of insects  are  eaten.
Locusts, for instance. Locusts are eaten  roasted, smoked, dried, salted and
pickled."
     The Professor recollected something, smiled and continued:
     "When  the  Caliph  Omar-ben-el-Kotal  was  asked what  he  thought  of
locusts, he answered, "I would  like a whole  basket of these good things to
myself. In fact, my teeth are quite ready for them. . . ."
     In olden days, whenever locusts descended in their clouds on Arab  soil
the price of meat fell  in Baghdad. By the way, they make the most delicious
cakes - locusts rolled in flour and cooked in butter."
     "Phew! Horrible!" Valya made a face and spat out.
     "May be horrible to you!" coughed the  Professor. "It is just that  you
are  unaccustomed to such  food - nothing  else.  We  eat lobsters, shrimps,
crabs and even crayfish, which live on dead bodies. Not only do  we eat them
but think them luxuries. Now, Arabs look on those who eat crabs and crayfish
with disgust."
     "As  well  as locusts," he continued,  "people  eat  other insects.  In
Mexico many  natives collect the eggs  of the striped  water bug;  they call
them 'Hotle,' and consider them the very daintiest of dishes. Those who know
think not badly of cicadas  or crickets. The same  cricket about  which  the
poet of ancient Greece - Anakreon - sung."
     The  Professor cleared his throat  and raising  his arm above his  head
said:


     "How blessed art thou, my tiny cricket,
     Hiding like God in every thicket."


     He thoughtfully stroked his head.
     "But  the  more simple-minded Greeks,  prosaic  no  doubt, baked  these
god-like crickets in butter and ate them with relish.  Even such  insects as
ants sometimes fall into the hands of the cook. They used to serve  meat and
fish in ant sauce in France. The Indians, by  the  way, very much  like  the
umbrella  ants. They cook  them slightly salted in  a frying-pan, or  indeed
they eat them raw."
     "Does anybody eat  beetles?" asked Valya. "They are the most disgusting
things to me."
     "In  Egypt,"  the Professor replied, "they  make a special dish  out of
beetles. Women eat it who wish to get fatter."
     "I can see it will be all  very jolly," said Karik. "Everything will go
swimmingly.  . . . We  shall make sausages from butterflies, we  shall  have
barrels of  salted dragonflies. We must build a  store  house right away. We
can hang the hams  and the sausages from the  ceiling  and stand  barrels of
pickled plant lice along the walls."
     "What about the ants?" asked Valya. "They are acid!"
     "We'll  make  pickles from  the ants.  No,  better still,  we  can make
mustard from them."
     "Splendid!" the Professor  stroked  his  beard.  "Simply splendid!"  he
nodded gravely.  "As you  can see, my dears, your future prospects  are very
good. And if by any chance we are not able to get home again we shall at any
rate live here better than any Robinson Crusoe ever did."
     "That is all  very good," said Valya, "but if we freeze to death in the
winter all these hams and pickles will be useless."
     "Don't  worry about that," the  Professor  assured her soothingly,  "we
shall find a cave with gas laid on, or in any case we can take the gas where
we like with pipes made from rushes and reeds."
     "Of course." said Karik. "Marsh gas will provide us with heat and light
and . . . I say.  Professor!  Do you think  we could  build  a whole  lot of
factories and workshops? . . . ."
     "I am afraid not, my dear," smiled the Professor. "But we might be able
to train some of the insects."
     "Hurrah!" shouted Karik.  "We  shall be able to  fly and take  pleasure
trips across the lake."
     "We shall  make  them  do  all sorts  of things," rejoiced Valya.  "Dig
tunnels, make canals and . . . in fact, generally work for us."
     "Oh, yes," added Karik.  "We can  plough, using  caterpillars, make the
beetles prepare wood for us, and fly to our factories on dragonflies."
     "It would  be rather a good idea," sighed Valya, "if we could build the
same  sort  of houses for ourselves as the Caddis  fly  which we could carry
around with us."
     "What a brain-wave!"  Karik  waved his hand. "I have already  said  you
were a snail and a snail's house you should have, of course!"
     "But how shall we cover ourselves?" asked Valya.
     "The Professor  will  invent a powder," replied Karik,  and  turned  to
their guide, "You will invent a powder, won't you, Professor?"
     "Oh  dear  no  - I can't  produce any powders," the  Professor  started
laughing. "But in spite of that I hope we shall not come to a  bad end. Even
without a  powder! You  see,  my dears,  I am a biologist. I am  pretty well
acquainted with the  ways  of  the  world which  now  surrounds us and  this
knowledge is more  useful than my  chemicals.  . . .  And now, Karik,  put a
little brushwood on the embers. It's much  nicer  when there are  some twigs
crackling in the fire."
     Karik  brought an armful  of  firewood,  threw it on the green  flames,
stretched himself full length and gazed thoughtfully at the fire.
     They were all of them silent.
     The  twigs  and leaves crackled merrily. Smoke rose in  a column to the
sky.
     The travellers sat by the fire and each of them sank into daydreams.
     There was no reason to hurry.
     Until the fog had cleared, it was impossible to move on. For how should
they know which way to go. Where was the landmark?
     In front of them or behind them?
     "Well," said the Professor, "as we have nothing to do I propose to sing
a song."
     The children looked at each other in alarm.
     "Anything  else  you like but not  this," was  the  expression on their
faces. The only people who could possibly  be at rest when the Professor was
singing were the inhabitants of a cemetery. To anyone who could hear him his
voice was about as pleasant as jabs of a sharp stick.
     With his eyes  screwed up from  the smoke and his face covered with his
hands,  Karik rolled over  on  his side away from  the  smoking  embers  and
hastily started to question the Professor, who was clearing his throat ready
to sing.
     "Tell us, Professor, how ever did you guess what had happened to us and
how did you manage to find us?"
     "Very simple," said the Professor,  fortunately for the children rising
to the bait. "You had  drunk half a glass of the liquid.  This I noticed  at
once."
     "But. . . ."
     "Yes, there was a but," grinned their guide. "You had drunk the liquid,
that  was  certain,  but  where had you then disappeared to? Why,  I crawled
about the  floor for a whole hour  with a magnifying glass  in my hand,  but
devil a trace. Do you understand? Not a single clue. This - "
     "This meant we had flown away!" said Valya.
     "That is too hasty a conclusion," the Professor stopped her.
     "But we had flown away all the same," insisted Valya.
     "Nevertheless,  I  had  no  foundation  for  thinking  this  until  the
photographer Schmidt's  dog  found  your pants  and  threw  himself  at  the
window-sill. .  . .  Then suddenly I remembered that when  I came  into  the
study there had been a dragonfly on the window-sill. Also I could have sworn
that I heard tiny voices shouting, "Here we are! Here!"
     "Yes, yes. . . . That's what we shouted."
     "At  the  time  I  thought  I  must have been mistaken,  but afterwards
thinking  it all out I  realised things:  the dragonfly had carried  off the
ruffians, and if I  was to save them I must hurry  to  Oakland, to this pond
which is in the so-called "Rotton marsh."
     "But why here?" asked Karik,  "the dragonfly might have  carried us  to
some wood or a field. . . ."
     "Not  very  likely,"  smiled  the   Professor  rather  condescendingly.
"Dragonflies live near water.  They lay their  eggs in the water, . they are
born in water,  the larvae of dragonflies live in water, and the dragonflies
themselves  usually hunt near water. Occasionally  in pursuit of some victim
the dragonfly will fly away from its usual hunting-ground."
     "But  what  a  long way," said Valya. "Why, we are more than  ten miles
from Oakland."
     "That's a mere trifle for a dragonfly. It can  fly fifty to sixty miles
an hour and ten miles is just a short stroll for it."
     "Well, then you came to the Rotton marsh - "
     "Yes," continued their guide, stroking  his beard, "knowing that sooner
or later  the dragonfly would return to its  usual hunting-ground, I decided
to go to Rotton marsh. Lucky for us all this is the only pond near our town.
The next is a very long way off so I knew quite well where to  look for you.
Well, that's all. But now - " the Professor cleared his throat, "Let us sing
a little, my dears."
     "Stop!" shouted Valya.
     "Why, what's the matter?" said the Professor, in some alarm.
     "Don't you want to hear what happened to us?," pouted Valya.
     "Oh, yes, indeed, of course  I should be  most interested  to hear your
story,"  muttered  the  Professor.  "Come  on,  tell  me, it  will  be  most
interesting."
     He put an arm round the  shoulders of each child and stretched his feet
towards the fire. Karik and Valya started to  vie with each other in telling
him what had happened after they had drunk the magic liquid.
     As he listened to the children the Professor understandingly nodded his
head and untiringly chipped in with:
     "Quite right. . . . I quite understand. . . ."
     "And we quite understand everything now," Karik at last said. "At least
there is one thing I don't understand."
     "Yes! What is it?"
     "How was it that in the den of the under-water spider we breathed quite
easily at first and then suddenly nearly suffocated?"
     "Very simple," replied their guide. "Judging by your  story, my dear, I
think you fell into  the clutches of an Argyroneta spider.  That is what the
under-water spider is called. The  name means 'Silver thread.' The spider is
also called the ' Silver spider.' It builds its nest  under water. This nest
is like a  diving bell  - a bell in which divers sit and are lowered beneath
the surface of the water. But this bell is no bigger than a nutshell. It  is
held and prevented from floating by being attached to the spider's web which
is also fastened to under-water plants."
     "Oho!" interjected Karik, "we only just got through that web."
     "But the air?" questioned Valya. "How does the air get into it?"
     "The spider brings the air into its bell  from the surface of the pond.
It rises to  the surface and turns its belly,  which is  covered  with  fine
hairs, upwards into the air. These tiny hairs are what holds  the air.  When
the spaces  between the hairs is filled with air the spider pulls its web on
to its  belly and carries its balloon of air just like a skirt down into its
den. By the way, as well as the air a whole lot of water midges travel under
water in this 'suitcase'."
     "Does the air last it long?"
     "No," replied the  Professor. "Such a supply doesn't last long. The den
gets  stuffy - as  you  found out  for yourselves. Usually this  under-water
silver  beast  of  prey  makes several journeys  to the surface of the  pond
getting fresh air for itself. If  you sit quietly and wait patiently  on the
bank  of a  pond  you can  very often  see  the Argyroneta or silver  spider
replenishing its store of air."
     "How can you recognise them?" asked Valya.
     "These  silver  spiders,"  replied  their  guide,  "are like  balls  of
quicksilver  with black  dots on them.  . . . You see them most often around
water plants. They bob up  belly  upwards and head down.  They remain on the
surface for  a few seconds and then slowly sink below the surface.  At first
glance  they  seem the  most  harmless of  beings,  do these spiders. But in
actual  fact the Argyroneta  is a vicious beast  of prey which fears nothing
either at the bottom or on the surface of the pond."
     "Why did it hang  us up  to the ceiling and not eat us  up?" questioned
Valya.
     "Yes, yes. That is interesting," said Karik.
     "Lucky  for you the spider was full," replied the Professor. "For  this
reason it hung you  up,  'for a rainy day' . . . much the same as  do foxes,
squirrels, mankind, many birds. There is nothing very remarkable in this. It
would have gobbled you Up the first  day that the cold or heat had  made all
its usual prey hide themselves."
     "Aha! I see," said Valya. "Our spider was full but the spider next door
was not so well provided and that is why it broke in - in order to eat us."
     "Oh,  no!" said their guide.  "The intruder was  .  . .  .  Do you know
what?"
     "I know," shouted Karik. "It's enemy."
     "No,"  smiled the  Professor. "The  one who came in was . .  . was  its
bridegroom."
     "Its bridegroom? How do you know that?" the children marvelled.
     "These  spiders,"  explained   the   Professor,  "always   build  their
under-water dens side by side; the  spider  fastens his  den to that of  the
lady spider. Then he bites his way through  the  walls and pays a visit. . .
."
     "Which," interjected Karik, "would ordinarily be called a brawl."
     "Yes,  sometimes  the bride  gets angered  by something and  she throws
herself at  the bridegroom  and eats  him up and  sometimes the  bridegroom,
having  overpowered his bride, eats her up, but most  often  the bride meets
her  bridegroom  affectionately  and  they  begin   to  live  together  very
peaceably."
     The Professor got up.
     "It seems to me," he announced, "that it is high time for us to get out
again. Come on, we must collect our goods and chattels."
     He rummaged in the bushes and pulled out a splendid leather satchel.
     "Oy!" Valya opened her eyes wide, "Where did you buy that?"
     "I didn't buy it," smiled their guide.  "I obtained it in the form of a
gift from one of the Tardigrades - the Bear Animalcule. . . . While you were
asleep I cut a bit off and, as you see, it makes an excellent satchel."
     "Ha, ha!" Karik  was nodding his head, "a Bear animal attacked  us  and
you killed it and skinned it."
     "Nothing of the sort,"  replied the Professor. "An animalcule  couldn't
attack us. This one is a very minute creature not more than a millimetre  in
size - and I did not attack it."
     "But the satchel is made of skin?"
     "The satchel. My dears, you see the  Bear Animalcule  has its family by
means of eggs, and in order that no one should devour the eggs, it takes off
its skin and puts the eggs in it just as if it was a suitcase."
     "But doesn't it die?" questioned Valya.
     "No."
     "Like snakes !" said Karik. "They also change their skins."
     "Yes," nodded the  Professor. "Only  snakes just throw away  their  old
skins, but the Bear Animalcule has found this excellent use for it. . . ."
     "What did you do with the eggs?"
     "I threw them away; they, unfortunately, are not edible."
     The Professor  opened the satchel  and put into it the dish made of egg
shell and the remains of the omelette which he carefully wrapped in the pink
petal of some sort of flower.

     * * * * *
     The wind was now blowing freshly.
     The  fog began to get thinner. The  wind carried it like smoke over the
fields, flinging it down in the hollows and ravines.
     The Professor covered the embers with earth.
     "Well," he said, "we should be off. Get ready, my dears."
     "But we are ready." Valya jumped up.
     "Here!" their guide said gruffly, examining first Valya then Karik, and
after thinking a little, added:
     "You want to dress yourselves better."
     "How  can we  dress  ourselves  better?"  asked  Valya,  examining  her
forget-me-not frock,  which had got crumpled during the night, was torn  and
hung down in tatters.
     "Why, in the same sort of  suit as I have," rejoined  the Professor. He
threw off his shoulders his crumpled cloak and underneath was a silvery suit
made of spider's web.
     It was  only  then the  children  remembered  that he had this  strange
silvery suit on  when he had first appeared to them, but  they had  not paid
any attention to it  then. Now  they examined the costume as  if it  was the
first time they had seen it.
     "Oh! Isn't it lovely! What is it made of?" asked Valya.
     "Out of spider's web."
     "I'd like one of those," said Karik.
     "Me too, please!" shouted Valya.
     "Come on," said Karik. "Only yesterday I saw a spider's web near here."
     "Oh, no," grinned the Professor. "I wouldn't stand for you taking a web
off a spider and nor would the spider. We'll get your suits at another shop.
Come on, follow me!"
     And their guide quickly stepped over to the Caddis fly's house.
     The children ran behind him.
     The weak  morning  light barely lit up the interior of the Caddis fly's
house, but nevertheless it  was now  possible to  see that walls,  floor and
ceiling were  lined with a  thick dense  layer  of  silken cord resembling a
spider's web.
     "There are  your suits," said the Professor. He  went up to  one of the
walls and took a grip with his hands.
     "Heave ho!"  he shouted,  and  pulled  the lining towards himself.  The
walls started to split.
     "Eh, we have got you!" he shouted still louder.
     The lining came away in strips like damp wallpaper.
     He threw some pieces to each of Karik and Valya.
     "Undo these parcels of 'spider's web' and clean the clay off" them."
     The children started to  knead the pieces with their  hands< The  dried
clay  crumbled  and  fell off in  lumps.  Karik found an  end and started to
disentangle it.
     The silken cord of the lining curled down in even turns, and soon Karik
and  Valya found a silvery pile of unravelled webbing had  grown up at their
feet.
     "Well, it is long enough!" said Karik, unwinding his apparently endless
cord.
     "There are even longer ones," laughed the Professor. "The thread of the
silk worm, for instance, can be pulled out a couple of miles."
     He bent  down, picked up the end of the silvery cord and held it out to
Valya.
     "Dress yourself."
     "In a cord. How can I put it on?"
     "Like this. . . ."
     Their  guide made a loop in the cord, threw it over Valya  like a lasso
and then  taking hold of her shoulders he twisted her round and round in one
direction.
     The  cord in the heap shook and quickly ran up and  wound  itself round
Valya as if she had been a reel.
     "Grand! lovely!" rejoiced the Professor, looking at Valya. "Tough, warm
and comfortable. Look! Now for you, Karik."
     But Karik had  himself already  fastened  the end of the webbing around
his waist and started to spin round quickly - quickly like a top.
     In five minutes the children were both dressed in long silver jackets.
     "There  we are! that's that!" said  their guide. "Now you  take a  walk
around our house and meanwhile I'll change my clothes too."
     The children went out.
     The fog had completely cleared.
     Around them stood the damp  forest.  Huge drops  of water were lying on
the grass trees exactly like crystal balls.
     Just as Karik  and Valya came out of the entrance the first rays of the
morning sun started across the tops of the trees. Then suddenly thousands of
different coloured lights began to flash, sparkle and flame.
     It was so surprising that the children shut their eyes and  took a step
back.
     For a few  minutes  they just stood silently with their eyes screwed up
gazing at the strange forest lit up with sparkling balls.
     "If only we could show mother this!" said Valya at length.
     Karik sighed.
     "Mother is making coffee now!" he sniffed.
     "The milk girl has already been," added Valya sadly.
     "No," Karik shook his head. "It's too early, the milk doesn't come till
seven."
     "And what is it now?"
     "I don't know."
     "Oh,  well,  it doesn't matter. . . .  Do you know  what, Karik?  Let's
climb  this tree and  see whether there are some green cows there." , "We'll
climb it."
     The children ran up to a tree something like the famous baobab tree and
started to scramble up it  when their guide poked his  head out of  the cave
and shouted: "Labour in vain, my dears."
     "Why?"
     "You will not find a single green cow to-day."
     "Where are they?" Karik was  mystified. "Didn't  you say yesterday that
plant lice feed on every tree?"
     "That  was  yesterday,"  replied   the  Professor.  "Yesterday  in  the
day-time, but yesterday evening we had the rain and naturally it washed  all
the plant lice away. . . . Now I am ready. Let's be going!"
     The  children  turned  to  the  Professor  and, having  looked  at him,
suddenly started laughing in a friendly way.
     "What's up?" he looked at himself in some confusion.
     "Oy! You do. . . ."
     "You haven't half dressed yourself!" laughed the children.
     The Professor stood there completely wound up in silky cording from his
neck down to his heels. The whole remains of the webbing which had  been  in
Caddis fly's house he had wound  about  himself, around his  stomach, on his
shoulders and around his neck.
     "You look like a cocoon!" said Valya, shaking with laughter.
     Their guide grinned.
     "Well, you yourself, you  don't look like  a butterfly? And you, Karik,
are like a small caterpillar standing on its  hind legs.  . . .  Come on, my
dears."
     "But where are we going?"
     During  the  night  water had flooded  all  around  them.  It was  only
possible to  proceed in  one  direction. From  the Caddis  fly's house there
stretched a narrow strip of land covered with thick green bushes.
     Their guide threw his sack over his shoulders and announced:
     "We must first of all, clearly, get out of this swamp and then we shall
see what we can do. Forward!" and waving his hand he struck up:

     "Forward! the bugles blow.
     Battle most glorious.
     Forward! with eyes aglow
     The children victorious."



     * * * * *

     The dense growth of the grass forest was hushed.  Heavy  balls of water
hung above the heads of the travellers - they had to proceed very cautiously
to avoid being knocked down by falling drops.
     In the deserted and  echoing forest the fall  of these  balls of  water
made a noise like the explosion of a bomb. One drop fell right on them.
     "Ay!" Valya gave a scream, as she tumbled over.
     "Oo-ouch!" roared Karik, finding himself thrown sideways.
     "Don't worry, that's nothing!  A morning  shower bath  is very useful!"
laughed the Professor, as he got up from the ground.
     But the  sun had now risen well  above the forest. The  hot  rays  were
toasting the ground. It  started  to steam. Vapour wrapped the grass jungle.
It became stifling like a steam bath.
     About mid-day the travellers came to the edge of the forest.
     Through  the  occasional  gaps  between  the  trees, yellow  hills  now
appeared.
     One  of  the hills reared  itself  above the  ground  in a sharp  peak,
looking like a sugar mountain which had been gilded at the summit.
     "There you are!" announced their  guide. "We  should be able to see our
landmark from the top of that height."
     "Let's  run," shouted  Valya, and darted  on  ahead exclaiming, "I name
this peak 'Golden View'."
     The Professor and Karik ran after her.
     However,  "Golden View" peak  was not  as  near  as  it  appeared.  The
travellers were puffing hard and wiping their faces by the time they reached
the foot of it.
     "Now for the view!" Karik chirped up.
     It was an ordinary hill of yellow rocks, for the strange rocks that had
shone as if they were made of gold were just very ordinary sand.
     Clutching on to the sand-rocks with their hands, the travellers started
to make their way up to the top of "Golden View" peak.
     The sun by now was high in the sky.
     Hot waves of sultry air were flowing over the surface of the earth like
transparent air-rivers.
     Roastingly-hot rocks burnt their feet and kept slipping away from under
them.
     It was indeed difficult to climb.
     The Professor stumbled at practically every step. The mountainside slid
away under his feet, becoming a rumbling stream of hot rocks. To scramble in
the  tracks of their  guide was a dangerous matter. Karik and Valya made  an
effort, overtook him and kept by his side.
     The climb became steeper and steeper.
     The young  alpinists  were  forced to crawl on all  fours, clinging  to
jutting-out rocks with their hands.
     "Just like the ascent of Mount Everest!" puffed the Professor.
     Neither Karik nor Valya had ever heard of Everest, but  they could both
at once guess that Everest  was  just such  a mountain as the one which they
were now climbing.
     At last here was the top. Dripping with the  exertion their  guide  and
the children came to the crest of the mountain.
     The professor straightened himself up and put his hand up to shield his
eyes, turned his head and started to search the horizon.
     "Now then! Now then!" he started saying. "We'll see! We'll look for our
landmark, then. . . ."
     He did not finish his sentence. The ground beneath his feet started  to
slide away. He sank in up to his waist. The children rushed to help him. But
the hill beneath them started to shake and suddenly open like a mouth.
     The  Professor,  followed by the two children,  hurtled down  a narrow,
sloping chimney, stones and earth roared down after them.
     Valya  screamed.  Karik  fell on the  Professor and they landed with  a
fearful plunge in a wet, sticky floor.
     The  first  to recover consciousness was  the  Professor. Grunting  and
groaning  he  extricated  himself from  the thick  clinging mud  and  wiping
himself, ruefully observed:
     "A nasty jump without a parachute! Allow me to congratulate you on your
successful landing. Get up, my dears!"
     He wiped his hands on his tights, looked anxiously at the  children who
were still floundering in the mud, and asked:
     "All right, I hope? How's Valya? You haven't hurt yourself, have you?"
     "Nothing  to  speak  of,"  replied  Valya,  getting up.  "Only my elbow
appears to be grazed."
     "What about you, Karik?"
     "I have bruised my knee."
     The children, rubbing their injured spots, gazed around in fear at  the
dark walls of the narrow well.
     "That's  a  mere  nothing!" said  their guide.  "Why, I  have  lost the
knapsack with the food and the plate. That's much worse."
     "Where are we?" inquired Valya.
     "We'll soon see," muttered their guide, sticking his beard in the air.
     High above their heads glimmered the distant sky. The pale light of day
fell on the higher slopes, but  at  the bottom of  this deep, gloomy well it
was practically dark.
     "I suppose," said  Karik,  "that  we  have  fallen  into the den of  an
underground spider. They are terrible spiders. I have read about them."
     "What?" Valya shuddered.  "Spiders  again? In  the  air, on the ground,
under the water and now under the ground - spiders?"
     "Calm  yourself," said the  Professor,  "the  underground spiders about
which Karik  is talking live in Italy and in the South of France. We haven't
got any here."
     "Well, then, whose hole is it?"
     The  Professor did  not answer. Pulling  at  his beard, he made his way
round the bottom of the well sounding the walls with his fist, then he said:
     "Yes, yes. . . . That's what it is. Andrena !"
     "What's an Andrena?" Valya started to whimper.
     "Yes, yes. .  . . It's just what I thought. Everything is all right, my
dears.  Nothing dangerous.  This time we have had a very fortunate  fall, we
have fallen right into a confectioner's shop."
     Valya's eyes became round with amazement.
     "You mean to say we can find tarts and pies here?" she demanded.
     "Yes!" smiled the Professor.
     "But where are they? I can see nothing but mud."
     "Patience is a virtue!"
     The Professor sounded the wall with his fist. "Open Sesame!"
     The  wall  resounded as if  he had been hitting the bottom of an  empty
barrel.
     "It hasn't opened!" said Valya, licking her lips.
     "You needn't be surprised!"  smiled their guide. "It is  only  in fairy
stories that  everything is accomplished by commands. We have to work a bit.
Dig in to the earth! Just here."
     He  went up to the wall  and started to root away like a bear,  tearing
out heavy sticky lumps of earth with his hands.
     Karik and  Valya hastened to  help him. Karik  was  especially zealous.
Lumps of earth and stones fairly flew under his hands.
     "Steady, steady!" shouted the Professor. "You'll bury us all like that.
Be more careful! Please don't hurry!"
     Karik  wanted  to say something in reply,  but  at that moment the wall
shook, stones fell  away  at the  feet of the travellers and all could see a
deep recess in the wall.
     The air now smelt of fresh honey cakes.
     "Whatever is it?" Valya licked her lips. "It smells like tea-time."
     "It is the confectioner's shop itself!" replied  the Professor, bending
forward. "But now stand to one side. There! Splendid!"
     He rummaged in the recess with both  hands and having  planted his legs
widely apart tried to pull something out.
     "Here we  are! here we are!"  he  laughed, and straining himself handed
out a big grey ball covered in what appeared to  be a  yellow powder -  with
fine sand.
     "That's the lot!" he said, gently lowering the ball on to the ground.
     With a sharp stone he cleared the sand off  it and with some difficulty
tore something white off the top of it.
     It was just like a goose's egg, only much larger.
     "Oho!" said Karik. "Omelette again!"
     "You don't make omelettes out of this egg," grinned the Professor. "You
do better this way," and he knocked off a bit of the ball  with his hand and
it looked like a huge loaf of milk bread.
     "Flower tart!" he announced. He wiped his  hands  on  his tights, broke
off a bit of the loaf and put it in his mouth. The Professor's eyebrows shot
upwards. A contented smile appeared on his face.
     "Not bad," he said, munching away, "not at all bad! Help yourselves, my
dears."
     The scented, sticky dough  smelt of honey and flowers. It simply melted
in the mouth.
     "That is delicious," said Valya. "Better than cream buns."
     "You  are simply  famished,"  answered  their  guide,  "and not  to  be
wondered at. We had breakfast in  the middle of the night almost, and now it
is nearly mid-day."
     "No, no, it's true this is delicious!" insisted Valya.
     "But  what  is  it?"  asked Karik,  tucking in  both cheeks full of the
scented dough.
     "Flower pollen and honey!" replied the Professor.
     "Why is it at the bottom of the well?"
     The Professor picked up a white  egg with a tough  skin from the ground
and he put it on the palm of his hand.
     "That is why," he answered. "The tart was prepared  for the larva which
will come out of  the  egg,  and both  tart and  egg  were  put here by  the
underground bee - the Andrena."
     "If it is  an  underground  bee," said Valya. "We must get  out of here
quickly."
     The Professor smiled.
     "Andrena is called  an underground bee only because it  builds its nest
under ground,  but the  Andrena  itself  lives there up  above us; where the
dragonflies, flies and gnats live. Actually, you may often find its nest  on
the  surface of the earth: in Rotton  stumps, in the  trunks of fallen trees
but most  often  in  the earth. That  is  why  the scientists  call  it  the
underground bee."
     The Professor then told Karik and Valya how the larvae come  out of the
eggs,  how they feed on the dainty cake which had been prepared for them and
how finally they are transformed into winged Andrena bees.
     "There are always  several such cakes in each nest of  an Andrena bee,"
said their guide. "If you wish I'll get you another one."
     The children started to laugh.
     "What do you think we are - elephants?" said Karik. "We could never eat
it. It would be better to drag ourselves out of this before the Andrevna bee
returns."
     "In  the first place  it is  an Andrena not an Andrevna," the Professor
corrected  Karik, "and  in the  second place I have already  said that after
this bee has dug out its nest, laid its eggs in it and prepared the food for
its  young  it never looks at it again. There  is nothing more for it  to do
here. . .  . Yes, and there is nothing more to keep us here. We  have had  a
good feed, so let's say good-bye to this place."
     Their guide went over to the  sloping  wall  and catching hold of  some
roots with  his  hands  started to climb up. The  children quickly clambered
after him like monkeys.
     Their movement upwards had soon to be made one step at a time, and they
slowly crept up the side of the  well towards the  big round opening through
which the blue sky was peeping. Every now and then they stopped to get their
breath and then climbed on upwards. The rocks, dislodged by their feet, fell
with a rumble to the very bottom of the Andrena nest.
     The Professor  was the first to reach the edge of the well. Here it was
light and warm.
     "Oof!" he sighed  heavily. "My word! That was a climb.  . . . What's up
with you, children? I am an old man and I got up before you."
     He bent over the dark well and stretched his arm down.
     "Let me help you!"
     But Karik did not  succeed in  catching hold of his hand. The Professor
suddenly  appeared to bounce up like a rubber ball. High above the well they
saw his heels and - he vanished.
     Karik clung to the side of the well in terror.
     "Sh-sh-sh!"
     "What is it?" asked Valya.
     "A bird has pecked  him off!" whispered Karik.  "A huge, huge bird with
enormous wings!"
     Valya shuddered.
     "You saw it?"
     "Yes, I saw the wings - enormous. Like sails!"
     The children looked at each other. Tears started to Valya's eyes.
     Karik said:
     "All the same he'll get away!"
     Valya started to cry quietly.
     "Now, don't  cry, please!  He'll get away!" Karik comforted his sister,
and looking cautiously out of the well, shouted loudly:
     "Professor! Professor!"
     There was no answer.
     Valya wiped away the tears with her fist and said resolutely:
     "We must climb out!"
     "We must!" agreed Karik.  And  the  children helping each other climbed
out of the well.
     They stood once more on the summit of the  "Golden View" peak. Not  far
from them strewn on the ground they saw the Professor's sack, the remains of
the omelette and  the dish. Before them there stretched a  yellow wilderness
of hills.  Behind  them  like  a  green sea  there rustled  the grass jungle
through which they had made their way that morning. To the right and left of
them was  the  blue of  lakes showing through tall  reed  forests which grew
along their shores.
     But the Professor was nowhere to be seen.
     "Professor Enot - off! Where are you?" screamed Valya.
     She listened.
     Not a sound.
     "Profess - or!"
     The only answer was the  wind's  melancholy sigh on the top of the peak
and a discordant echo which died away in the hills.
     "Let's shout together!" Karik suggested.
     The children held hands.
     "Prof - ess - or!" they bawled as one.
     " - ess - or!" answered the echo and was silent.
     Tears started  to stream  from  Valya's eyes. She covered her face with
her hands and sobbed  aloud. At  that moment a whirlwind howled around  her.
She was thrown aside somewhere and fell on sharp rocks.
     When she at  last managed to get to her feet and look around  there was
no  Karik! - but only a moment ago he had been standing here, at  this round
rock.
     "Karik!"  yelled Valya, cold with fear.  "Karik where are you?  Why are
you frightening me?" High - high above the clouds someone seemed to cry in a
feeble voice, "Valya!"


        CHAPTER XII

     In the clutches  of a winged monster - The travellers meet again -  The
Mont Blanc tree - About living "hams" - Karik and Valya are wafted away

     VALYA  DASHED ABOUT THE SLOPES  OF  THE PEAK IN PANIC. SHE ran down and
then ran up to the top and looked into the dark well.
     "Karik!" she screamed. "Professor!"
     There was no answer.
     "Oh, dear! Wherever can they be?" she muttered.
     The poor  girl was quite exhausted. She sat down  on the hot  rocks and
pressing her hands to her face started to cry.
     Through  tears, as  if she was looking through a window wet  with rain,
she  saw now and then huge winged  creatures flying. They swooped right past
her. Their  wings caused quite a whirlwind. She crouched down and ducked her
head, watching these monsters in terror. They flew now upwards  and now with
a swish landed  on  the ground. They  folded up  their  transparent, shining
wings, and having  uncurled their striped bodies  they clambered in a clumsy
fashion over the rocks; then having got hold of something on the ground once
again shot up into the sky.
     One  of these creatures crawled right up to Valya. It actually  hit her
with its wing.  The powerful  blow  sent Valya sprawling on the  ground. The
striped  monster quickly turned  towards her and started to gaze at her with
shining, protruding eyes.
     Valya felt she was going to faint.
     The creature leisurely started to move away. But the  girl stirred ever
so slightly  and in an instant the  monster  leaped towards her and stopped,
swaying its feelers above  her head.  Valya was cold with fear. Holding  her
breath  she watched  the long feelers  with eyes wide with terror. She could
not see the rest of the monster, but felt that it must be right beside her.
     A silence ensued broken only  by Valya's own breathing. Then she  heard
the  monster moving away, dragging  itself noisily over  the ground, getting
further and further away every minute.
     She jumped up. She was shaking  all over. Her  body was covered  with a
cold perspiration. With her arms waving she dashed with a yell down the hill
towards  the foot. But suddenly  strong, hairy paws wound around her body. A
sharp point pierced  her spiderweb jacket and tore the skin  of her back. It
hurt terribly, but Valya did not succeed in crying out. Above her head, huge
wings drummed and  shook, and the next  instant Valya  found herself in  the
air.
     Strong  arms clutched her to a  hairy breast which now  contracted, now
expanded like the bellows of a concertina. Valya tried to turn her  head and
see what  sort of monster  it was that held her in its grip, but as  soon as
she stirred the arms squeezed her like iron pincers.
     She groaned in pain.
     "Help!" cried Valya.
     The whistle of the wind drowned her voice.  She  screamed until she was
hoarse, but she could hardly hear her own voice.
     Below her, green  fields and woods swayed, rivers  and  lakes glittered
and  endless yellow sand stretched out  in ribbons. All the time, Valya flew
further and further from the well where  she felt she had left the Professor
and Karik.
     Where was the fearsome winged beast carrying her to now?
     What would she do  alone in the nightmare grassy jungle? How  would she
find  her  way  home,  and  indeed would  she  ever get back  to  that  big,
comfortable world?
     Valya wriggled, turned  her head and ferociously fastened  her teeth in
the  strong,  rigid  arm. The  arm was hard  and smooth  like polished wood.
Valya's teeth just slipped along it.
     At  that instant,  the  clutching pincers  squeezed the poor  girl even
tighter. It was quite useless to fight the monster. It could squash her like
a fly.
     "I'll die," sobbed Valya. "I'll die and no one will even know that I am
dead."
     She started to feel ever so sorry for herself and sobbed aloud.
     Then her tears dried up. Her eyes became  dry as if every tear had been
poured out, to the last one. Then she started to kick and scream:
     "Let  go! What's  the matter? Did I touch you? Let go! Go away ! Let me
loose!"
     But the winged monster just flew on, whirring its hard,  resonant wings
which made a noise like a sawmill at work.
     At  last,  in a gliding flight it swooped down,  started to flutter its
wings in the  air and suddenly the arms holding  Valya were stretched out in
front  and pushed  her, like a dish into  the oven,  into some  sort of dark
hole.
     Valya  hit her  head  against  something hard  and  slid  precipitously
downwards as if she was on an ice mountain.
     "Falling!" The terror of it gripped Valya's brain.
     She shut her eyes. Then suddenly felt herself caught by other claws.
     "Ooh!" Valya screamed, hitting out with her arms and legs.
     She opened her eyes in alarm and saw that the claws which held her were
really not claws at all but the hands of . . . the old Professor !
     "Professor! Is it really you?" she shouted.
     "It is I, little Valya, it is I!" replied the Professor affectionately,
setting her down on the sloping floor.
     "And I'm here too!" Valya heard Karik's voice.
     "But wherever are we all?" she asked.
     "All  right,  all right! We'll soon find out," said  their  guide. "The
main thing is that we are all together."
     Valya started to look round  wildly. In the half-darkness she could see
smooth walls: they sloped steeply upwards. There was no roof. Above, through
a broad circular opening, the rays of the sun were striking in. In the beams
of light dust was floating.
     The prison in which Valya, Karik and the Professor now found themselves
was  like a deep basket. But  this basket  was not  standing upright but was
sloping as if it had got caught on something when falling and now hung at an
angle in mid-air.
     Valya looked at the dark walls, at Karik and at the Professor.
     How  had the Professor and Karik both got here? Who had imprisoned them
in  this giant basket? Was it really the same monster which had carried her,
Valya, there?
     She started to question them but the Professor interrupted her.
     "Later, later," he said, frowning. "There is no time for gossip now. If
we don't climb out of this, this very instant, we may lose our lives. .  . .
Come on, children, let's try."
     Their guide got down on to all-fours  and slowly made  his  way  up the
smooth, sloping wall. The children came after him.
     The climb was difficult.
     Arms and legs slipped as if  on ice. The Professor  had  nearly reached
the edge  of the basket when suddenly his  knees wobbled,  his hands slipped
and he rolled back to  the bottom with a rumble, carrying the children  with
him.
     "No luck!" he said, getting up on to his feet. "We must try again."
     The  travellers  once again edged their way  up the  smooth  wall. Once
again they rolled all the way down again.
     "We can't climb out of this," groaned Valya.
     "Silence!" ordered the Professor, angrily.
     He measured with his eyes the distance from the  edge of  the basket to
the floor, surveyed Karik from head to foot, and said resolutely:
     "Come on now! Climb on to my shoulders!"
     Karik  jumped up,  like a bouncing ball, caught hold of the Professor's
neck and hoisted himself on to his shoulders.
     "Try and reach the top!" commanded their guide.
     Karik  cautiously  started  to  straighten himself out. With  his hands
against the wall  he straightened his bent knees and finally stood  erect at
his full height.
     "Now climb on to  the palms  of my hands!" ordered their guide, putting
his two hands up.
     Karik  placed  first  one foot and then the  other on the  palms of the
Professor's hands.
     "You won't fall?" asked the Professor. "I won't fall!"
     The Professor made a great effort and,  groaning, managed to lift Karik
upwards like a heavy beam.
     "Got it!" shouted Karik, grabbing the uneven edge of the basket.
     "Splendid! Pull yourself higher, still higher !"
     Karik started to  stretch out  his  whole  body  with his  toes  firmly
planted in the Professor's hands.
     "Now, now, now!" encouraged their guide.
     At last, Karik gave a jump and skilfully got astride of the edge of the
basket.
     "That's fine !" said the Professor. "Now get hold of Valya!"
     He caught up Valya and handed her up to Karik. Then  he quickly started
to  unwind  the spider's cord in which he was clothed. Having  half stripped
himself, he made a loop in the end of the cord.
     "Catch!" he shouted, throwing the loop up at the children.
     Karik caught the cord and put it over a projecting part of the basket.
     "Ready!" he announced cheerfully.
     The Professor pulled on the cord, testing to see whether it was  firmly
secured,  and then grasping it  with both hands  slowly  hoisted himself up,
moving  in  short bursts.  Puffing  and  blowing,  he  at  length  made  his
appearance on the edge of the basket.
     The travellers looked below.
     The basket on  which they found themselves was fastened to a  huge beam
covered with red knobs. From this log, other smaller  beams stretched out in
all directions, and  from these there  stuck out like green feathers rows of
huge lances.
     Through the chinks between  the beams they could see far, far below the
ground.
     "Wherever have we got to?" asked Valya, looking around herself in giddy
terror.
     The Professor grimaced.
     "We are on a very ordinary pine tree branch."
     "On a branch?" persisted Valya, shaking her head in an unbelieving way.
     "Yes,  on the branch  of  a pine tree which you,  I am sure, have  seen
heaps of times in your life. The branch is  just as usual but  you  yourself
have got a lot smaller. That is why you are so puzzled."
     "Well, all  right! If  it's a branch, it's  a branch, but however do we
get down to the ground?" interrupted Karik.  "Surely  without a parachute we
can do nothing."
     "We'll manage and without  a  parachute," their guide  assured them. He
patted his "tights"  and cheerfully  winked at the children. "You are  still
laughing  at  my rig-out. No, my dears!  For poor  travellers like us, every
piece of cord is a treasure."
     And their guide thereupon started to unwind more of the silvery cord in
which he was wrapped.
     "Should we also unroll ours?" demanded Valya.
     "Of course! My suit will not be enough."
     Karik and Valya  set to work.  They unwrapped the rings of their silver
jackets and carefully coiled each cord down beside themselves.
     "Hurry! hurry up, my  dears!"  the Professor urged  them on. "The awful
creature that brought us here will be back very soon and we shall be done."
     "We are all ready now!" shouted Valya.
     "Splendid! Try and twist up a thick rope."
     "How do you do that?"
     "Very  simply.  Like  this!"  And  their  guide  showed  them  what was
necessary to twist the cords together.
     Helping each  other, the travellers hastily twisted the  cords together
and out of the cords produced a thick rope.
     At last all was ready for the descent.
     The Professor coiled the  rope down in a heap and wound one end round a
sharp projection from the basket and then threw the rest of the coil off the
basket with a kick of his foot.
     The  heavy coil  slipped  between  the branches and  plunged downwards,
unwinding itself in flight into a long, knotted rope.
     The end of the  rope hung just  above the lower branches  of  the  pine
tree.
     "First Valya must go!" ordered the Professor.
     "Why me?"
     "There is no time for argument!" The Professor was stern.
     "Well, all  right, all right!" said Valya hastily. "I'll go down first,
but please don't be angry!"
     She bravely clutched the rope and quickly slid down.
     "Safe journey!" The Professor waved his hand.  "When you get down, hold
the end of the rope!"
     The Professor and Karik leant over and silently watched how their small
comrade was letting herself down.
     "Don't be a coward!" shouted Karik.
     "I wasn't even thinking!" came back a faint reply from Valya.
     She was calmly slipping down the rope from knot to knot and had already
reached the middle of it. Then suddenly a gust of wind came.
     Valya  started to swing like  a  pendulum. She clung  convulsively to a
knot in the rope and turned her head beseechingly upwards to the Professor.
     "Let yourself down!" the Professor and Karik shouted together.
     The wind set the rope  swinging  even more.  Valya was  describing wide
circles above . . . empty space.
     "Let yourself down!"
     Valya closed her eyes tightly  and once again started to slide down the
rope from knot to  knot. At last  her foot touched  something firm. This was
the lower branch  of the pine tree, which  was yet  broader and considerably
thicker than the upper branches. Valya found she could walk  about as freely
on its surface as people strolling along a main street pavement.
     "I'm down!" shouted Valya, looking upwards.
     High  above her head  hung  the clumsy  basket.  On  its  edge  sat the
Professor and Karik, and they  were  shouting something.  Valya strained her
ears.
     "Hold the rope!" Karik was shouting from  above. Valya got hold  of the
end of the  rope. The rope shook and then  became taut. Karik and after  him
the  Professor  now let themselves rapidly down  it and  were soon  standing
alongside her.
     "It  is not so far from  here  to  the ground  now!"  said their guide,
peering downwards.  "Let's  have a look for  our  landmark and  see in which
direction it lies."
     He looked to right and to left, and then shouted:
     "There it is!"
     "Where? Where?"  demanded the children, turning their  heads  here  and
there.
     Through the foliage of  pine needles the travellers were able to see on
the far horizon the  pole with the red flag. But how far away it now seemed.
It looked quite tiny - like a flag on a toy steamer.
     Valya,  screwing  up her  eyes, looked at  the  flag,  at Karik, at the
Professor, and then sighed heavily.
     "We'll never get to it now!" she said. "We'll not  reach it in a  year!
We are so small and it is so far away."
     "Hm! well!" grunted the Professor. "It may take us two or three months'
walking."
     "Three months?  But winter will  have set in by  that  time . . . we'll
have to build a house," said Valya.
     "Hm . . . possibly . . .  . But what are we waiting here for?  Let's go
along the branch to the trunk of the tree."
     Their  guide  looked  around  him  once  more  and  then moved  forward
confidently.  The children followed behind him. They clambered over the dark
red hillocks of the pine bark and jumped across  narrow deep clefts. In some
places these clefts had a thick growth of some light grey bushes on them.
     "Let's  have a rest, my dears," said the Professor, sitting down. "Then
we will go down the trunk like ants do."
     The children looked down and stepped back involuntarily.
     "That's terrible!" gasped Valya.
     "All the same, we must get down," said their guide.
     Valya clung to the red bark and shook her head.
     "Don't  worry, don't  worry!"  the  Professor  comforted  her.  "In the
Caucasus and on the Pamir,  our  alpinists get  themselves up  even  steeper
mountains and naturally get themselves down again.  But out there  it is not
so  easy  either. Every so often they have to cross ice fields and glaciers.
The  wind makes  their  eyes  cry and  the cold freezes the tears  on  their
cheeks. Br-r-r-r. Even to think of it is terrible. Well, on our 'Mont Blanc'
tree it is not nearly so dangerous to climb down."
     "Dear, dear! I suppose we will get down somehow," sighed Valya sadly.
     "Of course we'll get down,"  asserted Karik. "In any  case  there is no
other way, we must climb down the trunk."
     The  Professor  unwound  the  remains  of  his   "tights,"  plaited   a
trustworthy rope from it and handed the end of it to Valya.
     "You must  go  first again," he announced.  "Tie  the rope around  your
waist and hold on  to it tightly. Karik  will come next  and I'll climb down
last."
     Their guide  made  a  loop  in  the  rope and  threw  it  over  Karik's
shoulders.
     "Get  your arms through. That's right!" Karik raised his  arms, slipped
the loop down to his waist and pulled it tighter. "Well! that is all ready,"
said the Professor.
     The travellers moved off down the trunk. First they let Valya down with
the  rope. She  sought  about  below with her feet and  feeling a projecting
piece of bark, shouted:
     "I'm standing! Let out some more rope!"
     The rope slackened. Behind Valya came down Karik. The Professor  waited
at  the top with his legs wide apart, holding  the rope with  both hands. He
was following every movement of the children. As soon as Valya and Karik had
got a good  hold  in  the new  place, their guide threw  them  the rope and,
clinging to the projecting bark, let himself down cautiously.
     In this manner they accomplished nearly half their dangerous journey.
     The ground came closer and closer with every  step. They could  already
see the angular stems of the grass trees.
     "All the same, it is a long way off still!" said their guide. "We shall
not reach the ground for at least another three hours."
     All three of them were very tired.
     Their shoulders and  knees were  covered  with  scratches, bruises, and
weals.  Their hands shook so that they could  hardly let themselves down. It
was time to rest.
     On  one of the broader standing places, the  Professor and the children
stopped.
     "Halt!" the Professor ordered, and fell wearily to the rough floor.
     The  children collapsed beside him. He lay breathing heavily and wiping
the perspiration from his  face. Karik  and Valya sat  up  with  their  legs
dangling over the precipice. All then was silent.
     Suddenly Valya jumped up and waved her arms. "Eh! Look! What's that?"
     "What? What do you want?" Their guide raised himself up to look.
     And there he saw a huge head covered with a regular forest of bristles.
Short,  strong  feet  gripped  the edge of  their  resting place.  Then  the
creature hauled itself up on to the level and, bending its long, hairy body,
crawled along the bark  using what appeared to  be countless feet. Behind it
came another creature just  as hairy, and just as long, and then another and
another.
     "Don't be frightened!" the Professor reassured them, getting up on to a
projecting piece of bark. "These are  Only  caterpillars of  the pine moth -
silkworms. They won't touch us."
     "Oh, I'm frightened of them all the same," whispered Valya.
     "Why  are you such a coward?" said  Karik. "If you  are told they won't
touch you, it  means they won't touch you. . . .  What do they feed  on?" he
asked the Professor.
     "Green leaves and soft young pine shoots," answered their guide.
     "There, you see! These are vegetarian-caterpillars. You can even stroke