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     Translated from the Russian by John P.Mandeville
     Russian original title: нЕОБЫЧАЙНЫЕ ПРИКЛЮЧЕНИЯ кАРИКА И вАЛИ
     Leningrad 1937
     OCR: Tuocs
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     Granny is difficult - Mother is  worried - Jack gets on a hot scent - A
strange  discovery  is  made  in  the  Professor's  study  -  The  Professor
disappears


     MOTHER SPREAD A BIG WHITE CLOTH ON THE TABLE. GRANNY  went over towards
the  sideboard. In the dining-room knives and forks  jingled  cheerfully and
plates clattered.
     "Is it egg and onion pie?" asked Granny.
     "Yes.  The children have been begging  and  begging  me  for  it," said
Mother, as she put out the plates.
     "And is the sweet strawberries, and cream? "
     "No.  To-day  we are going to  have ice  cream pudding for a sweet! The
children do love it so."
     "All the  same," mumbled Granny, "in  the summer  it is better  for the
children to have berries and fruit. . . . When I was a little girl. . . ."
     But Mother,  apparently,  was quite  convinced Granny never  had been a
little girl.  Shrugging her  shoulders  she went  over to  the  window  and,
looking out into the courtyard, shouted loudly:
     "Ka-a-ari-ik! Va-alya-ya! Lu-unch!"
     "When I was a  little girl  . . . . "  continued Granny,  offended; but
Mother, not listening  to  her, leaned out on  the  window-sill and  shouted
still louder:
     "Karik! Valya! Where are you?"
     In the courtyard all was silent.
     "There you are," grumbled Granny. "I knew it would happen. . . ."
     "Karik! Valya!" Mother shouted again, and not waiting for an answer sat
down  on the window-sill and asked, "Didn't  they  tell you where they  were
going to go?"
     Granny bit her lip angrily. "When I was a little  girl," she announced,
"I always said where I was going, but nowadays . . . ." She straightened the
cloth on the table, frowning. "Nowadays they  just  do as they like . . . if
they take the fancy  they'll go off to the  North Pole; and  sometimes  even
worse. . . . Why, only yesterday they announced on the radio. . . ."
     "What did they announce?" asked  Mother,  hastily.  "Oh,  nothing! Just
that some boy was drowned - at least that was what they said."
     Mother  shuddered.  "That's all  nonsense," she said,  sliding  off the
window-sill. "Fiddlesticks! Rubbish! Karik and Valya would never go  off and
bathe."
     "I don't know, I  don't know!" Granny shook her head. "Only they should
have been here ages ago and there is no sign of them. They ran off early and
haven't had anything to eat this morning."
     Mother put her hand  up  to her face, and not saying anything more went
out of the dining-room quickly.
     "When I was a little girl . . . ," sighed Granny.
     But what Granny did when she was a little girl Mother just didn't hear,
she was already out in the courtyard and screwing up  her eyes in the bright
sunlight was peering in all directions.
     On a yellow mound of sand lay Valya's green spade with the bent handle,
and beside it was flung Karik's faded beret.
     No sign of the children.
     Under  the rusty gutter pipe,  warming herself in the sun,  was the big
tortoise-shell cat - Anyuta.  She lazily wrinkled her forehead and stretched
out her paws as if she wanted to give them to Mother.


     "Karik! Valya!" shouted Mother, and actually stamped her foot.
     Anyuta, the cat, opened her green  eyes widely,  stared at Mother,  and
then, yawning luxuriously, turned over on the other side.

     "What has become of them?" grumbled Mother.
     She crossed  the  courtyard,  glanced  into  the  laundry room,  peeped
through the dark windows of  the cellar where the firewood was kept. No sign
of the children.
     "Ka-ari-ik!" she shouted once again.
     There was no reply. "Va-a-lya!" Mother cried out.
     "Wough-ough,  woof!"  sounded quite close at  hand. The door at  a side
entrance slammed violently. A big sheep-dog with a sharp pointed nose leaped
out into the yard with his chain dragging behind him. With one  rush  he was
on the mound, rolling in the sand, raising a great cloud of dust; then up he
jumped, shook himself and with loud barking hurled himself at Mother.
     Mother stepped back quickly.
     "Back! No, you don't!  Get away with you!" She shooed him  off with her
hands.
     "Down, Jack! To heel!" a loud voice resounded in the doorway.
     A fat man wearing sandals on his bare feet and with a lighted cigarette
in his hand had come into the yard.
     It was the tenant from the fourth floor, the photographer Schmidt.
     "What are you up to, Jack, eh?" asked the fat man. Jack guiltily wagged
his tail.
     "Such  a fool  you are!" grinned the photographer. Pretending to  yawn,
Jack came  up  to his  master, sat  down and with a jingling chain set about
scratching his neck with his hind leg.
     "Grand weather to-day!" smiled  the fat  man. "Aren't you going to your
country cottage?"
     Mother  stared first at the  fat man,  then  at  the dog  and then said
rather crossly:
     "You have let that dog out again, Comrade Schmidt, without his  muzzle.
He behaves  just  like a  wolf. He  just looks around  to see at whom he can
snap. . . ."
     "What, Jack?"  said  the fat man, apparently most surprised.  "Why,  he
wouldn't harm a child! He is as peaceful as a dove. Would you like to stroke
him?"
     Mother waved him away with her hand.
     "You think I have nothing else to do but to stroke dogs! At home, lunch
is getting cold, none of  the housework is done and here  I am unable to get
hold of the children. Ka-a-ri-ik! Val-a-alya!" she shouted once more.
     "You just stroke Jack and ask him nicely. Say: 'Now then  Jack, go find
Karik and  Valya.' He'll find  them in a wink!" Schmidt bent down to his dog
and rubbed his neck affectionately. "You'll find them, won't you Jack?"
     Jack made a little whimpering noise and, quite  unexpectedly, jumped up
and licked the  full  lips of the photographer. The fat man  staggered back,
fussily spat out and wiped his lips with his sleeve.
     Mother laughed.
     "You  need  not  laugh,"  Schmidt  gravely  assured  her,  "this  is  a
sleuthhound. He follows the scent of a human being just like a train running
on rails. Would you like me to show you?"
     "I believe you!" said Mother.
     "No,  no!" the fat man  was  getting  agitated. "Allow me to assure you
that  if  I  say it is true,  it is  true! Now  then, just give me something
belonging to Karik or Valya - a toy - coat - beret. It does not matter what.
. . ."
     Mother shrugged her shoulders,  but  all  the  same  she  stooped down,
picked up the spade and beret and, smiling, handed them to Schmidt.
     "Splendid! Excellent!" said the fat man, and gave the  beret to the dog
to smell. "Now, Jack," he continued  loudly, "show them how  you do  it!  Go
find them, boy!"
     Jack whimpered,  put his nose to the  ground and, sticking up his tail,
started to run round the courtyard in large circles.
     The photographer cheerfully puffed along behind him.
     Having run up to the cat Anyuta, Jack stopped. The cat  jumped up, bent
herself into a  bow and flashing her green eyes  hissed  like a snake.  Jack
tried to grab her by the tail.
     The cat bristled up, gave Jack a  box on the ear; the poor dog squealed
with pain, but at once recovered himself and with  a loud bark flung himself
at  Anyuta.  The cat  again  hissed and  raised  one  paw as  if to  say:  "
Sh-sh-sh-shove off! I'll s-s-slap you s-s-such a one!"
     "Now, now, Jack," said the photographer, "you mustn't get put off!" and
he tugged so hard at the lead  that the dog sat  back on his hind legs. "Get
on, now! Go find them!" he ordered.
     With a  parting bark  at the  cat, Jack ran on ahead. He ran around the
whole  yard and  once more stopped by the gutter pipe and loudly sniffed the
air, looking at his master.
     "I understand, I understand!" said  the photographer, nodding his head.
"They sat  here,  of  course, playing with the  cat!  But where  did they go
afterwards? Now, go find them, go find them, Jack!"

     Jack  started wagging  his  tail,  twisted himself around  like a  top,
scraped with his paws at the sand under the pipe and then, with a loud bark,
dashed to the main entrance to the flats.
     "Ha-ha! he's  got on the scent!" shouted Schmidt, and with  his sandals
slithering he leaped after the dog.
     "If you do find the children, send them home!" Mother called after him,
and started walking back through the yard. "Of course they are in one of the
neighbouring courtyards," she thought to herself.
     Pulling hard on his lead, Jack hauled his master up a staircase.
     "Not so fast! Not so fast!" puffed the  fat man, barely able to keep up
with the dog.
     On the landing of the fifth floor, Jack  stopped for a second, gazed at
his master and with a  short  bark threw himself at a door which was covered
with oilcloth and felt.
     On the door there hung a white enamelled plate with the inscription:


     IVAN HERMOGENEVITCH ENOTOFF

     Underneath was pinned a notice:

     Bell does not work. Please knock.

     Jack with a squeal jumped up,  scratching at the oilcloth  covering the
door.
     "Down, Jack!" shouted the fat man. "It says knock, and not squeal."
     The photographer Schmidt smoothed his hair with  the palm of his  hand,
carefully  wiped the  perspiration off his face with a handkerchief and then
knocked cautiously at the door with his knuckles.
     Behind the door shuffling steps were heard.
     The lock clicked.
     The door  opened. A  face  with shaggy eyebrows  and  a yellowish white
beard appeared in the widening gap.
     "Do you want me?"
     "Excuse me,  Professor," said  the  photographer in some  confusion, "I
only wanted to ask you - "
     The stout man had  not  succeeded in finishing his sentence before Jack
tore  the lead out of his  hand and, almost knocking  the Professor off  his
feet, dashed into the flat.
     "Come back! Jack! To heel!" shouted Schmidt.
     But Jack  was  already  rattling his chain somewhere  at the end of the
corridor.
     "I am so sorry, Professor, Jack is only young. . . . If you will let me
come in, I'll soon get hold of him."
     "Yes,  yes  . . .  of course,"  replied the Professor, absent-mindedly,
letting Schmidt into  the flat.  "Come in, please. I hope your dog  does not
bite!"
     "Hardly ever," Schmidt assured the Professor.
     The photographer  crossed  the threshold  and  having  closed the  door
behind him, said quietly: "A  thousand apologies! I won't be a minute. . . .
The children  must be with you - Karik and Valya, from the second floor. . .
."
     "Allow me, allow me! Karik and Valya? Yes, of course, I know them well.
Very fine children. Polite and eager to learn.. . "
     "Are they here?"
     "No, they haven't been here to-day; in fact I am waiting for them!"
     "Very odd !" muttered the stout  man.  "Jack has  so certainly followed
their trail. . . . ."
     "But may be it is yesterday's trail?" politely suggested the Professor.
     But Schmidt did not succeed in replying. In the further  room, Jack was
barking resoundingly, then something  rattled,  crashed and jingled as  if a
cupboard or table had fallen with crockery on it.
     The Professor started.
     "He may break up everything!" he shouted as if he was going to cry, and
seizing  Schmidt by the sleeve  pulled him along the  dark corridor.  "Here!
through here!" he barked, pushing open a door.
     No sooner had the Professor and the photographer crossed  the threshold
of the room than Jack threw himself at his master's chest with a whimper and
then at once dashed back with a bark. All around the room he darted with his
lead behind him,  smelling the bookshelves, jumping on the leather armchair,
twisting himself under the table, all the time throwing himself from side to
side.
     On the table, tubes  and retorts jingled  as they bounced up  and down,
tall glass vessels swayed  and  fine glass  tubes shivered. From one violent
jolt the microscope, with its brass sparkling  in the sun,  started to rock.
The  Professor only  just  succeeded  in  catching  it. But  in  saving  the
microscope,  he caught  with his sleeve a gleaming nickel  container full of
some sort of complicated weights.  The container fell and the weights jumped
out and scattered with a jingle over the yellow parquet floor.
     "What are you up  to, Jack?" gruffly  jerked out the photographer. "You
are making an ass of  yourself. You're  barking, but what is  the use? Where
are the children?"
     Jack put his head on  one side. He pricked up his ears  and looked most
attentively at his  master, trying to understand what it was  that they were
scolding him about.
     The photographer shook his head disapprovingly.
     "You  should  be  ashamed of  yourself,  Jack!  They  said  you  were a
sleuthhound! With a diploma! And  all you can do is to chase cats instead of
following a trail. Now, come home! Be generous enough to forgive us. Comrade
Professor, for this disturbance!"
     The photographer bowed awkwardly and made  towards the  door.  But here
Jack  became possessed as  of a devil.  He seized his master by the breeches
with  his teeth, and planting his feet on the slippery parquet floor, tugged
towards the table.
     "What on earth is up with you?" complained the fat man in amazement.
     Squealing, Jack once more darted around the table, but  then leaped  on
the small divan which stood in front of the open window and putting his paws
on the window-sill, barked with short, jerky barks.
     Schmidt got angry.
     "Come to  heel!" he  shouted,  seizing the dog by the collar; but  Jack
stubbornly shook his head and again darted to the divan. "I can't understand
it!" The photographer threw up his hands.
     "Probably there  is a mouse behind the divan!"  the Professor  guessed.
"Or maybe a crust of bread or a bone. I often have my dinner there."
     He went up to the divan  and pulled it towards him. At the back  of the
divan, something rustled and softly padded to the ground.
     "A crust!" said the Professor.
     Jack at that moment tore  himself forward and  squeezed, with his  tail
sticking up,  between  the wall,  and  just managed to  shift the  divan. He
seized something in his teeth.
     "Come on, show us what it is!" shouted the photographer.
     Jack backed out, shook his head, turned abruptly  to  his  master,  and
laid at his feet a child's down-at-heel sandal. The photographer perplexedly
turned the find over in his hand.
     "Apparently some sort of a child's shoe. . . ."
     "H'm . .  . strange!" said  the  Professor, examining the sandal. "Very
strange!"
     Whilst  they were turning the find over in their hands. Jack pulled out
from  behind the divan  a further three sandals,  one  the same size and two
smaller ones.
     Unable to follow what had  happened, the  Professor  and  the stout man
looked first at each other and then at the sandals. Schmidt knocked the hard
sole of one sandal with his knuckle, and for no apparent reason said:
     "Strong enough! They're good sandals!"
     But  Jack meanwhile had  pulled out from under the divan a pair of blue
shorts and, pressing them with his paws to the floor, barked softly.
     "Something more?" said the Professor, quite perplexed.
     He bent over, and would have stretched out his hand for the shorts, but
Jack  bared his teeth and growled so  threateningly that  the Professor very
quickly withdrew his hand.
     "What  a very unfriendly nature he has, to be sure!" said the Professor
in some confusion.
     "Yes, he is not over-polite to me!" agreed the photographer.
     He took  the shorts,  shook them, and, folding  them neatly, laid  them
before the Professor.
     "Please take them."
     The Professor looked sideways at Jack.
     "No, no, it is quite unnecessary," said  he. "I can see everything. . .
. Well, now . .  . well, now . . . there are the markings V and K. Valya and
Karik!" And he touched with his fingers big white  letters sewn in the belts
of the shorts.
     The stout man wiped his face with the palm of his hand.
     "Is there a bathroom in the flat?" he asked in a businesslike way.
     "No," replied the Professor, "there is no bathroom. But if you  want to
wash your hands, there's. . . ."
     "Oh, no," panted the stout man, "I can wash at home. But I thought they
might have undressed and were bathing themselves. Do you see what I mean?"
     "Certainly." The Professor nodded his head.
     "But  where have they hidden themselves?  Naked  . . . without  shorts,
without sandals?  I don't understand  it at  all!" Schmidt made a gesture of
hopelessness.
     Then he put his hands behind his back, spread out his feet, lowered his
head  and  gazed solidly at the yellow rectangles  of the parquet;  then  he
suddenly straightened himself up and said confidently:
     "Don't worry! We'll find them any minute now. They are here, Professor.
They  are simply  hiding! You can  be sure  of that! My Jack has  never been
mistaken yet."
     The Professor  and the  photographer proceeded on a tour round  all the
rooms; they examined the kitchen and even looked into the dark larder.
     Jack listlessly tailed along behind them.
     In the  dining-room,  the stout man opened the doors  of the sideboard,
poked  his head under the  table, and in the bedroom searched with his hands
underneath the bed. But there was no trace of the children in the flat.
     "Wherever can they have hidden themselves?" muttered the photographer.
     "In my opinion," said the Professor, "they have not been here to-day."
     "That's what  you think?"  questioned Schmidt  thoughtfully. "You think
they  have not been  here?  But  what  do  you think, Jack? Are they here or
aren't they?"
     Jack barked.
     "Here?"
     Jack barked again.
     "Well, go find them! Go find them, you dog!"
     Jack at once cheered up. He threw himself  round and  once more led the
Professor  and  Schmidt  into  the  study.  Here he again jumped  on to  the
window-sill and started to bark loudly, and then to whimper as if he  wanted
to assure his master that the children had left the room through the window.
     Schmidt got angry.
     "You're  nothing but a dunce !  Just  a puppy ! You actually think that
the children jumped  out into the yard through a window on the fifth  floor?
Or perhaps you think they flew out of the window like flies or dragonflies?"
     "What !" The Professor started. "They flew? What dragonfly?"
     The photographer smiled.
     "Well, that is what Jack thinks!"
     The Professor seized his head in his hands.
     "What an awful thing!" His voice was hoarse.
     The photographer gazed at him in amazement and asked:
     "What is the matter with you? Here, have a  drink of water! You are not
well."
     He stepped towards the  table on which stood a glass jug full of water;
but here  the Professor positively screamed as if he had  trodden on red-hot
iron with bare feet.
     "Stop! stop! stop!" he yelled.
     The photographer, now frightened, froze in his tracks.
     The Professor  shot out his hand  and grabbed a  glass  containing what
appeared to be water, hastily raised it to the  level of his eyes and looked
through it  towards the light. Then he  hastily produced a  huge  magnifying
glass with a horn handle from his pocket and shouted to Schmidt:
     "Don't move!  For goodness'  sake, don't move! And hold the dog tight !
Better take him in your arms. I beg you!"
     The fat man, thoroughly frightened, was completely  bewildered. Without
further ado, he picked up the dog in his arms and pressed him tightly to his
chest. "The old man has gone off his head!" he thought.
     "Now, stay like that!" shouted the Professor.
     Holding the magnifying glass  in front of his eyes, crouching  down, he
started to  examine  the rectangles of the  floor  carefully one  after  the
other.
     "Shall I  have to  stand long  like this, Professor?" timidly asked the
photographer  as  he  followed  with  alarm  the  strange movements  of  the
Professor.
     "Put  one  foot here!" the  Professor yelled  at him, pointing with his
finger at the nearest rectangles of the parquet.
     Schmidt awkwardly moved his  foot  and pressed Jack  so tightly that he
wriggled in his arms and started to whimper.
     "Shut  up!" whispered  Schmidt,  watching  the Professor  with  growing
fright.
     "Now - the other foot! Put it here!"
     The fat man followed without protest.
     Thus, step by  step, the Professor conducted the photographer,  who was
quite dumb with astonishment, to the doorway.
     "And now," gruff-gruffed1 the Professor, throwing the  door  wide open,
"please go away!"
     Schmidt had hardly got  outside before the door banged in  his face. He
could hear the lock being turned.
     The fat  man dropped  Jack,  spluttered with fright and dashed down the
stairway, losing his sandals, out of breath, looking over his shoulder every
minute.
     Jack, with a great bark, plunged after him.
     And they  did not stop running until they  reached the  nearest militia
post.2

     * * * * *

     A motor-car with blue stripes on its sides drove at high speed into the
courtyard.  Several militiamen sprang  out,  called out  the  caretaker  and
hastened to the fifth floor home of Professor Enotoff.

     1 Russians make use  of words which show what they mean by their sound.
"Gruff-gruff" has been made up  and is  used in various places to illustrate
this. - Translator.
     2 In  the  Soviet Union "policemen" no longer exist; in their place are
"Militiamen" who occupy "Militia posts," not "police stations."

     But the Professor did not appear to be at home. On the door of his flat
there hung a note, pinned up with new drawing pins:

     Don't look for me. It will be quite useless.
     Professor J. H. Enotoff.






     The wonder-working  liquid -  The bewildering  behaviour of shorts  and
sandals - A very ordinary room is  transformed in a very extraordinary way -
Adventures  on  the  window-sill - Karik and Valya  set  off on  an  amazing
journey


     WHAT HAD  HAPPENED WAS JUST THIS. On the evening of the day previous to
that on which the children had vanished, Karik was sitting  in the  study of
Professor Enotoff. The evening was a  good time to have a chat with the  old
man.
     The study was  in semi-darkness  and long  dark  shadows appeared to be
climbing to the ceiling from the  black corners of the room: it seemed as if
someone  was  hiding up there and  was gazing down at the circle of light on
the big  table. Blue flames of a spirit lamp leaped up, flickered and swayed
underneath  the  curved  bottom of a glass retort.  In  the retort something
gurgled and  bubbled. Transparent  drops were falling slowly  and  musically
from a filter into a bottle.
     Karik climbed up on to the biggest leather armchair.
     Pressing his chin on the edge of the table, he gazed attentively at the
skilful hands of the Professor, trying hard not to breathe, and not to move.
     The Professor worked away, whistling, or telling  Karik amusing stories
of his childhood,  but more often talking about what he  had seen in Africa,
America or Australia - it was all very interesting, whatever he said.
     Then, rolling up the white sleeves  of his  overall,  he bent  over the
table and slowly, drop  by  drop, he poured out a  thicky oily  liquid  into
narrow little glasses. From  time to time he  threw into  these glasses some
sparkling  crystals, and  then  little clouds  would appear in  the  liquid,
slowly circle  round and drop to the bottom. After  this, the old man poured
something blue out of a measure and the liquid became, for some reason, rose
coloured.
     All this, naturally, was most interesting, and Karik  was ready to stay
there all night.
     But suddenly, the Professor hastily dried his hands on a towel, grasped
the large retort by the neck and rapidly covered it up with blue paper.
     "Well, that's that!"  he said. "At last I can congratulate myself on  a
success."
     "It's ready?" asked Karik, cheerfully.
     "Yes. All that remains now is to take the colour out of  it, and . . ."
The Professor snapped his fingers, and in a weird voice sang:

     0 beauteous, miraculous fluid!
     They'll all ask: How did you do it?

     Karik  could  not  help frowning: the Professor  sang  so  loudly,  but
unfortunately  he had no ear for music and sang a melody which resembled the
wailing of the wind in a chimney pipe. "Suppose  the rabbit won't drink it?"
questioned  Karik.  "Won't  drink  it!"  The  Professor  just  shrugged  his
shoulders. "We'll make it drink . .  . but that  must wait for to-morrow . .
.but now.  .  . ."  The  old man looked  at the  clock and  started to fuss:
"Oh-oh-oh, Karik! We've  stayed up far  too late. Eleven o'clock.  Yes. It's
two minutes past eleven!"
     Karik  realised that it  was  time to  go home. With a sigh, he climbed
down reluctantly from the armchair and demanded:
     "You won't begin without me to-morrow?"
     "Not under any circumstances," assured the Professor, shaking his head.
"That I promise you."
     "And can Valya come?"
     "Valya?" The Professor thought  over this. "Well, why not  .  . . bring
Valya. . . ."
     "Nothing will happen very suddenly?"
     "Everything  will happen," said the Professor  confidently, as he  blew
out the spirit lamp.
     "And will the rabbit turn into a flea?"
     "Oh, no," laughed the Professor. "The rabbit will remain a rabbit."
     "But tell me, Professor. . . ."
     "No, no, I will not  tell you anything more. Quite enough. We can leave
our conversation  until to-morrow. Go home, my young friend. I am tired, and
it is high time you were in bed."
     All night long, Karik tossed from side to side. He dreamt he saw a pink
elephant, so  tiny that you could put  him in  a  thimble. The  elephant was
eating  jam, then  ran along the table, round  a saucer, playing such pranks
that he upset the salt and  nearly got drowned in the mustard. Karik rescued
him from  the  mustard pot and started to clean him up,  standing  him in  a
little dish, but the elephant wrenched himself away and gave Karik a blow on
the shoulder with  his trunk. Then he suddenly jumped  up on to Karik's head
and said  in a  queer girlish voice,  vaguely familiar: "What is the matter,
Karik? Why are you shouting?"
     Karik opened his eyes. Beside his bed, in a dressing-gown, stood Valya.
     "Aha!  you  -  awake  already?"  said  Karik.  "Grand!  Dress  yourself
quickly."
     "What for?"
     "We  must start. Going  to  the  Professor's.  Oo-oo, what  will happen
to-day . . .? Such wonders! . . . miracles!"
     "But what?"
     "Dress yourself quickly."
     "I'll put on shorts and sandals," said Valya.
     "And I'll do the same."
     Looking under the bed for his sandals, Karik told her in a whisper:
     "Understand: Professor John has invented a pink liquid."
     "Does it taste nice?" asked Valya, buckling the strap of her sandals.
     "I don't know . .  . it's for rabbits . .  . he is going  to give it to
them to-day . . . make them drink it, and then. . . . Oo-oo, my word!"
     Valya's eyes opened widely.
     "And what will happen to them?" she asked in a whisper.
     "He doesn't know yet. This is just an experiment. Come on quickly!"
     The  children  quietly  tiptoed  through  their mother's  room.  Mother
shouted something  after them, but Karik grabbed Valya by the hand and raced
off with her.
     "Keep quiet,"  he whispered, "or she'll make us clean  our teeth, wash,
and wait for breakfast. Then we shall most certainly be late."
     Having dashed across  the courtyard, they darted into the main entrance
of the flats, up on  to the fifth floor,  stopping  at last  in front of the
door, where the bell did not work and callers were instructed to knock.
     Karik knocked - no one answered. He pushed the door - it opened.
     The children went into the semi-darkness of a hall. On the wall a large
mirror glittered. Immediately opposite the children, a bronze idol gazed out
of a glass case. The  Professor had brought it from China, where some of the
Chinamen  actually  pray  to  these  hideous  dummies.  In  the  Professor's
household it served as a doorkeeper. And  a most excellent doorkeeper it was
and never grumbled "shut the door after you."
     In all other respects, it was very like one  of the living doorkeepers,
and like them could watch the door silently all day.
     On the hall-stand there hung the Professor's heavy winter fur coat, his
overcoat and some sort of a raincoat with big checks like a chess board.
     All  was  silent in the flat;  except that  the  tick-tock  of  a clock
sounded a measured  beat in the dining room, and in  the kitchen, water  was
dripping musically from the tap.
     "We'll  go  in,"  said  Karik. "The Professor is  certain to  be in his
study."
     But in the study there was no Professor. The children decided to wait.
     The  windows of the study  were  wide  open. The sun  lit up  the white
table,  covered  with curving jars, vessels and retorts.  Fine  glass tubing
stood up like flowers in the glass vessels. Nickel-plated cups gave blinding
reflections of the sun. The brass of the microscope sparkled cheerfully, and
on the ceiling the sunbeams frolicked.
     Along  the wall, there was  fixed a  glass case full of  books -  thick
books and thin books. The titles were hard to understand:
     The  Ecology of  Animals,  Hydrobiology,  Chironomidae, Ascaridae. They
were the sort of books children do not touch.
     The  children wandered  round the  study, twisted  the  screws  of  the
microscope, sat  in the leather  armchair, on which, with its empty  sleeves
flung  apart, lay the white overall of the Professor;  and then they started
to look at the jars.
     Between two retorts, Valya noticed a tall, narrow glass. It was full to
the  brim with a silvery clear liquid. Little bubbles, which glittered, rose
from the bottom and burst on the surface. It was very like soda water.
     Valya carefully took the tall glass in her hand. It was as cold as ice.
She raised it to her face and smelt it. The  liquid had a scent like peaches
and something else she could not recognise. It was very appetising.
     "Oh, how good it smells!" cried out Valya.
     "Put  it  back  in its place," said Karik, crossly. "You  mustn't touch
anything. That may be a poison. Come away from the table. Do you hear?"
     Valya put the glass back in its place, but she did not leave the table;
the liquid smelt so delicious that she wanted to sniff it again.
     "Valya,  come  away!"  said  Karik. "Or else I'll  tell Mother.  Honour
bright, I will!"
     Valya went round  the table, sat in  the armchair, but quickly returned
and found herself once more opposite the delicious liquid.
     "Do you  know,  Karik, it  is soda  water!" she  said, and she suddenly
wanted desperately to  drink it, just  as if  she  had  been  eating  salted
herrings all day long.
     "Don't touch it!" shouted Karik.
     "But if I want a drink?" asked Valya.
     "Go home and drink tea."
     Valya didn't answer a word. She went over to the window, looked out  of
it, down at the courtyard; but when Karik  turned away, she quickly  skipped
over to the table, seized the tumbler and took a sip.
     "I say, it's delicious!" she half-whispered.
     "Valya, you are mad!" snapped Karik.
     "Oh, Karik, it's so nice! Try it!" And she held  out the tumbler to her
brother.
     "Cold and so nice . . . never tasted anything like it."
     "And suppose it suddenly  poisons  you!" said Karik, looking doubtfully
at the silvery fluid.
     "Poison would be bitter," smiled Valya, "but this is so delicious."
     Karik shifted from foot to foot.
     "It is sure  to be some  sort  of rubbish!" he said, stretching out his
hand for the glass in an undecided way.
     "It  is certainly not rubbish. You try  it. It  smells like peaches but
the taste is like lemonade. Only much nicer."
     Karik looked round. If  the Professor were to come in at this minute, a
rather unpleasant conversation  would ensue. But as there  was nobody in the
study except Valya, Karik hastily took a few gulps and put the glass back in
its former place.
     "But it  certainly tastes  nice!" said he. "Only  we  mustn't drink any
more  or  the  Professor  will  notice it. Let's sit  in the window. He will
surely be back soon and we shall begin the experiments.
     "All right," sighed Valya, and looked sadly at the glass  and its tasty
contents.
     The  children  climbed  on to  the  divan  and  from  thence on to  the
window-sill. With  their heads  hanging out  they  lay, 'their feet dangling
behind them, and gazed down on the courtyard below.
     "Oo, what a height!"  said  Valya,  and actually spat so  as  to  watch
something fall. "Would you jump down?"
     "Jump?" answered Karik. "I would with a parachute."
     "But without a parachute?"
     "Without a parachute? No, without a parachute you cannot jump from such
heights."
     Suddenly, against the window pane there banged a blue  dragonfly  which
fell on to the window-sill.
     "A dragonfly!" shouted Valya. "Look, look!"
     "Mine!" shouted Karik.
     "No, mine!" screamed Valya. "I saw it first."
     The  dragonfly  lay  on  the   window-sill  between  Karik  and  Valya,
helplessly moving its tiny feet.
     Karik  stretched out  his hand towards  the dragonfly, and suddenly  he
felt  that his shorts were dropping off. He  stooped  quickly but  could not
catch them: the shorts slid off and after them fell his sandals.
     Karik then wanted to jump off the window-sill on to the  divan standing
by the window, but the divan suddenly started to drop away down, just like a
lift leaving the top floor. Unable to grasp what was happening, Karik looked
around in confusion, and then saw that the whole room was suddenly expanding
both upwards and downwards.
     "What's happened?" he screamed.
     Walls,  floor and ceiling  were  moving away from each  other like  the
bellows of a huge  concertina. The electric light was  hurrying away up with
the ceiling. The floor was falling precipitately down.
     Hardly  a  minute  had  passed,   but   the  room  was  already  almost
unrecognisable.
     High  above overhead, there swung a gigantic glass  balloon hung around
with huge transparent icicles which gleamed in the sunlight.
     This was the chandelier.
     Far  below,  there  stretched  a  boundless  yellow field  divided into
regular rectangles. On the  rectangles were piled  square wooden blocks with
burnt ends. By them lay a long white tube on which there was printed in huge
letters "Navy cut." One end  of this was burnt and covered by a great cap of
grey ash. Nearby, like immense leather mountains, stood the dark  armchairs,
on one of which lay the Professor's white overall looking like snow covering
the mountain.
     Where  lately had been  the  bookcase there now  stood a  skyscraper of
glass and  brown  beams.  Through the  glass  could be seen books as  big as
five-storied houses.
     "Karik,  what  is all this?"  Valya  asked  quite calmly,  looking with
curiosity at the amazing transformation of the room.
     It was only then that Karik noticed Valya. She  was standing beside him
without sandals and without shorts.
     "Look, Karik,  isn't it funny!" she giggled. "It must be the experiment
beginning. Ooh!"
     Before  Karik succeeded in  answering, something beside them started to
make a  noise and to thump. Thick  clouds of dust rose from the window-sill.
Valya clung on to Karik's shoulder. At that moment there was a puff of wind.
Dust flew up and slowly started to settle.
     "Ooh!" shouted Valya.
     In the spot  where just  a  moment  or two  ago  there  had lain a tiny
dragonfly, there now moved a thick, long, log-like, jointed body with a huge
hook at the end of it.
     The brown body,  covered with turquoise  blue splashes, was contracting
in  spasms. The  joints  moved, sometimes sliding over each other, sometimes
turning sideways. Four  huge transparent wings, covered with a dense  web of
glittering threads, trembled in the air. A monstrous head hammered  upon the
window-sill.
     "Kari-ik!" whispered Valya. "What is this?"
     "Sh-sh-sh!"
     Treading  carefully, Karik started to cross the window-sill  which  now
was  like a wooden motor road,  but,  having  taken  a few steps, he stopped
aghast.
     He  was standing  on the edge of a precipice. It seemed to him that  he
was looking down from the height of the St.  Isaac's Cathedral.  It was then
that Karik realised what had happened. He returned to Valya, took her by the
hand and, hiccupping with fright, said:
     "It... it must have been the water for the rabbits... do you understand
. . . the Professor's experiment has succeeded . . . only you and I have got
small and not the rabbits."
     Valya didn't understand anything.
     "But what is this?" she asked, pointing  at the monster  which was  now
lying motionless on the window-sill.
     "That? The dragonfly!
     "So enormous?"
     "Not  at all enormous," gloomily replied  Karik, "it  is the same as it
was. On the contrary it is we who have become tiny . . . like fleas. . . ."
     "Isn't that interesting?" said Valya cheerfully.
     "You  fool!"  Karik  was  really  angry.  "There  is  nothing   at  all
interesting about it. They'll put us in ajar and start looking at us under a
microscope."
     "In my opinion," said Valya confidently, "they will not  have a  chance
to look at us. The Professor will come and make us big again."
     "Oh, yes, big again! He won't even notice us!"
     "But we'll shout!"
     "He won't hear us!"
     "Won't hear us? Why? He is not deaf, is he?"
     "No,  he is not deaf, but  our  voices  are  just about as strong as  a
midge's voice."
     "Is that so?"  Valya  smiled unconvinced, and then shouted  at  the top
other voice: "Oho!  Here we are!" She looked at Karik and asked: "What about
it? Difficult to hear?"
     "All right for us, but no good for the Professor."
     "But what will happen to us?"
     "Nothing particular. They'll whisk us off the window-sill with a duster
and trample us underfoot, that's all. . . ."
     "Who will whisk us off?"
     "The Professor himself."
     "Whisk us off with a duster?"
     "Yes, certainly! He'll start to clear up  the dust  with his whisk! And
off we'll go with the dust!"
     "But we  . . . but . . . we - Listen, Karik,  I have already thought of
something .  . . . Do  you know  what  -  we can sit  on  the dragonfly. The
Professor  will notice  the dead dragonfly and most  certainly  will take it
over  to  his  table, and then we can get on to his microscope  and  he will
catch  sight of us - of course he will catch sight of us! And then  he  will
make us big again. Let's climb on to the dragonfly quickly."
     Valya clutched Kari& by the hand and they ran to the dragonfly.
     "Get up on to it!"
     Helping  one another,  the  children  nimbly clambered  up  on  to  the
dragonfly,  but they  had  only just sat down  when the dragonfly started to
quiver, to beat its lumbering wings, to turn heavily and pant and  puff like
some machine. The children could feel a strong muscular body bending beneath
them.
     "Oy, it's still alive. Jump down quickly!" screamed Valya.
     "Don't worry, don't worry. Hold on tighter."
     The children clung with hands and  legs to  the body of  the dragonfly,
but  it  wriggled  its  whole  body, endeavouring  to  free  itself from the
unpleasant burden. Karik and Valya rocked and  bounced  as if  they were  on
springs.
     "It will throw us off! Oh, it will throw us  off any minute!" whimpered
Valya.
     "Just wait!" shouted Karik. "I'll throw it off. . . . There, stop it!"
     He slid up to the head of the  dragonfly, bent over and hit it with all
his strength several times in its eye with his fist.
     The dragonfly shuddered, twisted itself and sank down.
     "It appears to be dead again," said Valya.
     "We shall see."
     Karik slid off the dragonfly, went  all around it and then  seized with
both  hands one of  the clear,  mice-like wings and tried  to raise  it. The
dragonfly didn't stir.
     "It's dead," said Karik, confidently clambering up on to the dragonfly.
     For some time  the children sat silently, looking every now and then at
the  door,  but they soon  became  bored and began to examine the dragonfly.
Karik perched himself on the wing and tried  to tear it  away from the body.
But the wing was too strong. Then he jumped on the head of the dragonfly and
knocked its eyes with his heels.
     "0-ooch, what huge eyes! Look, Val! Aha!"
     Valya  timidly stretched out her hand and touched an eye  which  was as
cold as if it had been moulded out of crystal glass.
     "Dreadful things!"
     The dragonfly certainly  had wonderful eyes - huge and  protruding like
glass lanterns. Covered with thousands of even facets, they seemed to be lit
with bluey-green light from within.
     These strange eyes looked at both Karik and Valya at  one and the  same
time, and  indeed  were looking also at the courtyard, at  the  sky,  at the
ceiling of the room and at the floor. It seemed that in each eye there shone
a thousand separate greenish  eyes,  all of  which were watching attentively
like a hawk. In front of those enormous  eyes, on the very edge of the head,
were  three more small brown eyes,  and these also attentively followed  the
children.
     "Do you know," said  Valya,  "it is alive in spite of everything.  It's
watching, Karik, don't you see?"
     "Well, what about it?"
     "You must  kill it  again. It  will suddenly come to life. Do  you know
what dragonflies feed on?"
     "On grass  or the sap  of flowers, I should think," said Karik,  rather
uncertainly. "I don't really remember. Why?"
     "I was afraid  that if it came to life it might eat us.  Who knows what
it really does eat. It would be better for us to kill it once again."
     Valya was getting down  in  order  to get away from the  dragonfly when
there appeared  to be the  noise of some explosion in the  room.  Then there
sounded regular heavy thuds.
     "What is that?" Valya stood stock-still.
     "That . . . hurrah! It's - the Professor. He is  coming!" shouted Karik
at the top of his voice.
     Valya hastened to occupy her former  place. The door banged. A wave  of
air from the window struck them. A man-mountain with a beard like a stack of
white flax came into the study.
     Then Karik and Valya screamed with all their strength.
     "Professor!"
     "Professor!"
     The man-mountain stopped. The palm of a hand the size  of a dining-room
table  shot upwards and stopped  at a twisted, shell-like ear  out  of which
there protruded tufts of grey hair  as big as drawing pencils. He looked all
around, listened carefully and shrugged his shoulders perplexedly.
     "Professor! Pro-fess-ess-or!" Karik and Valya shouted together.
     The man-mountain sighed noisily.  In the rooms  everything buzzed.  The
children  were  both very nearly thrown  off  the  dragonfly  into the stone
courtyard below.
     "He-ere we are! Over here!"
     The man-mountain stepped towards the window.
     "Hurrah!" shouted Karik. "He has heard us!"
     The man-mountain stopped.
     "Come here! Here we are! Here! We are here!" screamed the children.
     The man-mountain came over to the window.
     But suddenly  the  dragonfly started to move. It  started  beating  its
mica-like  wings, raised a cloud of dust on the window-sill  and then - with
Karik and Valya on its back - it swooped away down into the blue airy ocean.
     "Hold tight!" screamed Karik, clutching Valya by the neck.




     Adventures in the airy ocean - The gluttonous aeroplane - The unwilling
parachutists - After the big splash - The submarine prison - In the clutches
of an eight-eyed monster

     THE DRAGONFLY FLEW ON,  ITS TRANSPARENT RIGID  WINGS BEATING as noisily
as if they had been made of sheet iron.
     The wind they met seemed like  elastic, it plucked  at  their hair  and
whistled  shrilly in their  ears. It  beat  in their faces and blinded their
eyes.
     It became difficult to breathe.
     Clinging desperately to the dragonfly, gripping it with their arms  and
legs, the children rode on in mortal fright.
     "Karik!"  shouted Valya amid the howling  of the wind. "How  can I hold
on, it's pulling me off - pulling me down - the wind!"
     "Shut  up!  We'll fall off!" screamed  Karik, and nearly choked in  the
wind.
     The  wind  was blowing so hard that it seemed that it would either tear
the  heads off the children or sweep them away. They bent down to  the  very
back of the dragonfly but that did not help.
     "Lie flat, Vally!" shouted Karik, stretching himself out full length.
     Valya followed his example.
     "How's that?" shouted Karik, "better now?"
     "A little!"
     And  certainly  the blast of the wind  seemed  to have lessened at that
moment. It was even possible to open their eyes and look around.
     Not raising her head, Valya shouted, "This if too awful'"
     Amid the noise of the wind, Karik could only hear one word, "awful." He
turned slightly  back and said  as loud  and calmly  as he  could:  "Its all
right, hold on tighter!"
     The dragonfly hurried  on,  smoothly  swooping  up the  sides of aerial
mountains and then rapidly plunging down again.
     "Oy, Karik," screamed Valya, "it's like an American switchback."
     But Karik didn't hear.
     He was watching attentively the way in which  the dragonfly's mica-like
wings worked.
     The two front wings stood out in  the air practically motionless. Their
movement could barely be seen. From time to time they curved, now up and now
down,  and  then the insect either flew  lower or  higher. By these wings it
directed its flight. At the same time they supported it in the air.
     The rear wings  on the other hand flashed like propellers.  They droned
and roared as they quickly cut through the air and, flinging it behind them,
drove the dragonfly ahead.
     Then the rear wings started to lift upwards until they stood vertically
on edge like a sail.
     The wind now blew evenly along its back. The dragonfly was  noiselessly
floating in the air like an aerial yacht.
     "Oh, how interesting!" whispered Valya, "they should build an aeroplane
like this."
     Karik looked sideways at his sister  and  sniffed with displeasure. Her
lightheartedness was making him angry.
     "Sit  tighter  and shut  up!" he commanded.  But  Valya could  not  sit
silently. How indeed could  she be silent. Past them  like  trains coming to
meet them huge winged  beasts  bore on their way  swirling the children with
gusts of air. They flew past so quickly that it was impossible to grasp what
they were. Birds? Bees? Dragonflies?
     Valya every now and then shouted.
     "What's that one? What is it? You saw it, Karik?"
     They  as  near  as  anything  collided with  something  as  big  as  an
aerial-tank -  a beetle. It was all adorned with  gold and purple  colouring
and shone so blindingly in the sun that it was impossible to look at it.
     The  beetle  flew  straight  at  the  dragonfly.  A  collision   seemed
inevitable. But suddenly the beetle without  even  turning around started to
whirl backwards at the same speed.
     "It  is  going  backwards!"  screamed   Valya.  "It  can  actually  fly
backwards. Do you see?"
     Suddenly  underneath  the  wings  something buzzed  and  sang.  I  From
somewhere below there came plunging a round striped animal.  With hairy feet
drawn up against itself it was  hurrying, droning in the opposite direction,
changing direction, now this way, now that. The greenish wings of the animal
shone in the sunlight, bursting into rich green and blue flames.

     "Whatever is that?" asked Valya.
     "A fly! Only very big! Like under a microscope !"
     The distance between the fly  and  the dragonfly became less and  less.
Now  even Valya  could recognize  the  fly. It was as big as  the fly on the
poster "Beware of flies - they spread infection."
     But Valya had  not succeeded in remembering what infection  it was that
flies carried when the fly swerved aside and plunged down somewhere.
     The  dragonfly turned its  great head  just  as if  it had  been  on  a
spindle. To the  right,  to the  left, upwards, downwards flashed its  huge,
bluey-green, glassy eyes and then it shot after the fly.
     "Oh!" screamed Valya, seizing Karik by his foot.
     "Hold on!" answered Karik.
     Then started a  series  of  steep  turns,  sudden  plunges  and  rises.
Following the fly, the dragonfly now fell like a stone, now described loops,
now slid sideways, and at last flew up  to the fly and  stretched towards it
huge pincer-like claws covered with spikes.
     The  fly  turned  over  and whirled  on to its  back,  feet upwards. It
stretched its legs threateningly trying to push off the dragonfly's pincers.
     However, this did not help the fly.
     The dragonfly caught up with it. The pincers closed.
     zz zz zz beat the wings of the fly. The pincers clicked like scissors.
     Clip!
     Clop!
     And  down  towards the ground slowly  spinning in the air there dropped
the wings and feet of the unfortunate fly.
     Again the  strong  hard  pincers  closed.  They crumpled,  crushed  and
flattened the fly into  a  sort of cake and then thrust it into a broad dark
mouth.
     Karik and Valya silently gazed at one another and gently sighed.
     So that was what dragonflies fed on. "You said, 'The sap of flowers'! "
croaked Valya.
     She was  terrified. For if the  dragonfly gorged on such big flies then
Karik and Valya would be just swallowed as a joke and not noticed.
     The children became very quiet.
     Far ahead  there appeared huge coloured wings. On the ends of the wings
there were dark, velvet-like splashes. On the edges there stretched  an even
stripe just like a hem. The wings danced a id jumped in the air supporting a
flexible cigar-shaped body, like a striped airship. Long whiskers with knobs
at the end trembled and reached now upwards and now downwards.
     On flying closer the children saw on the wings beautiful scales covered
with coloured powdery dust.
     The wings whirled aimlessly in the air and fluttered like a sail in the
breeze.
     But then the rainbow-like creature  saw the dragonfly. It began  to get
nervous, hesitated in the  beat of its wings, then, closing them, started to
drop headlong downwards.
     However, it did not succeed in evading the dragonfly.
     The latter darted after  it, hit it  in flight with its chest, flung it
On one side and, when  it  turned over in the air, the dragonfly seized  it,
turned  its  own  head  and, having torn  off  the  wings, devoured it in an
instant.
     And once again the dragonfly hurried on like an aeroplane: its powerful
wings hummed and overhead the wind sang incessantly.
     "What was that?" asked Valya.
     "A butterfly!" shouted Karik,  above the  noise  of the wind. "It  must
have been a butterfly!"
     The dragonfly was evidently very hungry that day.
     It quickly overtook and swallowed another  fly, yet another butterfly -
this  time  white and blue  splashes - and then  a  gnat. "What  a glutton,"
yelled Karik.
     Valya  only  shrank  into herself,  feeling chilly. Clouds were passing
across the sky.
     From time to time they shut out the sun and then the ground was covered
with cold blue shadows.
     The  children  noticed with  astonishment how  strangely  the dragonfly
behaved when clouds crossed the sun.
     No  sooner was the sun shut out than  the dragonfly became somehow limp
and slowly, like a glider, swooped downwards.
     But directly the  sun  peeped  from behind  the clouds,  {he  dragonfly
became lively. A  light beat of  the wings - and it soared upwards and  once
again started to hunt.
     "Karik," shouted Valya. "Do you see what is happening to it?"
     "Yes, yes!" Karik nodded his head. He also noticed something else.
     On coming into the stream of the sun's  rays the body of the  dragonfly
expanded and became  hard and  smooth.  But as  soon as there came the  cold
shade from the clouds it contracted and became wrinkled like a balloon which
has been punctured with a pin.
     What caused this effect the children did not know, and they  were quite
unable to understand the strange behaviour of the dragonfly.
     The hunt continued.
     The dragonfly devoured flies, butterflies  and gnats without tiring. If
the children had  decided to  give their living aeroplane any name, a better
name1 than "Death  to gnats and flies" would  ., certainly be hard to  think
of.
     In chasing after a  white butterfly  the dragonfly made a  steep  turn.
Valya slid from  the back of  the  winged glutton and would have undoubtedly
fallen to the ground had not Karik seized her foot.
     But Karik himself could barely hold on to the dragonfly.
     "Help!" shouted Valya.
     "I ca-can't," yelled Karik.
     Valya hung down  from him like a heavy  weight. It was vain for  him to
clutch the smooth, springy sides of the dragonfly. His hands grew stiff. His
fingers slipped. With the despair of one about to perish, he hooked his chin
under the wing  of the insect and put one arm around the springy body of the
glutton.
     But to pull back was quite beyond his strength.
     "No! I can't do any more," screamed Karik.
     He  hastily  peered downwards. Far below as if in  a  fathomless  abyss
there floated  underneath the  blue surface of an immense lake. Green rushes
stuck out  of the  water  crowding along the  shore. The white cups of water
lilies stood out as if  they had been glued on to the blue background of the
lake.
     The dragonfly made a sharp, rolling turn.
     A powerful  blast of air hit Karik in the chest, his  hands slipped for
the last time along the smooth sides of the dragonfly.
     He shut his eyes.  His heart throbbed  and then stood still. There  was
nothing under his legs! He was falling!
     With the wind whistling in their ears the children plunged downwards.
     "Ee-ee-ee," squealed Valya.
     "Ah-ah-ah," screamed Karik.
     As they fell they turned somersaults.
     Several times sky and earth changed places.
     Sky.
     Earth.
     Sky.
     Earth.
     Oo-ouch!
     With great  fountains of spray the children plunged into the water like
shells and sank like stones to the bottom.
     Having struck  the bottom  with  their  feet  they bobbed  back to  the
surface like corks. They  struck  out desperately with their hands and feet.
Stunned by the fall, having swallowed a lot of water, they circled around in
one place unable to imagine what had happened.
     Karik came to, first.
     "Must swim to the shore quickly.'" he shouted, spitting out water.
     "Where is the shore?" choked Valya.
     Karik turned his head to one side where, far away, could be seen a high
green wall of forest.
     "Do you think we can ever reach it?" asked Valya.
     "Of course we shall be able  to  swim there!" said  Karik, confidently,
"but we must not hurry. Now directly you feel tired - tell me! We'll rest on
our backs. Come on, swim after me!"
     Thus they swam towards the shore, splashing, spitting and blowing.
     Suddenly Valya yelled out:
     "Look! What is that? It is coming right after us."
     A strange sort of animal was sliding over the water on half-bent legs.
     "What is it?"
     "I  don't  know!"  whispered  Karik, with  his  head back  between  his
shoulders.
     "Will it bite?"
     "I don't know. "
     The animal slid along like a  skater on the ice getting  nearer  to the
children every minute.
     "But this  - isn't like the dragonfly, is it?" questioned  Valya, in  a
whisper.
     "I don't know -  but we must prepare for anything . . . if it  attacks,
dive as deep as you can."
     With its  long  legs  widely  separated, the  animal whisked along  the
mirror of water, cleverly manoeuvring in its course through the water weeds.
     The  skate-floats  of  its  feet left a wave  track  which  was  hardly
noticeable.
     "Yes, it is . . .  it's a water skater," shouted Karik. "That's what it
is! An ordinary water skater, only much bigger."
     The giant water skater was approaching with unbelievable swiftness. The
brown body, covered on  the underside with whitish hairs, rocked slightly as
it moved. Great globe-like eyes fixedly gazed at  the children. When turning
sharply,  the  water  skater  flung its  rear  legs backwards  and sideways,
dragging them behind, pulling them first to the right and then to the left.
     It was clearly using them as a rudder.
     The water skater now came rushing straight at them.
     "Ah ee!" screamed Valya.
     The water skater  bent its  head back raising a  long spear-like snout,
sharp as a needle. It  was  covered  with what appeared  to be rust but  was
brown, dried, blood. Its tip quivered, just as if it was on a steel spring.
     "That is what it kills with !" screamed Valya.
     The  water skater  jerked nearer and raising  its front  legs aimed its
spear straight at  Valya. At that moment Karik seized his sister by the hand
and dragged her under water.
     The children dived down. Where  a  moment ago Karik  and Valya had been
swimming there now remained a few ripples and small bubbles.
     The water skater perplexedly looked around with its globe-like eyes. It
couldn't understand what had happened.  One moment  its  prey was under  its
very nose and next. . . .
     What did it mean?
     The water  skater once  more looked around and then, pressing its snout
against its white waistcoat, hurried on sliding along the watery film.
     Blowing and spitting the children bobbed up to the surface again.
     "Where is it?" Valya was breathing heavily.
     "Oo-ouch! Don't  know!"  replied  Karik,  quietly, "apparently  it  has
skated away."
     "Where to?"
     "Come on to the shore now!" Karik grew angry. "Swim and don't talk!"
     For  some time the children swam silently looking  cautiously from side
to side.
     "Oh ! What is this?"
     Valya had got caught in  some tangled net under  the  water. She tugged
once, but it  held, she tugged harder but the net seemed to  put out feelers
and it wound them round  her left  leg up  to her knees. Valya tried to help
with  her right leg, but numbers of fine,  strong  threads wound  themselves
round this leg too.
     "Now what's up with you?" Karik turned towards his sister.
     "Nets!" yelled Valya. "Something  has  caught me! There  is a net under
the water! . . .
     Karik snorting, turned back and stretched his hand out to Valya. "Here!
Catch hold!"
     But  no sooner  than he had caught Valya by the hand than he  felt that
his legs were in fetters.
     The children were  soon thrashing  the water with every bit of strength
they could muster.
     The water bubbled round them like a boiling kettle.
     "Oh! Oh!" whimpered Valya, "I can't do anything. I can't."
     "Harder! harder! Don't give in!"
     But it  was all useless. The children could  not move  from  the  spot.
Strong clinging nets entangled now not only their legs but  their bodies and
were dragging them down . . . under the water.
     Next minute the water closed over their heads with a quiet splash.
     Choking and bubbling, the children were dragged deeper and deeper.
     Then suddenly from  somewhere strong  hands  slid  over their arms  and
legs,  tore them  out of  the nets and  squeezing them tightly  dragged them
down, down into the dark depths.
     The children were swallowing filthy, warmish water.
     Before  their eyes there  started to float yellow, spotted  circles. In
their ears a singing started.
     Gently, gently, a ringing commenced:
     "Te-ee-ee-ee-eet!"
     Another second  and they  would  have been suffocated but,  just  then,
something threw Karik  and Valya  violently upwards  and  their  lungs  were
suddenly filled with air.
     Having  breathed deeply  several times, Karik opened his eyes. He could
see the  wet  frightened face  of Valya. She had  her mouth  wide  open, was
struggling to say something, but nothing but water came out.
     The children were dangling in the air. A huge hairy paw  held them high
above the water.
     It was now possible  to breathe, but  above  their heads instead of the
friendly blue sky and jolly sun, there hung a dark vault covered with mould.
Black sinister walls rose from the water.
     Valya started to cry.
     "Now,  now!  What's the  use?" said Karik, mournfully. "Everyone has to
die some time. Don't cry, Valya."
     But he started to sob himself, and Valya cried all the louder.
     The dark water started to bubble. It appeared to be raising itself into
a lump. The lump split  open and  slowly  there  appeared  a  fat,  dripping
carcass. Streams of water  ran off  its huge rounded sides.  Then beside the
monster there appeared hairy legs and at last the children saw through their
tears - a giant spider !
     It was rocking in the water looking  at the children with cold,  wicked
eyes.
     Eight small, unwinking, snake-like eyes gazed at the children, noticing
their every movement.
     Karik and  Valya tried to tear themselves  away but the spider squeezed
them so rightly in its claw that they could not even cry out.
     The eight-eyed monster turned the children upside down and then quickly
turned them back again and started to whirl them about.
     Everything went dark about them, their ears sang.
     Karik and Valya lost consciousness.




     Professor  Enotoff  goes into another  world - The problem  of a simple
spider's web - The first hunt - The coat of armour and the  spear - The trap
- The Professor in danger



     His white trousers were  smeared with  tar and clay. His tie stuck  out
sideways. A crumpled hat sat on the  back of his  head revealing a  red  and
perspiring forehead. Dry twigs were sticking out of his beard.
     In one hand he held  a  small plywood  box. In  the other,  a long thin
pole. At the end of this  pole a red handkerchief was tied,  which fluttered
in the breeze like a flag.
     "Oo-oof!" puffed the Professor, looking around. "This appears to be the
place."
     Below at the foot of the green hillock a quiet, sleepy pond was shining
in the sun. The water-lilies on the blue motionless surface hardly stirred.
     Beyond thick clumps of reeds fish were rising.
     The Professor  put the box on  the ground and stuck the pole in  beside
it.
     "Now  we must begin,"  he sighed, and having thrown his hat  on  to the
ground started to tear out grass with both hands.
     Having torn  out a  whole armful  he carefully covered the  plywood box
with  grass then went up to the pole and thrust it in deeper, then pulled it
from side to side.
     The pole stood up firmly.
     "Excellent," said the Professor to himself.
     Thrusting a  hand into his pocket, he pulled  out a small round bottle.
Silvery bubbles were rising from the bottom colliding and bursting.
     He then  undressed, throwing his clothes  carelessly on  the grass  and
opened the bottle with the silvery liquid.
     "I think this should be quite  sufficient,"  he said aloud, looking all
around. Then he sighed sadly and, throwing his head back, drank the contents
of the bottle in one gulp.
     "Well, that's that,"  he muttered, and, with a swing of  the arm, threw
the empty bottle into the pond.
     For a little while he stood  thoughtfully gazing  at  the broad circles
which were chasing each other on the surface of the water close by.  Then he
walked down towards the pond and . . . melted as it were into nothing.
     There, where quite a  large man had been standing a moment ago, was now
just a pole sticking up with a small red flag on it. Around the foot of this
pole  were  strewn  a  crumpled  coat, waistcoat, trousers, shirt, boots and
striped socks.

     * * * * *

     What had become of the Professor?
     Having swallowed  the liquid he had stood for a  while and then started
to move step by step in his bare feet.
     Soon  everything  around  him had  started to change  in  a  miraculous
fashion.
     The grass had shot up with amazing swiftness. Each blade had grown  up,
ballooned out, becoming all the time thicker and taller.
     Hardly had a  minute passed  before a thick forest  was rustling around
him. Shining green trunks surrounded him on all sides.
     Each tree was like a gigantic bamboo.
     High above the tops of the trees huge cups were swinging - red, yellow,
blue in colour,  scattering over the forest a golden powder from which there
came a spicy, intoxicating smell.
     "Well, well!" said the Professor, wiping his hands. "I knew it would be
like this. This grass forest, of course, puts one in mind of the tropics."
     In this extraordinary forest there was neither the shade nor quiet of a
pinewood, nor was there as in a birch wood the murmur and rustle of leaves.
     No, this was a peculiar forest.
     It  gleamed green and sunny.  Bare glistening trunks rose from hillocks
or disappeared into ravines.
     A blue lake was shining and streams could be heard quietly gurgling.
     The silence was now and then broken by strange rustles. It seemed as if
somewhere quite close beside some beast was stalking the Professor.
     The going  was  difficult. Sharp leaves  scratched his  body. Every few
minutes  he  fell  into  some hole. The sun was  baking and it seemed to the
Professor that he was taking a walk in an oven.  The surface of the earth in
the forest was like a battlefield torn up by artillery shells.
     In the thick undergrowth here and there hung sticky nets and he had  to
be very careful getting around these traps.
     "Spiders'  work,"  muttered the Professor, forcing  his  way through  a
thicket.
     Now  and again  he  stopped  and  stood  for  some  time  watching with
curiosity the skilful  work  of  this forest weaver. But  in  particular  he
examined attentively the countless blobs which were liberally  scattered all
over the web.  He  naturally was aware that it was not the net  which caught
the  insects but these tiny, sticky  blobs. The wings  and legs of an insect
stuck to them just as if the blobs had  been  carpenters' glue,  after which
the insect was an easy prey for the spider.
     The Professor knew all  this a  long time ago, but  it  is one thing to
know and another thing to see it all with ones' own eyes.
     Thus a whole hour passed, but he  had quite forgotten  where he was and
why he was there.
     It  seemed to him that he was back  in his study bent over a microscope
and in front of him his old acquaintances were passing, one after the other.
     But what  a  microscope !  You can  hardly see  a whole spider  at once
through the eye-piece of a microscope.
     Certainly not.
     A microscope just allows one to see  the eye of the spider, or a tip of
its legs, or its claw resembling a comb, or the blob in its web.
     But here in front of the Professor was sitting the whole spider, big as
an ox, and it was possible  to see  at one and the  same time  all its eight
eyes, two jaws,  eight legs with  comb-claws, as well as its soft  distended
belly.
     But  what pleased the  Professor most  of all was that  the  spider was
alive and was hunting.
     Under a microscope, even the most perfect microscope, it was impossible
to see how a spider hunted its prey, but now the Professor was able to watch
this from arm's-length.
     The spider was hunting.
     It hid itself, huge and  soft, near the spread-out web from which there
stretched directly to it a sentry thread. The spider sat like a fisherman on
the bank and waited.
     There, there! the thread  was  shaking and  the spider hurled itself on
its prey,  drove its poison-carrying beak into it, killed it, and sucked the
blood out of it.
     The Professor gazed at  the spreading net and forgot everything else in
the world.
     Suddenly in the air above his head something buzzed like a shell from a
gun and crashed into the net with a whine.
     The net shook and danced up and down.
     "Aha," snorted the Professor, "that's a fine one."
     In the net a huge-winged animal struggled, twisting and floundering.
     It  was  bigger  than the  spider, certainly longer; transparent  wings
covered with veins  bent into an arch trying  to tear  away from  the sticky
blobs of the web; but tearing away from such a net was not so simple.
     "A wasp! Ah, yes, the very  thing," announced  the Professor to a class
which was not there, and walked right up to the net.
     The spider resting  on its  comb-like feet quickly slid across the web,
combing  it with his feet as  one  does one's hair.  He ran  around the wasp
once, and then again, and then cautiously started to creep up behind it.
     The wasp lunged out with its sharp sting.
     The spider leaped back and began to run around the wasp. It had only to
start approaching the wasp  when  the  latter would twist  its striped  body
around and threateningly stab with its smooth sharp sting.
     The spider tried to  come  upon the  wasp from  the  back and  from the
sides, but each time the sharp sting flourishing like a spear met him.
     "Curious, very curious!" muttered  the Professor, watching the wasp and
spider fighting.
     At length after useless and fruitless endeavours the spider had to give
up the battle with its dangerous prey.
     Describing a wide  circle, it fussily ran around its web shaking it and
making the wasp jump about as if it were in a cradle.
     The wasp struggled more furiously.
     Running around the  wasp  the  spider then hastily  broke  thread after
thread. At length the wasp enveloped in web crashed down on to the ground on
the edge of a ravine.
     Helplessly floundering and becoming more  and more entangled  it rolled
down to the bottom  of the  steep slope, and after it  clattered  stones and
earth.
     "Ha,  ha! Now that is  excellent," rejoiced  the  Professor. "That just
suits me."
     He ran to the edge of the ravine and looked down.
     At the bottom  of the  ravine  the huge  wasp  struggled  and  twisted,
covered with web. It twisted  its striped  body rocking on the ground trying
to  get clear  of the web, but the web clung to its wings, feet and head all
the more closely.
     The Professor hurried along the edge of the ravine carefully looking at
his feet. He was after something.
     At last he  found a big rock with sharp corners. He could  not possibly
lift it. It was several times as big as himself. But as luck would have  it,
it  was hanging over the edge of the  ravine. It just  needed a good rocking
and a shove and it should fall down to the bottom of the ravine.
     The Professor got  a  good foothold  and started  to try and  shake the
rock. It  wasn't  at all  light  work. The rock stirred  and shifted like  a
Rotton tooth, but for all that it held firmly.
     The Professor puffed like a steam engine. "You're going. You're going,"
he muttered, shoving the rock with his shoulder. "You're  moving, that means
you will fall."
     Only  five minutes before he had expected to give this stone one  shove
and it would fall but now it appeared not so simple.
     "We  will rest a little,"  he  said, breathing  heavily and wiping  his
perspiring face with the back of his hand.
     He sat down on the stone.
     Almost immediately  above his head  the spider was  scurrying backwards
and forwards making a new web. On the underside of the  spider he could  see
four mounds distended like wine skins.
     "Spinnerets," the Professor remembered.
     Each of them was considerably larger than the Professor's head.
     He  could   see  without  any  microscope  hundreds  of  holes  in  the
spinnerets, out of which were oozing drops of thick liquid. These  stretched
out like  threads dragging  behind the  spider and came together  in a thick
rope with shining blobs on it.
     In a few minutes the spider had finished the repair of the torn net and
having immediately attached to it a sentry  thread  went off to the edge  of
the web in a comfortable corner.
     "And what am I up to?" the Professor angrily jumped to his feet.
     He summoned all his strength, pressed his  shoulder to the rock and his
feet to the ground.
     "Now we'll get you !"
     Push.
     "Hah, hah! We'll give it to you! Ho, ho! There!"
     The rock swayed, hung over the ravine as if thinking, and suddenly with
a rumble and roar crashed downwards raising a thick cloud of dust.
     When the dust settled, the Professor shouted loudly.
     "Hurrah!"
     The rock lay at the bottom of the ravine.
     Under it the crushed wasp waggled, convulsively straightening its legs.
     Its long striped body now compressed  itself and now expanded like  the
bellows of a concertina.
     "Good! very good!" said the Professor, wiping his hands.
     After a little thought he lowered  his feet over the edge of the ravine
and,  holding on with his  hands to roots and  protruding  stones,  he began
cautiously to climb down to the bottom.
     When he got  to  the  wasp  it no longer moved, the Professor kicked it
with his foot and touched it with his hands - the wasp did not stir.
     "There we  are  !" he said,  and  whistling  something  unrecognisable,
calmly set about his work.
     He had to  work a whole hour  before he succeeded  in pulling its  long
spear-like sting out of the wasp's body.
     "A capital weapon!" he said, wiping the sting-spear with his hands.
     With such  a spear it would not be so terrifying wandering in the grass
jungle looking for Karik and Valya. In case of an attack the Professor could
not only protect himself but actually set about anything that might think of
eating him.
     Now  it  became  necessary to think about  clothes. Whatever else might
happen the Professor was quite unprepared to journey through the wood naked.
     Skilfully wielding the sharp spear he cut the spider's web in which the
wasp was entangled, carefully  cleaned  it from sticky  blobs  and wound  it
around himself until its soft silky rope fitted tightly around his body.
     The suit was not very beautiful but it would be very hard-wearing.
     "Just as if I was in armour!" said the Professor, looking at himself in
his new apparel with great delight.
     Throwing the spear on his shoulder he jauntily set off on his journey.
     Tramping  across the  pitted  earthen floor of the forest  from time to
time  he stopped and as he was deciding on his path  he listened.  Sometimes
having  heard  a noise  he hid himself behind one of  the  huge green trunks
looking anxiously from side to side.
     Such precaution was not unnecessary.
     The grass jungle teemed with monster animals.
     Rattling  like  sheets  of  iron,  dragonflies  flew  over   more  like
aeroplanes than simple insects.
     Jumping over the tops  of the trees  green  grasshoppers zoomed past as
big as  motor  buses. Between  the  trunks  there slid  striped caterpillars
shaking the undergrowth with their bodies. They were  so big that  they gave
the  impression to  the  Professor of something  like a goods train  passing
through the forest.
     Now and then stamping their feet centipedes ran past. Any of them might
squash the Professor into the ground with one foot.
     He had neither the time nor the inclination to fight with these animals
of the grass jungle.
     He decided  to  go into battle only if one of  these  monsters attacked
him.
     He travelled on towards the lake which showed blue through  the gaps in
the trees.
     As  he  went from  tree to  tree  he  looked with  interest at the huge
flowers, trying to guess their names. But now he found he could not say with
any certainty  which of  the  flowers was  a daisy,  which  a  buttercup  or
marigold.
     All the flowers were  so immense that many of  them conveyed nothing at
all to the Professor, which amused him.
     "Now that, for example," he sighed, looking at a blue ball resembling a
stork's nest. "What is that called in our world?"
     But who was there now to answer the Professor's questions?
     Above the top  of the forest quietly  rocked pink jars, gigantic yellow
stars, red globes, blue baskets.
     Out  of the red globes  tubes  of  beetroot red were sticking, like the
prickles of a hedgehog.
     "What on earth is that?" the Professor  puzzled and,  suddenly  hitting
his forehead  with his hand, he shouted laughingly  -  "Clover! Ordinary red
clover!"
     Beside the clover flowers there swung in the wind, shaking and dancing,
lilac  bells.  They were lit up by the  sun, and  the ground under them also
seemed lilac.
     "Now  I do  know  you?"  said the Professor,  happily. "Some poetry has
actually been written about you." And he sang at the top of his voice:


     "My tender little Harebells,
     Who bathe the steppes in blue,
     Your gaze seems full of deep spells
     With its dark, mysterious hue."


     "You  can gaze at me as much as you like,"  grinned the Professor, "but
if one of your "dark, mysterious" flowers gets torn off and falls on me, I'm
a gonner."
     Thus did the Professor observe with great interest a new and unfamiliar
world as he picked his way through the grass jungle, stopping every so often
to rest.
     Soon there was  revealed before his eyes  the smooth surface of a  lake
stretching away without bounds.
     The water sparkled in the sun like a gigantic mirror.
     "This must be  it,"  said the  Professor,  thoughtfully and holding his
spear more firmly he quickened his steps.
     He came out of the grassy forest.
     Across  his path  there was running a long  narrow ditch filled to  the
edges with brown water.
     The  Professor took  a run,  jumped and cleared the ditch quite easily,
but as he landed he felt the  ground sliding away under his feet and opening
up.
     He gave a cry and with his legs waving in the air  vanished into a dark
hole.
     Having fallen to the bottom he quickly picked himself up and started to
walk around.
     Over his head far away was the  blue sky. A weak light lit up the walls
of the  hole which appeared thickly matted with roots. Immediately  in front
of him the Professor could see the mouth of a dark tunnel.
     He bent down,
     The tunnel breathed at him dark and cold.
     "That's that," said the Professor.
     He turned away from the tunnel and started to climb the hanging wall of
the hole, getting grips for his hands and feet in the roots.
     He had practically reached  the  top and  -it remained only  for him to
stretch out his arm and the sun would once again  have  been  shining on his
head,  but at the very moment when his head was appearing out of the hole he
spotted right  in front  of him the hideous snout of some  sort  of monster.
"Excuse me," hiccupped the startled Professor, and hastily  ducking his head
disappeared back into the hole.
     The monster, his great feet moving, approached the hole.
     The Professor's eyes met the eyes of the monster.
     "A beetle," he almost shouted, "a dung-beetle."  Beside  the beetle  he
saw an immense grey pear-shaped object. The beetle turned to the pear-shaped
object and set about shoving it towards the hole.
     The Professor had not succeeded  in remembering the Latin  name for the
beetle,  when the grey pear toppled  over the edge of the hole and  shut out
the sky.
     It was now pitch dark in the hole.
     The  Professor, frightened, quickly  clambered  up the side of the hole
and  tried to  push the pear away with his  shoulder  and head,  using every
ounce of his strength. He tried to work his  way out of the dungeon, but all
in vain.
     The pear would not budge.
     He shoved harder, but at that moment the beetle was pressing on the top
of the pear with such  violence  that the pear drove down into the hole like
the cork in a bottle.
     The shock flung the Professor downwards.
     Earth  came crumbling down  on his  head and  a  sharp  stem hit  him a
painful blow in the chest.
     "Ow!" he croaked and, rubbing his injured chest, he made to get up.
     Suddenly he realised he was not alone in the darkness of the hole.
     He hurriedly gazed around.
     Behind his back something rustled  as  if  it was slowly and cautiously
stealing up to him.
     He  felt around  with his  hands. His  fingers  touched  his spear.  He
grasped it tightly, and quickly jumping to his feet pressed his back  to the
wall.
     "Ts-z-a-a-k"  Something sounded right  beside him. The Professor  heard
breathing - hesitating breathing. He started  to wave his spear  in front of
himself and then hoarsely shouted. "Who is it? Who is there?"




     In the Spider's  lair - The  battle in  the under-water prison -  Valya
finds it stuffy - A vagabond vegetable - Karik finds a way out

     KARIK  BECAME CONSCIOUS.  HE OPENED  HIS EYES AND THEN suddenly  it all
came back to him. He remembered how he had flown with Valya  on a dragonfly.
He  remembered the  ghastly  snout of the  water skater and then the  strong
hairy legs of the spider.
     All  around it  was dark and  there  was a rank smell. Some  way  below
beyond his  feet water  quietly lapped and just beside him  someone breathed
softly.
     Karik lay  stretched  out at full length, but what he was  lying  on he
could not make out. His head sang, his arms and legs were tingling with pins
and needles, his eyelids seemed too heavy to open.
     He  groaned  and then  immediately  recognised the frightened voice  of
Valya.
     "Quiet! He is here!"..
     Karik  quickly  turned his  head and  bumped  his  forehead on  Valya's
temple.
     Valya made a choked shout.
     Karik tried  to move away from her but  could not. Someone had  wound a
thick cord round them from their feet to their heads fastening them securely
together.
     Karik tried the harder to escape  and suddenly as a result of a furious
wriggle he  and Valya started to sway from side to side as if they were in a
swing.
     "Quieter!" whispered Valya, hurriedly.  "Please be quieter! It's - it's
just below us."
     "The spider?"
     "A - ay - It has just carried us here - I heard - "
     "Aren't you frightened?"
     "Not half! Aren't you?"
     "I am, but look here, don't cry. Let's try to escape first of all."
     Karik moved  apart  the loops  of  the cord with  his head  and  peered
around. Below there  lay  the  dark water out of which  rose up black smooth
walls and overhead was a sloping roof.
     The children were hanging in mid-air in the den.
     "What do you think!" whispered Karik. "It's hung us up - fastened us to
the roof."
     "M-m" nodded Valya, "it hung us up. I thought as much."
     "But what for?"
     "I've been trying to think. What for?"
     "Well, haven't you thought of anything?"
     "No."
     Karik succeeded in  pulling first one arm and then the other out of the
spider's binding cords.
     "What are you doing, Karik?"
     "Be quieter! Shut up!"
     Trying not to pant, Karik in the end freed his head and started to look
below.
     Just immediately below the children the spider  was scurrying about. It
ceaselessly moved about in the  water  along the walls  of the den  stopping
from time to rime as if listening for something.
     From  the roof above huge drops  of water formed and  broke off to fall
with a splash into the water throwing up showers of spray to the roof.
     Karik was able to distinguish a dull noise coming from somewhere.
     Somewhere  right  beside  them  -  just behind the  wall  it  seemed  -
something was not exactly knocking and not exactly scratching.
     It was as if someone outside was moving around feeling the wall looking
for a door.
     This noise definitely was disturbing the spider.  It would first of all
start climbing the wall  and then moving its long  legs would back away from
the wall.
     "Do you hear?" said Valya, quietly. "Something is moving the other side
of the wall."
     "Yes, yes,"  whispered Karik.  "I  hear  it."  The noise started to get
louder and louder. It seemed as if someone was beating on the wall with soft
but heavy fists.
     "Something is trying to get  in here!" breathed Valya.  At  that moment
the walls of the underwater house shook  so  vigorously that the children in
their spider's  cradle  were  shot upwards.  The  cradle struck the wall and
started  swinging  like a pendulum. "Look!  Look at  the  spider!" whispered
Valya. The  spider  had pushed itself into the centre of  the  water and was
ceaselessly moving its feet as if feeling something  and gazing with all its
eyes at the wall of its den.
     And  suddenly the wall split open,  there  was  a  shower of pieces  of
plaster-like earth into  the water. In the gaping wall  there  appeared huge
hairy feet.
     The  feet once  again tore at the wall. The under-water house shook and
rocked. The cradle with the children was flung from side to side.
     The wall crashed  down.  Amid the noise  and splatter another spider as
like the owner of the den as are two peas, burrowed its way into the den. It
gathered its striped legs underneath its body  as  if preparing for a spring
and slowly  started to advance. The owner of  the den waved its feelers. The
spiders looked at each  other for a  moment or so. Then the owner raised its
feelers and violently hurled itself at the uninvited guest.
     In the darkness  there commenced  a  bitter struggle. Feelers  whistled
through the air and smacked  the water. Spray flew  up  to the roof and soon
the walls were covered with shaking drops of water.
     The battle of the  spiders shook the underwater den. The walls quivered
and the roof rocked.
     The children were  flung up in  the air, hurled first to the  right and
then to the left.
     Before their eyes  were glimpses of wall, roof, spiders, water and then
again wall, roof, water.
     The spiders fought  silently.  They hugged  each  other with long  legs
swaying  like wrestlers from side  to side, then jumping backwards away from
each  other  would  once again dart  at one another. Then with a swish there
whirled  up to the roof  a torn-off  leg.  It  got  caught in  the  spider's
fastenings and hung swinging above the heads of the children.
     Karik  managed successfully  to dislodge it. Rocking  in the water  the
mutilated spiders  separated for  an instant and sat breathing heavily  near
the wall; but then once more they hurled themselves at each other.
     Once more  the water foamed noisily and the walls of  the  little house
shook from the blows as if there had been an earthquake.
     The children followed  the  battle  of the  spiders with  fear,  hardly
daring to breathe.
     The  spider  fastenings  became  slacker  as  a result  of the  violent
jerking. Now it became possible for Karik and Valya to wriggle out  of their
rope cradle. First Karik climbed out and  quickly grasped the rope which led
from the roof to the cradle.
     "Come on Valya," said Karik, "get out."
     Valya stretched herself upright to her full height and stood by Karik.
     "Do you know what," she said, "we must look for something."
     "What for?"
     "Some sort of stick to defend ourselves with."
     But  wherever the  children  looked they could  see nothing  in the den
except the bare walls.
     "What  about  the leg," said  Valya, "we might use  the leg over there,
there is the torn-off leg floating." She pointed her finger down to the dark
water on which mangled legs of the spiders floated.
     "Oh! Valya," Karik whispered cheerfully. "Look,  I  believe  they  have
killed each other!"
     The children stretched their heads down.
     On  the  dark  surface  of the water  there  floated,  moving  ever  so
slightly, the  mutilated  bodies of  the  spiders. Waves  were  pushing them
towards the hole in the wall and they rocked side  by side, no longer paying
each other any attention.  The spider-owner of the den made one more attempt
to move but its head dropped helplessly into the water - dead.
     It became quite quiet in the under-water house.
     "They're dead!" cheerfully shouted Karik.
     He  bent over, stretched  his head out and spat first  on to one spider
and then on to the other.
     Neither spider budged.
     The  children  looked at  each other:  were  they dead or were they not
dead?
     Karik shouted.
     "Ehey-hey-hey!"
     The spiders floated like leather cushions blown out with air.
     "They're dead!" said Karik, now quite certain  and having measured with
his eyes the distance to the water he let go the rope. Arms and legs gleamed
in the air, and Karik hit the water like a stone.
     "Karik!  Lunatic!"  screamed Valya,  gazing at  the  fountain  of spray
shooting up at her.
     Karik's head appeared  above the water: having emerged he looked around
and swam towards the spiders.
     "Karik," screamed Valya, "come back! They are still breathing!"
     But Karik, paying no  attention to the cries of his sister, swam up  to
one of the spiders and lifting his arm out of  the water struck it violently
in the tummy.
     The spider's  tummy  made a noise like a drum. Karik quickly  swam away
but, having looked at the spider, came back  again and hit its head with the
heel  of his foot.  The  spider  never budged. Then Karik climbed on  to the
carcass as if it was a raft. and stood upright.
     "Jump!"  he shouted, waving  his hand  at Valya. "No!" Valya shook  her
head, "it's too far!"
     "What are you going  to do? Sit up there for ever? Whatever happens you
will have to jump. Come on, jump!" Valya sighed deeply.
     "Jump quickly because  maybe new spiders will come and we shall be even
worse off."
     Valya closed her eyes, flung up her arms and plumped downwards, letting
out a sort of squeak.
     A shower of spray hit Karik  and waves rocked  the spiders. Blowing and
puffing,  Valya came up out of the  water. "Climb up here!"  shouted  Karik,
drumming  with his feet  on  the  distended tummy  of the spider.  "Don't be
afraid! Give me your hand!"
     Valya  swam over to the fearsome  carcass, touched the  spider's  huge,
hairy  body  with her  hand and immediately drew her hand back and  screamed
with fright.
     "It's mo-ov-ing!"
     "Don't tell lies! Nothing moved!" Karik grew angry. "Come on! quickly!"
     At last  after much persuasion, Valya  took  the  hand stretched out by
Karik and he pulled her up on to his floating island.
     The spider never budged. There was nothing to fear. Valya squatted down
and started to wring  out her wet hair, but Karik stood upright and began to
examine the gloomy lair of the spider attentively.
     "We must get out of this," sighed Valya. "We must find a door."
     "There's a door." Karik stretched out his arm towards the  dark hole in
the wall.
     Throwing  his arms  up above his  head  he  jumped into  the water  and
quickly swam towards the hole in the wall.
     Valya  watched Karik  with some agitation and when  he  vanished in the
darkness she yelled.
     "What's up? What's there?"
     Karik did not answer.
     Valya suddenly looked  at her feet and grew pale. It seemed to her that
the spider was beginning to move.
     "Ka-ari-k!" - She shouted.
     Her voice carried along the curve of the roof and died away.
     "Ka-a-ri-k!" shouted  Valya,  still louder. She  was just about to jump
into  the  water  and  swim  after  her  brother  but at  that moment  Karik
reappeared in the dark hole.
     "What are you shouting about?" he asked angrily.
     Seeing Karik alive and uninjured, Valya became calm. She gave her hands
to her brother and, helping him up on to the spider, asked:
     "Well, what did you find? Is there any sort of door?"
     "No. It is the same sort of den as ours," answered Karik, shrugging his
shoulders.
     "Is there anything living in it?"
     "Nothing."
     Karik sat down with his  knees up to his chin and clasped his legs with
his arms.
     "And there is no door?"
     "No!"
     "But suppose we dive under the wall, Karik?"
     "Under the wall?"
     Karik bent and, hanging his head, started to stare at the dark waters.
     In  the depths of the water  he could dimly see the slimy bottom of the
pond. Silvery  spider threads stretched from  the slime to the  edges of the
under-water den, making it impossible to dive out.
     "We must dive under the wall," repeated Valya. "But  do you  see that?"
And  Karik pointed  with his  hand  at  the net stretched under  the  water,
preventing either exit or entry to the prison. Certainly  not!  To dive into
that would be terrible.
     "There  must  be some  door!"  said  Karik.  "How  did  we get in  here
otherwise?"
     Valya now began a sort of panting noise.
     Karik peered at her and then quickly seized her hand.
     "Valya! what's up?"
     Valya sat there very pale with her mouth wide open, holding her  throat
with her hands.
     "I can't breathe," she croaked, "there - there's not enough air."
     "All  right, all right!" Karik  muttered  in confusion. But he  did not
know how to  help his sister, and in fact he himself  felt a dragging in his
chest which  tugged  at his  ribs  till they  hurt. "I can't  get enough air
either," panted  Karik. He  breathed  faster and faster, his  ears began  to
sing,  his  heart beat as violently as if he  was  running up  a steep  high
mountain. The  damp, heavy air filled his  lungs,  making breathing more and
more difficult. Something had to be done.
     "Don't be frightened!" he panted, touching Valya with his hand.
     "We'll get  out  somehow!"  And  once again for  the  hundredth time he
started to examine the under-water prison.
     Karik's head started to go round. He bent over, scooped up the stagnant
water, splashed it on his face. Suddenly his arm stopped in mid-air.
     He  had spotted  two enormous  green eggs  on the slimy bottom to which
they were attached at one end. One of these eggs started to move and  slowly
came  free  of  the  mud  and  floated  upwards  striking  the  edge of  the
under-water den  disappeared upwards  somewhere. In  the same way the second
egg floated up and disappeared.
     Karik stretched out a hand to Valya and said with a trembling voice.
     "Frogbit buds? Do you see?"
     He  had made no mistake,  they  were the  "winter buds" of  frogbit - a
water plant.
     Karik had seen  these many times when  he was in the  big world and now
recognised them without special difficulty.
     Frogbit - a creeping water  plant - travels  about  lakes and ponds all
the summer blown by the wind from bank to bank. Its roots like strawberries'
runners obtain nourishment  direct from the water. At the end of the  summer
young shoots appear with  runners. They rise out of the surface of the water
and break into leaves resembling a heart as one sees drawn in pictures.
     In winter the frogbit  plant is  frozen  in the  ice and perishes.  But
before this it succeeds in strewing the bottom with its amazing winter buds.
     All  the winter  the buds  -  looking  like green eggs  - remain on the
bottom. But as soon as there comes a day sufficiently warm they become blown
out with gas and one  after the other float up to  the surface of the water,
and once again become water creeping-plants.
     It was these seeds that Karik had spotted.
     Seizing Valya by the hand, he spluttered.
     "Listen! These things rise like corks. We  must dive and hold on to one
of them. They will then carry us up."
     "But the web? Look at all its ropes under water."
     "All the same we must try. Now dive. Quickly!"
     Just at this  moment a gigantic green egg  was stirring  on the bottom.
There was no  time  to think.  The  seed came  away from  the black mud  and
started to float up.
     "Dive!" shouted Karik.
     Valya summoned all her  strength.  Having taken  a deep breath she shot
off the  spider  and disappeared  beneath the water.  Karik watched her dive
under  the wall,  seize the huge frogbit bud with both  hands, and disappear
upwards with it.
     Karik dived  after  his sister. Opening  his eyes beneath the water, he
made for another green torpedo. It started to move. He put his arms and legs
round the  broad  slippery sides and  at  once began  to  spin  round. After
turning  round several  times the torpedo  started suddenly to  move upwards
through the mass of water above.
     To Karik holding his breath there seemed to follow  an age of  floating
upwards, boring  as it was through the water. Another moment  and his  heart
would  have burst from lack of  air,  but as luck would have  it  the  green
torpedo suddenly bobbed out of the surface of the water.
     Blinded by the clear light, with the hot rays of the sun beating on his
face, Karik floundered in the water and breathed - at last. At last he could
breathe easily. Great lungfuls.
     Beside him, Valya was floating gulping  in the clean fresh air with the
same greed.
     "Ah, Valya," Karik shouted again, "you're alive and breathing."
     "I am breathing!"
     "The main thing is, don't be  frightened of  anything," said  the happy
Karik. "Don't get depressed, don't whimper and, above all, don't cry. If you
and I can succeed in  getting away from  such  a terrible spider -  well, it
means we should succeed in finding our way home."
     The poor children had no suspicion of what they had still to survive in
this  unfamiliar  world  and what dangers they had still  to  face  on their
journey homewards.







     Daring navigators -  Strange  passengers  - Karik and Valya penetrate a
watery jungle - The search for food - The children find berries- - But then!



     RAISING THEIR HEADS ABOVE  WATER THE CHILDREN  LOOKED  ALL around them.
Everywhere as far as eye could see there seemed to stretch the blue sheen of
the water, and it was only in the west where now the sun was  setting  there
appeared the serried top of a dark bank of forest.
     Above the forest clouds were rolling.
     "We must get ashore somehow," said Karik, "and then make for home."
     "Can we ever  get to the shore, do you think?"  asked Valya, eyeing the
distant bank.
     "Certainly we can get to the shore," said Karik, perkily. "We must make
use of these things. Climb on to your bud!"
     The children clambered on to the green torpedoes.
     Karik shouted:
     "Row with your feet."
     The children started  to  paddle  with their  feet trying  to get  into
motion, but the buds just bobbed about and did not move.
     "Stop!" shouted Karik. "Come over to me. We'll row together."
     Valya swam to her brother. The frogbit bud was now loaded  so that more
than half of it was under water.
     "Row!" commanded Karik.
     The children keeping  time together pulled their arms through the water
like oars. The bud wobbled and then started to move slowly forward.
     "We are going ahead!" shouted Valya.
     "Full speed ahead!" ordered Karik.
     At first  the bud went from side to side, to the right and then to  the
left, but soon this matter was put right.
     Cutting the water with  its sharp nose, the  green torpedo sped towards
the  shore   like  an  ordinary  boat.  The   children   drove  it   forward
energetically, labouring with their arms.
     In the distance ahead something panted and struck the water not exactly
like a plank of wood nor like oars of a boat. The nearer the children got to
the  shore the  more distinctly  could these noises be heard and  then quite
beside them something roared.
     "Qua-a-a-ha-aha-ha,"  came the sound  across the water.  Valya trembled
and nearly fell off the bud.
     "Whatever is that," she whispered, stopping rowing.
     "A  frog!  It must be a frog. Just an ordinary frog.  But bigger than a
five storeyed house. Don't be frightened!"
     "Yes," said Valya thoughtfully.  "Just an ordinary one - but even a fly
could eat us, let alone a five-storeyed frog."
     "Don't fret," Karik comforted his sister. "A frog like that will  never
notice us."
     Valya became silent.
     The children were now rowing towards inlets which could be seen cutting
the line of the shore.
     Bright  green glistening islands  seemed  to rise up out  of the water.
They rocked slightly as if they were rafts moored at buoys. It was necessary
to keep a sharp look out to prevent running into one of them.
     "What  do  you  think  that is?"  asked  Valya,  pointing at one of the
islands.
     "I  don't know," answered  Karik, undecidedly, "must be  some  sort  of
leaves - surely water weeds."
     Now to the right and now to the left of them round animals with smooth,
polished  backs like motor-car bodies  rose suddenly out of the  water. They
were in fact as big as motor-cars.
     Stretching out their wings the creatures flew upwards and  then just as
suddenly plunged back into the water, raising a fountain of spray.
     On the surface of  a broad channel between two islands the children saw
a  brown striped monster with long,  bent  legs.  It  hurried backwards  and
forwards sliding over the water on its round, podgy body.
     On the back of this podgy-bodied brute there were sitting  five  little
reproductions of the beast only much smaller.
     The little ones sat there quite calmly.
     From time  to time  the striped brute fished something  up out  of  the
water. Then  the little ones in one wink slid off  into the  water, and in a
trice  climbed back again. In their paws they clasped pieces of some sort of
food which they quickly devoured.
     "Another sort of  spider!" groaned  Valya,  stopping rowing.  The  seed
stopped and lazily rocked in the waves.
     "And  on its  back  are its  young,"  said Karik. "We had better wait a
little. They have our permission to move on!"
     But at that moment another similar spider shot  out from behind one  of
the  islands.  It was the very same brown and  also  had stripes. There were
young ones moving on its back too.
     The spiders hurled themselves at each other.
     They were wolf spiders, beasts preying on the surface of the water.
     They jerked  each other savagely. The little  spiders were  thrown like
tops into  the  water.  Whilst the big spiders were fighting the little ones
skidded  about the  water in confusion, coming  together  into a cluster and
then separating in all directions.
     Then suddenly the battle finished.
     One of the spiders started to  sink in the water. The spreading ripples
reached the young ones and rocked them up and down.
     They bobbed on the waves just like ducklings without feathers.
     "Now  the  young ones will fight  each other," breathed Valya.  But the
young ones seemed hardly interested in the fight. They fussily charged about
the surface of the water, one following the other,  tumbled head over heels,
and then suddenly  they  all  made a  rush  for  the victorious  spider and,
jostling each other, nimbly climbed up on its back.
     Karik and Valya looked at each other.
     "What  do you  think of that!" exclaimed  Valya.  "Will  it  throw  the
strange young spiders off its back or not?"
     But the wolf spider did not even notice that it had twice the number of
passengers aboard.
     It rested calmly on the water  with its long legs apart  waiting whilst
the youngsters settled themselves down. When they were all, to the last one,
seated it moved off as if nothing had happened and quickly vanished amid the
labyrinth of  islands.  The children  rowed on further. "Interesting,"  said
Valya, thoughtfully. "What's interesting?"
     "It is interesting  what  those  little  spiders  were  eating."  Karik
shrugged his shoulders. "Some sort of rubbish !"
     Valya sighed. She was remembering that she had not eaten anything since
the day before - no breakfast, no lunch. So she said.
     "Maybe it  isn't  quite  rubbish. To begin  with, maybe it would  taste
nasty, but  then one would get  used to it - and it would be  all the  same.
Then one might get very fond of it."
     It was time for the evening meal.
     The children grew thoughtful.
     What would be happening at home now? Granny would undoubtedly be laying
the table. Mother had said yesterday:
     "Dinner to-morrow will be a special one. You mustn't be late."
     "What do you think there is for dinner at home to-day?" asked Valya.
     "I believe it is cold soup and onion and egg pie."
     Valya swallowed the water her mouth was making.
     "Or maybe it's hot  soup with pork or ham or sausages in it. Then for a
second course beefsteak with onions and roast potatoes. What would you  like
most to eat?"
     "I?"
     Valya thought a little and said:
     "I could eat a crust of bread and a little cheese."
     "I would prefer  a  beefsteak," said Karik,  "only  a  big one, like  a
plate. And masses of potatoes and a  green salad and afterwards  I believe I
should have little  difficulty with  a whole  pie and some  strawberry tart.
Then ..."
     Valya stopped rowing. She turned to Karik and asked:
     "But what are we going to have for dinner to-day?"
     "To-day it will not be convenient for us to have dinner."
     "But then what for supper?"
     "It is not really convenient for us to have supper to-day."
     "Then breakfast?"
     "We cannot have breakfast."
     "What will be convenient?"
     "Nothing," said  Karik,  grumpily. "The most convenient thing is not to
think about it."
     Valya sighed.
     "Come on, row! Let's get  to the shore as quickly as possible!" shouted
Karik. "We'll find something ashore."
     "It would be nice to find a strawberry. It would be ten times as big as
us. Certainly would be as big as a  haystack. Do you  know we only need  one
berry and we could make a hole in it and live in it.  Then we could just eat
the walls and the ceiling."
     "Don't  chatter." Karik frowned. "Row  up and we  shall see when we get
there."
     Valya became silent.
     With their arms and legs  swinging in time, the bud spurted towards the
shore with a bow wave in front and long widening tracks like whiskers in the
water stretching away behind.
     The shore grew nearer every minute.
     Higher and higher rose the forest out of the water, and it seemed as if
it was floating to meet the children.
     "Row as hard as you can !" shouted Karik.
     "I am going full speed ahead," panted Valya.
     The  bud flew forward like  an arrow. Within an hour a huge reed forest
had risen up  before the young travellers shutting out the sun. A heavy cold
shadow covered the water and the water itself in the shade by the forest was
chilly unlike that in the sun beyond.
     The bud sped on between huge bamboo-like trunks which rose straight out
of the water and disappeared into the sky itself.
     "Row gently!" commanded Karik.
     "But why?"
     "There is some animal here! Can you hear?"
     The children stopped rowing.
     Karik put his finger to his lips.
     Looking  at each  other  apprehensively the brother and sister silently
listened  to  the  unpleasant  sound which was  proceeding from  within  the
forest.
     The  curving trunks swayed, rubbed  one another and made loud  scraping
noises. In the dark recesses of the  forest which breathed coldness and damp
some animal  noisily splashed  about, something  else  jabbered  and  whined
menacingly.
     The forest stood like trees in a flooded -field.  Through the clearings
glistened the blue background beyond which the wall of  trees rose thick and
solid.
     On  the  surface  of  the  water  between  the   reed  trunks  strange,
quick-footed animals moved hither and thither and in  pursuit of these there
hurried other  animals bigger  and  more terrible.  When they overtook their
prey they pulled it to pieces and immediately devoured it.
     "Ye-e-es!" Karik whistled softly.
     Valya understood him without further words.
     Looking at her brother, in fright she whispered:
     "We must go back? Now."
     "Back where?"  muttered Karik, and thinking a little. "We must get to a
shore where there are none of these brutes. Let's go and look for another."
     They betook themselves back into open water and drove the bud along the
edge of the reed forest now and then looking around and endeavouring all the
time to get further away from it.
     "Do you know what  !" said Valya. "I propose that this  bank be  called
'Nightmare Jungle'."
     "That's just stupid!" said Karik.
     "Why  stupid?" Valya was offended. "All  travellers  give names. I have
been reading about this in Jules Verne."
     Karik did not answer.  Looking at the reed forest past which they  were
moving, he whistled some very melancholy tune.
     "Or else,"  said  Valya, "it could be called  'The Forest of  Bloodsome
Mystery'."
     "All right, all right!" barked Karik, "watch your rowing!"
     The reed forest  gradually receded and soon had completely disappeared.
To the right  there now stretched  a desert-like  shore covered  with yellow
stones which glittered in the sun.
     It was  so hot that all living creatures seemed to have hidden and must
have been sheltering under leaves and stones, and the  children now rowed on
without meeting any sign of life.
     The way was clear.
     Karik grew happier.
     "Now  that shore," he said, pointing with his hand at  the stony waste,
"I would call the 'Cape of Good Hope'."
     "Why Gape? I don't see any Cape."
     "That is unimportant," answered  Karik,  steering  the  bud towards the
shore, "as we explore it we are sure to find a Cape sooner or later."
     "But I. . . ."
     "I am going to beach the bud!" yelled Karik, splashing water in Valya's
face. "Ready !"
     The children gave  one final  paddle  with  their arms  and  the  green
torpedo stranded on the stony shore.
     With the  violence of  the bump  the bud turned  over.  Karik and Valya
found themselves  suddenly in the  water, but quickly jumped up and catching
hold of the projecting yellow cliff scrambled ashore.
     The  rocks were hot from the sun. Valya sat down on one only to leap up
again.
     "What's the matter? Did  it bite you?"  grinned Karik.  "What  are  you
going to call that rock?"
     He put up his hand  to shield his eyes like the peak of a cap and gazed
around himself.
     "Do you know what . . . .?"
     "What?" replied Valya, timidly.
     "These rocks are just  sand. When we were big it seemed minute, but now
each grain of sand has become like a rock for us."
     "What then?"
     Karik sighed and said.
     "They say that in Africa they cook eggs by  burying them in the sand. I
am afraid we may get cooked without being buried!"
     He touched a rock with his hand and shook his head.
     "No, we cannot sit down here. We must go on further."
     The children returned to their green torpedo and the bud once again set
out on its travels.
     "I propose that this shore be called - " said Valya.
     " 'Hot Bottom'," interrupted Karik, and laughed loudly.
     Valya was cross.
     Knitting her brow, she sat paddling furiously with her arms and legs.
     Karik also became silent.
     How long the children drove  the torpedo along the bank they neither of
them could tell, but their arms and legs became very tired.
     "If only you knew how much I  wanted  something  to eat,"  Valya  said,
breaking the long silence.
     "I know," Karik sympathised. "The two sides  of my  tummy are  sticking
together."
     "It would be grand,"  said Valya, "if we could catch something and cook
it on those rocks."
     "What in particular?"
     "Oh, something - a butterfly - dragonfly."
     "Do you think they would taste all right?"
     "Of course! If you cooked them they'd taste all right."
     "But I could eat something raw," confessed Karik. "A butterfly, only we
could never kill it."
     Talking thus they reached a shore covered with grass forest.
     Up  from the  grass forest there  was  rising  the sultry  steam  of  a
summer's day. Here and there  stood gnarled trunks  of trees resembling  the
monster trees of the tropics - the  baobab tree  - which Karik and Valya had
seen at the pictures.
     "There will be berries here!" shouted  Valya. "I  know there are always
berries in a forest. Let's get ashore quickly."
     The bud came to rest  on the sloping shore. The  children jumped ashore
and, stumbling now and then, ran in to the forest.
     In the forest it was stiflingly hot.
     The trees smelt  of  swampy grass.  There was  no bark  on their  shiny
trunks.
     The  rays of the sun penetrating through the  thick vegetation made odd
yellow patches on the ground.
     The ground under foot was damp and sticky.
     "Now!" cried Valya,  pushing her way  through  the undergrowth  of  the
forest. "Who will be the first to find our dinner!"
     "All right!" said Karik, "look for it, but don't get too far away or we
shall lose each other."
     Shouting  and  hallooing to  one another the  children  made their  way
through the forest keeping a sharp look-out on all sides.
     On  the way they stopped here and  there and pushed great leaves on one
side  to see if  there were  berries underneath.  They climbed up the  grass
trees to look for berries. But nowhere could they find a berry.
     "What an awful forest!" Did it mean that they must die of hunger?
     Suddenly the children heard a dull noise.
     They stopped.
     Karik raised his hand.
     "Did you hear?"
     "Aha," Valya nodded. "It's water. Apparently it's the noise of a river.
Come on! There are sure to be berries by the river. That I know !"
     Valya ran on.
     Karik dashed after her.
     "Not so much  noise!" he  shouted. "It may not be a river but some sort
of frog breathing!"
     He caught hold of Valya's hand.
     The children made their way in the direction of the noise, listening at
each suspicious rumble.
     Piles  of fallen  trunks covered with a layer of dried mud barred their
way. Dry leaves stood up like walls and when the children were trying to get
round  one leaf it  fell on them,  and they only just managed to wriggle out
from underneath it.

     At last Karik and Valya  came out at the  foot of a  high hillock. They
dashed  up to the  top of  this and there  suddenly felt  cold  air in their
faces.
     Right ahead water was flowing noisily.
     Parting  the undergrowth  with  their hands they saw in front of them a
stream.
     The stream was almost a river. Bubbling  and foaming it ran amongst the
stones twisting now to the right and  now to the left, leaping downwards  in
noisy waterfalls.
     "I see something," shouted Valya.
     She wrenched her hand out of her brother's grasp and knocking him aside
dashed off ahead.
     "Vally! Stop! Come back!"
     But Valya was already hidden amongst the trunks of the trees.
     "Come on! Come on!" Karik could  hear  her calling. "Hurry up! Here are
the berries. Such huge ones too. Do hurry, Karik!"
     Karik ran towards his sister's voice. "Vally!"
     "Here! Here!"
     Valya was standing under a tall tree and with her head  flung back, she
pointed upwards with her finger. Karik ran up beside her. "Berries? Eh?"
     "Yes ! there you are! Huge ones!"
     High above the ground there hung pressed to the trunk of the tree dusky
fruit as big as beer barrels. Full of juicy flesh, they hid in the shadow of
long narrow leaves. "Well!" Valya's eye flashed.
     "What do you mean, 'Well'? Up you go!" shouted Karik, and dashed to the
tree.
     With their arms and legs around  the trunk the children swarmed  up the
tree, not letting the dusky fruit out of their sight - first Karik and after
him Valya.
     The trunk swayed slightly and the leaves shook. Below at the  bottom of
a steep slope the river foamed noisily.
     Valya looked down.
     "Oh! suppose we fall - how awful!" she said.
     "Keep climbing," ordered Karik from above, "we won't fall."
     Nimbly  shifting  their  hands  and  feet,  they  at length reached the
tempting fruit.
     Karik stretched out his  hand, but suddenly all  went  dark before  his
eyes and his hands slipped.
     "What are you up to?" Valya managed to ask, and at that moment she felt
a deafening noise in her ears. Her head started to swim.
     With their arms waving and turning head over heels the children plunged
violently downwards straight into the swift and boisterous stream.
     The  strong current seized them  and sweeping them round a rock carried
them off towards the rumbling waterfall.





     The battle  in the  cave - It had ears in its  legs - The extraordinary
trees - The Professor becomes a pilot - An unexpected meeting



     THE  PROFESSOR  EDGED BACK TO THE SIDE OF THE HOLE.  AS HIS eyes became
used to the darkness he saw in  the  depth of a dark cavern a huge head with
long whiskers.
     "Good   gracious,  a  regular  hussar!  What   on  earth   is  it?"  he
gruff-gruffed, quite perplexed.
     A broad,  bulging shield  covered the head and  the front part  of  the
monster. From  under the shield  there poked out short but  very  broad legs
with teeth on them. The Professor could at once see that it was quite beyond
him to fight with this creature. It could kill him with a single blow of its
foot. For all that he resolved that he would defend himself.
     He pressed his back against the cold, damp side of the dungeon, keeping
the wasp sting in front of him.
     The creature began to stir. The great stiff body, which might have been
made of bone  rings, started  to move forwards. Earth  fell noisily from the
sides of the cavern.
     "Is it possible to attack it from behind?" flashed into the Professor's
mind.
     But the monster's back was well protected. Two webbed wings folded side
by side covered the huge carcass with a strong armour.
     "But whatever is it? What can it be?"
     The Professor stood on tiptoes, stretched his head and suddenly spotted
two spears  with  sharp  edges which  were dragging on  the  ground like two
tails. He gasped with fright.
     "An underground cricket! The mole-cricket!"
     The  mole-cricket noisily shifted itself  in the cavern. Raking  itself
forward on the earth it moved nearer and nearer the Professor.
     "Feeds  on  the  larvae   of  insects  and  earth  worms,"  recollected
Professor; "no doubt it would not object to eating me!"
     Looking  around  helplessly,  he  cautiously edged  away  from the dark
corner  of  the  cavern,  trying  to  keep  as  far  as  possible  from  the
mole-cricket.
     "Must get round it!" mused the Professor, moving along the wall towards
the rear of his enemy.
     The  mole-cricket turned. It raised  its  feelers  as  if  smelling  or
listening.
     The Professor held his breath.
     The  mole-cricket   dropped  its  feelers  and  clumsily  scraping  its
spade-like feet hurled itself at him.
     The Professor shot back into his former place. "No! it's not so easy to
deceive a mole-cricket underground.
     It feels just as much at home there as a fish does in water. No!
     No use running away! I must fight!"
     He stopped  and lifted  up the bottom of the spear, let  the point fall
forward and then steadied it ready for battle. He edged along with one elbow
pressed against the wall behind him.

     Then suddenly he felt his elbow was in space.
     He quickly turned  around. Immediately behind him gaped the entrance of
some sort of dark recess.
     The Professor took a deep breath.
     Where did this  tunnel lead  to?  Who had dug it?  Was  any new  danger
lurking here? But there was no time at that moment to think it out. . . .
     "To  hide, to get away, to dig deeper into the  earth," hammered in his
mind, and without thinking it all out, he plunged into the hole.
     Stumbling and hitting himself painfully against a rock, he threaded his
way in pitch darkness, feeling with his hands.
     The  hole  appeared  a lengthy one,  sometimes dropping downwards, then
rising upwards,  then turning  to  the right, then abruptly  twisting to the
left and all the time becoming narrower and narrower.
     It was  necessary for  him  to bend now and in  places to crawl  on all
fours dragging his spear after him.
     But all this was a trifle.  The Professor  was ready to put up with all
these discomforts. He would readily have agreed  to  crawl all day long even
on his stomach.
     "If only I could get away from the cursed cricket. If I could only hide
- anywhere!" he muttered, shivering with fright.
     However, it appeared  that  it was impossible  to  get  away  from  the
mole-cricket.
     It  was relentlessly following in his tracks,  and the  Professor could
clearly hear the rising noises of the chase in progress behind him.
     When he had first dodged into the tunnel the mole-cricket stopped, felt
the  walls of  the cave with his  feelers  and then became dead  quiet as if
thinking, "where has this strange and agile worm hidden itself?"
     Those  feelers  had then again moved restlessly.  They felt  the floor,
walls, ceiling, and quickly discovered the entrance to the hole.
     The mole-cricket shoved its head into the hole, breathing heavily.
     "Is it here or not?"
     The creature stopped for a little, stamping its  legs, and  then thrust
its enormous body with great  decision  into the hole and, rapidly burrowing
through the earth, crawled along the tunnel.
     The  mole-cricket moved forward as rapidly as a hot knife cuts  butter,
pushing  its body  through the  crumbling  earth  and  boring  its  way with
unbelievable rapidity.
     The  Professor could  soon  hear  behind  him  by  his very back  jerky
breathing, and suddenly the wiry  feelers of the mole-cricket touched him on
the shoulder. Then again they felt his arms and slid across his face.
     The Professor yelled.  Turning round as quickly as  he  could he jabbed
the spear into the feelers and crawled away, twisting like a worm.
     The rough walls of the narrow tunnel scraped his  sides, shoulders  and
elbows.
     The tunnel had now become so tight that it was with great difficulty he
managed to move forward at all.
     What with the mouldiness and dampness it was suffocating.
     The Professor was bathed in  perspiration. His heart  thumped. His arms
and legs shook.
     The further he went the more difficult was it to make any headway along
this  tightening underground  pipe.  However, the Professor now noticed that
the mole-cricket was dropping behind and thus allowed him a ray of hope that
he might be safe.
     More and more  remote  became the sound of  the chase. The mole-cricket
stopped somewhere far back.
     "Saved! It has gone away!" the Professor breathed thickly.
     Pressing himself forward on his elbows and knees he slid along exerting
every effort and suddenly his head ran into the earth.
     Further than this it was  impossible to  go. The  tunnel had ended in a
blind-alley !
     The Professor started to shake bodily.
     "A certain death? But who will then save Karik and Valya?"
     With sweat dripping he felt here and there in  the dark, but everywhere
his hands met a solid earth wall.
     What could he do? He was sitting in the hole just as  if  he  was in  a
trap. Behind him the mole-cricket  was coming up, and in front of  him was a
blank wall.
     What could he do in such a hopeless situation?
     The Professor felt  as if ants were running over his body. His arms and
legs grew cold. His mouth became dry.
     "No! No!" he said, with decision, "we shall yet see who is who. You are
a  great strong  animal but I am a man.  I will  fight you and I will be the
conqueror."
     An hour ago he could have crushed the mole-cricket with a  finger,  but
now he would  have to gather all his strength for the  fray and he could not
say with any certainty how this battle would end.
     He  turned back and  pressing his back  against the earth  wall  of the
blind-alley held the spear in front of himself.
     "I'll  hit it right  on  the  nerve point under  the  eyes,"  said  the
Professor to himself loudly.
     At that moment a  thought  flashed into his head which made  his  flesh
creep.
     "How shall I get  out if I kill the cricket? It  will just cork  up the
hole with its great carcass. How could I move such a monster?"
     There was no time to think this out.
     Louder and louder grew the underground noise. The cricket was now quite
close.
     A minute passed and then another.
     "Get back! get back!" roared the Professor, waving the spear.
     The earth broke away with a rumble. Along the walls of the tunnel there
came scraping  noises.  The sinuous  feelers of the cricket were seeking for
him. In the darkness they felt  his head and shoulders. Twisting his body he
threw  these live, knotted cords off and started to rain blow after  blow on
the head of the monster with his spear.
     "There! Take that! and that, and that!", he shouted hoarsely.
     The cricket did not expect such an attack. Backing, it slid away.
     "Aha! Aha!" yelled the Professor, courageously throwing himself on  his
enemy.
     The cricket put out its feelers. The Professor  struck at them with his
naked fist, and scolding loudly hunted the creature back along the tunnel.
     He did not cease to hit the cricket on the head with  the spear, trying
to  stab  the nerve centre  with its sharp point. But suddenly the  creature
pulled  its head back under its shield  and the spear made no impression  on
this horny covering.
     The monster  stopped.  Obviously the  spear no  longer worried  it. The
Professor knew then - the battle was lost.
     Moving with  its  broad feet  the cricket now advanced  to  attack. The
Professor had to retreat.
     Waving  the spear he slowly backed to the end of  the tunnel  until  he
felt the solid wall behind him.
     "Now we're done!" he thought.
     He shut his eyes tiredly and ducking his head  dropped in a heap on the
floor.
     Suddenly he  heard  a noise above  his head.  The  ceiling  of the hole
cracked  as  if someone  was drilling through from above. Earth fell on  his
head.
     The ceiling fell down. A blinding light flashed for an instant into the
hole and the Professor saw far  away  a fragment of blue  sky, but almost at
once something like  a  huge pod  came  down  into  the  tunnel  from above,
shutting up the opening.
     "What is this?" shouted the Professor, and seized the pod in his hands.
     The pod trembled and commenced to go up again quickly.
     The Professor realised just one thing :
     This pod was going  out  - back up to where it  was all sunny - and  he
must get out of the earth back to the sun with it.
     He held tightly on to  the pod with his arms and legs and suddenly like
a cork he flew out of the earth.
     The sun blinded him. He screwed up his eyes.
     "Saved ! Saved !" He was now laughing hysterically.
     But he had not succeeded in  letting go with his arms when some strange
force flung him upwards and then dropped him down again, then upwards again,
and once again down.
     The Professor bounced up like a ball and fell again.
     He simply must  get free of  this jumping  pod.  The Professor  let go.
Twisting in the  air he  dropped to the  ground  and rolled  head over heels
amongst the stones.
     The shock was so great that he lost consciousness for an instant.
     When he came to the first thing he saw was a great green animal. It was
standing not far from  him with long legs studded with sharp points - spurs.
On the ground lay a thick pod-like tail  considerably longer than the  green
animal itself.
     "Aha!" The Professor raised himself  on his elbows. "I see. It was that
tail I was holding on to. A most kindly tail! A magnificent tail."
     Hearing the voice of the Professor the creature turned a flattened head
with a huge mouth towards him and moved feelers of immeasurable length.
     "What family do you belong to, my saviour?" he now enquired politely.
     The  green  animal, covered  as  it were with shining enamel, moved its
feet.
     "Of course it's you  !" shouted  the Professor. "You heard me with your
feet? There you are! It's  quite clear. You  are a green  grasshopper. Well,
anyway, thank you my friend! Thanks for pulling me out of an awkward jam,  a
very awkward jam."
     The  grasshopper once again moved  its feet. The narrow listening slits
on  its front  legs  turned  towards  the Professor.  The  grasshopper could
clearly hear him.
     Then  the  meaning  of  his recent  experiences  became  clear  to  the
Professor.
     At this time of year the female grasshopper bores holes  in  the ground
in order  to  hide  its  eggs. In  spring the grubs of the  grasshopper  are
hatched out of these  eggs.  They make their way up on to the surface of the
earth and begin to feed on caterpillars, butterflies and flies.
     It was the good fortune of  the Professor that  a female grass-' hopper
had bored into the earth just above the very place to which the mole-cricket
had driven him.
     But  the grasshopper had not succeeded in laying eggs.  Having  touched
the egg-laying tail  of  the  insect the  Professor naturally gave the  poor
creature a great fright, and for that reason she had quickly pulled her tail
out of the ground.
     "Forgive me, please," he burbled cheerfully. "I am  sorry I interrupted
you."
     The  grasshopper jumped up, and spreading wings which glittered  in the
sun it vanished in the greenery of the grass forest.
     "Goodbye! Safe journey!" the Professor  shouted after it and  waved his
hand.
     He was now alone. He  stood there looking around and stroking  his grey
beard.
     "But where have you got me to, my  green steed?" he muttered. "Where is
the pond now? How do I get to it? Should I go left or right?"
     Around  him rustled  the forest. It  was only  now, however,  that  the
Professor noticed that this was not like the grass jungle.
     Here  the trees were not bamboo-like  but their  long  slightly-curving
stems stretched upwards like gigantic candles.
     The Professor  looked  up at  their  tops  and  blinked  his eyes  with
amazement.  There  at  a  dizzy-making  height enormous  white  hats  rocked
quietly.  Each tree stood like a long flagstaff on  the top of which a white
hat had been stuck.
     "What are these?" he wrinkled up his eyes.  He went closer to the stems
and  then stopped suddenly as if rooted to the spot. Before his very eyes  a
white feathery cloud had been ripped off the top of one of the trees and had
suddenly disappeared, It seemed to melt into the air.
     The Professor shrugged his shoulders. He could not understand it.
     The wind came up in a gust from  behind him and  immediately some  more
white tops became separated  from their stems and slowly floated away in the
air.
     From somewhere above  him  there  fell suddenly  at  his  feet a  heavy
elongated kernel.
     He bent over to look at it.
     From one end of the kernel  there projected a long thin whipcord at the
end of which a feathery parachute was quivering.
     "Ah that's what  it is !" the Professor exploded. "But, of  course,  it
is! . . . Why didn't I guess it at once?"
     He nimbly  ran  to the  very highest stem and  throwing  his head  back
examined it from top to roots.
     "There you are! Excellent! You are just what I want to-day."
     He  then tightened  his spider's web  costume, scraped his feet  on the
ground and jumping upwards clasped the stem of the tree.
     The stem was thick. He could only just get his arms and legs around it.
Immediately  he had done  this he felt the palms of his hands and  his knees
sticking to the stem.
     "Never mind. Never mind,"  he muttered. "Once I get half-way up  things
will be easier."
     Moving his arms and legs in turn with difficulty, breathing heavily and
bathed  in perspiration, the Professor climbed the stem like a fly on sticky
paper.
     To begin with,  the ascent was very difficult but  the higher up he got
the thinner became the stem and the easier it was to make progress. The wind
swayed the tree and with  the  tree the Professor also swayed, not daring to
look down at the ground.
     But here at last was the top of the tree - the white feathery crown.
     The Professor  put out his hand preparing to make his way from the stem
on to the crown of the tree, but suddenly something soft slid along his arm.
     He pressed himself to the stem. Around  him unexpectedly wings  started
to beat and the air hummed. Dancing winged creatures were moving just before
the Professor's eyes.
     He ducked his head with fright.
     "They  will eat  me!  I am sure they  will eat  me,  the ruffians!"  he
thought mournfully,  and then  taking another quick look at the creatures he
became calm at once.
     "Oo, what a coward I am !" he sighed with relief.
     Stretching their long thin legs in the air the creatures went round the
tree.  Their  transparent wings  ornamented  with  fine  tracery were all  a
quiver.
     Their long tails brushed against the Professor's face and slid over his
body.
     "Mayflies!" he grinned. "Nothing more  than Mayflies!" and seizing  the
sappy leaves of the crown with his hands he calmly drew himself up on to the
head of the amazing tree. The Mayflies only at first glance appeared giants.
In actual  fact  they  were but  little bigger than the Professor. What made
them  appear  giant  size  was  that  behind   them  there  fluttered  long,
thread-like tails. On some of them these resembled a fork and  on others the
two legs of  a pair  of compasses.  These tails were  about twice as long as
their bodies.
     "See how they  dance!" observed the  Professor. "Does  it mean that  it
soon will be getting dark?"
     And paying no further attention to the winged dancers  he clambered  up
on to the very crown of the tree.
     There  was no  reason to fear the Mayflies. These insects have not even
got  a  mouth. Their life is so short  that they don't  have to worry  about
food. They come into  the light in  order to dance  the  one dance of  their
life-time.
     In a happy dancing ring  they.  circle tirelessly, waving their  little
wings and then when the summer dusk  commences they fly down to the  surface
of the water, lay their eggs  and never themselves do  they rise again  from
the water. At this time of year the bodies of Mayflies cover the  surface of
rivers with a reddish carpet.
     The  current carries away millions of  these  harmless beings, whirling
them along between steep or sloping banks. But  not a  single Mayfly reaches
the mouth of the river. They are all eaten on the way by fish or birds.
     Who could envy a Mayfly? After two years' growth,  it emerges and flies
around dancing for one single day,  and is then  eaten up! Fancy coming into
our world just for that!
     Surrounded by  a ring  of Mayflies the Professor stood on the  crown of
the tree which was like a dome. The whole of its swaying surface was covered
without  exception with  dark  glistening  kernels,  a pliant  stalk  with a
parachute at its tip rose upwards from each kernel. These rustled  above his
head like an orchard in spring.
     From time to  time one or  another of the kernels trembling and swaying
would break away  from the dome and hang for a minute above the tree. A gust
of wind would fill the parachute and the  kernel would float away in the air
following its feathery parachute and its stalk.
     The Professor  felt  the stalks  with  his  hands and set to  work.  He
selected ten or so of the biggest  parachutes and tore them off the kernels.
His  hands were  then filled with clusters of umbrellas with feathery clouds
at their  tips.  The parachutes were  straining upwards lifting him off  the
crown of the tree, and he had to exert every effort to keep his position.
     Then he quickly tore off another pair of parachutes and in high spirits
he jumped up and hung suspended  in the air. For  some time he hung with his
feet dangling, but as soon  as the  wind blew the parachutes rustled happily
above  his head.  A current of air  took hold of the Professor and bore  him
away over the forest.
     "Magnificent! Simply magnificent!" He  laughed as he swayed  in the air
like  a  pendulum. "I  certainly never expected to fly  on  the  down  of  a
dandelion."
     The strange trees with white hats now appeared  from the immense height
as ordinary dandelions. The forest seemed now like ordinary meadow grass.
     The Professor looked around himself in all directions. Everywhere there
stretched grass jungle or sandy wilderness.
     Far  away on a high mountain he suddenly spotted a  very tall column at
the top of which waved a huge red flag.
     "Aha! my landmark!" the Professor smiled contentedly. Even further away
and more to the right there stretched a wide blue expanse of water.
     "And there is the pond! Excellent! Now I know the direction."
     The wind shook the feathery  parachutes. Plunging  through the air  the
Professor flew over forests and fields watching keenly beneath him.
     Then  a gust of  wind  seized him and carried him  straight towards the
pond.
     "Ee! I'll be drowned if I am not careful," he frowned. "I must get down
before I am carried into the open sea."
     At that moment the Professor  was being carried over a sunny meadow. It
looked a good place in which to alight. He decided to land.
     Having  let go  several  of the parachutes he moved in a wandering slow
flight  above  the  ground gently descending. The grass was already  turning
back into  the  nightmare forest  and the narrow streamlet into a  broad and
noisy river.
     "Hop -  la!"  yelled the Professor, letting two more  parachutes  go at
once.
     He was  swinging in the air above  the  river looking downwards  for  a
suitable place to land when he suddenly saw Karik  and Valya floating in the
river.
     The waves  dashed them against a  rock and they spun around in the grip
of the current just like logs.
     "Hold on!"  yelled the Professor from above; letting the last parachute
go he plunged like a stone into the foaming water.





     The  rescue - Some explanations  - Living windows  - The  herd of grass
cows - Sad recollections - An air tortoise attacks

     THE. STRONG CURRENT TOPPLED THE  PROFESSOR OFF HIS  FEET. He fell first
on one knee and  then on the other.  The water  beat him down and swept over
his head, but  he got up and venturing cautiously from rock  to rock managed
to make his way forward.
     Karik and Valya were lying just near him looking as if they  were dead.
Their eyes were closed, their arms dangled helplessly down  and  their  legs
trailed in the water.
     "Wait  a  minute!  Wait a  minute!"  muttered  the  Professor  heavily.
"Everything will be all right!" and he seized the children tightly.
     Here at  last was the bank. The  Professor  laid Karik and Valya on the
ground, squatted down and started to rub them with the palms of his hands.
     "Now then! Now then! What do we do next?" he muttered.
     He bent their arms and legs and raised them up and down. But all was in
vain. The children lay motionless with their eyes shut and  their white lips
clenched firmly.
     "What am I to do with you next?" he frowned.
     He wiped his forehead with his hand and suddenly his face lit up.
     The Professor had remembered an old long forgotten device for restoring
the  drowning. Quickly  jumping  up he seized Valya by  the legs, lifted her
upside down  and started to shake her violently. Water poured out of Valya's
mouth and nose. She groaned.
     "Groaning!" rejoiced the Professor. "Excellent! you will live."
     Laying the girl on the | ground, he set about Karik.
     "One, two!"
     A murky flood poured out of Karik's mouth.
     "And now you lie down too."
     Spitting and coughing the children opened their eyes.
     They looked around, not understanding a thing.  Immediately in front of
them stood the  Professor, the  Professor real  and alive. Huge and bearded,
just as they were accustomed to see him every day.
     They  were  so delighted that they  never  noticed  how  oddly  he  was
dressed. They just gazed at his face and saw his kindly smiling eyes and his
tousled grey beard.
     "The  Professor!"  exclaimed Valya.  She  flung  herself  towards  him,
sobbing with joy.
     "Now, now, now." coughed the Professor with embarrassment, stroking the
girl's head. "There is nothing to cry about now."
     Valya smeared  the tears  out of her eyes with her fists and started to
smile.
     "All that - all that water - came out of us. What a lot!"
     "Plenty  of  it,"  agreed  the  Professor.  "But  now,  my  dears,"  he
continued, "tell me who decided to make free with my study?"
     The children hung their heads.
     "Ah, you  are silent! You  have forgotten how to speak?"  The  children
sighed.
     Dripping wet  and  unhappy, they  stood in  front of the Professor  not
daring to  look up  at  him.  Karik lowered his head  so  much that his chin
rested on his chest which was covered with sticky mud, Valya turned away.
     "Well! Why are  you silent?" the Professor gruff-gruffed. Karik started
to  sniff  and  Valya  sighed  deeply.  The  Professor became sorry for  the
children.  He seized  them in his arms, squeezed them to himself and started
to laugh.
     "Ruffians! just  think  what  you have done. Ah,  what goats you are! I
nearly went out of my mind with you!"
     "We had  an  accident!" said Valya, twisting  her  damp  hair round her
fingers.
     Karik gazed at her in amazement. "What a liar I" he thought  but he did
not say anything.
     "Now, now.  Come on home, your mother will show you  what she thinks of
the accident and it won't be an accident if she whips you."
     "Mother never whips us!" said Karik, raising his head.
     The Professor pulled at his grey whiskers and said gloomily:
     "They beat me all right when I was small - with a strap or a cane: they
took the hide off me. Russia was a wild place then. Now everything is grand.
Come on to the mother who never beats you. Such  a mother must be seen to be
believed! Isn't that so?"
     "But where are we going?"
     "Where are we going? Why, home, of course!"
     "Home, Home!" Valya shouted cheerfully. Jumping up and down she clapped
her hands.
     "But  is it a long way  to our home, Professor?" asked Karik. "Shall we
get there in an hour?"
     "An hour? Dear, no!"
     The Professor shook his head.
     "We cannot  get home  even in ten hours.  We are practically six  miles
from home."
     "Oh,  that's fine!"  Valya  was jumping up and down.  "We can run  that
distance. We'll do it in an hour."
     "How?" coughed the Professor in confusion. "Once - that is  to say this
morning  - we, I  think, might have covered six  miles  in two hours. That's
true. But now it will take us several months."
     "How's that?" marvelled Karik.
     "Why?" Valya opened her eyes wide.
     "Just because we cannot now do more than a yard or one and a half yards
in  the  hour. You  forget that formerly each of our steps  was about half a
yard and now it is a very small part of a centimetre."
     "What? We are not as small as that?"
     Karik glanced hastily around.

     Strange trees  with green angular  trunks stood beside them.  Along the
bank of the river there was wandering some sort of winged being smaller than
a calf but bigger than a sheep. Through the air, as if on purpose to impress
them, an enormous  monster came hurtling above their heads. It was about the
size of a motor-bus with black wool on it.
     The children gazed  about  in  amazement. - What did  it all mean?  The
Professor was real  but  all around, as  before,  were  extraordinary unreal
things.
     "And  what has  happened?" Karik blinked his eyelids in confusion. "You
seem to be real, big. What are you, real or unreal?"
     The Professor smiled.
     "Both real and  unreal," he said. "But you  think it out  for yourself.
Surely I was bigger  than you formerly. I therefore have the right to remain
the same in the small world. Understand?"
     "I understand," replied Karik, undecidedly.
     But  the Professor  realised  from  Karik's  eyes  that  he  understood
precious little.
     "Imagine,"  he continued, "that the liquid I invented had been drunk by
you, I, an elephant, a horse, a mouse, and a  dog. All the whole  lot  of us
would be reduced  in size  to about one-thousandth part of what  we formerly
were, but to us human beings  the  elephant would  still appear as big as we
are accustomed to see  him in the zoological gardens, and  the mouse - well,
naturally, the mouse  will remain tiny, but it will be only a thousandth  of
the size of  an  ordinary  mouse.  But all of us  humans,  together with the
elephant, horse, dog and mouse,  could quite easily be put in the palm of an
ordinary man's hand."
     "I understand," Karik nodded his head.
     "But I don't understand," said Valya.
     "What don't you understand?"
     "I don't understand how you knew where we had got to.''
     "I'll  explain even that to  you  but  not now,"  said  the  Professor,
slapping Valya on the back. "We have a long way to go and we shall be a long
time going there. We shall be able  to talk about  everything on the journey
home. You will tell me  what you saw and what you understood and I will tell
you how I found you.  Now, first of all, my  dears,  on the way we may  lose
each other, and therefore each one of us must know how to find the way home.
Come  with me,  I  have  something to explain  to  you before  we start  our
journey."
     "But we don't  want to lose each other!" said Valya, holding on  to the
Professor's hand.
     "Very good. But all the same.  . . . In any case . . . because anything
might happen."
     The Professor held both the children by the hand  and with  rapid steps
climbed up a hillock.
     The children scurried along  beside the grand old man. "Do you see?" he
suddenly asked, stretching  out his hand. Far away over the thick  growth of
the  grass  jungle raising itself up  in the sky like a huge chimney was  an
enormous post. At the top of it waving in the blue sky there hung an immense
stretch of red cloth.
     The post stood  in the  midst  of the forest, but one  could see  it as
clearly as a solitary pine tree on the steppe.
     "There  is  my  flagstaff!" said the Professor.  "I stuck  it  up as  a
landmark."
     "What for?"
     "Now listen. . . . Wherever we may get to  we can always take a look at
our landmark. All we have to do is to climb up to the top of the grass and .
. . .
     "Of course, naturally," shouted the children.
     "Well, the  rest is quite  simple. Below, just  near the mast, I left a
small plywood box. It is completely wrapped  up in order  to protect it from
the rain and sun. But so that we could get into it I cut a small hole in one
of its sides."
     "Why should we want to get into it?"
     "When we reach the box we shall climb into it and there we shall find a
little  case with white powder. That, my dears, is the  enlarging powder. It
would be sufficient  for each of  us to swallow a handful of this powder  to
turn us once again into big ordinary people, now do you understand?"
     "Oo!" Valya suddenly  interrupted, "but suppose someone  takes  the box
away?"
     The  Professor was confused.  He himself  had  not  thought  of such  a
possibility. But it was important not to let the children think this.
     Stroking his  beard  he said confidently, "Rubbish!  Who in  the  world
would  want  an  old plywood box. In any case very few  people  ever come to
these parts. And . . . and whilst  it is very pleasant chatting here we must
not  waste our breath. Let's start  our journey, my dears! Forward! Come on!
Heads up! Give me your hand, Karik! and yours, Valya."
     "Where are we going now?"
     "There!" the Professor waved his hand. "Set course to the plywood box!"
he ordered.
     Raising his  head high, he started  to  march  towards the forest.  The
children lagged behind him and started whispering excitedly about something.
     The Professor heard.
     "You tell!"
     "Why me? Tell him yourself."
     "What's all this?" he asked, stopping.
     "Well, how are we going to sleep  and what about dinner and breakfast?"
asked Valya.
     He shrugged his shoulders.
     "What  trifles! We shall sleep like our forebears slept  - in trees, in
huts, in  caves, and certainly  it will be much  better  than  sleeping in a
stuffy  room. You must think we  are going  camping. Haven't  you ever  done
that?'
     "But what are we going to eat?"
     "Well,  there is no end of food here. You  could have dinner, breakfast
and supper ten times a day if you wanted it."
     "But look what happened to us," said Valya. "We wanted to  eat a  berry
to-day and someone hit us and threw us into the river."
     "Hit you?" the Professor was astonished.
     "Well, yes."
     And Valya recounted  how they  had tried to get a berry off a tree  and
had not got it but had fallen off into the stormy river.
     "You ate these berries?" asked the Professor with alarm.
     "No! we didn't succeed!"
     He sighed with relief.
     "Just as well. Most  probably these were  the berries of  the poisonous
daphne or as most people call this plant, 'Wolf's Tongue.' "
     "But we did not eat it."
     "That does  not matter. You breathed in  the  poisonous  vapour of  the
daphne and for that reason lost consciousness."
     "Do  you  know, Professor,"  interrupted  Karik, "we are quite ready to
spend the night on a branch or anywhere else you like, but. . . ."
     "But what?"
     Karik swallowed the water which was forming in his mouth and said:
     "Well, we haven't had anything to eat  since yesterday and . . . and we
simply can't go on, we must. . . ."
     "Good gracious me," fussed  the Professor, "fancy  my  not thinking  of
that  at once. Certainly,  my  dears,  certainly!  Before we set off on  our
journey we'll all have a jolly good meal. What about some milk?"
     "Ordinary milk?"
     "M-m, it's certainly not quite ordinary, but it's milk."
     "Let's have it!" Karik stretched out his hand.
     "Only let's have lots," said Valya.
     "Quick march," ordered the Professor.
     Sticking his beard out he started off ahead, examining the grass trees,
looking for something. At last  he stopped  under the  shade of a grassy oak
tree which had  such immense leaves that on anyone of them there would  have
been  plenty  of room  for  a  football match.  Yes and  room  over  for the
spectators.
     "Here,"  the  Professor  pointed  upwards,  "here is  a  herd  of  cows
grazing."
     "Cows up a tree?"
     "M-yes . . . it's something like an alpine dairy farm. Now who is going
to be first up?"
     "Bu - but don't these cows bite?"
     "No, they don't  bite nor  do they butt. They have neither |  teeth nor
horns, my dears."
     Karik and Valya immediately flung themselves at the tree. The Professor
followed them.
     Clutching at the soft green branches they clambered up
     - helping each other and quickly reached the top of the mighty tree.
     In front  of  them shining in the sun were  broad glistening leaves  as
much like green meadows as anything else.
     The  travellers  clambered out  on to one of the leaves  and started to
walk about it, treading with their bare feet on the soft fleshy surface. But
after taking a few steps the children stopped hesitatingly.
     "What's up?" asked the Professor, and he also stopped.
     Valya stretched out a trembling finger. "What is  this?" she pointed to
the surface of the leaf.
     "Yes, whatever is it?" asked Karik, starting to retrace his steps.
     The leaf was to all appearances alive.
     Its glistening surface rustled, contracted and expanded. It was covered
with thousands of  mouths, and  these were either chewing something or  else
waiting to seize Karik and Valya by their bare feet.
     "Well! what's worrying you?" the Professor was surprised.
     "This  can't be a leaf?" said Valya. "Look what it's doing. It's trying
to bite my feet. I don't like such leaves."
     "What nonsense! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.  They are just the
very ordinary pores - the stomatac."
     "Pores?"
     "Of course! They are the windows of the leaf which ventilate the plant,
they are its lungs with which it breathes."
     "But can't they fasten on to our feet?"
     "Obviously  not.  Don't  worry! Just  follow  me!"  and  the  Professor
courageously started to walk over the leaf along the thick veins  which were
traversing the green meadow in all directions.
     The children followed him.
     The first to see the cows was Valya.
     "Oh, look!" she shouted.  "Can these be the  cows? They are not at  all
like cows. They are so green."
     On the edge of the leaf-meadow green  animals were wandering like giant
pears  perched on delicate  long legs. Some of them  were  sitting down with
their  whiskers resting  on the fleshy  surface of the leaf and their snouts
deeply thrust into it.
     "Here we  are,"  said the Professor, "let me introduce the grass  cows.
Don't be upset because they do not look like cows.
     In spite of  it you'll find their milk excellent. In no way inferior to
real milk."
     "But what  are  they  called?" asked  Valya.  "Do  you mean to say  you
haven't guessed it?  Why they're  plant lice. Very familiar  insects. If you
have ever read about ants  you must know about the plant lice - aphides - or
green-fly as they are often called."
     "Aha, I remember," said Karik, "the ants breed them."
     "Yes, yes, quite right, Karik," answered the Professor. "The ants often
collect the plant lice, feed them and tend them."
     "Just like they do in the State dairy farms."
     "Yes. Pretty well. The ants are very fond of plant lice and  treat them
just like people treat cows. They milk them  and feed on this milk. . . . Be
careful, please, don't step into the milk."
     The Professor had stopped at the  edge of a pool of some  sort of thick
liquid.
     "I  don't think it is worth milking the green cows," he continued. "The
milk appears to be flowing in rivers here. Help yourselves, my friends."
     He  lay down on  his stomach, buried his lips  in  the pool of  | green
plant-lice-milk and with his beard splashing in it took several gulps.
     "It tastes all right! Help yourselves!"
     The children followed the Professor's example and quickly  buried their
mouths in the sweet thick milk.
     "What about it?" said the Professor. "Do you like it? Nice, isn't it?"
     "It's better  than real  milk,"  said Karik, wiping his mouth with  his
hand, obviously well satisfied.
     Valya was lapping  it down noisily  and didn't  raise her head but just
grunted something no one could follow.
     At last they were all of them fully satisfied.
     The children  rolled  themselves away from the milk pool  and stretched
themselves out on the leaf, just as if it had been the beach at the seaside.
     Valya lay  stroking her tummy. Karik  flung his legs  and  arms  widely
apart.
     "Good enough," he said.
     "If you are now no longer hungry we must get going!"
     "Oh, no!" hastily interjected  Valya, "we must rest a little  to  begin
with."
     "Just half an hour," Karik supported his sister.
     Their legs  were  so  tired that it  seemed as if they didn't belong to
their owners,  and their arms lay on  the  fleshy surface  of  the leaf like
lead. A great laziness had wrapped itself around them.
     "All right!" agreed the Professor. "Take a proper rest."
     He lay down beside the children.
     After all the events of the day he was not at all loath to lie and rest
himself for half an hour. Yawning  lusciously, he  put  his hands behind his
head, and his eyes which it was now difficult to keep open gently closed.
     For some time the travellers lay silent with their eyes closed to avoid
the glare of the sun, turning now on one side, now on the other.
     Over their heads the wind blew noisily. The leaf swayed like a hammock.
     "Isn't  this grand?"  mumbled  the  Professor.  He  started  to  mutter
something as his  head sank on to his chest. He began to snore gently  as if
he was whistling through his nose.
     "Fast asleep," said Valya.
     "Let him sleep. Then we can rest."
     Valya was silent for a little and then sighing.
     "Mother will be crying probably."
     "Certainly she'll cry."
     Valya sighed more deeply as if she herself were about to cry,
     but at  this moment  something  buzzed through the air and hit the leaf
with a thud.
     The leaf shook.
     "Whatever is that?" squeaked Valya.
     The Professor opened his sleepy eyes slightly.
     A huge tortoise nearly as big as a tank was moving across the leaf. The
back of the tortoise glistened like scarlet lacquer.
     Black patterns on this background made it seem like a Japanese plate.
     The Professor yawned, closed his eyes and started snoring.
     The  children gazed at the  red  monster  in alarm  as, quite unlike  a
tortoise, it started to run lightly towards them.
     They clung to each other.
     The red tortoise ran up to the children, gazed down at  them as if from
the roof of a barn and angrily rustled its whiskers.
     Karik  and Valya jumped up and with  a scream and  shout took  to their
heels.
     They  dashed past the green cows which were  peacefully  grazing on the
leaf meadow and ran up to the very edge of the leaf.
     There was no further escape possible.





     A thirsty  journey - The cafe in the grass  jungle - The  assault on  a
forest  stronghold  -  The battle with the ants  - Under  the mushroom - The
flood

     KARIK AND VALYA STOOD ON THE VERY  EDGE OF THE LEAF. BELOW, under their
feet,  there swayed the tops  of  trees  and through the  chinks between the
leaves far below could be seen the ground.
     Jump down? They could hardly jump from such a height.
     Valya gripped Karik's hand firmly.
     The red tortoise had crawled quite close.  Another minute and it  would
hurl itself on the children, kill them, carry them off and eat them.
     "Don't be frightened! Don't be frightened!" the children suddenly heard
the  voice of the Professor,  "It  is a  lady-bird. It won't touch you. Come
over here."
     "It won't touch you!" whispered Valya, hiding behind Karik.
     Not for a moment taking his eyes off  the tortoise-monster, Karik moved
sideways past it.
     "Now, now! be brave!" encouraged the Professor.
     The children turned abruptly and dashed away at full speed to the green
cows.
     Hardly drawing breath they then darted towards the Professor, stumbling
now and then in their flight across the leaf. They finally  managed to  hide
behind his broad back.
     "It is quite harmless!" said the Professor. "No need to worry!"
     "May be  harmless but it's very alarming!" puffed Valya. "Oy! Look what
this  harmless creature is  up to!" The lady-bird had  reached the  herd  of
green  cows and stopping suddenly struck down one of the cows with  its paws
like a lion and trampling  on it, squeezing it with the weight  of its body,
proceeded  to  suck it. In a few seconds nothing of  the cow remained except
its skin.
     The lady-bird proceeded to knock down one after the other.
     It trampled on them, sucked them like grapes and threw away the skins.
     By the  time the children had recovered their senses  there was  not  a
single one of the plant lice left on the leaf.
     Having  devoured  the lice  the ladybird  wiped its  whiskers  with  an
enormous paw and kicking  the skins out of its way moved over to the edge of
the leaf.
     Here it raised its  armour and  pushed out from under  it a transparent
flinty-like tail and two heavy trough-shaped wings,  after  which the armour
fell back with a clacking noise. Then with a  creaking rustle two more wings
appeared this time, delicate and transparent. They started to beat violently
up  and down,  disappearing from view  with their speed,  like propellers. A
stream of air beat in  the  faces of the travellers. The  lady-bird was off,
away above the forest.
     "So  that's a  lady-bird!" said  Valya.  "Sucks them all  dry-in a most
lady-like manner and flies away!"
     "Yes,  most  excellent,"  said the  Professor.  "Just  what is  needed.
Couldn't be better."
     "Excellent?"
     "Of  course. It is  most important to  get rid  of these lice  in every
possible  way. But  probably  the best method  of  fighting  the lice is the
lady-bird beetle. In America they collect these lady-birds in baskets and in
spring-time release them wherever there are lice. The lady-bird hunters have
special  maps  provided for them  showing the places in which the  lady-bird
usually winters. They go to these places and collect them."
     "But  why is it  necessary to get rid of the lice?" asked Valya.  "They
have such nice milk."
     "The milk is all right," agreed the Professor, "but the lice themselves
are  very harmful creatures and what is more they  have so many children and
multiply so rapidly. But for the lady-birds the lice would be most difficult
to combat."
     "In what way are they harmful?"
     "They attack  the  leaves  of fruit  trees, flowers and  vegetables. In
fact, there is hardly a plant on which you might not find lice."
     "What do they actually do?"
     "The lice  suck the  sap out of the  plant,  but this is  only half the
evil. The green milk which you found so nice to taste, gums up the pores  of
the leaf so that it cannot breathe and grow. The leaf naturally dies. But if
the  leaves  perish it just  means  that  you can't  expect either fruit  or
vegetables. However, it is all very well to talk. We have had our rest, it's
high time to step out. Come on, my dears!"
     But before climbing  down  from the  tree  the  Professor  scanned  the
horizon for his beacon.
     Away in the west above the foliage of the grassy jungle there fluttered
in the wind an enormous red flag.
     "Aha," he muttered, turning to climb  down,  "we must go westward. Keep
going towards the sun."
     He jumped down on to the ground.
     "Forward!" he shouted, and stepping off through the glade began to sing
like the wind in a chimney.


     "Forward! the bugles blow,
     To battle most glorious.
     Forward! with eyes aglow,
     The children victorious."


     Valya frowned and stuck her fingers in  her ears. Karik waved his hand:
let the old  boy  sing, after  all  every  human being has some  sort  of  a
weakness.
     The Professor was only human.
     The travellers  were passing  through a forest. Tall trees, without any
branches or even knots, surrounded them like giant radio masts.
     The sun's rays falling from  above made golden streaks on the ground so
that their path seemed across a blanket striped with yellow.
     The  travellers now  clambered up steep, practically  vertical mountain
sides, now tobogganed downwards raising thick clouds of  dust  behind  them.
Deep valleys were succeeded by high peaks. The  forest followed  down to the
bottom of the ravines and up to the ridges of the mountains.
     The soil was all full of holes and terribly rough. The arms and legs of
the Professor and the children became covered with scratches and weals.
     Valya had  a  great blue bruise on her forehead.  Karik's nose was  all
swollen and he had a great scratch right across his chest.
     The children were puffing but the Professor would not slacken his pace.
     The  sun  started  to  burn  their  shoulders  and arms  painfully. The
Professor  had  to wipe his dripping face continually with the palm  of  his
hand. Valya became as scarlet as if she had been plunged in boiling water.
     "What ho for  Africa!" Karik tried to joke. "Another  day like this and
we shall start to moult our skins. We shall be all striped like Zebras."
     The Professor and Valya remained silent. They licked their cracked lips
and looked from side to side hoping for the glitter of water in some pond or
river.
     There was no sign of water.
     "You just can't imagine how I want a drink!" Valya at length  could not
contain herself any longer.
     "And you just can't imagine," croaked Karik, "how my tongue feels. Just
as if pepper had been shaken all over it."
     "Don't be  discouraged!"  the Professor  comforted the children. "There
must be water somewhere fairly close."
     Valya soon became quite exhausted.
     "Let's rest!" Every ten minutes or so she had to rest again.
     The travellers would stop and sit down. But sitting on the baking earth
was even worse than walking over it. After a minute or so they would have to
jump up and start off again.
     "My goodness," gruff-gruffed the Professor,  "it's just like travelling
in the Sahara desert."
     Valya staggered along.
     "A drink! a drink!" she whimpered.
     Karik moved as  if  in a dream, stumbling and  bumping up  against  the
trees.
     And suddenly through a  clearing in the  forest  there was a glimpse of
blue.
     "Water!" shouted Valya rushing ahead.
     The Professor  and Karik forgot their  tiredness.  One after the  other
they chased after Valya.
     The clearing in the forest widened.
     There amid the green vegetation hung a great blue flower but no sign of
water.
     Valya flung herself on the ground.
     "I - I can't go any further," she groaned.
     "Stick to it! stick to it!"  grunted  the  Professor, "in a very little
time we shall find water."
     He put his arms around Valya and pulled her up.
     "We must keep going! Come along, little Valya!"
     Cold refreshing water now taunted them  every step they took, for right
and left where ever they looked they saw the blue of the water they needed.
     But when the  exhausted travellers stumbled towards  it every  time the
blue turned into a flower.
     "A drink! I must drink!" groaned Valya.
     "Water," Karik whispered with dry lips.
     The  Professor  stumbled and fell  face  downwards on  the ground.  The
children threw themselves down beside him.
     They  could hear  the monsters of the grass jungle rustling past  them.
Backwards  and  forwards  the  insects  went so  that  it  seemed  that  the
travellers might have  been  resting at some busy crossroads. However,  they
were too tired to  pay  any attention  to the  passers-by.  One  caterpillar
passed so close that it trod on Valya's hand but they none of them stirred.
     "Water !"
     "Wa-ater!" groaned the children.
     Swaying from side to side the Professor stood up.
     They  must move  on. But  which way? In which direction would they find
water.
     He leant against a tree and with his head stuck forward upon his breast
he stared gloomily at the ground.
     Suddenly  right  beside him  an earthy hillock started to move.  Stones
fell from  its  top to  the ground  around. Then suddenly the  hillock split
open. Long feelers stuck up into the air  and from within the hillock a huge
head  appeared  and then  a dark body with  a yellow edge slid  out  of  the
ground.
     "Saved!" shouted the Professor.
     The children raised their heads from the ground.
     "Get up! Here's the water!" he continued.
     Having grasped the last word, the children both struggled up.
     "Give us a drink !"
     "In a minute or two you'll have a whole river but now we must accompany
a very good friend of mine who is going to the water."
     The  Professor waved  his hand to where  at one  side there  stood  the
monster with the yellow streak cleaning the dust and dirt from its  body. It
was  like  a  beetle  of  some sort,  only  this  beetle was the size  of  a
motor-bus.
     "What is this?" whispered Karik.
     "Dytiscus, the water  beetle!  It will lead us  to the water!" said the
Professor.
     The water beetle  stretched out its whiskers, turned  to the right  and
confidently went ahead crashing its way through the grassy trees.
     The travellers ran behind it.
     They had all become more cheerful. Karik's eyes were glistening.
     "But how does the water beetle know where the water is?" he croaked.
     "Very simple, considering it lives and hunts in water. It could  hardly
get on without knowing."
     "Where did it come from?"
     "Out of the earth."
     "But why?" marvelled Valya.
     "Well, it is such an amazing creature, is this water beetle."
     As they followed in the wake of the beetle the Professor went on:
     "They reproduce themselves by means of  eggs which  they stick to water
plants.
     "In a month or so the eggs hatch and larvae come out like caterpillars,
but with the temperaments of tigers. These courageous and greedy larvas will
attack pretty  well any  inhabitant of  the water even fish,  which are many
times their size. When the larvae are full grown they creep out of the water
and  finding a peaceful, comfortable spot they bury themselves in the earth.
Here they turn first of all into  a chrysalis and then into a large ordinary
beetle. The beetle comes out of the ground -  you yourselves saw this happen
- and sets out on a career of piracy in its proper realm - in water."
     "But how does it know where the water is?"
     "Well, how do birds know which is south when they fly  away from  us in
the Autumn to winter in a warm climate?"
     The Professor was talking without stopping. He knew well that a journey
seems much shorter to those who travel talking.
     "This beetle," he  continued,  "is perhaps one of  the most  remarkable
creatures in the world. You can  come  across it in any water butt. When you
next see one look at it closely.  Think, my dears, it charges over the water
like a speed boat, dives like a diving duck, is able to sit at the bottom of
a pond  longer than a human diver, travels under the  water as  well  as any
submarine, flies through  the air like  an aeroplane  and  walks on dry land
like a human. You do not meet a creature like that everyday. Once I was - "
     "Water!" screamed Valya.
     Without  waiting to hear  what the Professor had to  say both  children
rushed ahead.
     Amid  green foliage there was now mirrored a blue unruffled expanse  of
water.
     The beetle made for the steep bank of the lake, hurled itself down into
the water and vanished. Circles of waves spread across the mirror.
     "Water !"
     "Water!"
     On the bank of the lake there stood a tree with huge blue flowers. Dark
leaves cast a dense cool shadow on the ground beneath.
     Karik, not waiting, ran down a  slope,  jumped down  and stretching out
his arms flung himself in the water like the beetle had done.
     He splashed himself and, burying his face in the water,  drank. Then he
sat up spluttering and laughing.
     There was no more tiredness.
     "Quickly!"  he  shouted. "Come here quickly before I have  drunk it all
up."
     Limping and  stumbling,  the Professor and Valya  made their way to the
bank. They too jumped into the water,  raising a cloud  of spray and at once
started  to drink:  burying their poor lips,  cracked from the heat,  in the
cool water.
     "Oo! Good, isn't it." Valya raised her head. Her nose was wet and water
dripped from her cheeks and chin.
     "Let's  bathe! Bathe!" the Professor  ordered,  as  he squeezed his wet
beard.
     Having bathed to their hearts' content the travellers came up from  the
water's edge, dried themselves in  the sun and then betaking themselves into
the glade stretched out in the cool shadow of the tree with blue flowers.
     Thus  they lay motionless, silent, gazing  through the  openings in the
trees above them at the distant blue sky, lazily listening  to the noises of
the grassy jungle.
     Suddenly the Professor stood  up and  hitching up his clothes went over
to the tree and grasped a green branch with both hands.
     "Where   are  you  off  to?"  the  children  shouted.   "Don't  disturb
yourselves.  I'll be back in a minute." The  Professor  started to climb the
tree. The children looked  at each other. "We'll  climb  too  !" said Valya.
"We'll climb!"
     They jumped up and jostling each other darted to the tree, but they had
not succeeded in getting hold of the lowest branch when something above them
made  a tearing noise as if  someone  was ripping a  strong piece of  cloth.
"Catch it,  children !" Karik and Valya stretched out  their arms. Something
blue was coming down through the air. Lazily it circled  and swayed until it
seemed  about  to cover  the children  in what appeared  to  be a  huge blue
bedcover.
     The children skipped out of the way.
     The bedcover fell quite gently at their feet.
     "Whatever is it?" shouted Karik, bending over the blue bedcover.
     "A forget. me-not petal!" shouted the Professor from above.
     "What are we to do with it?" asked Valya.
     "Do with  it? We can make ourselves clothes and umbrellas. I don't know
about you, but my back is already covered with blisters from sunburn."
     The Professor threw down some more petals.
     The children collected them and laid them in a heap.
     Valya threw one of the petals up on to her head. The  petal was big and
broad. It drooped down over her shoulders and  covered her  hot back like  a
rubber cape.
     "Well, how about it?" asked the Professor, jumping down from the tree.
     "Thanks awfully!" replied Valya.
     The Professor  took  the petal, bent it in his hands  until  it was  in
halves, then he bent it over the  other way and bit the corner off  with his
teeth.
     "Oo-ough!  It's  tough  enough," he  said,  and carefully unfolded  the
petal.
     In  the middle  of  the petal there now  appeared  an  uneven hole with
ragged edges.
     "Now put your head through here!" commanded the Professor.
     The  petal  soon lay soft, cool  and  protecting, upon Valya's sunburnt
shoulders.
     It covered Valya from the shoulders to the knees.
     "Grand!" approved Karik. "Something like a shroud."
     "Not a shroud!" said the  Professor. "A floral cape. You must have  one
now.  These capes  will save  you from the sun by  day and from the cold  by
night."
     The  little party soon looked  as  if they belonged to  some travelling
circus. The  Professor  and the children garbed in blue  capes proceeded  on
their way in single file.
     In their hands they carried long sticks, to the  ends of which had been
fastened pieces of petal. These  blue  umbrellas  swayed above  their heads,
throwing a shadow on  their faces. They were a  splendid protection from the
scorching rays of the sun.
     The Professor tramped  on whistling a march. Karik and Valya hummed the
same tune where possible.
     The forest became thinner. The travellers came out on to a sunny field.
Overhead huge  winged creatures  as big as cows were droning. Flashing their
transparent wings they darted past  so near that  Karik and Valya had either
to duck or to stop in terror.
     "You  needn't  worry  about  these  insects,"  smiled  the   Professor.
"Remember each  one  has its  own regular habitual  food.  Dragon-flies, for
example, feed on flies  and butterflies, bees on the honey in  flowers. Many
of  the flying insects actually never eat anything. They come into the world
just to lay their eggs, after which they die. Quite a number of these do not
even have a mouth. As you  can see, it is just as safe here  as in a town. I
am quite certain that none of these insects would consider us as dainties to
be eaten. . . ."
     The Professor did not finish his sentence. He suddenly seized Karik and
Valya by the arms and pulled them to himself. The children fell sprawling on
the ground with the Professor stretched out beside them.
     "Ts-s," hissed  the Professor, pressing himself to  the earth.  At that
moment  something whistled  over  the heads  of  the travellers  and crashed
noisily into the undergrowth of the forest.
     The  travellers hastily covered  themselves with their umbrellas. "What
is it?" "What's that?"
     The Professor cautiously peeped out  from under  his  umbrella. Not far
away behind  a  dark hillock  there  could be seen the  green  back  of some
creature glistening  in the sun above  the tops of the trees.  This back was
now rising,  now falling, then the  creature slid  sideways, jumped  upwards
and, having in one flash spread its wings, disappeared.
     "A grasshopper!" said the Professor, standing up and dusting himself.
     Karik  quickly nudged Valya in the side. "Surely a grasshopper wouldn't
find us a dainty morsel?". he asked slyly.
     "Look here," gruff-gruffed  the Professor  in confusion. "A grasshopper
is a treacherous beast. How am I to know what might enter its head.  Caution
never did anybody any harm, my dears."
     The travellers moved on in no particular hurry.
     They  made  their way  forward, wading  across  rivers, swimming across
small ponds and making their way through the thick growth of the jungle.
     The Professor pointed  out first this, then that particular grassy tree
and told the children interesting  stories about  various plants. Apparently
there was not such  a  thing as a grass or  flower  that simply grew without
being of some use for mankind.
     Suddenly Valya seized the Professor by the arm.
     "Look! " she shouted. "Look! What's that?"
     They all stopped in front of some thick undergrowth.
     "Where? What are you looking at?"
     "Over there! There they are! Lying in wait for us."
     "I don't see anything!"  frowned the Professor. Putting his hand to his
eyes like  a peak of a cap, he  craned his neck, stood on tip-toe  and gazed
attentively at the undergrowth.
     "I see! I can see!" said Karik. "They are round and they are moving."
     "But where do you see them?" asked the Professor, in some alarm.
     He stepped forward and then suddenly burst out laughing.
     "Nothing to worry about there. You'll see yourselves when we get nearer
to  these  forest monsters. Come on." And with big strides he moved  towards
the lair of these fearsome creatures.
     The children followed behind him.
     They could now distinguish quite clearly brown balls  hanging  from the
grassy trees. At a distance they were  like footballs, but as one approached
they seemed to be balloons bigger  than the Professor. The  walls  of  these
brown balloons were made of twigs and pieces of earth.
     "Can you guess what these are?" asked the Professor, stopping.
     "Oy!" shouted Valya. "Round houses! Look at all the tenants.  This is a
forest hotel. The 'Insects' Hotel Metropole'."
     "Or  it may be a forest restaurant -  'Insects' Help-yourselves Cafe',"
grinned Karik.
     Yellow six-legged animals  were crawling  over the broad bulging walls.
They  staggered  out  of dark  entrances and  lazily  Х  crawled in  various
directions then once  again  came  together,  felt  each  other  with  their
whiskers  and  waddling  in a  ridiculous  way, disappeared  into  the  dark
entrances of their round house.
     "But these are plant lice!" interjected Karik. "How is it that they are
yellow?"
     "Very  simple," answered the Professor, "this kind  of  lice takes  the
colour of their dwelling. In the far north all birds and beasts are white in
colour  to  match the snow,  but  in  the  south  animals  have  splashes of
different colours  to  match  the splashes  of sun  and  shadow seen  in the
southern forests and plains. Surely you know that?"
     "It  is  in order  to  enable them to hide  more  easily?"  Karik  said
questioningly.
     The Professor nodded his head.
     "Both  to  enable  them to  hide  more  easily  and  also  to creep  up
unobserved  by their prey. The markings on the  skin of a giraffe enables it
to hide more easily but the markings on a tiger's skin help it to come up to
its victims unobserved.
     He went up to one of the round brown houses, examined it from all sides
and even tapped it with the stick of his umbrella.
     "Beautiful work! Excellent! Conscientious workers!" he said.  "They are
great boys are ants!"
     "Ants? Surely they didn't build it?"
     "Certainly."
     "But why then are the plant lice living in it?"
     "Just because it  happens  to  be  an ants' dairy  farm." The Professor
waved his blue umbrella and said:
     "Just as mankind breeds cows, so ants herd plant lice. Not only do they
breed them but they protect them from enemies.
     And to  prevent the rain washing their cows away they build  them these
house farms."
     "And how do the ants carry the milk away?"
     "Why carry it? The ants come here and drink the milk."
     Karik grinned cheerfully.
     "It's not so much a farm as a cafeteria."
     "Some  types  of ants," continued the Professor,  "chase the plant lice
into their ant hills when winter starts and feed on fresh milk for the whole
winter without ever coming out of their ant hill."
     "Gunning!" whistled  Karik.  "But  I  read  somewhere that  ants  slept
through the winter and did not eat anything."
     "That is perfectly true, but not of  all the ants. In ant hills some of
the ants are always on watch. These are the ones that feed on the plant lice
milk."
     "These must be the white ants who feed  during the winter!" said Valya.
"I also read about them. They live in Africa and they are called termites."
     "Oh,  Valya, you have muddled it up. There are  no such things as white
ants.  And  termites  are not ants although they  resemble  ants  in  build.
Termites are nearer dragonflies than ants."
     "And are there no white ants?"
     "No!  There are black,  chestnut, red, blood-red and yellow ants. There
are  ant sculptors, ant miners, stone  quarriers, cowherds,  agriculturists,
honey ants, umbrella  ants and  solitary ants.  Then you have  by  no  means
exhausted their occupations."

     * * * * * *

     Still talking about ants, the travellers came to a precipice which fell
sharply away down to a green valley surrounded with low hills.
     Light clouds floated above the hills.

     The  tops of the hills were flooded with the orange tints of the  early
evening sun.
     ''Look  !'' exclaimed  Valya,  suddenly. "Egyptian  pyramids. Look ! Do
look!"
     In the middle of the valley there rose a queer-shaped hill.
     It  was made  of dark beams covered over  with earth. Hanging galleries
covered the sides of the pyramid and appeared to slope downwards in spirals.
     "Ants!" said the Professor. "Black ants. These are evidently the owners
of the farms we have just passed."
     Long-bodied  just  like greyhounds, the ants were fussing  around their
ant hill. They thrust backwards  and forwards, ran jostling each other along
the hanging  galleries.  Knocking  each  other  down, getting  up again, and
running, running, running. Apparently they had been frightened by something.
They were  carrying great white  cocoons  and dragging these in  through the
dark entrances of their ant  hill. The long white eggs seemed to float above
the heads of the black ants.
     "Why are they dragging these eggs about?" asked Valya.
     The Professor shrugged his shoulders.
     "  I suppose  it  is because  it's going  to rain," he  answered. "They
usually hide  their  cocoons  or eggs  as you call them  and close  all  the
entrances and exits  to their nests before rain comes. But we  mustn't waste
time, whilst the ants are busy with  their own affairs we  must  try and get
across the valley.  Also,  my dears, we  must seek some  comfortable  refuge
where we can shelter from the rain."
     The  travellers  started to climb down. But  they  had  hardly  taken a
couple of steps when they heard a sort of confused but increasing noise.
     The Professor stopped.
     "Is that the rain?"
     He looked at the sky.
     It  had grown  dark and  thundery clouds were covering it.  The  grassy
jungle was still as if it had been hushed. But there was no sign of rain.
     "What is it making the noise?"
     The travellers looked about themselves cautiously. The children watched
the Professor  uneasily  as he listened  attentively  to  the rising  noise,
stroking his grey beard.
     I "Strange, very strange!" he gruff-gruffed. "I don't like this  noise,
my dears."
     The Professor and the children hid themselves behind grass trees.
     "It's as if someone were running!" said Karik, cautiously looking  from
behind a thick trunk.
     The  noise came  nearer  and nearer.  They  could now  distinguish  the
trampling  of  rapidly moving feet. It  seemed  as if  a herd of  frightened
cattle was stampeding towards the children.
     The tops of the distant hills became wreathed in something like smoke.
     It was a cloud of dust engulfing them.
     "I see  them!" shouted  Valya.  "There! There  they are!  Look! They're
coming! Oy, however many are there?"
     On the distant ridges of the hill there had now appeared a host of dark
points.
     To begin with they spread along the ridges and then suddenly started to
spread down the sides of the hills.
     The hills became  darkened. Great hordes of some  sort  of animals were
sweeping downwards like an avalanche and soon the whole valley was moving as
if it  were alive. All the time from behind the hills there emerged more and
more new columns.
     "Red ants !" shouted the Professor.
     He had made no mistake.
     These were huge red ants.  Their strong bodies shone like  copper. They
were twice as big  as the black ants. And what a vicious war-like appearance
they had !
     Without  any pause  the stranger ants  flung themselves in assault upon
the ant  hill belonging  to the back ants. They grappled hold of  the  beams
with clutching feet and soon a living stream flowed along the galleries.
     The owners of the ant hill rushed to meet this vicious attack. A bitter
struggle ensued on the galleries.
     The  red  ants, like  a  band  of hungry  dogs, fell upon the  peaceful
cowherd ants, killed them and threw them down from the galleries.
     They attacked the ant  hill from all sides. The cowherd  ants  defended
themselves desperately.
     They  perished in  hundreds bravely defending  every  entrance to their
home. But the forces were too unequal.
     The red ants clambered over the  bodies of the mutilated black ants and
pushed forward step by step  until  at  last  having swept aside their small
opponents they hurled themselves noisily into the interior of the ant heap.
     All along the galleries dead ants were being thrown down.
     Below at the edge of the ant heap a small group of black ants was still
bravely battling with their red foes.
     But the battle was already won.
     The red  ants had  destroyed  the black ants  and  they  now started to
pillage the ant heap.
     The  victors dragged white cocoons out of the  tunnels and hastily  ran
down the galleries to where beneath there  jostled a disorderly noisy crowd.
They  were like bandits who after destroying a house were dragging the goods
away in sacks.
     "Whatever are they up to?" asked Karik, quite perplexed.
     "Don't  you see?" whispered the Professor in reply.  "The red ants have
captured the cocoons of  the  black  ants,  their children  in  other words.
They'll carry off these cocoons to their own ant  hill  and when  these ants
come out they'll make them their slaves."
     "What?"
     Karik jumped up as if he had been stung.
     "And  why  haven't you done  something about it? These slave owners are
busy robbing, and here we are sitting with our hands folded?"
     He  seized a  stone from the  ground and swinging  it  around  flung it
violently at a  group of the bandits, who were dragging white cocoons out of
the ant hill.
     "Hit them! Valya,  what are you looking at? Can't  you  pee? What awful
parasites!"
     Lumps of  earth and  stones  now flew  amongst the  red  ants.  Without
thinking of the danger the children darted from behind the trees.
     "Fire!"  ordered  Karik. And  two  stones  whistled into  the  crowd of
bandits.
     The Professor, becoming frightened, seized the children by the arms.
     "Stop! You lunatics! What are you doing? Do  you want  them  to  attack
us?"
     "Well, let them!"  frowned Valya. "Let them attack us ! We'll soon show
them what happens to people who make slaves."
     "We can't fight them!" scolded the Professor.
     "That  remains to be seen," answered Karik, pugnaciously, still  firing
stones at the ants.
     The  children  had worked themselves up to such a pitch that they could
not be restrained.
     "What  about you?" Valya shouted  at the Professor. "Aren't you ashamed
to stand there with your  hands folded? Come on, help us!" and she  shoved a
stone towards him.
     But the Professor waved his hand and stepped on one side.
     He sat down on the edge  of the precipice and swinging his legs  in the
air started to count the ants which had been hit by the children.
     At that moment one of the children deftly hit an ant plumb on the head.
The ant staggered and slowly, just as if it was thinking hard, it started to
fall forward. At that moment  a second stone  whistled at it, hitting it  on
the chest. The  ant  dropped and lay  still.  The cocoon  fell  out  of  its
clutches and rolled down the hill. Another of the bandits ran up to it.
     "See if you can hit one !" Valya shouted.
     The  Professor, quite  unexpectedly to himself,  bent his arm back  and
threw a stone at the ant.
     Just then the bandit ant was making for the cocoon. It was on the point
of seizing it  with its claws when  the stone thrown by the Professor hit it
on the claw. The  ant turned and fell on one side, spun around and made off"
limping.
     "Aha, you  don't  like that!"  grinned the Professor, and bent over for
more stones.
     A third ant had already reached  the  cocoon. Having seized  it the ant
quickly made off towards his gang.
     "Nonsense," roared the Professor. "I won't let you have it!" At that he
fired a stone so precisely that it knocked this ant out also.
     The cocoon  now  rolled away  off  to one side. "Mow them down!" yelled
Karik. "It is no use just hitting odd ones like that.  Oh, if only our scout
troop was here we'd  soon  show these slave-makers . . .  what  blackguards.
Come on, all together. Give them a volley!"
     Heavy stones crashed over amongst the ants.
     "Hurrah, they are running away !" cried Valya cheerfully.
     She bent over to pick up another stone and suddenly saw in front of her
a fearsome ant face. It had got up the cliff unnoticed and was upon her.
     She seized a lump of earth, swung it upwards and brought it down on the
ant's head, screaming as she did it.
     "Help, help! Come quickly!"
     The ant staggered but made on towards the brave girl.
     "They are here! Come on!" she screamed.
     The Professor and Karik dashed over to her.
     The Professor gave orders.
     "You attack at the side, I'll be in front! Hit it with stones!"
     "Ya-ya-ya-yah!" shouted  the children, and fearlessly hurled themselves
at the ant.
     The Professor hit it full force in the eye with a stone.
     The ant shuddered,  staggered and  helplessly started kicking its  feet
about. Karik struck it in the back and Valya jumping in closer hit it with a
stone on the head. The ant fell heavily to the ground.
     "Hurrah !" yelled Valya.
     With her stone  raised high above  her head she  stood there red in the
face with the exertion and beaming with pride at the Professor and Karik.
     It was, however, too early to celebrate.
     Down in the ravine a whole horde  of fierce ants were streaming over to
the help of the bandit. They were running along, agile and  muscular and the
sun  glinted on their  red shining  sides which  sparkled  like some sort of
copper armour.
     The grassy jungle shook with the heavy beat of ants' feet.
     "Valya, Valya! Lookout! Come back!" yelled Karik.
     Valya turned.
     "Oy! a hundred of them!" she cried  out. "No!  more than that  and they
are climbing up! They're coming up!"
     The hordes of ants were swarming up the sides of the ravine,
     "We must run for it!" barked the Professor.
     He  seized the  children  by  the hands, they  dashed  off together not
caring where they went, jumping over holes and stumbling against rocks.
     The wind sang in their ears: fe-e-ew!
     With  thunderous  tread the ants charged behind  them, gaining  all the
time on the unfortunate travellers.
     Now, now! another  minute  and they'll catch  up, seize  and  tear  the
Professor and the children in pieces.
     Panting  from  the pace at  which he had run, the Professor looked over
his shoulder at the ants, and  then at  the children. Would they  be able to
keep going?
     "We  cannot get  away!" the thought made the Professor  cold with fear.
"We cannot possibly escape them !"
     What could be done? Must he and the children all perish?
     No, it was unthinkable!
     Suppose he were to stop and hold the  ants. Maybe the children would be
able to hide somewhere whilst he fought the beasts.
     He pretended to stumble accidentally and stopped.
     Seeing this the children also stopped.
     "Run on! Run on!" he waved with his hands.
     Karik and Valya ran on, but after a few steps they stopped again.
     "For goodness sake why don't you run?" shouted the  Professor  angrily.
"Run on. What's stopping you?"
     "A river! Here is a river!"
     "Where?" .
     The Professor bounded towards the children. In front of them was a line
of low hillocks.
     Behind the hillocks a river showed blue shimmering in the sun.
     "Can  you  swim that?" the Professor panted  at the children, breathing
heavily.
     Karik and Valya looked at each other and both together answered.
     "Rather!"
     "Of course we can swim it!"
     "Come on! We're saved!"
     The Professor ran up to the  cliff edge of the  river.  "Dive  in!"  he
shouted, "and  swim across!"  and throwing up his  arms  he  plunged off the
cliff into the river, yelling.
     "Follow me."
     Not hesitating a moment, Karik and Valya both dived after him.
     The cold water took  their breath away. Karik bobbed up like a cork and
looked hastily around.
     Ahead, blowing and snorting like a seal, swam the Professor.
     His bald head shone in the sunshine like a polished billiard ball. With
speedy strokes  Karik and  Valya swam after him. But apparently he could not
see them. He twisted his head back and raised himself out of the water for a
second looking around.
     "Ahoy!" he shouted. "Where are you?"
     "Here!"
     "Here!"
     "Don't stop!"
     Karik and Valya threshed the water with their arms. Making every effort
they  tried to  overtake him, but he was quite clearly a master swimmer. The
distance between him and the children increased every minute. He reached the
other bank whilst the children were still in the middle.
     Valya cried out something. So  he  turned  back  and swam alongside the
children.
     "Well! how are things?"  he asked with some  anxiety. "You are not  too
tired! Can you make it?"
     "We'll make it!" Valya just managed to bubble back.
     Karik turned  his  head back; he was no longer afraid - the ants  could
not swim.
     There on the bank they were crowding, running down the side to the very
edge  of the river, bending down to the water's edge, feeling it  with their
feet, just as if they had decided to try and swim - then immediately drawing
back.
     Not one of them could make up its mind to plunge into the water.
     Worn and  weary  the travellers dragged themselves up the opposite bank
and staggering with tiredness made their way to some flat rocks.
     The children sank on to the rocks.
     "There's war  for you," said the  Professor, bending his head  down and
wringing the water out of his beard.
     Karik and Valya didn't reply.
     They  gazed at the opposite bank where the ants  were running backwards
and forwards.
     "And ants don't swim?" asked Valya, wiping her face with her hands.
     "No! These do not swim!" The Professor comforted the girl.
     "But,"  said Karik, taking a  deep breath, "but  I  read somewhere that
they  held  on to each other, made  a floating bridge  and got across rivers
like that."
     "True enough!" nodded  the Professor, "but there are not enough of them
here to make such a bridge. Generally speaking. . . ."
     He  broke  off  to gaze anxiously at the  heavy thundery clouds, and he
turned abruptly from the bank.
     "There is  another danger threatening us,  my dears. Very soon a pretty
drop of rain  will start to fall. Hoo-oo-. We must hide ourselves somewhere,
the sooner the better."
     Valya started grinning.
     "Surely we are so wet already we have nothing much to fear?"
     "You forget," barked the Professor, "that the first drop  of rain would
knock  us off our feet and the  next drops would beat us into the earth.  We
had jolly well better look  around for some hidey hole where  we can shelter
during the rain."
     The travellers had not got much further before the sky darkened, a cold
wind rustled the tops of the grassy jungle and  odd  drops of rain could  be
heard drumming on the leaves.
     These were just the first drops.
     "Quicker!" ordered the Professor, "follow me, my dears!"
     He rolled down a steep slope and jumping up ran on.
     The children plunged after him.
     Their  blue dresses  fluttered  in  the wind. Their umbrellas shook and
their long handles bent like bows.
     Suddenly the Professor turned abruptly to one side.
     "Here we are, children!" he shouted, running towards a high  grey cliff
which stood out of the valley like a skyscraper.
     On top of this cliff there lay an enormous dark brown mass, like a hat.
     In the distance it looked just like a giant peaked cap.
     The Professor ran up to the foot of this strange cliff and throwing his
head back started to examine it.
     "Well!  well! this is marvellous, isn't it?" he said, wiping  his  face
with his hand.
     Karik and Valya ran up to him and both started:
     "What is it?"
     "Don't you recognise it?" smiled the  Professor. "Take a  good  look at
this marvel!"
     The cliff  stretched  high into  the  sky and  the higher it  went  the
narrower it became.
     Right on top at the height of a two-storied house there hung a circular
spongy-looking roof. It projected like the brim of an immense hat protecting
them from the rain. The dark shadow of this roof covered the top half of the
pillar cliff.
     "A mushroom!" yelled Valya.
     "Of course it is - a mushroom!" laughed the Professor.
     "Which sort is it?" asked Karik. "A White mushroom, a Shaggy cap, a Fly
catcher or a Blewit?"
     The Professor opened his mouth to reply but  heavy rain started to beat
down. His voice was drowned in the roar of the torrent.
     Neither the Professor nor the children had ever seen such rain before.
     Huge  balls  of  water whistled  and  howled  through the air,  falling
crashingly upon the earth. Pieces of earth were thrown up just as if a shell
had exploded. Before the mud  had time to settle  hundreds more water shells
howling  and  crashing  buried themselves  in  the  earth,  throwing it  up,
scattering it, and splashing.
     Streams of  water  spread over the earth. Soon a turbid watery  curtain
shut the travellers off from the rest of the world.
     The air suddenly became much cooler.
     Shivering  and  resting  first  on  one  leg and  then on the other the
Professor and the children were like geese standing on ice.
     An icy blast of wind  came  from  the side  and drenched the travellers
with cold spray.
     "Go-oo-old!" Karik's teeth were chattering.
     "Nasty, my dear, nasty!" gruff-gruffed the Professor, and  wriggled his
shoulders  with the  cold. "We shall get quite numb like this.  We must find
the sheltered side of the mushroom. Now come on. You, Karik, go round to the
right and  you, Valya,  to  the left. Assembly point  is here. Try  and find
whether there is not a better place than this. Now quick march!"
     Their teeth chattering with the cold, the children  ran around the base
of the giant mushroom.
     Valya rounded a thick projection of the  cliff and the  wind shifted to
her back and then fell away.
     Behind the projection all was calm.
     Underfoot there were dry sticks and twigs. The earth was warm. Stamping
her frozen feet, Valya felt them at once getting warmer.
     It was  the very  driest and warmest place  under  the mushroom but was
somewhat dark. A little  way above the ground the thick skin of the mushroom
had split and a piece  of  it hung down like a canopy roof overshadowing the
ground.
     Valya got under the canopy.
     "Here we  are ! Come on  here  !"  she shouted.  "I have found  a tent!
Here's a tent! Come round to me!"
     The  Professor and  Karik soon  appeared  from  different  sides of the
mushroom.
     They were at once delighted by the roomy nook with its canopy.
     "Not at all bad!" said the Professor, looking round. In such a pavilion
they could clearly wait until the rain was over in tolerable comfort.
     He rolled some thick  short stems  of dried  grass under the canopy and
the travellers sat down and. made themselves comfortable.
     "I  propose,"  said  Karik,  brightening  up,  "that  this  refuge  for
travellers should be named 'Valya's Wonder Tent'!"
     "I  have no objection!" declared Valya, clearly most taken with Karik's
notion.
     "Well, well!" said the Professor. "All we need now is a nice cup of tea
and - "
     But he didn't  have a chance to say  what  he would like with his  tea.
Something  heavy fell on to the  roof of the wonder tent and rolled rumbling
over  their heads.  Then twisting  and curling itself in  loops a fat  white
snake with a  black head swung downwards in the air. It  fell heavily on the
ground, started to turn around and  wriggle towards the travellers'  feet as
if it were about to attack them.
     The children darted to the Professor and hid behind his back.
     But the Professor himself  was also retreating in alarm.  The snake was
about twice as big as he was and much fatter. It bent its black head down to
the ground and working it like a drill twisted and turned until at length it
had disappeared under the ground.
     "Ah, that's it!" muttered the Professor.
     The travellers  had  not  recovered from this shock  when  white snakes
started to rain down from above and bury themselves in the earth.
     The children began to run away.
     "Where  are you  going?  What's the  matter?"  shouted  the  Professor.
"Stop!"
     He grabbed them by the arms.
     "The snakes!" whispered Valya.
     "Snakes!  Rubbish!  Those  are  not  snakes,  my friend,  they're  just
ordinary larvae, midge larvae."
     "Midges?"
     "Certainly! Fungus midges. Do  you see?" the Professor pointed with his
hand  to the mushroom roof;  "do  you  see  how  they  have eaten  away  the
mushroom? Oh you need  not  be  afraid of them, my  friends! They don't even
notice you. They are much too full of their  own worries. Whilst the soil is
wet and soft they must hurry to work themselves as deep as possible into the
ground so as to turn into chrysalises.
     The children became calmer.
     The  party once again seated themselves  in the wonder tent and huddled
together.
     The storm raged around the mushroom.  The grass  forest bent  under the
force  of  the water. The rain drummed with such force on the mushroom  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.





     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.




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


     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!"




     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
them with your hand."
     But Valya, in spite of this, only moved  farther  and farther away. The
Professor smiling, went up to her, patted her on the shoulder and said:
     "Don't be  frightened!  don't be  frightened, little one! They will all
crawl on in a minute. We are quite useless to them. They are hunting for the
young pine  shoots.  It is only  some sort of  greenery that'll do for these
hairy vegetarians. I know them well! I wrote a book about them once."
     "A book about caterpillars?" marvelled Valya.
     "What  is  there surprising  about  that?"  The Professor  shrugged his
shoulders. "These caterpillars actually are like locusts of the forest. They
assemble in  uncountable swarms and devour the green shoots of the  trees in
the same way as locusts eat up the crops. I once saw a forest which had been
visited by a  swarm of pine moth caterpillars like  this. It  was completely
stripped by the greedy things. I rode for miles and miles but there wasn't a
green shoot to be seen, just bare twigs everywhere."
     At  that moment  the Professor  looked upwards and  smiled as if he had
seen  one of  his  best friends.  "Why,  there is a Microgasta nemorum!"  he
announced. "Welcome! welcome!"
     "Where is it? What is it you have seen?"
     "You don't mean to say you can't see it?"
     The children started to scratch their heads. Like a squadron of gliders
right  above  the  silkworms,  huge creatures  with  thin  bodies  and  long
transparent wings were noiselessly swooping.
     "Midges!" shouted Valya.
     ''''Microgasta nemorum!'' announced  the Professor.  '' Ichneumon flies
or - as we Russians commonly call them - Horsemen-flies!
     The friends  of  forest and field. Watch, children, what'll happen now!
There are many scientists who would envy  us now. Watch! Got it!" He started
counting. "That's number one' Got it! Another! Excellent! Got it! That's the
third! Brave boys! Watch! watch!"
     The  winged  'horsemen-flies' swooped  down on  the  caterpillars  like
vultures on their prey and landed on their backs.
     "They  are riding on them, they are riding on  them," exclaimed  Valya.
"They are proper horsemen!"
     It was like one of those comic turns at a circus where dogs ride on the
backs of  horses or mice on the backs of cats.  The children  clapped  their
hands. But,  suddenly, Valya dropped her hands, looked towards the Professor
and asked with alarm:
     "These . . . micro . . . whatever are they doing?"
     She  had seen that the 'horsemen-flies' lift their bodies  up and stick
the  sharp  sword they carried in  their tails  hard into the backs  of  the
caterpillars. Having jabbed the caterpillars, they at once flew upwards.
     "They are fighting," Valya announced, "fighting and not riding!"
     "They  are neither  fighting  nor riding,"  replied  their  guide. "The
Ichneumon  flies pierce  the skin  of  the  caterpillars  with  their  sharp
egg-layer and lay their eggs. After some time, their larvas come out  of the
eggs  and  proceed  to  devour the  caterpillars. They eat  the caterpillars
before they change into butterflies. If it was  not for the 'horsemen-flies'
the  pine  moth caterpillar would eat  the  whole forest, but the microgasta
does not allow it to multiply. That is why we can consider this fly our very
best forest guard."
     "But  isn't  it  possible to  rear  these  microjesters  artificially?"
demanded Karik.
     "Microgastae? . . . it is possible," said the Professor.
     "Then why are they not reared?"
     "It  has been tried but the attempts have not always been  successful,"
the Professor replied. "Unfortunately, another  'horseman-fly' lays its eggs
in the larvae of  these 'horsemen-flies'. Naturally they are very tiny,  but
these eggs kill the microgasta."
     "There are parasites for you!  But isn't  it possible to destroy  these
small fry?"
     "Yes,  it's possible. These  tiny  'horsemen-flies'  have in turn their
enemies, also 'horsemen-flies'. These are quite teeny."
     "Well! Those are the ones to rear," said Karik.
     "Yes, indeed, that  is, of course,  the intelligent thing," agreed  the
Professor, "but there are  even 'horsemen-flies' that lay their eggs  in the
larvae of these useful teenies."
     Karik waved his  hands  in  disgust. "Oh, this  is just like the  fable
about the white ox. There is a beginning but there is simply no end."
     "Exactly like  it,  exactly like  it!" replied their guide. "There is a
time  when you  think  you  have at last  found the end and know  absolutely
everything about one or  the  other  creature,  but you have only to  poke a
little deeper and a little more earnestly into the essential points when you
become convinced that it is not the end  you have in your hands but only the
beginning of a new and fascinating chapter of investigation."
     The Professor forgot  that he was standing on a small piece of bark. He
jumped about and started to lecture on how  scientists were like Christopher
Columbus  travelling every  day in  unknown lands  and how they were  always
discovering new and yet newer continents.
     Meanwhile, the pine moth caterpillars were crawling up the bark just as
if it was  a  broad  country lane, down which  to meet them  there were  now
coming some sort of beetle. Above  the pine tree lane there fluttered winged
creatures.  The  Professor,  without  the  slightest ceremony,  bumped  into
caterpillars who were making  their way laboriously  upwards. He also nearly
knocked a large black beetle off  its legs, but he simply  went  on talking,
talking, talking. . . .
     How long their learned guide would  have stood on the piece of  bark as
if it was  a classroom platform  no one could  say. It is quite  possible he
would have continued his lecture until nightfall.
     But it was suddenly interrupted by some sort of winged beast.
     The creature  dropped  right down beside the Professor like a stone and
knocked him  down with  its wing. Then having raised its body,  which had  a
long sharp sword at the end of it, the beast with a short powerful jab drove
it into the bark just by the Professor's head. The sword  buried itself deep
in the bark.
     The  children had  not  had time to  cry out  before the  creature  had
withdrawn its sword and had disappeared in the same lightning-like manner as
it had arrived.
     Karik  and  Valya  clung to the red crag-like bark. They were pale with
fright, and were breathing heavily.
     "Well, that's that!" The  Professor sat up. "I am afraid  I was talking
rather a lot. And  we must get  ourselves  down  to the  ground before night
comes." He looked at Karik, at Valya, and said: "It's nothing dangerous!  It
was   a   very   ordinary   Thalessa  or,   in  simple   language,   another
'horseman-fly'."
     "Did it lay its eggs in the bark?"
     "Why  in  the bark?" replied  the Professor. "It laid its  eggs in  the
larva of one of the enemies of the pine tree."
     "In the larva?" Karik looked around. "Where is it?"
     "Under the bark!"
     "How can you see it there?"
     "I haven't seen it  but I am prepared to  bet  anything  you  like that
under us, under a layer of bark, there is wriggling the  larva of some  sort
of 'Long-horned' beetle."
     "This means that the 'horseman-fly' can see through bark?"
     "No. It also is unable  to see the  larva but it can sense it. . . . We
don't understand this. On the whole we know very little about  the character
and life of insects. Much concerning the lives of these amazing creations is
completely unknown  to  us.  We do not really know,  for  instance, what the
insects need their feelers for," their guide continued, and then he stood up
and wound the end  of the rope around his hand. "Now  get up,  my dears!  We
must get on our way."
     Thus, once again they  started the dangerous  and exhausting climb down
the  bark  cliff. From time to time the Professor  and  the children, having
found  a suitable place  for  a rest,  lay  silently against  the red cliff.
Rubbing their stiffening arms and legs, they looked to see if  the  rope was
damaged  or the  knots frayed, then they got up again and once again started
on their way, jumping like goats from rock to rock.
     At one of their halts  the travellers stayed a fairly long time. It was
quite near the  ground. The Professor and the children, after a short  rest,
were preparing to climb down again when suddenly there was a sound of  wings
above  their  heads. Their  guide looked  upwards  and turned  pale. Quickly
seizing the children by the arms he plunged with them into a narrow cleft.
     "Sit quite quiet," he whispered.
     A striped  creature with  a long  narrow  waist  was  flying  past. Its
protruding body  was covered with  yellow and black stripes  like a  tiger's
skin.  Cutting  through  the air  with its  transparent  wings, the creature
swooped, pressing something to its  belly, something  wriggling, very like a
snake.
     "Eumenina," whispered the Professor. "The 'Pottery' wasp."
     The  wasp  flew  up  to  the basket from which the  Professor  and  the
children  had just escaped, threw its  prey into  it  and  climbed  into the
basket itself.
     "Is that what carried us?" Valya asked.
     "That's it," their guide  nodded. "I expect, my dears, that the Pottery
wasp took us for caterpillars. But watch what it is doing."
     The wasp crawled out of the basket, swooped rapidly down to the  ground
and  immediately  flew up again.  Fanning the travellers with a wind  like a
whirlwind, it flew past them and  having  described a  circle landed  on the
basket.  Restlessly crawling around the opening it picked  at it deftly with
its feet  and energetically tapped the basket with its head.  Then  the wasp
flew away.
     The  travellers  could see  that the  entrance to  the  basket was  now
completely covered up with something grey in colour.
     In the centre of this, like a cork, a sharp stone was protruding.
     "You see," said the Professor, "how the wasp seals up its basket. Well,
my dears,  if we had not got out of  it in time, we should have perished  of
hunger."
     "But surely it is possible to break the wall down?"
     "No! The wasp makes such a strong cement out of dust and its own saliva
that even big people can hardly break it."
     "All the same,  I don't understand it," said Karik. "You see, it caught
us, then it shoved us in its basket . . . but what for? Why didn't it eat us
at once?"
     "For the very reason that it did not capture us to eat us," replied the
Professor.  "The Eumenina wasp  feeds on the juice of flowers,  but  catches
caterpillars  for  its offspring, its future  children. In that  connection,
notice that it does not  kill  its prey. The jab of its sting only paralyses
the  caterpillars,  preserves  them  .  .  .  makes a  living  'ham' of  the
caterpillars."
     "Why then didn't the wasp paralyse us?" asked Valya.
     "I don't know," their guide shrugged his shoulders. "I don't understand
it at all. It may have been that its sting  could not penetrate the spider's
webbing of our jackets properly, or maybe its poison doesn't affect us. I do
not know. Yes, the whole business is very amazing. .  . . I do  not know why
it  could confuse us  with  caterpillars . . . usually wasps do not make any
such mistakes. This is a complete mystery from a scientific point of view."
     "But who makes the basket for it?" demanded Valya.
     "The wasp makes it itself," replied the Professor, "out of dust and its
own saliva.  .  .  .  Behind these  protective  walls the  larva can grow up
without the danger  that something will gobble  it up or squash it. There is
food already prepared enough and plenty. When the larva comes out of the egg
it  drops down a little spiderlike thread and  falls  on to the caterpillars
and  begins to eat them.  And  what a feed! For weeks it gnaws  away at  its
victim but to the  very last day the caterpillar remains alive and its flesh
remains fresh.  To  begin with,  the larva feeds  only on the  blood of  the
caterpillar, then  it  eats  the  fat and then the muscles. The  caterpillar
remains alive  without blood, fat or  muscles  and still provides fresh meat
for the  larva.  In the end, the larva eats it all up, becomes  a cocoon and
after a short time the cocoon bursts and out flies a male or female Eumenina
wasp. A male wasp should fly out of ours, but now. . . ."
     "You don't know it is definitely a male?"
     "I do  know!" asserted their guide. "The  wasp caught us three and then
brought  one more victim - the caterpillar. Four caterpillars -  that is the
supply of food for a future male. For an egg from  which a female will  come
out  the wasp  leaves an even  ten caterpillars.  Then this is  quite  to be
understood. The  future female Pottery  wasp is  bigger  than  the  male and
therefore it is necessary to leave more food for it."
     "Does this mean that wasps can,-count up to ten?" asked Valya.
     "I do not know  whether they can actually count up to two," replied the
Professor, smiling. "You will remember that the wasp crawled into the basket
after we had got out of it. That's true, isn't it?"
     "Certainly it climbed in."
     "But it climbed in  to lay the egg.  It  must therefore have  seen that
instead of four caterpillars in the  basket there  was only one. But all the
same  it never entered its head to fetch  another three caterpillars, but it
just sealed the basket as it was and now, of course, the larva will perish."
     The Professor went out  of the cleft, looked to  right and to left, and
said:
     "It has  flown away.  We can now proceed in peace." The  ground was not
far off and the travellers soon got safely down.
     To the left, a grass forest  appeared blue in the  distance. Above  the
forest, like  a  straw, the  pole landmark was sticking  out with a tiny red
flag,  ever  so far off. The travellers started on their way. The  whole day
they travelled over sand, through forest and over mountains. They made their
way across ravines, they forded rivers.
     Towards  evening,  tired  and  hungry, they stopped  at  the  bank of a
rushing river.  To get across the  river was beyond the present strength  of
the children.
     Valya stretched herself on the bank and said:
     "I can't go any farther."
     The dusk was falling. The sky had grown dark. Purple clouds were heaped
up over the forest. Above, over their heads, a flock  of birds stretched out
in noisy flight.
     Their guide said, "Well, there is nothing for it but to spend the night
here."
     "On the bank?"
     "We'll try and find a crevice or some sort of den."
     After  a short search,  Karik came upon an egg as big as a haystack and
brown. At the  side in the solid  wall of  the giant egg a round hole showed
darkly.
     Karik started to look inside and shouted:
     "Do come here! I think I have found some sort of house."
     The  Professor  went  up to the  egg, inspected  it from all sides  and
having thought a bit, said:
     "An empty nutshell. The  discarded home of a  larva of the nut  weevil.
Climb in, children. It's a tolerable hotel all right."
     It had already become dark. The children could not keep their eyes open
with tiredness. Their  legs were aching. Quickly clambering through the hole
in the nutshell, Karik and Valya threw themselves on the rough floor  and at
once fell dead asleep.
     Meanwhile,  the  Professor  wandered,  sighing,  around  the  nut.  The
entrance  hole was  so small  that he could only  get his head into it.  His
shoulders would not pass.
     "What a nuisance!" he muttered.
     Grunting angrily, he once  more  peered into the  nut, heard how evenly
the children were breathing in  their sleep, and wandered off then to find a
night's lodging for himself.
     Not  far  away from the nut, he found in a little hollow the shell of a
snail.  He examined  it. The shell was  empty.  The  Professor, grunting and
sighing, clambered into it. The sloping floor of the shell was hard and cold
but  the  Professor, wearied  by the journeyings, didn't even  notice  this.
Putting his fist  under his head, he  stretched out full length  and at once
fell asleep.
     About midnight, something started humming in  the air. The Professor in
a confused way heard this in his sleep. It was probably the wind getting up.
     Waking from  the cold, he opened his eyes. The sky  was cloudy  and the
moon  was swimming  amongst the clouds.  The Professor  shrunk into himself,
tucked his  legs up under  him  and  departed into dreamland  again, turning
restlessly in his sleep.
     Outside the  walls  of the  shell a cold  tearing wind  was rising to a
frenzy. Dust, grass, petals were being carried along spinning.
     The nut shook with  the  gusts of  wind  and  at last rocked violently,
rolled over and in the grip of the gale started to slide down slowly towards
the  river. A fresh  gust of wind  drove the nut into  the water. It started
dancing on the waves and floated away on the stream.
     In their dreams, the children felt that they were being rocked as if in
a cradle. Pressing close to  each other, they  slept on,  smiling  in  their
sleep. But the river was hurrying the nut away,  carrying the children  ever
farther and farther from the Professor.
     The moon shone down. It covered the river with sparkling silver scales,
lit up the quiet, deserted bank  and the curled top of the  snail shell from
which were resounding the snores  of the professor, mighty though miniature.
Had he awoken and looked out, he would have seen,  away  along the river, as
if on some silver road, a black shape moving farther and  farther away until
it vanished round a dark bend in the distance. The nut was out of sight.




     The landing  at an unknown harbour - In captivity again - The Professor
"sees"  things  -  A "lion"  which breathes  with  its tail  - An unexpected
discovery


     BEFORE THE DAWN A STRONG  WIND AROSE. The nut plunging in the waves was
now scudding along  on their high crests and  now lost in the white  boiling
foam. The  waves broke  over it noisily, tossing  and  heaving on all sides.
Cold spray came sprinkling from above through the hole which fortunately was
on top like  a hatchway, and fell on to Karik and Valya. But the children at
first  only turned over  restlessly in their sleep, covered their  faces and
necks with their hands and arms and moved further from the hatch. They  were
so tired out  and exhausted  that even this  icy shower  bath could not wake
them.
     However,  the strong current then started to turn  the nut as if it was
in a whirlpool. The nut rocked sharply and listed over
     on one  side.  Karik rolled  right  over his  sister and  hit his  head
painfully against the wall.
     "Oh! What's happened?" he jerked out as he awoke.
     He tried to get up but the nut again rocked and Karik again fell on the
floor.
     Clutching on to the rough wall  of the nut he somehow managed to get up
again and yelled out:
     "Valya,  something's happened! Get up!  Something is  dragging  our nut
away!"
     Rubbing  her  sleepy  eyes  with  her  hands, Valya gazed confusedly at
Karik.
     "Maybe some sort of  wild  animal  has  pounced on us. We must wake the
Professor quickly. Professor!" shouted Valya, struggling to get up.
     But no  sooner  than  she  had  straightened herself up than  the floor
beneath her feet lurched  and she was hurled  against the wall. She collided
with Karik and with him fell in a heap on the rough floor.
     It  was quite dark all around them and it was  only  from above through
the round hatchway that the blue light of the night penetrated.
     Clutching the wall  of the nut, Karik crawled up  to the hole and poked
his head out of it. A wave lashed his face.
     The wind was sweeping across the water raising steep foaming rollers.
     Waves raged around them and the water bubbled as if it were boiling.
     Karik shouted:
     "Valya! Quickly! See what's happened! Look, we are afloat!"
     Valya made her way up to  the hatch with some difficulty and held on to
the edge with her hands.
     "We are sailing!" said Valya, with fear in her voice.
     "Sailing - but where to?"
     The nut was rolling just as if the children were on the ocean itself.
     Valya looked around  herself then  gazed at Karik,  then looked  around
again and grew pale:
     "But where is the Professor?"
     "I don't know.  . . .  It may  be  he is somewhere quite near," replied
Karik, uncertainly.
     "What do  you mean quite near?" cried out Valya. "We are in the nut. Do
you realise, in a nut? All around us is water."
     A powerful  blow dislodged the  children from the  hatchway.  The floor
twisted and lurched beneath them.
     Karik and Valya fell down again.
     The wind  was blowing in angry gusts over the river. All around them it
howled  and  whistled.  Waves  broke  into the hatch  and  the children were
drenched  from head to  foot with cold water. Soaking and shivering they sat
on the floor  tightly holding each  other and  gazing  frightenedly  at  the
hatch.
     Above the hatch across the troubled sky  black clouds were chasing each
other.
     The nut heeled over and then  foaming  rollers seemed  to be leaping at
the  hole, but it  heeled again and once again clouds appeared - being swept
across  the  hatchway and in and out  of  the clouds  there plunged the pale
moon. With each fresh lurch the children were flung apart, but Valya at once
crawled hastily  back  to her brother and  clutched  hold of him firmly. The
poor  children  could  not  understand  what  had  happened: Where  had  the
Professor got to, how the nut got into the river, where the river was taking
them to? ...
     But  the nut whirled  on and on, now riding on the crests of the waves,
now burying itself in the trough.
     Then at length it seemed as if the storm had started  to abate. The nut
no  longer was thrown about and no  longer  lurched but  just  rocked like a
cradle.
     The children got up.
     "It  looks  as if  the worst is over," said Karik. He climbed up to the
hatchway and looked out.
     Quite close the banks of the river clad in forest seemed to be floating
past. The waves were now quietly lapping below him.
     Then the nut suddenly stopped. Black masses of earth rose up before the
very  hatchway  like  walls. The shore  was so close that it was possible to
stretch out and touch it.
     The nut  had come  alongside  some unknown jetty. "Well, we have got to
somewhere," said Valya, quietly. "Climb up quickly!" ordered Karik, gripping
the edge of the hatch with his hands.
     Helping each other, Karik and  Valya made their way out of the nut  and
jumped ashore.

     * * * * * *


     It was early morning.
     In the grey twilight before the dawn a hill stood  gaunt and silent. On
the far horizon a pink edge was barely noticeable.
     The nut floated black and wet in a silent bay right beside the bank.
     Beyond, the  river swirled noisily past, the  current carrying  in  its
waves poles, branches and  petals.  Some  of these were carried into the bay
and  forced against  the bank.  They spun around and  floating past  the nut
jostled it as if they were trying to move it on.
     The  whole bay was covered as it  were with a husk in the form of dried
fin.  The  children climbed  up  a hillock and  stopped  undecidedly  there.
Shivering with cold they stood looking at each other, half dazed.
     In which direction should they go?
     What should they do?
     Oh! if only the Professor was there; just there beside them!
     "Can he have got lost?" sighed Valya.
     "We'll find him!"  said Karik, with decision.  "He is here. He  must be
somewhere here. . . ."
     He put the palms  of his hands together as a trumpet, stood on tip-toes
and shouted as loud as ever he could.
     "Pro-fess-ess-or!"
     Somewhere behind, away behind the dark hills, leaves rustled.
     The children listened.
     Steps?
     No. It was the wind. That was what stirred the trees.
     Valya again sighed deeply.
     "Don't  worry, don't  worry!  We'll find  him. You just see.  He  won't
desert us."
     Karik took his sister by the hand along the bank of the river.
     Every five or six steps they stopped and yelled loudly:
     "Pro-fess-ess-or."
     But there was no answering shout from the Professor.
     "Do you know  what?" said Karik. "I'll go  along the bank and  you go a
little further inland. Over there - you see? - -there is some sort of a wood
beyond the hills. There it is! You  go to this wood and shout, only  louder.
First I'll shout, then you, then I again, and then you. O.K.?"
     "O.K."
     "Only don't go far away, and look around you carefully. Be careful now.
Go on!"
     Karik went  along  the shore  and Valya set out for the dark wood. From
time to time the children stopped, shouted and once again moved on.
     Valya got to the wood.
     In the wood it was dark and very  forbidding. Black angular  trunks  of
trees  lifted up bent,  crooked branches, broad leaves hung down to the very
ground.
     "Eh, Va-ly-ya!" came floating from somewhere near the river.
     "Aha!" replied Valya, "I am here. Got to the wood!"
     She went up to a dark tree with lots of branches. A pleasant appetising
smell came from the tree.
     Very odd - the smell  was just like fresh almond slices, just as it was
before a holiday  at  home when mother took  the  trays out  of the oven and
delicious  smells of vanilla, of almonds and of  hot  dough filled the whole
flat.
     Valya  at once remembered that she had had nothing to eat since the day
before.
     "I must see what it is that smells so delicious," she thought, and went
resolutely up to the tree. "I'll climb up and look."
     "Hey! Karik!" she shouted. "I am going to climb a tree. I'll shout from
the tree. Do you hear?"
     "Climb  away and  shout!  Only  more  loudly!  I'll come  over  to  you
directly," called back Karik.
     Valya  grasped  the wet slippery branches and quickly climbed up like a
monkey.
     Pushing aside the broad leaves which hung from the stem and blocked her
way, she climbed higher and higher. Every now and then she looked upwards.
     Soon she saw quite close above her head something like a huge cup.  She
got up to  it, clung  on to  the damp,  stringy, rubbery side and started to
look inside.
     In front of her very nose there were swaying feathery  balls. They were
suspended on thick long stems attached to the bottom of a cup.
     It was from these falls that the strong and delicious smell came.
     Valya felt that if she  did not  that very minute eat the ball right in
front of her nose she would simply die of hunger.
     She pulled  herself up with her arms and sat astride of  the lip of the
cup.
     The delicious  ball was-close  beside  her. Valya  clutched it with her
hands and pulled it hard  towards her.  She was not able, however, to wrench
it off. The ball held firmly.
     Valya tugged harder.
     The side on which  she was sitting  swayed so  that she nearly lost her
balance. In order not to fall the girl let go the ball and clung to the edge
of the cup.
     The  ball  flew away  from  her,  hit the  other  side  of  the cup and
immediately bobbed back in front of Valya's eyes.
     Then Valya tore at the ball  so violently that the whole cup started to
shake. The  ball ripped away from the pole and  next  instant Valya  and her
booty fell with a crash to the bottom of the cup.
     Not  letting go  the  ball  she  jumped  up, looked upwards  and around
herself. She was in  the centre of an enormous flower. The  damp petals rose
up  around  her  like  the smooth  inside  of a  round tower. Through chinks
between the dark petals the pink light of dawn now showed.
     Somewhere far, far away the birds had started to sing.  Below, rustling
the leaves, something ran about quickly turning them over with light feet.
     "I must climb down to the ground," thought Valya.
     Clutching the delicious ball closely to her bosom  she moved around the
flower  cup until she stopped in front of a narrow chink between petals. She
tried to squeeze through the chink but it was too narrow.
     Then Valya tried to climb  up one of the poles,  but she had only  just
gripped it with her hands when the walls of  the cup started to  move as  if
they were alive and slowly came nearer.
     The huge flower  in which Valya had  climbed closed its petals over her
head. It suddenly became pitch dark.
     In vain did she struggle to move the petals and escape from the flower.
The petals had contracted rigidly and would not let  her  out of her scented
prison.
     "Karik! Karik!" the  poor girl started to scream. "Hurry up! Here! Here
I am."
     She yelled  with  all her  might but her voice could not  penetrate the
soft, thick walls. It was just  as if she  was  shouting with her face stuck
into a feather pillow.
     This strangled,  almost inaudible cry reached Karik like the sound of a
distant echo. He stopped and listened. It seemed to him as if somewhere far,
far beyond the hills the Professor was shouting.
     "Ah!" Karik cheered up. "He's coming. He is sure to find us."
     He quickly ran up  to the top of a high hillock and once again making a
trumpet of his hands started to shout.
     "He-ere! Over here! We're here!"
     The only answer was the hoot of an owl.
     At the  foot  of the hillock the river ran on noisily. The  waves  were
splashing the shore. Sand falling from the steep bank was rustling softly.
     "Now in which direction was it that he called?"  thought Karik. "To the
right or to the left?"
     He  stood a little and then  shouted  again.  But  no  one replied.  He
shouted again and again in different directions.
     It was all in vain. There was simply no reply.
     Karik frowned.
     "No.  Something  must have happened." He  looked towards the  dark wood
where Valya was and said loudly:
     "Valya, did you hear? Wasn't it  just as if the Professor had  shouted?
Did you hear it or not?"
     But this time even Valya did not reply to Karik.
     "Gracious! Hasn't  enough happened  without' her disappearing," thought
Karik, and shouted again louder:
     "Va-alya!"
     A  rock  rumbled down the  steep bank into  the  water.  Karik started,
looked around, stood still a little and shouted again still louder.
     "Va-al-ya-ya!"
     There was no reply from Valya.
     "There you are! I told her to sit in the tree and wait, and now she has
gone off somewhere. . . . Get muddled up with girls and you are never happy,
never!"
     Then he slowly made his way across the field to the wood.
     Now here was the wood.
     Karik went up to the trees.
     Throwing his head back he stared up into their thick foliage.
     The  morning breeze was quietly  rocking the  broad  leaves out  of the
middle of which were peeping huge yellow balls. Valya was not  to be seen up
the trees. "Wherever  is she?" Karik was  quite perplexed.  He shouted again
and yet again, but only the wind murmured in reply.
     Valya gave no answering call. Karik bit his lip, stopped and started to
think:
     "Valya  cannot  have run far.  What does it mean? . . .  It  means that
something has caught her, dragged her off and maybe . . . eaten her!"
     Karik shuddered.
     "Oh,  if  only  the Professor was here!  He  would certainly  think out
something and certainly find Valya."
     Karik gazed around helplessly.
     Around him lay the hills, quietly indifferent.  A  cold,  lowering  sky
hung over the dull sandy shore. Dead trees, bare and  dry, creaked  dismally
on a neighbouring hill.
     A giant  beetle whizzed above his head and grazed the  dead trees  with
its wings.
     Something strange, unusual and sinister seemed  to be in the air. Karik
shuddered.  Then with a  piercing cry he dashed off,  not worrying  in which
direction he went.

     * * * * * *

     The Professor was awakened  before dawn  by the terrible cold. He moved
towards the  wall but immediately  jumped  back from it as  if  he had  been
stung.  The  curved  wall  of  the shell was  as  cold as ice.  It was quite
impossible  to sleep in such an  ice house. The Professor betook himself out
of the shell and started to run around it, trying to warm himself up a bit.
     The moon was still shining.
     The  cold wind blew now  on his face and now on his back, sweeping with
it a cloud of small stones which lashed his arms and legs.
     "There's a night  for you!"  grunted  the Professor.  "It's  lucky  the
children are so snug."
     He decided to look and see how they were sleeping in the nut. Were they
comfortable?  Were  they  peaceful? Then,  shivering in  the  cold,  he went
towards the river.
     The pale  moon  lit  up the  bare  promontory  with a single dead  tree
standing on its  crest. The Professor  ran up the hillside and gazed  around
perplexedly.
     There was  nothing  on  the  promontory. Just  the  dry,  crooked  tree
creaking in the wind, rustling its parched leaves sadly. The dark shadows of
the leaves moved dismally over the cold ground.
     "Strange! . . . very strange! . . ." he muttered.
     He  could quite  clearly  remember that the  nut had been lying here in
this very spot. There was the slight hollow pressed down by  its round side.
Yes, most certainly, this was the place. There could be no doubt of that.
     He bent over and started to examine the ground carefully.
     From the hollow a black broad mark stretched down to the  river just as
if something heavy had been dragged over it quite recently.
     The Professor straightened himself  and followed  this  track,  bending
down to examine it from time to time.
     The track led to the river.
     He stopped at the very top  of the  steep bank and  thoughtfully looked
below at the black river whose waters were flowing noisily past.
     There was nowhere now to go.
     Twisting his beard and lowering  his eyebrows, the  Professor  stood on
the top of the bank and talked aloud to himself:
     "If anything had fallen upon them they would have cried out, would have
called to me. I always sleep so lightly I should certainly have  heard them.
What  then can have happened.?  Something dragged the nut away,  is that it?
Well, no!  What use would  an old spoilt nutshell  be to anything? Nonsense.
The whole business is much simpler: the nut was blown into the water."
     He quickly made his way down to the water's edge.
     "Which way has the nut been carried? To right or to left?"
     He picked up a piece of dry leaf and threw it into the water.
     The current  caught the  leaf twisted it around and whirled it away  in
the foam of its waves.
     The Professor ran along the bank in the direction in which the leaf had
been carried.
     The forest came right down to the river.
     He now  wormed his  way through the trees and  now  went through  water
which was warm, like new milk. It was a light, moonlit night. It was only on
the  banks where the tall grass trees grew that the broad shadows were lying
in black stripes.
     In the middle of the river it was bright moonlight and petals, gigantic
leaves and logs were being swept along faster than the Professor could move.
     They  plunged  along now disappearing, now  bobbing  up  again - in the
distance it looked as if someone was swimming, battling with the waves.
     Each time that the Professor saw a log come plunging past in the middle
of the river he would stop and watch it in alarm:
     "Is it the children swimming?"
     He climbed down to the river and  went into the water up  to  his waist
ready  to dash  to their help. But then the log would float closer until its
naked branches could be seen.
     "Phew!" the  Professor  would  exclaim in relief, and continue  on  his
journey.
     The river for a long time  twisted amongst dark woods and mountains and
then  at  last  widened before the  Professor's eyes  into a broad,  shining
reach.
     Pushing the wet twigs aside with his arms, he  strode out of the forest
and suddenly stopped involuntarily.
     "The children!"
     Along the river in moonlight Karik and Valya were swimming.
     "Yes, yes, it is they !" whispered the Professor.
     There,  right  in the  middle of  the  river, Karik was swimming  and a
little to the right  of him  nearer to  the  bank - Valya.  Their heads  now
disappeared under the water  now reappeared just like fishing floats. It was
quite clear  that the children must a  long time ago  have been exhausted by
the struggle and at any moment they might disappear for good.
     Oh, if only there was time !
     The Professor flung himself into the water. The current  caught him and
swept him along downstream.
     "Stick to it!" he yelled at the top of his voice.
     Cutting through  the water with a fast stroke  he  quickly swam towards
the children.
     With each stroke  of his arms the distance between him and the children
decreased.
     Now he was  right upon  them  and stretched out his  hand. But what was
this?
     He saw under the water a  ribbed body bending like a letter S. "Ah, bad
luck to you!" he burst out  with  vexation as  he  turned  back  towards the
shore. What he had taken for the children by the uncertain light of the moon
was only the very ordinary larvae of a Hover fly which Russians call  "Lion"
flies.  These larvae  cling  to  the  surface  film of  the river with their
wonderful tails which are like tousled wigs thus  float head downwards,  and
in this manner prey on unsuspecting inhabitants  of the  river. They breathe
through their tails.
     At one time in his  youth the Professor had collected these  larvae for
his aquarium. Later  on,  flies had come out of the larvae,  with black  and
yellow stripes  resembling a  wasp and had,  indeed, laid  their eggs on the
flowering water weeds of the aquarium.
     The Professor had actually written a book about grasshoppers which hear
with  their feet and  about  Hover fly larvae  which  breathe through  their
tails.
     At  any other time you  would not have been able  even forcibly to tear
the  Professor away from these amazing  creatures but now he had no time for
them.
     Having  felt  the bottom with his feet, he  waded  rapidly  ashore and,
shivering with cold, started to run to try and get warm.
     From time to  time he stopped and listened. But he could  only hear his
own heart beating and the wind noising above his head.
     Having noticed a little way off a  hillock,  he ran over to it, climbed
up and, making a trumpet of his hands, shouted loudly:
     "Ka-a-ari-ik! Va-alya!"
     Then once again he ran to the river.
     "If I could - only  get out into the river on  a raft?"  he thought, "I
might get two or three logs to collide with each other in the  water, secure
them together and the raft would be made. I could overtake the children much
more quickly floating down the river."
     But the Professor did not have to knock up a raft for himself.
     The  raft,  just  as if  in a  fairy story it  had  heard  his  desire,
presented itself -  floated up to the very bank. It stopped by a dark sandy,
shoal and started turning round and round in the one spot.
     "Well, that is marvellous!" shouted the Professor. With a run he jumped
on to the raft and began to rock it in order to help it off the sandy shoal.
     The raft shook, started to lift in the waves and slowly floated away in
the current. At this moment another raft floated past the Professor and then
following that more and more of them.
     "Odd! Where can all these rafts be coming from?" he puzzled.
     Out  on  the  moonlit  waterway the  Professor started to  examine  his
miracle craft  very carefully.  He  found  that it was formed of thick  logs
sharpened  at  each end. These logs were like  gigantic  cigars and  lay  so
firmly together that they might have been glued to each other. The Professor
bent over, touched one with his hand and muttered perplexedly:
     "You don't say! Can this raft? . . ."
     Now by the light of the moon he had recognised these fearsome cigars.
     The  vessel  on which  the  Professor was  floating  was  loaded with a
strange cargo: its holds were stuffed with fever. Each cigar-log held within
it the larva of the malarial mosquito - the anophelesa mosquito.
     "Well, I never thought that  I should ever have to  be the captain of a
malaria ship!" he laughed.
     Right and  left of the raft were floating other similar  malaria ships.
Evidently somewhere  up the river the anophelesa mosquitos  had  been laying
their eggs.
     From time. to time the eggs of the simple, very ordinary mosquito could
be seen. They floated fastened  together  like a saucer which  bobbed in the
water  like a fishing-float  and looked  in the  distance very like a  small
boat.
     At every bend and every turn of the river the Professor craned his neck
and stared  intently at any patches  of  darkness. Had the nut run ashore or
was it floating in some quiet creek?
     The wooded bank had long ago been left behind.
     The  river turned abruptly this way and that.  An endless chain of bare
hills was floating past.
     It became lighter.
     The moon  paled.  The  stars went out one after  the other just  as  if
someone  was  extinguishing them and there only remained  one greenish  star
hanging low above the hill.
     The  raft was  carried  by the  strong  current towards  the bank.  The
Professor stood at the very edge rubbing his cold hands,
     chest and sides.
     The  river  turned to the right. Then suddenly the  Professor heard far
away beyond the hills some sort of weak voice.
     He shook with excitement, his heart throbbed and hammered.
     "Ah-ha!" shouted someone from the shore.
     The  Professor started  to run  along  his rocking craft and shouted as
loud as ever he could:
     "Karik! Valya!"
     "Pro-fess-ess-or!" came from amongst the hills.
     "Here ! Here ! Over here !" he exerted himself even more.
     Then Karik's head appeared above  the hill, then his shoulders and then
he ran along the skyline looking wildly in all directions.
     "Here! Karik! Over here!" yelled the Professor.
     Having  seen  the Professor,  Karik gurgled something in an odd way and
with his head down ran towards the river.
     "Come ashore! Quickly! Come ashore!" he shouted, waving his arms madly.
     The Professor lay  down on the raft and  started hastily to paddle with
his hands,  but the  raft as if on  purpose  turned the  Other way  down the
river, spun around in a whirlpool and bumped against a rock.
     It then whirled past Karik and rapidly drew away from him.
     "Stop! For heaven's sake, stop!" shouted Karik, running after the raft.
     "In a minute, in a minute, my boy!" and the Professor started to paddle
even more furiously with his hands.
     But  the  raft  simply would  not  pay  any  attention  to  him. So the
Professor ran up to the end of the raft and dived into the water.
     Karik started crying, and rushed into the river.
     "Where are  you going? What's up?"  shouted  the Professor, raising his
head out of the water.
     But Karik, unable to think at all, waded to meet the Professor and  did
not stop until he was  waist deep.  He was breathing heavily, had his  mouth
wide open and his knees were shaking.  The Professor swam up to the  boy and
stood up beside him. "You're alone?  Where's Valya?  Has anything happened?"
he asked in growing alarm, as he looked at Rank's tear-stained face. "It has
happened! Valya is lost!"
     "What are you talking about?" the  Professor seized Karik by the  hand.
"What has happened? When did it happen? Where did you lose her? Why  are you
silent?"
     "Well! we floated to begin with in the nut, then we got to the bank and
went  to  look for you, and  then. . . ."  Karik waved his hands  and became
silent.  "Well!  What  followed?  What  happened?"  demanded the  Professor,
hastily. "Tell me where did you leave her?"
     "There," Karik waved his arm uncertainly, "behind those hills."
     "You remember the place?"
     "Yes. I could not find it from here, but I  could find it  from the nut
!"
     "Where is the nut?"
     "Over there in a bay."
     "Right  you are!" said the Professor, decidedly.  "We'll go  to the bay
where  the nut stopped first  of all, and then we shall soon see what to do.
Come on!"
     The Professor and Karik climbed out on to the bank and silently marched
along the cold wet ground.
     "Show  me  the way  !"  commanded the old man. "I'll show you,"  sighed
Karik, and again started to sob. "Here, this is the way !"
     "Now,  please  don't cry! We'll find her. She  is not  a  needle but  a
living being . . . and she  must be able to shout and we shall hear her. . .
. We'll find her.  Most certainly we'll find  her." In the  distance the bay
appeared.
     On  its calm blue waters, the  nut was rocking like a barge,  black and
huge.
     "There it is," Karik said quietly.
     "I see."
     The Professor stopped.
     " Can you remember where you went from here?" he asked.
     "I can remember," replied Karik. "I went along  the bank and Valya went
to the right. Over there."
     "Good! Take me where you think Valya went !"
     The travellers set out. When they reached the wood Karik said:
     "It was from  here that she  shouted  to me for the last time. And then
she vanished."
     "What she shouted, you cannot remember, I suppose?"
     "I think it was 'Aoo'! " Karik replied, without conviction.
     The Professor thought for a bit.
     "You looked for her here this morning?"
     "I looked for her, searched the whole wood."
     "Well, now! You go to the right and I'll go to the left," said the  old
man. "Don't lose  sight  of  the  wood. We'll  meet here  in the wood.  Full
speed!"
     The Professor and Karik set out in different directions. They proceeded
to examine every hole, to look under rocks, lift giant leaves off the ground
and see whether by any chance Valya had hidden there and gone to sleep.
     Karik shouted until he was hoarse but all in vain.
     Valya wasn't anywhere to be found.
     After a long search they returned  to the wood. They were both so tired
that they could hardly move their feet. They neither of them wanted to talk.
     Above the Professor's head hung the stems with yellow balls on them.
     The balls  swayed, moving  their round shadows over  the surface of the
ground. One ball was  just as if it was alive.  Its walls shook and it moved
most oddly  on the stem just as if it wanted to  break off  and jump down to
the ground.
     The other balls were quite at rest.
     "Well, now  then," sighed the  Professor.  "We  must  set out and  have
another look. You  go this way and I'll go  to  the bank of  the river. Then
we'll meet again in the wood. You understand?"
     "I see," said Karik, sadly.
     The Professor got up and set off for the river in a quick walk.
     Karik moved off  in the  opposite  direction. As he  was going  off  he
seemed to hear a weak, suffocated cry. He quickly turned.
     "Go  on.  Go  on!"   shouted  the  Professor.  "Don't   lose  any  time
unnecessarily."
     So once again  they set off upon a search, running over hills  and sand
every so often calling out to each other.
     Suddenly the Professor stopped. On one side of the wood he spotted some
sort of strange tracks. The soil was torn up and flung about. Marks  of some
sort of feet were visible on the soft heaps of earth. Clearly there had been
a sharp scuffle in this spot quite recently.
     The Professor bent down to the ground.
     A fresh broad track stretched away towards a sandy hillock.
     "This  is her," he straightened himself up. "We must hurry. Karik. Come
quickly here!" he waved his arm.
     "Have you found her?"
     "Come here!"
     When Karik arrived out of breath the Professor silently pointed out the
traces of a conflict on the ground.
     "What is it?" Karik turned pale.
     "It looks  as if she  had  been  attacked  here.  As you  can  see, she
resisted but . . . ."
     The Professor was silent.
     "They have torn her to pieces?" screamed Karik.
     "I do not think so," said the old man, without any assurance, "but they
have dragged her off to some den."
     "Why have they dragged her off?"
     "We can  talk about  that  later; but  now let's run  quickly along the
trail. I think I know already what it  is that has seized her. Let's run, we
may yet be in time."
     The Professor and Karik dashed along  the  trail.  They ran on, getting
further and further away from the wood  where Valya was caught in the yellow
flower.
     The wind raised tall columns of dust on the  hills, turned  and twisted
around  the Professor  and  Karik, wiping  away all traces on  the ground of
their light steps.





     The meeting with  a hunting  wasp- - Treacherous  plants  - Interesting
conversations in the Oenothera wood  - The marvellous baskets - The  rain of
corpses


     THE  WOOD  HAD  BEEN  HIDDEN  FOR A  LONG TIME  BEHIND  THE HILLS.  The
travellers were now running along a wide  bare valley. To right  and left of
them steep sand mountains rose up like yellow walls.
     Here and  there by the  wayside  they  came  across grass trees.  Their
branches were broken. The leaves were sprinkled with sand.
     "She is alive!" shouted the Professor, as he ran on.  "Do you see?  She
has been clutching the bushes.  She has been struggling. We must run as fast
as ever we can. We shall yet succeed. Come on, Karik! Come on , my boy!"
     And they dashed on still faster.
     "I can  see them! I can  see them!" shouted  Karik.  "Look!  Over there
beyond the trees. There they are fighting."
     The grass trees rocked about as if someone was shaking them hard.
     "It's  little Valya! She is fighting!"  Karik  croaked  hoarsely. "Make
haste, Professor, make haste!"
     The Professor and Karik became immensely cheered. But when they came up
to the sparse trees there was nothing there.
     The trees  were  crushed to  the ground. A wide track led off Somewhere
farther into a thicket of the grassy jungle.
     "Come on! She is not far off!" shouted the Professor,  and dashed along
the trail.
     The trees came to an end and they  were  once more running on dead, dry
sand. Suddenly the Professor stopped. Karik nearly ran into him.
     "Stop!" growled the old man.
     "What is it?" asked Karik, softly.
     The Professor gently nudged Karik and pointed with his hand.
     Away  over the  yellow sand the boy  could  see  a  winged, long-legged
creature very like a wasp. It was dragging a huge grub along the ground. The
grub was big  and several  times  as large  as  the  wasp.  It was resisting
desperately, but it was clear to see it could not get  out of  the clutching
grasp of the wasp. The wasp was dragging it, leaving  a broad trail  on  the
ground.
     It was along this trail that the travellers had been running.
     "It's  a  sand  ammophilia  or hunting  wasp,"  the  Professor  grunted
gloomily. "It  has got  hold of a grub called  a 'leather jacket' - the most
terrible  ravager of wheat and beet fields.  'Leather jackets' become 'Daddy
Longlegs' flies. . . ."
     Karik interrupted. Gazing perplexedly at the old man, he asked:
     "But where is Valya then?"
     "We  must turn back," said the Professor. "She cannot have gone far. We
must look for her near the  bay. If we haven't found her by nightfall  we'll
set fire to some marsh gas. Valya will see the fire and will naturally guess
that it must  be us. Even if she does  not guess she will certainly  come to
the fire.
     By  now Karik  could  hardly  believe that they would  ever find  Valya
again.
     "She  is lost!  We shan't find her! We cannot  possibly find  her!"  he
thought, as he strode after the old man. And everything began  to seem quite
hopeless. He  wanted  to cry but his  eyes  were dry.  He sighed  deeply and
suddenly he began to realise he was very, very tired.
     His legs trembled.  He stumbled continually.  His mouth  was quite dry.
His tongue had swollen  and was burning as  if it was in a fire. Karik  felt
that  at that  moment he  could have drunk a whole pail of iced water at one
gulp,  but around him was nothing but dead, dry sand.  There was no water to
be found in such a wilderness.
     "If only there was some sort of stream or  even  a puddle,"  he thought
longingly, looking around in every direction.
     Then suddenly at the  foot  of  a yellow hill he  spotted a tall,  bare
stem.
     The stem was rocking gently in the breeze.
     Karik went  over  towards  it. Below the stem there  spread out  fleshy
grey-green leaves.
     Out of the leaves there protruded like the eyelashes of an enormous eye
slender curving whips.
     At the top of each eyelash there hung a huge silvery drop.
     "Dew!"  shouted Karik, rushing towards  the  strange  leaves. "Come on!
I'll get there first. I must have a drink of dew."
     Karik jumped over a ditch.
     "Stop!"  commanded the Professor.  "Do you  hear?  Stop!  Come back  at
once!"
     "But I want a drink," said Karik.
     The old man jumped over the ditch and quickly barred the way to Karik.
     "It's not dew. You mustn't drink it."
     He took Karik by the shoulder and led him up to the strange plant.
     "Look!" he said.
     He got a rock from  the ground and swinging it with  his arms hurled it
into the centre of one of the drops.
     No sooner had  the rock touched  the leaf than the whips bent  over and
covered it up tightly.
     The rock disappeared.
     "What is it?" marvelled Karik.
     "The  sun  dew plant," replied the old  man  calmly, "an insect-eating,
treacherous sort of plant."
     "How is that?"  Karik  was more  amazed.  "Surely we  haven't any  such
plants. They only grow in hot countries. I read about them in some book."
     "It is true," said the Professor, "that there are many more such plants
in hot  countries than we have here, but  all the  same  they do occur here.
They  are most frequently met with where the soil is very poor. In such soil
the ordinary plants cannot survive. But these treacherous plants do  not  do
so badly, even  on poor  soil.  The soil does  not feed them - they exist by
hunting.  They catch insects and suck the nourishing juices out  of them. In
this way they live and  indeed  multiply. Neither animal nor vegetable, they
are both one  and the other together. Remember now: as well as  the sun  dew
plant various  kinds of primroses and pitcher  plants  trap  insects; and in
ponds sometimes you come across the treacherous bladderwort which even traps
small fish. There are quite a number of these carnivorous plants, my dear. I
could name more than five hundred for you, but. . . ."
     "Stop!" screamed Karik. "It is all quite  clear now. Valya has perished
in one of these plants."
     "Wha-a-t?" The Professor stopped and gazed at Karik uneasily.
     "Yes, yes. I remember. She shouted out to me  'I am going to climb  the
tree.' This means she climbed the tree but it would  not let  her  get down.
That's why I didn't find her in the wood."
     The old man seized Karik by the hand. "Follow me, Karik!"
     And they dashed, jumping over the yellow hillocks.
     "And  how do they  eat?"  shouted Karik, as  he  ran. "All  at once  or
slowly?"
     "These plants," replied the Professor, panting, "begin by pouring juice
over their  victim and  keep it until  it gets  softened, then they suck the
juices out of it."
     "But will Valya not get soft?" asked Karik.
     "Don't talk nonsense !"
     The  Professor grasped Karik's hand more  firmly and  dragged him along
after him.
     They dashed on and on until they finally reached the  bay where the nut
was still floating dark and wet.
     "Here we are," shouted Karik. "Stop, it's here!"
     Breathing  heavily  they  stopped on a high hill.  Below them  lay  the
yellow waste. To the right of the travellers a small wood showed green.
     "But where  are these  trees?" asked the  Professor.  "I cannot  see  a
single insect-eating plant at this moment."
     "All the same  it was  there," asserted  Karik hastily.  "I remember it
quite well.  Little Valya  vanished  there  in  that wood"; and Karik  waved
towards  the side of the  wood where  the branching trees stood  with  their
yellow balls.
     "In that  wood?" queried the Professor.  "There  where we  have already
been? You are sure she climbed one of these particular trees?"
     "Well, yes. There are no others there."
     The  Professor went over  and  looked at the yellow  balls closely  and
suddenly clapped his hand to his forehead, laughing.
     "My goodness! Why on earth didn't I  think of it  before?  Why didn't I
spot it at once. Yes, of course, it's that. . . . Oy. . . ."
     He turned to Karik and quickly asked:
     "When did this happen? In the morning or the night?"
     "In the morning. The sun had not risen."
     The old man rubbed  his hands  excitedly. "Then it is now quite clear,"
he  said.  "Yes, indeed, I understand it all .  . . very  well.  . . . It is
absolutely grand."
     He sighed  noisily with relief, and,  smiling, seized Karik's hand  and
shook it heartily.
     "Valya is alive. She is there. Sitting in the flower."
     "In the flower?"
     "Yes,  certainly. This  is an Oenothera plant. Valya  is sitting in  an
Oenothera flower, in other words in an 'Evening Primrose'."
     "But isn't it dangerous?" demanded Karik.
     "No, no,"  replied  the  Professor. "We  shall soon  see  her alive and
well."
     "Then let's hurry!" shouted Karik, and seized the  old man by the hand.
"Let's climb up the Primrose quickly and help Valya to get out,"
     The Professor shook his head.
     "You see," he replied,  clearing  his voice  rather  specially, "at the
moment this would be useless. You and I  do  not know which  Oenothera Valya
climbed. That's the first thing. Let us suppose we could find the flower she
is sitting in. How should  we get  her out?  Unfortunately we could not free
her. We haven't got the strength to move the petals of  an Oenothera flower.
That is the second point."
     "But thirdly, won't Valya get suffocated in there?" demanded Karik.
     "She  won't be suffocated. The  flower  is  large and roomy. We'll wait
until the evening and the flower will open itself."
     "What an odd flower,"  said Karik, displeased. "Other flowers  open  in
the morning, and why does this open in the evening?"
     "An overseas visitor. A foreigner. Came here  from America and it still
follows its old American habits."
     Karik smiled rather unbelievingly.
     "I am not joking," continued  the  Professor, seriously. "The Oenothera
plant was brought from America. Three hundred years ago  its seeds were sent
to the botanist,  Caspar Bogen, in Europe. During these three hundred  years
the  Oenothera plant has spread all over Italy, France, Germany, Poland, and
at last appeared in our country, Russia. At the present time along the sandy
banks of many of our rivers you  will actually find more Evening Primroses -
foreigners - than you will local plants or indigenous, as they are called."
     "And it is certain to open in the evening?"
     "Quite  certain.  Every evening the flowers of  this plant open  up and
early every morning they close again.  It is not for nothing that  the plant
has been christened 'The  Night Light.' But, my dear, what  are we  going to
do? We have some hours at our disposal."
     "I," said Karik, "propose that we eat  something and  then lie down and
sleep."
     "A  reasonable  proposal."  The  Professor  nodded  his  head.  "Agreed
unanimously."
     Stretching himself and  yawning, he  stood up and  set off  towards the
bank of the river.
     "Let's go straight to  the flowers,  my  dear. We are certain  to  find
something to eat there."
     Karik cocked his  head from  side to side.  "But where did you  see any
flowers open?"
     "I haven't seen the flowers yet," said the old man, "but all the same I
can  hear quite  plainly that over there on  that  little headland bees  are
buzzing. That means there must be flowers."
     The Professor was not mistaken.
     Hardly  had they scrambled over the hilltop than they saw below them in
a valley huge trees  thrusting themselves  up  here and there.  The  tops of
these trees bent down under the weight of mauve flowers.
     The Professor hastened to one of the trees loaded with flowers, climbed
up it and shouted from on top:
     "Stay where you are!"
     He, got into one of the flowers and set to work rather laboriously.
     Karik stood below.
     He  could see through the green leaves glimpses of the Professor's red,
sunburnt back, moving up and down, as with elbows well apart the old man now
tugged and now pushed at something, like the piston of an engine.
     Karik remembered  mother.  This  was just like the way she  worked  the
dough.
     "Eh, hey," shouted the  Professor. "Catch some  fresh rolls." He looked
out of the flower, bent down and threw something to the ground.
     Round  little loaves  fell  drumming  on the leaves and  bouncing  off,
rolled on to the ground.
     Karik picked up one of the 'rolls' and bit a piece out of it.
     "Well, how's that?' asked the old man from above.
     The  'roll' was scented  and  just as  delicious  as  the Andrena bee's
pastry.
     "Is it made of flower pollen and honey?" asked Karik.
     "Yes! Pollen and nectar. Do you like it?"
     "It's lovely. What are you doing with them up there?"
     "I  am  sprinkling the pollen into  the  nectar and  kneading them like
dough."
     The 'rolls'  fell around Karik like  autumn apples  from an apple tree.
Karik collected them and stacked them in a pile.
     At length the Professor  climbed down the tree, sat  on the  ground and
choosing a 'roll' rather bigger than the rest at once bit off half of it.
     "Life is not so bad actually !" The  Professor winked in a friendly way
at Karik.
     "No," agreed Karik,  "it is possible to live here, but all the same . .
." he sighed and became silent.
     "Well, well,"  grunted  the old man, "don't worry. We'll get  home  and
everything will be grand."
     He stood up.
     "Although it is still  a long time before evening comes, we  mustn't go
away from the Oenothera wood.  Let's go  there, sit down and wait for Valya.
Bring the 'rolls.' I think Valya will like them."
     "I am certain of it," nodded Karik. "She, poor girl, has had nothing to
eat all day. Everything will please her."
     "That's  good," said the old man, "but  how are we  to  carry all these
rolls?  Without a basket we  certainly  cannot carry  more than a  few. Look
here, my boy,  you sit  here  a  little  while  whilst I go and look  for  a
basket."
     He looked to the right and to the left and then went over to one of the
big brown heaps which rose like hillocks on the river bank and, bending over
it, picked at it with his fingers.
     "Excellent," he announced, "it seems to be just what we need."
     He started to dig out a lump.
     "Here  you are, my dear, wash this  thing!"  handing Karik  a big muddy
lump.
     Karik  took it  and  trying to hold  it  as  far away  from himself  as
possible so as not to get dirty ran down to the river.
     He went into the water up to his knees and lowered the Professor's find
into the river. The water became cloudy.
     The  clay melted away like  a  piece of  butter on  a frying-pan.  Soon
something  white  appeared  from  beneath a layer of  dirt. Karik started to
scrape  off the clay with  his hand and suddenly  felt  some sort of slender
handle.
     "Apparently it is actually a basket," he marvelled.
     Soon the strong  current of water had completely washed away  the clay,
and Karik found in his hands a basket of unusual beauty.
     He lifted it by the handle, right up to his eyes and stood for a minute
gazing  in admiration  at its ornamental lattice work which looked as if  it
had been wove out of ivory.
     "How's that? Good enough for a basket?" Karik heard the old man's voice
behind him.
     "It's  exactly as if it had been made of lace," replied Karik, admiring
it. "Who ever made it?"
     "I'll tell you that later," said  the Professor, "but now wash these as
well."
     He threw  two heavy balls of clay  on the ground  and  went back to his
excavations. Karik started work.
     He carefully washed the  clay off  the  extraordinary baskets and stood
them side by side on the bank; but the Professor brought more and more.
     One basket was even more amazing than the others.
     Fine silvery stems were platted- together in ornamented squares. On the
squares  there were screens pierced by  the stems and decorated  with stars,
leaves and garlands. One would have thought that such delicate  baskets must
have been made by the  hands of a master craftsman. One basket reminded them
of some sort of tiny  palace with openwork  towers and  fine Gothic windows.
Silver lattice work stood up around the palace-like walls.  These walls were
decorated with flowers, stags' antlers and stars. Some of them were not like
baskets at all, but Karik did not throw them away but stood them beside  the
baskets.
     It  was as  though dishes, vases, helmets,  spheres, stars,  cubes  and
crowns had been woven out of ivory.
     "And they are all different!" marvelled Karik.
     "Yes," said the  Professor, "they are every  sort of  shape. You  could
study them  for a lifetime and yet every day you  would always  discover new
forms of the plant."
     "What?" Karik  turned quickly  to the Professor.  "Did  you say  it's a
plant?"
     "Yes, it  is  a single-celled  water  weed.  Diatoms,  more  exactly  -
membranous  plants. In these beautiful basket-like membranes live the simple
water plants - the  diatoms.  Thus, in this one,"  the old man pointed  to a
round  basket, "there  lived  the heliopelta  diatom; in these triangles - a
tritserata; in this rhomboid  - a navicula. That which you hold in your hand
is only  the skeleton of the diatom. The water plants die, but their  strong
membranes remain. In tens or even hundreds of years the amazing baskets will
not have been destroyed by age."
     "Oho!" said  Karik. "They are certainly  very  strong. Look, you  can't
break them."
     The Professor laughed.
     "That is because the membrane is made of silica. That's a ' very strong
material."
     "You said that this was a water plant. That  means they live in  water.
How is it that they - ?"
     "You want to ask how they got on to the land? Apparently they must have
been deposited on the bank by  a flood or a storm.  Or maybe  very long  ago
there was a  lake here which was filled with diatoms from the surface to the
bottom."
     "Such little things! How could they fill a lake?"
     "Yes, they are small, but against that there  are so many of them. Like
dust in a broad sunbeam they exist throughout the whole mass  of  the water.
Millions and millions. Their life is short. They are born and having lived a
few hours they die. Day  and  night  in  seas, lake and rivers  there  falls
without ceasing a rain of their corpses.
     "Their bodies lie on the bottom. On their bodies new bodies fall. Layer
after layer the  pile of millions of diatom bodies rises up and thousands of
years pass. The diatoms rise  from the bottom of the  rivers  in islands and
shoals.  The river divided course  around them into  branches, they make the
river deltas. By this means. they change the  course  of the rivers. By this
means  they  change geography.  Huge  lakes slowly die under  the  layers of
diatoms. They turn into swamps. They vanish from the map.
     "Not far from Leningrad there is the fortress of Kronstadt. You have to
go 30  kilometres  of a  water journey  to reach it.  But in  two and a half
thousand years it will  be  possible to go  from  Leningrad to Kronstadt  on
foot. The bodies of the diatoms  will  have covered  the gap between  with a
dense, firm causeway.
     "So you see these teeny creatures, unnoticed by man, change the face of
the earth.
     "Well! the membrane of the diatom has new significance  now. Choose for
yourself baskets for the 'rolls.'
     Karik  thoughtfully  filled two little baskets with  'rolls'  and  went
after the Professor.
     They  returned to the Oenothera wood, laid their baskets  under  a tree
and stretched themselves out in the cool shadow. With their arms under their
heads, they lay there talking quietly, but both started very soon to yawn.
     "Let's sleep," proposed the old man.
     "You sleep and I'll keep guard," said Karik.
     The Professor went to sleep.
     Karik lay beside  him and listened to the measured breathing of the old
man. He  started to  think  how pleased  mother would  be  when he and Valya
arrived  home  and how she  would  exclaim when he started to tell her about
this wonderful journey.
     Karik's eyes felt full of sand.
     He  turned  on  his  side and was  soon  just  as  fast asleep  as  the
Professor.
     In their sleep they heard  some indistinct noise and soft steps as if a
wild  beast was creeping up  to them. All was silent.  Then suddenly a  very
ordinary human voice shouted.
     "Ah, here you are ! Whatever has happened?"
     The Professor and Karik opened their eyes.




     Karik makes the  acquaintance of  a lion  ant  - A  caw hospital  - The
bumble bee's larder  - Mysterious lights - An extraordinary horse - Besieged
by flies

     IN THE ROSY GLOW OF THE EVENING SUNSET, THERE IN FRONT OF the Professor
and Karik stood Valya: the real live Valya.
     She held in her hands one of the diatom baskets and she was attentively
examining its  silvery pattern. She first put the little basket  up close to
her eyes, then lifted it high above her  head and  peered at it with one eye
screwed up.
     "Take  a  look, citizens!" grinned  Karik. "The next instalment of  the
film  'The  girl   from  Kamchatka'  has  commenced.   The  missing   damsel
mysteriously appears on the west coast."
     The Professor didn't say anything. He  just  clasped Valya  to him  and
silently stroked her hair.
     Valya wriggled out of  his  arms  and stretching out the diatom  basket
towards him, demanded:
     "Did you really make this yourself? What is it made of? And why does it
smell so delicious? Can we eat it?"
     "You cannot eat the basket but you may certainly cat the 'rolls' in the
basket," answered the old man.
     "How many  do you want? Two? Three?" asked Karik, taking the  rolls out
of a basket.
     "Five! I want five!" Valya answered quickly.
     The Professor and Karik laughed.
     "That is what they call famished!" said Karik.
     "It doesn't  matter,  it  doesn't  matter! Let her eat what  she wants.
Indeed, we might all have a bite with you. Would you like something?"
     "I could manage it !" agreed Karik.
     The Professor arranged the baskets of 'rolls' opposite Karik and Valya,
and with a wide hospitable sweep of the arm invited the children to supper.
     Valya took a bite of 'roll,' munched it, and announced:
     "Most delicious!" and proceeded to stuff her two cheeks with 'roll'.
     The other two  watched her smilingly. Karik winked at the Professor and
asked in a very innocent way:
     "Is  it  true that there was a man in Moscow who had the appetite of an
elephant?"
     "I never heard that," said the Professor.
     "But I heard it. They say he ate ten plates of soup."
     "And I could eat them!" said Valya, shoving a huge piece of 'roll' into
her mouth.
     Karik nudged the old man  with his elbow. "And for a  second  course he
ate fifteen tender chops."
     "And I could eat fifteen!" rejoiced Valya.
     "Lastly, he ate twenty dishes of fruit salad," continued Karik.
     "But I would like thirty!"
     Karik  moved  the basket away from himself and  wiped  his fingers on a
petal.
     "Then this chap tied a napkin across his chest and said:
     "Well, I think I must have swallowed a worm. So now, if you please, I'd
like to start my proper dinner!"
     "And I. . . ."
     Valya stretched out her hand  to the  eighth  'roll\ but after touching
it, thought a  little  and then sighing heavily declared:  "No, I don't want
anything now."
     "Perhaps  you  will  now tell  us  how you contrived, to  get  into the
Oenothera flower," said the Professor, clapping her on the shoulder.
     "Karik and I were looking for you. . . . That's right, Karik?"
     Karik nodded his head.
     "I went on and on  and suddenly  I got  hungry. In the wood  there  was
something which smelt just like  a  confectioner's shop.  'I'll  climb  up a
tree,'  I  thought.  I  climbed  up.  But  then all of a sudden it shut  and
wouldn't let me out. I shouted and shouted, until even my own ears ached."
     "And you cried, surely?"
     "A little. . . . But then I slept so soundly that I didn't even  dream.
Afterwards  I heard someone shouting 'Valya, Valya!' I wanted to wake up but
I simply couldn't."
     "Well, all's well that ends well!" said the old man. "Now in order that
we shall  not  lose each other  again,  give me your  word that you will not
wander off, not even one step, from me!"
     "On my honour as a Pioneer!" said Karik.
     "On my honour saluting!" Valya saluted.
     "Then - on we go!" ordered the Professor, cheerfully, "on the march, my
dears, on the march!"
     The  travellers collected the baskets with 'rolls' and moved off beside
the river.
     By nightfall they reached a big hill. Here  in some sort  of  hole they
spent the  night, and then next morning, having  eaten some scented 'rolls',
they continued their journey.
     Thus they proceeded for several days, spending the night in flowers, in
shells, in empty wasps' nests, under stones, and in mucky damp dens.
     They fed on nectar, bees' honey, butterflies' eggs and green milk.
     In the  valley  of  Three Rivers the Professor succeeded  in  killing a
hedge sparrow. The travellers had roast and smoked  fowl for three days  and
indeed would have had sufficient meat for a further fortnight had not 'skin'
beetles attacked them on their journey, carried off all their provisions and
very nearly disabled the Professor.

     * * * * *

     Every day  they got nearer and nearer to the  lake on the opposite side
of which stood the pole landmark.
     According to the Professor's calculations they were  due to get to  the
lake the following day in the evening. They had then only to get  across the
lake, when they should be able to land quite near to the landmark.
     "In a few days we should be home !" the Professor assured the children.
     But their guide's calculations were not to prove correct.
     When the travellers were near the lake an unfortunate event occurred.
     It happened in the early morning.
     The  Professor and  the children had  just emerged from  the  cavern in
which they had passed the night and they were  beginning their march  in the
cold morning dew.
     "I declare there's a frost!" shivered the old man.
     Shaking  with  cold and  with  their  teeth  chattering the  travellers
marched  up hill and down dale. It seemed to them as if their bare feet were
moving over ice sprinkled here and there with earth. They wanted to stop and
tuck their feet up under themselves like a goose standing on the ice does.
     At last the children could stand it no longer and  in order to get warm
they started to run ahead.
     "Don't run too far !" the old man shouted after them.
     But the children were already dashing  towards  a chain  of high hills,
overtaking  each other,  jumping in  their chase over wide  holes and little
rivers.
     "Come back!" shouted the old man. "Come back, Karik! Come here, Valya?"
     But Karik only waved his hand and quickly running up on to the crest of
a hill disappeared behind it.
     Valya stopped as  if undecided whether to turn back or to follow Karik,
but,  after hesitating  a little, went  off after her  brother  and was also
disappearing behind the hill.
     The Professor, alarmed, quickened his steps.
     Then suddenly from behind the hill came a desperate cry.  A few moments
later Valya  reappeared  on  the top of  the hill. She waved her  hands  and
called to the Professor for help.
     "Quickly, quickly! . . . They are attacking!" she shouted.
     The old man ran as fast as ever he could. He simply flew up the hill.
     "Where is he? Where?" he panted at Valya.
     "There! There he is!" Valya replied.
     At the bottom  of  a sort of funnel up to  its neck in sand  a terrible
monster  was twisting and  digging. A large  black head  with  long  curving
pincers was rapidly throwing up sand and rocks in a regular spray.
     On the slope of the funnel  stood Karik, quite dazed. He was helplessly
covering his head with his hands and turning this way and that way. Sand and
rocks hurtled straight at him. He fell down, got up and fell down again. The
monster did not stop  showering him. The sandy wall of the funnel  fell away
under his  feet and Karik started to slide down,  down, down, right into the
monster's lair.
     "Turn  on  your  back,"  shouted  the  Professor.  But  Karik  couldn't
understand anything and couldn't hear.  Then the old man rushed down, seized
Karik by the arms and clambered out of the funnel, up the crumbling side.
     A  regular hail of rocks followed  the fugitives. But the Professor set
his teeth  and, not letting go of Karik, quickly  climbed upwards, with  his
head well down in his shoulders and bending down to the very ground.
     At last he got out of the  funnel, carefully laid  Karik on  the ground
and grunted:
     "Goodness gracious! are we really out of it?"
     Karik  lay there  pale  with a  thin  stream of blood creeping down his
cheek. His head and  the  whole of his spider's web suit were  powdered with
sand.
     Valya ran up to her brother.
     "Is he alive?" she demanded of the Professor in  alarm, as she  dropped
on her knees beside her brother.
     "He's alive all right," said the old man, frowning. "He'll soon recover
consciousness!"
     "The sooner the better! We must get away from here as soon as possible.
That frightful thing will climb out and start throwing stuff at us again."
     "It  won't climb out!"  replied  the  Professor  curtly,  and,  looking
angrily at  Valya, continued, "Didn't I tell you, didn't I shout at you? Oh,
no . . . must have it your own way!"
     He put his ear to Karik's chest, then  felt for  his pulse  and looking
skywards started to move his lips, making no sounds.
     Karik sighed.
     "Can you hear me?" asked the Professor, loudly.
     Karik  raised himself up, gazing at  the Professor with dull eyes.  His
lips moved ever so slightly.
     "It's .. . gone?" he asked in a weak voice.
     "It's gone  away, it's gone away !" said the  Professor. "Now how about
you? Can you get up?"
     "I think I can!" said Karik.
     Swaying, he stood up, said "Come on!" and clenched his teeth.
     For some time the travellers moved on in silence, but the old man could
not remain angry for long. When presently they sat down to rest he looked at
Karik and laughed:
     "What a hero. . . . Eh? Look at him! Fell into a lion's den!"
     "I was unlucky," said  Karik. "I was running and running - and suddenly
the funnel appeared and - well! I rolled down it."
     "You would do much better  if you watched  your step instead of chasing
wild geese.  A little longer -and you would have made  a nice  dinner  for a
'lion-ant'."
     "What did you say it was called, a 'lion-ant'?" demanded Valya.
     "Yes, that's what it is called," nodded the old man.
     "However, this was not  actually  a 'lion-ant' itself but its larva. It
doesn't live  in a  hole itself, it flies about, but most often climbs about
trees. I think you must have actually seen one at one time or other. . . ."
     "What is it? What's it like?"
     "It  is  rather  like a  dragonfly.  But it  is  an  idler,  a terrible
lazybones. It sits on a tree letting its four wings flop. Yes, and it'll sit
there  all day long,  just as if it had been stuck there on a pin.  But this
bully which sits in a hole and hurls stones - this is its larva. That is how
it  hunts.  You saw what a cunning  trap it had set for ants who don't  look
where they are going!"
     "For ants?"
     "Not  only for ants. It doesn't let other  insects get out. But what is
most insulting," smiled the Professor, "this creature who wanted  to eat you
hasn't even got a mouth."
     "Well, then. . . . How was it going to eat me? With its feet?"
     "Yes, in a way - with its pincers!" replied the Professor. "You see, my
dears, the 'lion-ant' has no mouth opening, but on the contrary has two huge
pincers on its head with which  it attaches itself to  its prey, and through
which it sucks their blood. Another two or  three minutes and you would have
made the acquaintance of these pincers."
     The Professor got up from the ground and said:
     "Well, ready? Let's go on!"
     Valya trotted behind the old man and Karik dragged himself along behind
them both, trying not to get separated from Valya.
     At times a sharp pain made him jump and stop. It seemed to him as if he
had trodden on a long, sharp needle.
     For all that he kept going. Frowning, making faces, biting his lips, he
nevertheless kept moving and did not drop behind a single step.
     The old man looked  around every so often and stole a glance  at Karik.
When Karik stumbled the Professor asked him with alarm in his voice:
     "Well,  what's  the matter with you? Perhaps you would like  to lean on
me, wouldn't you?"
     "No,  no, it's nothing!"  replied Karik,  hastily, "it's just.  . . . I
trod on a sharp stone!"
     At last  Karik  began  to  lag.  He now no  longer  walked but  hopped,
trailing one leg behind the other one after him along the ground.
     The Professor stopped and said:
     "Well, I can see you are quite exhausted."
     "No, no!" protested Karik. "I could do another fifty miles  still."  He
straightened himself up and started to walk quickly forward but, having made
a few steps, fell,  and  clutching his  bad leg groaned. Then the  Professor
without saying a word lifted Karik up on to his back.
     "No, I  can stick it. Let me  go! I  can  manage it  myself!"  resisted
Karik.
     "Sit there!" scolded the  Professor. " 'I can  stick  it,'  indeed! You
think you're a champion."
     Holding  Karik tightly,  he walked on frowning and  looking down at his
feet. Beside him came Valya, with a guilty look on her face.
     Karik  laid his head  on  the Professor's shoulder, his  eyes were soon
shut and he was sound asleep.
     When next he opened his eyes he saw that he was  lying on the bank of a
big lake. The Professor was standing  on a rock and using  his hand to shade
his eyes was  gazing  at  the  opposite  bank  where the  landmark stood  up
solitary in the distance.
     Karik heard Valya ask something but what it was he could not make out.
     He raised his head from the ground and listened. At that moment the old
man was speaking:
     "We'll build  a boat and  sail or  row across. But to  begin with let's
look  for a  suitable lodging-place. We may probably have to spend a week on
the bank."
     "But why ever?"
     "What do you mean why ever? You must have seen how ill our Karik is?"
     "You don't need to!" said Karik, raising himself on his elbows.
     "Don't need what?"
     "You  don't need to  spend a  week on the  shore.  I can crawl into the
boat, and I am sure I could row!"
     "Stuff and nonsense!" the Professor waved his  hands. "What will happen
if a storm suddenly springs up. You'll go to the bottom like a stone."
     The old man bent over Karik and carefully touched his swollen knee with
his hand.
     "Look how blue it has become! And it hurts, no doubt?"
     "It is painful," Karik wrinkled up his  eyes. "It burns all the time as
if someone was ironing the knee with a hot iron."
     The Professor  started to think  and then suddenly clapping his hand to
his head ran to the lake.
     "0-oh, isn't  it swollen!" Valya touched Karik's sore  leg with the top
of her finger.
     "Yes. If you  had been bombarded like  that  you would be swollen too!"
rejoined Karik, rubbing his bad knee.
     "If you don't put your  weight on that leg it will  soon go!  Would you
like me to find you a crutch?"
     At this moment the Professor arrived back. He held in front  of himself
on outstretched hands a tiny leaf from which water was  trickling down on to
the sand.
     "Well, now, turn a little!" said the old man, "and give me your leg."
     Then  having laid  the wet,  cold leaf  on  the  hot,  swollen knee  he
skilfully bound up Karik's bad leg.
     "How's that?"
     "Very good," said Karik, "a sort of compress. It started  to get better
at once."
     "Excellent! Lie quiet, and Valya and I will go and  look for a place to
spend the night."
     As luck  would have it  the  travellers did  not  have to look long for
their refuge. The whole bank  of the lake was pierced with deep caverns. The
old man and Valya started inspecting first one and then another, and at last
chose a dry sandy cave with a low roof and narrow entrance.
     "Let's stay in this one!" suggested Valya.
     The Professor agreed.
     He returned  to the bank, lifted Karik and  carried him  to the cave in
his arms.
     "Lie  there!" he said, putting  Karik  down beside  the wall.  "Is that
comfortable for you?"
     Karik  did not answer. He was already sleeping the  heavy sleep  of the
sick.
     The old man and  Valya sat at  the entrance and, by the fading light of
evening, ate a supper of the remains of the honey dough.
     "Now we must go to sleep!" said the Professor.
     Blocking  up  the  entrance  to  the  cave  with  rocks  the travellers
stretched themselves out on the dry sand and were soon asleep.


     * * * * * *



     Towards morning  the Professor dreamt he saw  a lion-ant.  The lion was
firmly holding Karik in its curved pincers and was staring at him  with huge
protruding eyes.
     Karik was hitting the  monster on the head with his arms  and  legs and
quietly groaning.
     The old man opened his eyes.
     "Good gracious, I was dreaming!" he thought.
     However, the groans continued. It wasn't a dream after all!
     "Karik, are you all right?" the Professor hailed him.
     Karik did not answer.
     It was dark in the cave.
     The old man got up and feeling the wall with  his hand made  his way to
the  mouth  of the cave. In the  darkness, touching the barricade  of  rocks
which blocked up the entrance, he  took off two big  rocks from the  top and
gently, so as not to wake the children, lowered them down to the ground.
     It now became light in the cave.
     The grey light which comes  before the dawn filtered in and touched the
floor where the children were sleeping.
     In the centre of the cave Valya could be seen curled up like a cat,
     Karik  was sleeping near the  wall with his arms flung widely apart. He
was all red in  the face. Sweat stood on his forehead. He was shivering  and
groaning in his sleep.
     The Professor  went  over to him,  bent down  and  quietly  touched the
swollen knee wrapped in the leaf.
     Without waking Karik drew up the leg and groaned loudly.
     "Do you want something to drink, Karik?" he asked.
     Karik  opened his  eyes. Unable  to  grasp  anything,  he gazed at  the
Professor for a long time and then turned away from him towards the wall.
     "Would you like me to get you some water?"
     "No-o!" said Karik, through his teeth.
     "But would you like me to change the compress?" asked the old man.
     "Yes . . . compress, please!"
     The  Professor brought  a  fresh damp petal and fastened it around  the
swollen knee.
     "How's that? Better?"
     "Better!" sighed Karik.
     "That's fine! Sleep away! Meanwhile  I'll go  and look for something to
eat.  If  Valya  wakes up, don't let her  go out  of the  cave. I'll be back
soon."
     Karik silently nodded his head. '
     The  Professor filled  up  the  entrance  to the cave  with  rocks and,
looking around himself in order to remember quite clearly where the children
were, went off to find something for breakfast.
     Not far from the cave a hill rose up covered with thick bushes.
     The  old man  went  to the foot of  the  hill,  examined it  carefully,
touched the soft feathery foliage of the green bushes.
     "Evidently  it is moss! Yes, indeed, just ordinary moss. Now let's  see
if there is anything eatable here."
     He climbed daringly through the  thick growth of moss.  But he had only
gone a few steps when he disappeared up to the waist.
     Falling, he managed to clutch hold of some of the foliage.
     With his legs swinging above a dark hole he peered downwards and in the
half darkness  descried earthy arches and a smooth, trampled floor. The weak
light filtered in  from above through  the thick  foliage and  lit the  dark
cellar fitfully.
     In the depths of the cellar  along the wall white barrels stood in even
rows.
     "Apparently it's a bumble bee's store!" muttered the Professor.
     He measured with his eye the distance to the earthern floor and letting
go the  foliage with his hands dropped down. The earth beneath his  feet was
dry and warm.
     Examining  the  cellar with curiosity  the old man  went  over  to  the
barrels.  They  were  each of them closed with a white  cover. He lifted the
cover off one of the barrels, bent over it and sniffed.
     "That's just what it is!"
     The barrel was full  to the very  brim with  scented  honey.  Alongside
stood other barrels, and they too were filled with honey.
     It was very much like a storeroom in which  supplies  were kept "for  a
rainy day."
     In actual fact this was what it was - a bumble bee's storeroom.
     The female bumble bee lays its eggs in a nest and leaves alongside them
little balls of honey and  pollen.  The larvae come out of the eggs, eat the
balls of honey and  pollen and turn  into cocoons,  which are barrel-shaped.
After a little  while the young bumble bees open the top of the barrels  and
fly out. But the  cocoons are not wasted. In the summer the bumble bees fill
them with honey and in cold, rainy weather, when  it is not possible to  fly
out of the nest, they feed on this.
     The Professor,  in no  hurry,  breakfasted and  then chose one  of  the
stronger barrels and started to drag it out of the storeroom.
     This was no easy task.
     The barrel, as if it had been alive, jerked itself out of the old man's
hands,  bumped  him  and knocked  him  off his feet. But  for all  this  the
Professor managed to get it up out of the cellar.
     His knees shook. His  hands were numb. His heart beat so furiously that
he could feel it clearly even in his temples.
     "And now how can I roll it to the cave," he puzzled.
     He was afraid to  turn  the barrel on  its side and roll  it along  the
ground as one normally rolls the ordinary barrel. The lid might open and all
the honey would pour out on to the ground.
     "There's nothing for it but to try some other way." He gripped the edge
of the barrel with his hands and shook it fiercely.
     The barrel rocked.
     "Aha! It'll soon come!" he rejoiced.
     He tipped the  barrel over  on one side and proceeded to push,  at  the
same time rolling the  barrel from side to  side as  if he wanted to  bore a
hole in the earth.
     Slowly, step by step, pushing the barrel with his hands and leaning his
full weight against if, the old man drove it to the cave.
     When the Professor got to the bank of the lake Valya came to meet him,
     "Up  already?"  he  asked, stopping and taking  breath.  "How is  Karik
getting on?"
     "He is asleep! Let me help you!"
     "Certainly, help if you can!"
     "But what is this? What is the barrel?"
     "Honey!"
     "A whole barrel! That's really grand!"
     Valya  took hold  of  the  barrel  and began to push  it,  helping  the
Professor.
     With their combined efforts  they  rolled the barrel into the cave  and
stood it in a corner.
     "You have breakfast, little Valya," said the  Professor, wiping his hot
neck with his hands, "I must go and look for a bed  for Karik. It's not very
comfortable for him, poor chap, to sleep on the bare ground."
     He went out.
     Valya successfully threw off the lid and at once dug her hands into the
honey.  Her  fingers  became  covered  with the scented liquid. She  ate  so
enthusiastically that soon her  face, neck and  arms, up to the very elbows,
were coated as if with glue, in amber-yellow honey.
     "Now what  shall I do?"  Valya spread her sticky  fingers apart. "There
isn't even anything to wipe them on. I'll go to the lake and wash."
     She went out of the cave and ran to the lake.
     On  the sandy beach  Valya  stopped  to make  sure that  there  were no
monsters in the neighbourhood and only after this did she get into the water
and start to wash.
     After bathing  she ran back. On her  way back she  collected a piece of
petal and dragged it into the cave.
     "It will be useful," she considered. "It  is certain to be useful to us
now!"
     At the cave itself she  saw the Professor,  who was dragging  a mass of
feathery hair.
     "Now where have you been running to?" he asked, stopping.
     "To wash myself!"
     The Professor shook his head.
     "Now, that doesn't  please me at  all.  I warned you most seriously.  I
warned you not to go out without me."
     "But I was all covered with honey!"
     "All the more likely,"  gruff-gruffed the old man, "that a fly, wasp or
a bee would  carry  you off with the honey  -  in fact, there are few of our
neighbours here who could resist a girl covered in honey."
     He went into the cave and threw the pile of tangled hair on the floor.
     "Well, there you are, there's a bed for Karik! Yes, and there is enough
hair for you and me as well."
     "It's just  like a real  mattress!" Valya touched  the hair. "Where did
you get it?"
     "I took it from a gipsy moth!"
     "Does a gipsy moth sleep on a mattress?"
     "No," smiled the Professor, "it doesn't sleep itself. It flies. But its
next generation are covered carefully by it with this down. Neither rain nor
cold  are harmful to  the eggs of  gipsy moths,  which  lie under such dense
feathery eiderdowns."
     "What is this feathery stuff? It's surely ordinary horsehair!"
     "You forget that you and  I are not ordinary ourselves  and that is why
this down  appears  to us  as  horsehair. However, let us  make up a bed for
Karik now."
     "I'll make the bed!" said Valya.
     She laid  hair  near the sandy wall, beat  it up with  her hands as one
puffs up a pillow, then threw a big bunch of hair at the head of the bed and
went a little way away.
     "It looks quite nice," she said admiringly.
     "Excellent,"  approved the Professor. He took the sleeping  Karik up in
his  arms and transferred him to the bed. Valya opened the petal up and laid
it over Karik like a quilt.
     "He seems pretty comfortable now.  Look after  him  while I  go out for
half an hour or so," said the old man. "I have some things to do outside. If
Karik wakens feed him!"
     "Right you are," said Valya. "You go on, I have some things to do too."
     When the Professor had  gone,  Valya made up two more  beds, dragged in
two new blue quilts made  from harebell petals, swept the floor with a piece
of petal, then rolled into the cave four big stones, put a flat rock  on top
of  them  and  on top  of that  laid as a tablecloth the  white  petal of an
ox-eyed daisy.
     This provided a splendid table.
     Around the table Valya  arranged smaller stones,  put  the remainder of
the hair on these and covered it with yellow petals.
     "There are our comfy chairs!" said Valya.
     Having finished work she inspected  the cave and was very pleased  - it
was now really cosy.
     "Now we could stay here even a whole month while Karik gets well."
     She  went over  on tiptoe  to  her  brother's bed,  bent over  him  and
carefully rearranged the quilt.
     "He is asleep," she said in a whisper.
     Soon the Professor arrived back. Breathing heavily, he rolled a  second
barrel of honey into the cave and stood it up by the wall.
     "Look what I have done here," boasted Valya.
     "What's happened?" asked the old man  in alarm, but on  looking  around
the cave nodded his head approvingly. "Bravo, bravo! You're a champion! Yes,
you're  a  regular housewife!"  He praised Valya. "By  the way, I too may be
able to  add something to the comfort of our dwelling. Just here by the cave
I found an interesting little thing."
     He  went out and  in ten  minutes  returned  with a little leaf in  his
hands. Using the leaf as if it  was a tray he  carried in a mound  of oblong
little eggs.
     "What are those?" asked Valya, "Can we eat them?"
     "No," replied  the Professor, "they  cannot be eaten but they  will  be
useful to us, very useful!"
     "But what use can they be?"
     "Live and learn!"
     The Professor put the tray of eggs on a barrel and said:
     "I have been thinking  things over: Our patient will  evidently have to
stay in bed for some days. In  order not to waste  time you and I will  roll
all the  barrels of honey  into the cave and  then we can set about building
our battleship."
     "What battleship?"
     "Well, something is sure to turn up that we can make into  a ship! Then
as soon as Karik gets well, we can set out on our voyage. Since our landmark
is  on the opposite side  of the  lake, it  means  we must  go  across in  a
vessel."
     Having fed themselves on honey, Valya and the old man set about rolling
the barrels of honey from the bumble bees' store to the cave. Each time they
came back the Professor went over to Karik, listened to his uneven breathing
and felt his pulse.
     Karik slept as if he was dead.
     When the whole corner of the cave was stocked with barrels of honey the
Professor announced:
     "That's that. Now, little Valya, let's go and build a ship."
     "That will be interesting!" rejoiced the girl.
     "I don't know if it will be interesting," said her companion, "but I am
ready to wager that we'll have a spot of work to do!"
     Having closed up the entrance to  the cave  with rocks in order that no
wild beasts should get in to Karik,  the old man and the girl set out to the
lake.
     "What  can we make  the ship  out of?"  demanded Valya, marching  along
beside the Professor.
     "We'll  find  something. There are  quite a  few dry tree leaves on the
bank. We can build it out of these. This morning 1 saw behind the hills some
ordinary trees."
     "It  is very likely that the wind  carries their  leaves  here.  At any
rate, we shall soon see."
     The Professor and  Valya went along the bank  and no sooner had the old
man got a little way away from Valya than she suddenly cried out:
     "I have found it! Found it! Found it already!"
     "Where?" the old man turned to her.
     "Here we are!"
     By  the lake itself lay a huge yellow leaf with deeply  indented edges.
Thick veins spread fan-like in all directions.
     The  Professor  walked  around  the  leaf,  looked  at  it  from  every
direction, lifted its edge and looking underneath said:
     "Yes, this is an oak leaf, but unfortunately we cannot make a  ship out
of it."
     "Why not?"
     "There are galls on  the  leaf. Do you see? The whole  leaf  is covered
with galls!"
     "Galls. What are they?"
     The Professor lifted the edge of the oak leaf still higher.
     Valya squatted down  and looked under the leaf. The whole  of its lower
surface was covered with  dark balls. These balls  appeared  just as if they
had been glued  on to the leaf. Valya touched them with her hands. They were
as hard as stones.
     "We could never move such a leaf!" the old man announced.
     "Whatever are these things?" demanded Valya.
     "They are  insects' nests!" said  the Professor. "Numerous insects  lay
their eggs directly on  leaves.  But the  leaves  don't like this  and  they
protect  themselves with all  their resources against unwelcome  guests. The
cells  of the leaf collect around the  egg, trying  to push it away, just as
the white corpuscles of the blood push away  a thorn which has got into your
finger.
     "It  is for this reason  that an  inflammation  appears on  your finger
around the thorn  whilst on the leaves swellings appear - these  very galls.
They are usually called 'ink nuts' or 'oak apples,' although by no means all
of these galls are inky nor are they very inviting apples."
     "But what insects do this?" asked Valya.
     The Professor shrugged his  shoulders.  "One or  two!" he said. "Let me
see! The following  lay their eggs on leaves: 60 sorts  of  butterflies, 113
sorts of beetles, 486 sorts of flies and, well, 290 sorts of other insects."
     "Can we ever find a leaf without galls?"
     "We shall have to find one!" answered the Professor.
     It was already dusk  by the time  they at length found  a  dry oak leaf
suitable  for launching. But it lay a good  distance  from the bank, so  far
that it was quite beyond the Professor and Valya to push it into the water.
     "We'll never get it there!" Valya shook her head.
     The Professor  started to think. Stroking  his  beard he  stood  on the
leaf,  silently  gazing  at  its  thick  veins,  which  stretched  in  every
direction.
     "What  if? . . .  Yes, of course!"  gruff-gruffed the old man, and then
suddenly started laughing.
     "What are you up to?" Valya looked surprised.
     "I  am up  to  just this," replied  the Professor. "We'll  go home now.
To-morrow we'll harness a horse to do the job."
     "A horse?" Valya was still more surprised.
     The Professor did not say anything  in reply. Muttering something under
his breath  he quickly set out  in the direction  of  the  cave.  Valya  ran
skipping along behind him.
     "Now, Professor dear, do tell me  what are these horses? Where will you
get them from?"
     "I will not tell you!"
     "Tell me!" insisted Valya.
     "Don't be curious! You'll see for yourself to-morrow."
     "Oh, Professor," whimpered Valya again, and suddenly became silent.
     In front of them a light twinkled. Valya seized the old man by the hand
and stopped.
     "It's on fire! Look! There is a fire in our cave!"
     The light was coming between the rocks  which  blocked  the entrance to
the cave.
     "A fire! A fire in our cave!"  Valya screamed in fright. "Hurry - Karik
is burning!"
     "It is nothing! Nothing terrible! Your brother is not burning."
     But Valya,  not listening to the Professor, had already dashed headlong
to the cave.
     "Karik!"  she shouted, as she ran.  "Are you burning? Are  you burning,
Karik?"
     "No, it is not I," Valya heard Karik's calm voice.
     She quickly  pulled the rocks aside. Jumping into the  cave she stopped
as if she was rooted to the spot.
     "Whatever is it?"
     The  corner  where the mound of little eggs had been laid on their tray
was glowing  with a dazzling  blue light just as the lamps  on a  New Year's
tree, only brighter. One could have read a book by the light.
     "Well, how do you like it?" Valya heard the old man's voice behind her.
     "Isn't it lovely !" said Valya, in ecstasy.
     "It's those . . . those eggs are glowing."
     "Yes," smiled the Professor, "the eggs of a glow-worm."
     "Ah, I know!" Valya  nodded  her  head. "It's that worm. The glow-worm!
The 'St. John's day' worm, as the peasants call it!"
     "Yes,  that's what it is called, although it actually is not a worm but
a beetle. That you can easily understand when you consider what it eats. The
ordinary worm lives underground and eats earth but  the beetle lives in damp
grass and feeds on snails."
     "Yes, yes! I remember. These beetles shine in the grass."
     "Perfectly correct. They glow  themselves,  their larvae glow and their
eggs glow. . . . Pretty, isn't it?"
     "Very pretty,"  said Karik from his corner. "How lucky  it was that you
found them."
     "Well, now how do you  feel. Better or worse?" The old man went over to
the patient. "Would you like something to eat?"
     "Had it !" said Karik. "I have already had it! When you were away I had
a look all round, found the honey and had a jolly good feed."
     "You shouldn't have got up." frowned the Professor. "It is too soon for
you to  get  up ! Too soon,  my dear!  If  you don't  look out  you'll  make
yourself worse !"
     "Do you know what?" said Karik. "When I woke up and looked around - the
table, then the  chairs, and the light burning. Why, I thought I was at home
again, it was morning, and I must get up."
     "But do you like our new flat?" asked Valya.
     "Very much!"  replied Karik. "Particularly the little glow-worm  lamps.
Haven't they got a strong light?"
     "You  could  have  more  than that,"  said the  Professor.  "Now if you
brought a couple of Pyropheri in here . . . there you would see some light!"
     "And what are these things . . . py . . . your pyrough."
     "They are beetles,  too! They  live  in Guiana, Brazil  and Mexico. And
then if  some Brazilian or Mexican wants to go out in the forest at night he
catches one of these beetles and fastens it to his hat. The  light given off
by  these  beetle-lanterns  is so strong  that you  can  go through the very
darkest  of  tropical  undergrowth and not lose  your way - some people call
them 'Ford bugs' because  they are  like  motor-car headlamps. Mexican women
adorn themselves with these  Pyropheri They hide  them in their hair, beside
diamonds or make themselves jewels of fire or fasten them round their waists
to  make a girdle  of fire. After a ball the  local  belles bathe the  tired
insects in a bath and put them in a glass vase and there the Pyropheri light
the  bedrooms  of  these  Mexican women all night  with a  gentle,  pleasant
light."
     "But is the glow-worm the only one we have which glows?"
     "It's  not the only thing," replied the Professor. "I could arrange the
same sort  of lighting using  glowing bacteria. . . . When I was a student I
once  made a real lamp out  of such  bacteria. By the light of this  lamp  I
could read and write."
     "Bacteria? These are so  small that  you cannot see them with the naked
eye. How can they light up anything? You couldn't see them."
     "When you  have  lots of them," replied the old man, "then you can  see
the light,  although  the individual bacteria,  naturally,  cannot be  seen.
Often in  the  forest you can see Rotton stumps glowing with a blue or green
light. It looks as if the stump  itself was glowing,  but  it  is really the
light of the bacteria. In the same way Rotton  fish thrown away on the shore
glow. Often you can see the same light in the carcases of animals."
     Here the Professor hesitated, ran over to a barrel and throwing the lid
off it noisily shouted cheerfully:
     "Supper, supper, my dears! Supper and then bed!"
     In  the  morning the  Professor  set out on a scouting  expedition.  He
returned only at nightfall and brought a coil of spider's  web cord. He then
sat at the entrance of the cave late into the night twisting thick ropes out
of the spider's cord. When they were all about to go to  sleep he announced,
turning to Valya:
     "To-morrow you  and I  will go to  our ship! It's time to launch her in
the water. . .  . Karik is getting better and we should very soon be able to
continue our journey."
     Next day the old man woke Valya before dawn. They breakfasted on honey.
     Then  he slung  the  rope over his shoulder  and set out  with Valya to
start work.
     The oak leaf lay in the old place.
     The Professor threw the rope down near the leaf.
     "But now," said he, "let's go to the stable for our cart horse."
     Then he led along the  bank, bending down to the ground,  looking under
the rocks.
     Beside a big  grey  rock he went  down on  all fours, looked for a long
time into a dark hole under it and then sat back and threw a handful of sand
into the hole.
     Something stirred beneath the rock.
     "A famous  steed!" announced  the Professor, getting up.  "If  only  he
doesn't kick we'll soon launch our ship."
     "What is there? Is it under the rock?" asked Valya, in a whisper.
     "A wild horse!" joked the Professor. "A  horse  with six legs. Now come
on, little Valya, you must help me!"
     He dragged the spider's web rope  to the stalk of  the leaf,  wound  it
around the stalk and  with an effort dragging the rope  over his shoulder he
pulled the knot tight.
     "Excellent!" he muttered.
     Dragging  the other end of the  rope over the ground  he walked with it
away from the leaf. When the rope was stretched full length  he tied another
loop in the other  end  of it. Then he dragged four short logs  of  wood and
stood them on end like ninepins stand when you are playing skittles.
     Lightly hammering the logs with a stone the old man drove them a little
way into the earth. He knocked one of them with his foot.
     The log fell down.
     "Fine!" announced the Professor.
     He picked up the fallen log and stuck it in its former position.
     Valya was watching  him with curiosity but could not make head or tails
of what he was doing.
     "Can I help you?" she asked at length.
     "Not at all, not at all! I can manage!"
     He lifted the loop of the rope,  dragged it to  the logs  and carefully
laid it on top of them.
     The loop  now  hung above the ground resting on the  carefully balanced
logs.
     "Well, there's the horse's  collar ready," said the old man. "Now let's
go and find the horse! Have you ever harnessed horses?" he asked, jokingly.
     "No," Valya acknowledged frankly. "I have never harnessed a horse!"
     "Marvellous! Nor have I. However, that's no great misfortune."
     The Professor picked up a long stick from the ground and held it out to
Valya.
     "Come! Take hold of this!"
     Then he found an even longer  stick for himself and putting it over his
shoulder, commanded:
     "Follow me !"
     With long strides he led Valya to the big grey rock.
     Near to  the  rock he stopped,  drove the  end  of  his  stick into the
ground, and putting one foot forward, said:
     "Now listen attentively. Just here under the rock there is the Carrabus
larva  hiding itself from the light of day.  Now  the  Carrabus is a vicious
beetle  which lives  on insects. This larva, like its parents, also lives on
insects. By day it sits quietly  under a rock, but at night time it goes  on
the hunt. It is extraordinarily strong! A regular tigress - nothing less!"
     "I  am frightened," whispered Valya, looking at the Professor with eyes
wide with fear.
     "Quite unnecessary!"  replied the old man.  "Just listen. Now then,  we
must  drive the  Carrabus larva from under  the rock  and  chase it into our
horse collar. Once it is there it will pull our ship to the lake. I think we
can manage the insect quite easily, only we must not be frightened."
     "But will it suddenly bite?"
     "Of course it will bite, if we get careless!"
     "Then how are we going to drive it?"
     "Just this  way: to begin with we'll chase  it out from under the  rock
and  then you  will stay  on that  side of  it and  I on this. As soon as it
starts  to  come  out  you  prevent it  from  crawling to the right whilst I
prevent it crawling to the left. We can drive it straight into the loop. Now
are you ready? Get a bit further away."
     Valya ran a little way  away. The Professor  shoved his stick under the
rock and started to twist it about like a poker in the fire.
     "Aha! it's coming! it's coming!"
     A huge monster with  a  long body  started to crawl out  from under the
stone  straight towards Valya. She hit it  with her stick  on its back.  The
Carrabus quivered and turned towards the Professor. He tapped it on the head
with his stick.
     Then the monster, moving on all six legs,  crawled straight towards the
oak leaf but on the way there suddenly stopped.
     The old man  ran up to the insect and gave it such a whack on its  back
that it shuddered and started to turn around where it was.
     "Valya, drive it, drive it!"
     Valya struck the Carrabus a stroke on its side.
     "Now, now! Get on! Get on!"
     Thus, step by step, they moved towards the oak leaf, driving the  larva
ahead of them.
     At last the  monster's head was level with the  loop. The Professor hit
the logs with his  stick.  The loop fell over the head  of the Carrabus. The
old man threw his stick down, seized the rope with his hands and pulled with
all his strength. The loop tightened. Then  he picked his stick up again and
ran up to the head of the insect.
     "We're off!" the old man shouted.
     The leaf  tumbled. Raising a cloud of dust it then slowly moved towards
the bank.
     The Carrabus turned from side to side, but each time bumped  up against
a sharp stick. The travellers would not allow it to turn  away either to the
right or to the left.
     At last it became more peaceful and dragged the heavy leaf to the lake.
     It crawled along, glancing  at the Professor  and Valya with  huge eyes
quite  unable  to follow what these  terrible  two-legged insects armed with
long sticks wanted.
     "The chestnut grey horse! A champion," shouted Valya, with delight.
     "Not  a  chestnut  grey  horse  but  a  Carrabus Cancellatus," said the
Professor, sternly. "Carrabus is  a genus of beetle of the  family Carabide;
Cancellatus is its name!"
     The Carrabus larva dragged the oak leaf to  the  water's edge, but here
it became  quite  crazy.  It made  a  dash  suddenly  along the edge in  one
direction and then abruptly turned around and dashed off towards the bank.
     The Professor  and Valya ran, shouting, after  it and hit it with their
sticks on the head, sides and back.
     How long this  struggle  would  have continued it is  difficult to say.
However,  it  finished quite unexpectedly: running  past  a huge  cliff, the
Carrabus stopped and then disappeared under the cliff.
     "Phew!" puffed the old man. "Well, that's  the Carrabus! 1 am afraid it
didn't like us."
     "But how are we to unharness the Carrabus?"
     "Very simple!"  replied the  Professor, untying the rope from the stalk
of the  leaf. "Although it's a pity to throw away such a fine rope, there is
nothing else to do! Come on. We have done enough to-day, don't you think? We
must go and have a bit of a rest."
     Leaving  the  leaf  on  the shore, the travellers returned home.  After
dinner Valya recounted to Karik how skilfully  they had dragged the oak leaf
to the shore with the help of the Carrabus larva. Karik listened to her with
envy,
     "Eh! What a pity I wasn't there," he sighed. "I would have got it to go
straight into the water. You should have tugged at the loop."
     "It  is easy  to advise,"  said the old  man, "but you should have been
working on the job as Valya and I were."
     He put his hand to his  whiskers, wiped the honey off his beard and got
up.
     "To-morrow we  must set out quickly on the expedition. But to-day until
evening  comes we  must  drag  the barrels of  honey on  to the  shore, find
clothes for ourselves, get  the mast, sails and ropes ready. In other words,
there's plenty to do."
     He took an armful of silkworm hair from the ground.
     "Come on, little Valya!" he said, turning to the mouth of the cave.
     All day long the Professor and Valya worked  on  the shore of the lake.
Valya platted cords out of the hair, and the old man wandered about  looking
for a mast.
     At last he returned. On his shoulders there lay a long, dry grass mast.
     That evening the leaf was launched in the water.
     The  Professor hammered a hole  in the  centre of the leaf with a sharp
stone, drove the mast into the hole and afterwards smeared a thick  layer of
clay on the floor around the mast and announced:
     "To-morrow the sun will dry  up the clay  and our mast will be fixed to
the ship as firm as you like."
     The  Professor gazed  at the ship,  thought for a bit  then took a long
cord from Valya's hands and went up to the end of the  leaf. Here he threw a
loop over the stalk and pulled it with all his strength.
     The leaf  quivered, its end  lashed  in  the water  and  then lifted  a
little.
     Then the oak leaf became quite like a ship.
     It rocked with its nose high above the water.
     "It's like a goose sticking its neck up."
     Valya started laughing. "Now if only there was a sail to put up!"
     "There will  be a sail too," retorted the Professor. "We'll make it out
of some sort of petal! Only it is surely not  worth  putting it up now! It's
already too late in the day. And what's more it would dry out in the sun and
become like leather."
     The old man drove a  sharp  stake into the ground and fastened the hair
rope to it.
     "There we are, everything is fine!"
     Valya went along  the rope  to the bow of the ship and with a piece  of
shell started to draw something on it.
     "What are you up to?" demanded the Professor.
     "I want to give our ship a name!" said Valya.
     "What have you decided to call it?"
     "Take a look at it!"
     Valya jumped down. The Professor went up closer and wrinkling his  eyes
made out in big letters on the bow: CARRABUS.
     "Not bad!" he said, approvingly.

     * * * * * *


     Next  day the  travellers  sewed clothes  from petals, and then in  the
evening Valya and the Professor rolled the barrels of honey on to the ship.
     Karik was  already up.  He walked about holding  on to  the side of the
cave with his hands and  wanted  all the time to  try and help the Professor
and Valya, but the old man stopped him.
     "Lie  down, take it easy,"  the Professor grunted at  him.  "You should
rest for another two or three days. We can manage without you."
     This annoyed  Karik greatly, but he didn't start to dispute  it. He lay
down on his bed, turned his face to the wall and made it appear  that he was
asleep, although he himself was stealthily watching the other two.
     "All right," he thought. "You'll go off and I'll do  half the work here
without you. Afterwards you'll jolly well have to thank me."
     As soon  as ever the Professor and Valya had gone out  of the cave  lie
jumped  up, seized  one  of  the barrels and started  to push it towards the
mouth.
     He  had already rolled it out of the cave when an accident  happened. A
round stone turned over under his foot.  Karik  flung up  his  arms and fell
forward with his  body on the barrel. The barrel  tilted over as a result of
this violent impact. He quickly clutched the edge of  the barrel, but losing
his balance fell to the ground.
     The barrel  rumbled  down  beside  him. The lid  flew  off'. The  thick
gruel-like honey spread out over the ground.
     Karik got up. Shaking the dust off himself he gazed  perplexedly at the
overthrown barrel.
     "That's a fine way to help!"
     The honey puddle crept in all directions like liquid dough. Karik moved
out of  the  way, looked  around  and, finally waving his  hands hopelessly,
hopped back on one leg into the cave.

     * * * * * *


     It was already dark by the time the Professor and Valya returned. Karik
heard their voices in the distance.  He quickly buried his  head in the hair
pillow and pretended to be asleep.
     "Oy, whatever is this?" shouted  Valya, stopping at the entrance to the
cave.
     Karik stuck his fingers in his ears and screwed his eyes tight shut.
     "Oh, I can't move!" shouted Valya. "My feet are stuck in the ground."
     The old  man dashed  to her  aid, but he had no sooner reached her than
his own feet got stuck in the sticky honey.
     "What can it be?" he wondered.
     Sinking  in  up to the ankles he managed to reach Valya with difficulty
and stretched out his hand to her.
     "Give me your hand!"
     Valya  gave a hand. He  stepped  back  and pulled her  towards himself.
Valya swayed and almost fell: her feet were fast stuck in the thick honey.
     "Stop," she yelled, "I am quite stuck! Like a fly in the jam."
     "Don't worry, don't worry," muttered the Professor, and took a breath.
     He dragged Valya out of  the honey with a great effort, took her in his
arms and  moving  his  feet with  difficulty started to  stagger towards the
cave.
     Under his feet the honey sucked, champed and sighed as if it was alive.
The mess clung to the feet like very heavy sticky clay.
     At last the old man got clear of the puddle. Setting  Valya down on the
ground in front of the  entrance to the  cave, he started to take the  honey
off his feet with a thick stick and then he helped Valya to clear herself.
     "Eh,  Karik!"  shouted  the  Professor, looking  into  the  cave. "What
happened here?"
     Karik buried himself still deeper in his mattress.
     The old man and Valya looked at each other silently.
     "Well, it's clear," said the Professor, going into the cave, "that this
is certainly  something that  Karik contrived! And what's  more  he  is  not
asleep! He is listening  to everything! But he is ashamed to look us in  the
face. Eh, Karik!"
     Karik cautiously turned his head and opened one eye. Then he saw, right
by his  side, Valya was looking  at him. He hastily screwed up  his  eye and
snored very loudly.
     "He's asleep!" Valya started to laugh.
     The Professor put his head from side to side but said nothing.
     The travellers went to bed.
     A  little while after dawn Karik heard, through his sleep, some sort of
noise. He  got  up  from  his  crumpled mattress and  went  to the entrance.
Through the chinks between the rocks he saw the terrace in front of the cave
in the pale light of the morning.
     On this terrace huge winged monsters were  crawling about just in front
of the cave.
     Karik  recognised them. They were flies. Bustling around the puddle  of
honey  they  jostled  each other, flew upwards with  buzzing noises and then
swooped down  to  the honey once  more.  Every  minute  more  and more flies
arrived.
     The  loud noise awakened  the  Professor and  Valya. The old  man  said
something,  but  the children  could not hear  a single word. The flies were
buzzing so loudly that their ears rang just as if powerful aeroplane engines
were running right beside them.
     It was quite impossible to drag the remaining barrels  of honey over to
the ship. The flies might knock the  travellers off their legs and even kill
them. They were crowding at the entrance, had started to peer  into the cave
and were thrusting their long snouts through  the chinks between the  rocks.
They  crawled over the rocks which were blocking the entrance  and under the
weight of the flies the rocks started to shake.
     The  travellers gazed  in fear at their barricade. It had only  to fall
down  and the hordes of flies would burst in - then they would  be - goners.
However, towards evening the flies crawled away to their night quarters.
     "They've  gone away  !" Valya  announced joyfully.  "They  haven't gone
away," said  Karik,  listlessly. "To-morrow  they'll be back  and  once more
they'll try  and get into the cave. I  know them! They can scent the barrels
of honey!"
     "Let's block up the entrance better!" proposed Valya.
     "Nonsense!"  said the Professor. "Sit another  whole  day trembling - I
should thank you!"
     "But what can we do?"
     "Attack!" announced the old man, "attack and not defend."
     He seized one of the diatom baskets, took a firefly  egg  from the tray
and holding it high above his head as a torch, ran out of the cave.
     "Where are you off to, Professor?" the children shouted.
     "I'll  be  back  directly.  In  a minute I'll give  them a  treat,  the
blackguards!"
     The blue light twinkled in the darkness and disappeared.
     "Where is he off to?"
     "I don't know! He must have thought up something."
     Late that night  the Professor  returned to the cave very contented and
cheerful.  He put the basket down  on the floor and, panting a little still,
said:  "There!  I've brought  the mines! To-morrow  the flies  will  find  a
minefield."
     The children rushed to the basket.
     "Mines?"
     "That's better!"
     Karik put his hand into the basket cautiously and drew out a grey lump.
     His face fell.
     "Some mines! Nothing but Rotton old clods. Simply dried  mud. These can
hardly be mines?"
     The Professor started to laugh.
     "You  don't  like  them?"  he  asked. "Don't worry!  You  just see what
they'll do to-morrow. A charge of gun cotton wouldn't do better."
     He  extracted the  lumps from the basket,  divided them into two heaps.
Having pushed the smaller lumps to Valya, he said:
     "Pick them up, Valya, and come with me!"
     Ladened with mines, the Professor and Valya went out of the cave.
     "Lay  your mines aft  around  the  entrance!" Karik heard the Professor
saying.




     The battle with the flies - Extraordinary sails - It sees with its feet
- A bug plays the fiddle - On board the bumble bee



     The  children jumped  out  of  their crumpled, scattered  beds. Rubbing
their eyes they looked around in alarm.
     "Karik, what was that?" .
     "I don't know."
     "May be someone in our minefield?"
     The usual blue  light  glimmered  in  the cave.  The dark roof hung low
above the head. In the corner along the  wall white stout  barrels  stood in
rows.
     "Clop! Clop! CLOP!" Explosions sounded beyond the wall.
     The Professor got up from his  hair mattress, yawned widely and rubbing
his sleepy eyes with his fists said:
     "Aha!.. . they are working. .. . My mines are working. . . ."
     The old man  with the  children  following him went up to the barricade
blocking the entrance to the cave.
     Through the chinks between  the rocks the morning light was peeping in.
The  yellow  sand of the  terrace  in  front of  the  cave was  ablaze  with
sunlight. The  puddles  of upset honey  shone like  liquid gold.  The  white
barrel still lay there on its side.
     The travellers had to screw up their eyes, the light was so intense.
     "It's going to be a wonderful day!" said the Professor, looking  at the
clear, almost polished blue of the sky.
     "But what a lot of  flies there will be!" sighed Valya. "Even more than
yesterday."
     "That's nothing  to worry about!" The Professor  calmed her and rubbing
his hands announced: "Very soon there will be fewer! Decidedly fewer!"
     "Why fewer?"
     "Well, didn't you hear my mines exploding?" asked  the old man, looking
surprised.
     "I heard them," said Valya, "but the flies apparently don't worry about
your mines at all. Over there the mines exploded right amongst the flies but
they had no effect."
     "Wait a little!" the Professor  calmly stroked  his beard. "There is no
hurry! The flies are not killed at once by my mines. After a piece has stuck
into the fly, it will crawl around for five or six  hours and then it begins
to die in a very interesting way. Oh, this is well worth seeing!"
     "And these flies are already wounded?"
     "Certainly!" replied the old  man confidently. "Because  the explosions
started, if I mistake not, at earliest dawn."
     Valya pulled a rock out of  the barricade and sticking herself into the
observation post so formed started to watch the terrace.
     Huge,  hairy flies wandered past  the rocks. They went up  to the honey
pool, thrust their snouts into the honey and jostled one another.
     One of them - large with white body - sat on the overturned barrel. The
barrel rocked. The fly  flew up alarmed and  circled  around, gazing  at the
barrel from above  with huge protruding eyes. Then it  cautiously  came down
and alighted beside the barrel.
     And then suddenly  it  reared up and staggered . as if drunk. Its  legs
bent under it. It fell to the ground, flopped its heavy head on the sand and
started to die. Only its wings spread widely out still quivered slightly.
     "That's number one!" shouted Valya.
     "And that's not  the whole business either!" said the Professor.  "Wait
and see what will still happen to it."
     After  a little  while the  Professor and  the children went up to  the
barricade again.
     On the terrace in front of the cave  several flies had now fallen. Some
of  them were still  alive  - they moved; others lay with their wings spread
out and their heads drooping to the ground. They were covered with something
white just like hoar-frost. But from the body of the fly lying by the barrel
there rose up a long, thin stem with a round little hat on the top of it.
     "What ever is that?" asked Valya. "It looks like a mushroom."
     "That's just what it is - the Empusa fungus."
     Suddenly the little hat of the fungus broke off and fell to the ground.
     "A new Empusa has ripened!" said the Professor.
     "What a comic word - Empusa!" snorted Valya.
     "Hardly comic, is  it? At any  rate, it has never seemed comic to me. I
have  kept the  company  of  the  Empusa for  a long time now. It's  an  old
acquaintance of mine. A parasitic fungus. . . . One of the most useful fungi
to mankind. . . . It kills flies.
     Now that new Empusa which has just fallen on the ground will explode as
soon  as  ever  a fly gets  near to  it and it will sprinkle  the  fly  with
splinter seeds; the seeds grow up, kill the fly and throw off new mine fungi
destined to destroy more flies."
     "But if the flies do not make an appearance?"
     "Then the Empusa will not explode !"
     "Well, suppose it is a  bee and not a fly which comes near it, will the
Empusa go off or not?"
     "It will not go off."
     "You mean the Empusa won't explode when a bee comes near?"
     "These  ones  won't. But  bees also have their own parasite-fungus.  It
gets into the hives  and ruins them. Now naturally such fungi are not useful
but actually extremely harmful."
     "Clop!" sounded again on the terrace.
     The Professor stuck his head out and said:
     "There are  another five flies ready !  They'll soon  stretch out their
legs."
     And in fact the whole terrace was soon strewn with flies' corpses.
     The pathway to the lake was free.

     * * * * * *

     After dinner the Professor decided to go off along the shore to see his
famous  Carrabus. Was  it  still there? Had the wind torn it  adrift? Had it
capsized?
     He collected a coil of spiders' cords, threw  it over his shoulder  and
sticking a sharp stone in his girdle went to the entrance.
     "Now Valya, come on! I hope you will help me?"
     "Certainly I'll help, if only. . . ."
     "If only what?"
     "If there are no more flies on the terrace."
     "There are none and there won't be any," answered the old man.
     "But new ones? Won't they fly up."
     "Very unlikely. Even  if they did fly  up they would be done for  right
away. You see our whole terrace is now mined with Empusae."
     Valya comforted, moved off to the entrance.
     "But what about me?" Karik leaped up from his bed.
     "Why shouldn't you lie there? Get yourself right! We can manage without
you to-day."
     "Without me!" Karik was offended. "Now,  do you even know  what  a main
sheet is? or what the mizzen is? or the jib? or a topgallant sail?"
     "Well, well," laughed the Professor. "We have got a sea dog here."
     "Neither  a dog nor a  sea dog but  I  do  understand  something  about
ships?" replied Karik, with pride. He had learnt these nautical terms from a
sailor friend of his.
     The old  man waved his hand.  "If it's like that, you had better  come.
You won't be able to do  anything.  Only be careful - don't  injure your bad
leg."
     The travellers went out of the cave.
     "A real massacre!" said the Professor, picking his way between the dead
flies.
     Valya carefully  made a  wide arc round the  flies, looking sideways at
the  corpses. Although the flies were dead, yet .  . . all  the same  it was
better to keep well away from them.
     "Stop!" shouted Karik suddenly.
     The Professor and Valya quickly looked towards him.
     Karik stood near a huge fly which lay with its wings spread wide apart.
     "What is it, Karik?"
     "Look," answered Karik, lifting a transparent wing of the fly with both
hands. "A sail! Do you see?"
     "I see! Of course, I see!" rejoiced the old man.
     He went over  to the fly  and  having moved  its taut,  stretched wing,
said:
     "It will make an excellent sail! We'll use it!"
     Taking the sharp stone  out of his girdle, the  Professor got up on the
fly and with a strong blow cut off the wing.
     The wing fell at Karik's feet.
     "One  is too small," said Karik, lifting up  the wing and examining it.
"This would only do for a jib. But we shall need a sail for the mainmast."
     "Why not for the mainmast too?" said the Professor.
     And  he  started deftly cutting  off wings  with  his sharp  stone  and
throwing them  down. The children  collected the  wings  in  a heap. At last
Karik said:
     "That should surely be enough!"
     They quickly made a stack of wings one on top of the other:
     the wings rumbling just like drums.
     The  Professor  attached his cord to the bottom wing  and threw it over
his shoulder and hauled the heavy load after him to the beach.
     "There, you see," said Karik, cheerfully, steadying the wings with  his
hands. "I, of course, knew beforehand  what  sails would be necessary. I had
only to look at these and I saw what could be done with them."
     "Good enough! Good enough!" laughed the Professor. "Pat yourself on the
back! But  you had  far better hold on  to those wings and see that we don't
lose half of them on the way."
     The travellers dragged the heavy load to the beach.
     In the quiet inlet the famous Carrabus was  lying at her moorings.  Her
curved bow was reflected in the  still, calm, blue water. Her sides at their
lowest point were practically level with the surface of the lake. Around the
tall mast stood the white barrels of honey.
     "A real ship," said Karik, "it only wants sails now."
     "And sails she will have very soon," responded the old man.
     Having pulled the flies' wings on board the ship the party proceeded to
rig her.
     Karik clambered up the mast.
     "Come on now! Give me one of the  wings and the  cord!" he shouted from
aloft.
     The work went ahead furiously.
     The Professor handed  up the wings. Karik lashed them  to the mast, one
above  the  other, and  soon the whole  mainmast was hung  with  transparent
sail-wings.
     The wind started to play on the wings.
     The sails of the Carrabus started to flap.
     Then suddenly the stake  to which the mooring rope was fastened started
to crack and broke off.
     "Oh, dear!" shouted Valya.
     The Professor without saying a word jumped into the water.
     "What's happened?" asked Karik, from aloft.
     No one answered him. Then  he, having stuck his head between two wings,
saw that the old man was standing up to his waist in water and purple in the
face with exertion was towing the ship towards the shore.
     "Did the rope come adrift?" he shouted down.
     "Yes and no ! A wasp bit through the stake!"
     "A wasp?" he asked. "Why is it such a fool as to eat a reed cane?"
     "It certainly is no fool," said the Professor, winding the mooring rope
round a thick  stump. "The wasp does  not eat reeds, it makes  paper out  of
them for the construction of its nest."
     Valya opened her eyes wide.
     "Wasps know how to make paper?"
     "Yes. They  and mankind  have both learnt how  to  make paper from wood
pulp,"  replied  the  Professor,  and gave the children a  whole  lecture on
wasps, wood pulp and on the ancient, long-forgotten discoveries.
     "There was a  time," he continued,  "when paper  was prepared only from
rags. The scientist, Jacob Christian Sheffer, who lived a hundred years ago,
when investigating the lives of insects learnt from them how to  make  paper
from wood  pulp. It was when  he was examining a wasp's nest on one occasion
that he noticed that it was made of a material which resembled cardboard. He
observed the work of the wasp. It was then that Christian Sheffer discovered
that  the wasps  chew pieces  of  wood  into pulp and from this pulp prepare
excellent paper.
     "But at the time of Shelter's discovery  no one  paid any  attention to
it.
     "Fifty years passed. Another scientist, Keller, reminded people of  the
discoveries  of Sheffer and  reminded them just at the right time. Paper was
in great demand and the supply of rags was insufficient. . . . So they tried
to make paper like the wasps  out of wood pulp. . . . To begin with, nothing
came of  it but afterwards the methods  were  improved and success followed.
Since that time the bulk of the paper we use is prepared from wood pulp.'
     "Oh,"  said  Valya, having  endured the lecture. "This means that there
must be wasps about. Let's be quick in going home."
     "It certainly is high time to go home," agreed the old man.
     The travellers returned to the cave.

     * * * * * *

     In the morning whilst it was  yet  hardly light  they rolled  the  last
barrels  of honey on board, transferred  their mattresses  and brought their
firefly eggs with them.
     One egg Karik lashed to the top of the mast like a steaming light.
     He now hustled about more than the others.
     Running along the ship he shouted in a real sea captain's voice.
     "Heh. You on the poop! Haul in the sheets!"
     "But what is the poop?" asked Valya, timidly.
     "Why,  where you are standing -  that's the poop. It's the same as  the
stern. Heh! Haul in the sheets. Ship's boy!"
     "But what are the sheets?"
     "Sheets - those ropes."
     "And is there  any reason," asked the Professor, "why  the stern should
not be called the stern and the sheets should not be called - ropes?"
     Karik only laughed.
     "Well,  call  them  what you  like.  But  I shall in  future call ants'
cocoons ants' eggs."
     The Professor clenched his hand.
     "No,  no,  not  eggs,  cocoons!  I'll  somehow  master   your  nautical
gibberish, only please don't call cocoons eggs."
     Karik again started to throw his weight about.
     "Let  go the falls," he shouted in a thunderous voice. "Topmen to their
stations. Up ensign!"
     The Professor cast off  the  mooring  rope and coiled it neatly  in the
stern. Valya hauled in the sheets.
     The Carrabus was now ready for setting sail.
     "It would  be the proper thing," thought  Karik, "to fire a salute from
our guns before leaving harbour."
     Unfortunately there were no guns.
     Karik went from one end of the ship to the other, moved  the barrels to
correct the list of the ship, inspected his crew and spat overboard.
     It was a moment of triumph.
     Karik raised his hand. .
     "Attention !"
     The crew returned their captain's gaze.
     "Course south-west!  Full speed ahead. Shiver my timbers and splice the
mainbrace!"
     "Aye,  aye,  sir!"  barked  the Professor  at  the top  of  his  voice,
cheerfully winking at Valya.
     Valya slackened the sheets. The wind started to fill the sail.
     The Carrabus pitched slightly, rolled her mast from side  to side a few
times  as if considering whether  she would  set out or stay in harbour  and
then slowly started to move away from the shore.
     "Full speed ahead!" shouted the brave Captain.
     . . . The wind blew.
     White horses  now started to top the waves  with  foam. The ship rolled
and swept  along  on  the  waves.  Warm spray beat in the faces  of  the sea
voyagers. The fine ship heeled over and cut through the water.
     Around the Carrabus  strange  living things kept popping up everywhere.
They  overtook the ship, leaped  out of the water  and  frisked  about  like
dolphins.
     One  creature  resembled a  rabbit but with  stag's  antlers, and quite
transparent  swam  for  a  long time  beside  them and  would not  leave the
travellers' ship.
     It was possible  to  examine this devoted attendant  of the  good  ship
Carrabus  in some  detail as its  insides  could be clearly seen through the
transparent envelope of its body.
     "What is it?" asked Valya.
     "It is  a very ordinary Sida crystallina," answered the Professor, "one
of hundreds of water fleas."
     Valya hit the water flea on the head with a stick. It disappeared.
     Abeam crossing the track of  the ship something  very like  a submarine
was surging along. The  creature was swimming  under  water, but  its tracks
could be seen on  the surface. This creature  very nearly collided with  the
Carrabus, but at  the very  last  minute  turned  suddenly to starboard  and
quickly disappeared deep down in the water.
     "What was that?" whispered Valya, frightened.
     "That, now," replied the old man calmly,  "was a very common snail. The
pond snail!"
     "A water snail?"
     "Ay, ay!"
     "How does it get through the water?"
     "Well,  that  question,"  said  the Professor, smiling, "was one of the
most difficult to solve; however, it has been answered brilliantly. The pond
water snail travels, strange as it may seem, head downwards,  stretching out
its  solitary leg it exudes through it a mucous or slime on  the surface  of
the water. This  trail  attaches itself  to the  foam on  the  water and  is
carried along with it as if attached to a raft."
     "But in this case it can't see."
     "It sees splendidly. Because its eyes are in its foot!"
     "Pretty hot stuff that!" Karik was excited.
     "Mm -  yes!"  gruff-gruffed  the  old  man.  "Is there  anything to  be
surprised at?  We have already met  queer animals  which have no mouths  and
animals which hear  with their legs, but now you are surprised by a creature
which sees with its foot. But all these  are dull trifles compared with what
I could tell you about strange creatures.  These animals,  all of them, live
beside us. This is no  fairy story by Andersen or Grimm. These creatures are
found in the best, the  most  marvellous story of  all which is .  . . Life.
However, I am so often giving  you lectures  that I am afraid you will begin
to think  that I didn't come  to fetch you home but  to teach  you biology..
Let's sing something for a change, my dears !"
     Now this  proposal really  did  upset  the  children.  The  Professor's
stories, although at times somewhat boring, it was, quite possible to listen
to, but  the old  man's singing . . .  the only person who wouldn't  voice a
protest against  this  would be a  deaf mute.  Therefore, Karik  and  Valya,
frightened  that  he  might actually start  singing, started to question him
about  anything and everything  they could see. But the  Professor  kept  on
trying to break off and start singing.
     "Now, then," he said, coughing to clear his voice, "let's strike up. Ha
hur! Ha hur! Something like the Forward March. . . . Thus."
     "Oh, look, look !" shouted Valya,  hastily. "Whatever is that under the
water? So big, isn't it?"
     The Carrabus was  sailing over some sort of striped object which lay on
its side like a sunken ship.
     The Professor glanced over the side and said good humouredly:
     "Well, that,  my  dears, is the former food of mankind - Mussels. There
was a time a very great while ago when these mussels were  for mankind  what
bread is for us  to-day. But to-day we  look  upon  this  former  bread with
disdain."
     "I don't  think,"  replied  Karik, "that mussels  would  be nicer  than
bread."
     "You are  right  there," agreed the old man, "but all the same it is  a
great  pity that such  a huge source of food should be wasted. Why, it would
be possible to collect hundreds of thousands of tons of these mussels."
     "But whatever for if no one will eat them?"
     "In  Germany,  for  example,  they  collect  them,  boil them  in  huge
cauldrons and ..."
     "Do they really eat them?"
     "No. They feed  the  pigs on them. The pigs are said to get fat quickly
and their flesh becomes exceptionally tender and is of delicious flavour."
     For a  short time  the  conversation  then lapsed  but  as soon  as the
children heard the ominous  coughing - this meant the Professor  had decided
to start singing - they quickly started to ask him any sort of question.
     Several hours passed in this way.
     The Carrabus hurried  on under full sail.  But  as the  sun rose so the
wind dropped.
     The ship then moved lazily  through the oily swell, barely rolling. The
sails hung down. The Captain grew melancholy.
     The voyagers sat on the gunwale of the ship and dangled  their feet  in
the cool water.
     Water insects were cutting here and there across the waves.
     They wove their way in and out of the water weed forest which rose from
the dark bottom of the lake.
     Valya  stretched  herself on the  deck. With her head hanging  over the
side she gazed at the swirling foliage rising from the bottom.
     At  last the under water forest came to an end. The bottom was now grey
and hilly. On the slopes of  the underwater hills there  wriggled and  moved
about gigantic  red  snakes.  There were so many  of  them that  the  bottom
appeared red.
     "I say! What a lot of them! And what are they?" asked Valya.
     The Professor bent over.
     "Culicidae  Derguna . .  .  or  in  simple language the  larvae  of the
Derguna gnat. . . .  . Excellent food for fish. The favourite  food  of  all
small fry."
     "Why are they called Dergunas?"
     "Just because they are always pulling with their feet twisting about."
     "That  means that all gnats are Dergunas because they  all  pull things
about with their feet. I never knew this before."
     "No," said  the old man, "only  one sort of gnat is called Derguna. The
other gnats have different names."
     "What?"  Karik was surprised. "Surely  there  are  not a  whole  lot of
different gnats. I thought gnats were all one sort."
     "Oh,  no,  there  are hundreds of  different sorts!  Why,  just  in one
district  alone there are  gnats that pull themselves along, gnats that push
themselves   along,  bearded  gnats,  long-nosed  gnats,  malaria  gnats  or
mosquitoes, feather-whiskered gnats, amphibian gnats,  ordinary midges. Then
we also have snow midges."
     "White?"
     "No! They are called snow mosquitoes because they live on the snow."
     "Surely mosquitoes can't live in winter?"
     "Life  does not come to a halt either in summer or winter," replied the
Professor.  "In summer  one  lot of  insects crawl,  jump and fly, in winter
another lot. For example, just around here you come across snow  fleas, snow
worms, snow spiders,  ice flies, wingless gnats, and many, many other living
creatures."
     "Do all  the  gnats  bite?"  asked Valya, looking at the larvae  of the
Derguna in some apprehension.
     "The larvae do not bite.  Yes, and the full-grown Derguna does not bite
human  beings  or living creatures.  Anyway, what  do the bites of our gnats
actually amount to?"
     "Nothing! twiddle twaddle! A mere trifle!" he gruff-gruffed.
     Then he stroked his beard and said smiling:
     "Now  on the Island of Barbadoes  gnats do bite; that is  to say, I  am
telling you they really do bite!"
     "What happens? Does it hurt terribly?" whispered Valya.
     "It's painful all right. . . . For instance, this happened. In the town
of Vera Cruz a  young  woman became unconscious. It was thought that she was
dead.  Her  face was like wax  and she  herself was  as cold  as  ice. Well,
naturally, they  put her in a coffin, but they  stood the coffin out on  the
verandah."
     "Well, what happened then?"
     No  sooner  than  night  had fallen  gnats started  to  fly  about  the
verandah. They swarmed  thickly on the  corpse and proceeded to  bite her so
savagely that she awoke, pushed the lid of the  coffin off; yes! and ran out
into the street in her shroud with the coffin lid in her hands."
     "And she didn't die any more?" asked Karik.
     "No, she lived  right up to the very day other  death," replied the old
man with a grin.
     Suddenly Valya leaped up and shouted:
     "Oh, look,  there is something  from Barbadoes swimming along here. Oo,
ooee !"
     Beneath the water on one  side of the ship a long, grey-coloured animal
with a  huge head was jerking itself along. Having blown itself out until it
could contain no more the creature contracted itself and  shot out a  stream
of water behind it. As a  result of this stream it moved forward just like a
rocket.
     "The larva of a dragonfly!" said the Professor.
     "That's  what  we  should  use  instead  of  a   motor,"  said   Karik,
thoughtfully.
     The Professor started to smile.
     "The larva of  the dragonfly has been using it  long enough but we have
only just been able to make a jet-propelled aeroplane and the  jet-propelled
submarine  has yet to  prove itself practical. This dragonfly submarine is a
most  dangerous craft. It will  attack a small  fish and  devour it. And any
fish, however small, is by comparison with us a regular whale."
     "There is a  mother  dragonfly!" announced Valya. "Look! Where  is  she
crawling to?"
     With her wings pressed to her back the goggle-eyed dragonfly, clutching
the stem of  a  water weed, had  started to crawl  down under water with her
huge head pointed towards the bottom.
     "What  is  she up to?"  demanded Karik in amazement. "Does she want  to
drown herself?"
     Valya gazed after the dragonfly, thought a little and said undecidedly:
     "Evidently she wants to pay a visit to her larva. She is lonely, so she
goes to pay a visit. Very simple, actually !"
     The old man started to laugh.
     "But  there  is  an explanation  still  more  simple  and actually more
correct," he said. "The dragonfly is going beneath the water in order to lay
her eggs."
     "But what an awful creature she is!" said Valya.
     "What's  up with you? She is very  beautiful!" retorted the  Professor.
"It is not  without reason  that the Germans give her a poetic name - Wasser
Jungfer,  or  water  nymph;  whilst the  French  call her  Mademoiselle,  or
literally translated, my young Lady or Miss."
     Waves  now started to roll  across  the lake. The sails started to hum.
Astern the wake of the ship had started to gleam.
     "All hands to their stations!" bawled Karik.
     "Aye, aye, sir!" sang out the old man.
     Once again the ship was making way rapidly.
     Karik climbed up the mast.
     The Carrabus sailed along, tacking between flat  green islands which in
fact were the fleshy leaves of kingcups or water lilies.
     At last the Carrabus sailed out into open water.
     Karik shielded his eyes  with his hand. Far  away across  the blue lake
which was sparkling in the sun he could see  the misty outline of the shore.
The  shore  had almost  disappeared  below  the  horizon.  Clouds  lay  like
mountains of cotton wool above the blue flat stretched ahead.
     When Karik had looked for some time he spotted on the horizon a minute,
slender, pin-like excrescence. At the top of this something was  waving very
much like a red feather.
     "There it is! There's our  landmark! Alter  course  to starboard! Good,
good! Another point to starboard. Haul in your port sheets, you landlubbers!
And again! Helm amidships ! Steady on your course!"
     "Helm  amid-ships!  steady  on the course,"  bawled the  Professor,  in
reply.
     The Carrabus now surged on her straight course for the shore.
     Suddenly all around things started to sing, to sing, and sing.
     The water sang, the sky sang.
     Karik  looked around in consternation  and hastily clambered  down  the
mast on to the deck.
     The old man,  screwing up his eyes thoughtfully and cocking his head on
one side, listened to the amazing music.
     It sounded  as if thousands of violins and flutes were playing  one and
the same song, a simple melody but quite attractive.
     The Professor sighed.
     "That must  have  been how the  sirens sang  around  the ship! when the
Odyssey of legend was sailing the seas."
     "Are they sirens singing now?" demanded Karik.
     "No," said the old man, "sirens are the mermaids or the beautiful women
sailors have  seen in their fancy amongst  the foam  of  the  billows.  They
betray the voyager by their  songs or their charms. But the creatures  which
are now singing arc very real  indeed, they are called Corixae minutissimae.
It's very touching music, isn't it?"
     "Very!" replied Valya.
     "Yes,  indeed, they know how to sing,  do these savage ruffians!" mused
the Professor.
     "Ruffians?"
     "I  think it's a  fair name for these water bugs. Gluttons and brigands
they are, but as talented as the legendary sirens."
     "But how do they sing? A bug surely has no voice?"
     "They sing  with  their  feet," replied the old  man.  "At  least  they
produce  music. On  one  of the  front claws of  the  female bug  there  are
bristles like the teeth  in  a  musical box.  . . . The bug  uses its second
front leg like the bow of a fiddle and produces music from these bristles."
     Karik and Valya very much wanted to see the bug-violinists, but however
much they looked about they could not spot a single one of them.
     The bugs were sitting somewhere in the water weed forest.
     Meanwhile the Carrabus surged along under full sail  towards  the shore
which now could be seen coming nearer and nearer every minute.
     Already rocks stuck up out of the water, and every now  and then yellow
shoals appeared beneath them.
     The grass forest edging the shore was now becoming plainer and plainer.
     "Where shall we land?" asked Karik.
     "Anywhere  you  like," replied the Professor, gazing  at the shore.  "A
little  nearer or a little further is not very  important - we shall have to
do a good bit of foot-slogging in any case."
     Valya groaned.
     "Have we really got to go on foot? Oh, how tired I am!"
     "Don't  worry,  Valya, have  patience," comforted  the  old  man.  "Our
journey, I hope, will finish at any time now. I too wish to get home as soon
as  possible.  I  have  students  waiting  for  me  in  the  university. The
examinations will soon be on!"
     The Professor suddenly started laughing.
     "If only my  students could see me  in  this  ship  made of an oak leaf
sailing under sails made of flies' wings, whatever  would they say? When you
think of it - any of them could put me in a waistcoat pocket. Ha, ha, ha!"
     It was now midday.
     Grating her  bottom on the stones,  the Carrabus gently came up towards
the beach and stopped, rocking in the light swell.
     The voyagers got out on the beach.
     Beyond  the  near  line of  forest  there  was  sticking out  the  dark
mast-like landmark.
     It looked as if they were  standing right by it; as if they had just to
go through this one little wood and then it would be over.
     Karik  looked around and, having  gazed sadly  at the  famous Carrabus,
waved his hand in farewell.
     "Fare - ye - well, good ship Carrabus. Don't forget your Captain !"
     "But I thought we were going to sail right  up to the  very  landmark!"
said Valya.
     "You thought wrong!" the Professor shrugged his shoulders.
     "But why ever did we load the Carrabus with so much food?"
     "Why  ever?" Karik was offended. "If a  gale  had started  to  blow! or
suppose we had  been cast  away on some uninhabited water leaf island!  What
would have we had to eat then?"
     "True  enough,"  said  the Professor.  "One  must  be far-sighted  when
setting  out on a  voyage. It's  far better to throw away what one does  not
need than to die of hunger."

     * * * * * *

     For two to three hours the old man and  the children sat at the edge of
the forest, rested and partook of a heavy meal.
     The Professor got up and wiping his beard with a petal he ran as nimbly
as a small boy up the nearest hillock.
     "There  you are," he shouted,  looking upwards.  "Very good! Excellent!
Simply marvellous!"
     The children also looked up.
     Above the  forest some  sort of  heavy, hairy animals  were  flying  on
broad, seemingly-glass wings.
     Was the Professor looking at these?
     "Wasps!" yelled Karik.
     "Not wasps, bumble bees!" corrected the Professor.
     The dark  and  golden bumble bees circled over the thick foliage of the
grass forest, circled and alighted  on some sort  of strange tree which  had
huge  lilac-red hats  on  its  summit.  The  bumble  bees sat on these hats,
bustled into them and then soaring upwards flew off  in the direction of the
landmark and there disappeared - apparently alighting on the ground.
     The Professor came,  took the children by  the hand and, gazing at them
fixedly, said:
     "Now I'll tell you,  my  dears! A very daring plan  has flashed into my
mind. We can fly the rest of our journey on a bumble bee."
     The children started in alarm.
     "On a bumble bee?  . . . I . . . I don't want to go  on  a bumble bee,"
said Valya. "I am afraid of them."
     The Professor flung his arm around Valya's shoulder.
     "Don't be frightened, my darling! This is quite safe. The larvae of the
May  bug beetles  always  fly on honey bees,  and the honey bees don't touch
them."
     "But then it may be better to fly on a honey bee?" said -Karik.
     The Professor shook his head.
     "No, we  cannot do  it on honey  bees! These bees  would  carry us into
their hives and that would be the end of us.  But the bumble bees will carry
us straight to  the landmark.  They have evidently got a nest there. You see
the way they are all flying. These bumble  bees will be  much better for  us
than any honey bee."
     "No, all the same, I am frightened." Valya shook her head. "I..."
     "Now, you shut up!" the Professor scolded her. "I'll tell you in detail
how the larvae of the Blister beetles travel on bees, and I  hope that after
this you will stop being frightened."
     The old man sat down on the  hillock  and, seating the  children beside
him, began:
     "I do beg of you, my dears, not to  confuse the Blister beetle with the
May  bug, just because these beetles are called May beetles. They are by  no
means the same. This  Blister beetle is  an  amazing creature. Insects as  a
rule have three stages  of  life: the larva comes out of  the egg, becomes a
cocoon and finally from  the cocoon emerges the complete insect. Well,  now,
the Blister beetle  has four  transformations: the egg, the  Triungulina  or
six-legged larva,  the ordinary larva,  the cocoon and the grown-up  Blister
beetle. Remember Triungulina. Fabre calls this simply 'the louse.' Now these
lice  or Triungulinae feed on  bees' honey. .  . . But how does it  find the
combs? Who shows it the way to the bees? Who carries it into the hive?"
     "Its mother!" suggested Valya.
     "Well,  it  couldn't  possibly  depend  on  its  mother,"  laughed  the
Professor.  "By the  time the louse comes  out  of its egg its mother is  no
longer in the land of the living. In  order to  get into the bees'  nest the
Triungulina must get up into a flower and, hiding itself there, await a bee.
As soon  as ever a bee comes into the flower the louse seizes its hairy coat
with its claws arid sticks on until the bee has carried it back home. Do you
understand, Valya? And what do you think now: the stupid Triungulina  is not
frightened of making the trip, surely you wouldn't be frightened?"
     "It's because the Triungulina is so stupid!" sighed Valya.
     "Yes, you  must chuck being  such a coward, Valya," insisted Karik. "If
we don't fly on the  bumble bee we shall have to go on foot, and it may take
us  another three weeks  and maybe a month. Yes, and goodness knows what may
happen to us. We may meet a  thousand new dangers on that long journey. Some
beetle or other will  bury us, or a caterpillar will crush us or a butterfly
will whisk us over a precipice. Surely it's much better on a bumble bee! . .
. And . . . and in any case pioneers mustn't be cowards."
     "Well,  all  right, we'll  go  by bumble  bee!" said Valya, in  a shaky
voice. "What flower have we to climb up?"
     "There you are, this one! Up to the red  round ball which is 1 swinging
up there. It's red clover. The favourite flower of bumble bees."
     The Professor and the children  scrambled up  the  thick stem on to the
lilac-reddish hat of the clover and hid between its tube-like flowers, which
were hiding drops of clean, clear honey.
     "Will the bumble bee come soon?" asked Valya.
     "How am I to know?" answered Karik, in a whisper.
     "Be quiet!" hissed the Professor.
     They sat like that for more than an hour.
     At last  wings  droned above  their heads. A  broad shadow came between
them and the sky just as if a cloud had covered up the sun.
     Valya clung  to her brother. Her heart hammered, arms and  legs  shook.
She wanted to say something but her lips would not move.
     "Be ready!" said the Professor, in a scarcely audible voice.
     Valya secretly squeezed Karik's hand.
     The hum of the wings became louder and louder. A hairy bumble bee, with
its hair bristling  out, circling down landed on the flower. It  put out its
feet and at once started to eat.
     What  happened  then  neither  Valya nor Karik could follow.  The huge,
furry body came down around them like a heavy fur hat.
     The children heard the stifled voice of the Professor:
     "Hold on as tight as you can!"
     They buried their  hands in  the  fur and in another minute were flying
upwards in a whirlwind.



     Queer soil - The Professor 'collects'  a moth -  Karik and Valya in the
plywood box - An expensive Oecophora -  The Professor is packed up - Back to
the old world


     THE  WIND  QUITE  TOOK THE TRAVELLERS' BREATH AWAY.  THE  ground swayed
beneath them and fell away.
     "Hold tighter!" yelled the Professor.
     The children could hardly hear his voice.  The even, heavy  drumming of
the  bumble bee's  wings and  the  piercing  whistle  of  the  wind  drowned
everything.
     To begin with, the bumble bee flew  high above  the ground. But then it
seemed as if it was finding itself too heavy and was not happy. Small wonder
-  three pairs of hands were  gripping its hairy  coat,  three pairs of legs
were striking it in the body every time it made a sharp turn.
     The bumble bee started to fling itself from side to side - evidently in
order to try and dislodge its uninvited passengers.
     It  flew on all the time  getting  lower and lower,  every now and then
shaking itself; but it could not get rid of the heavy load.
     Valya's head was swimming and her heart seemed gripped in iron bands.
     The Professor took an anxious  look at her.  "If only the poor girl can
manage to hold on! If only her hands don't slip!"
     Then suddenly the bumble bee beat its wings more furiously.
     The wind whistled in the ears of the travellers.
     It was plunging like an arrow towards the ground.
     "Ah,  what a  pity  if it  lands before time,"  flashed through Karik's
brain. "We can only have got halfway there by now."

     The earth came nearer every second. The old man and the children curled
up their  legs tightly in order not to hit anything  hard when they  landed.
The tops of the grassy jungle came closer and closer.
     And then - violent jolts - one, two, three. . . .
     One more jolt and the travellers were thrown out of their fur cabin and
hurled along the ground.
     Turning head over heels  the children and the Professor rolled over and
over on some queer soil. It was blue in colour and very soft and spungy.
     At  last having rolled over for the last time the Professor caught hold
of the  edge  of  a  large smooth rock  and managed  to  get on to his feet.
Holding on to the edge of the rock he moved around it, limping slightly.
     "Odd," the old  man muttered, feeling the flat smooth rock which seemed
as  round as a millstone.  "Whatever  is this?  And there's another  similar
round rock . . . there's a third and yet a fourth. . . ."
     The Professor managed with difficulty to clamber on to one of the rocks
and here  gazed  around himself.  In front of  him was a  wide plain of  the
strangest soil.  It looked like a chess board. Even  blue-coloured roads ran
across it  from  edge  to  edge.  He  leant over the  edge of  the  rock and
carefully scrutinised its smooth, black,  shining surface.  Then  suddenly a
wild guess flashed into his head.
     "A  button!" he clapped his hand to his forehead. "I  am standing on  a
button! Then the chess board soil and blue roads are . . . the very  thing .
.  . . Children!" he shouted to Karik and Valya, who were sitting on a slope
rubbing their bruised sides and  knees. "Children, what do  you think, we're
nearly home. This is my waistcoat!"
     The children leaped up overjoyed.
     "But the box?  Where is  the box  with  the enlarging powder?" demanded
Valya, impatiently.
     The Professor, standing on  the  button, was  attentively surveying the
neighbourhood surrounding the  waistcoat.  "Odd!  Very odd," he shrugged his
shoulders.  He looked around once  again. Then he  suddenly  saw  a gigantic
column lying on the ground. The further end of this lay far away towards the
west. The forest jungle was parted and a straight  vista stretched along the
column to disappear in the blue distance as it joined the horizon.
     "It's  fallen  down! fallen down,  the rascal!  and  not more than  ten
minutes ago."
     "What has fallen?"
     "Our landmark. However, this is  no misfortune. We  are already  there.
The box must be just  here . . .  on the same side as the landmark is lying.
Follow me, my dears!"
     Then the Professor boldly  dashed along  the  edging of the  waistcoat,
jumping over buttonholes and stumbling  over threads. Following him hastened
Karik and Valya, jumping and skipping.
     At  the  edge of the waistcoat  they all  stopped. In front of them the
grassy jungle was rustling.
     "There it is!" yelled the Professor, stretching out  his hand towards a
thick clump.
     Through gaps in the jungle they could see a tall yellow building.
     "Hurrah!" shouted  the children cheerfully.  Then  holding  hands  they
dashed towards the box.
     Panting and puffing, the Professor also ran up to the box.
     "Well, there we are! There we are!" the Professor rubbed his hands with
excitement. "Our trials  are  over. And wasn't it  a  good thing  we weren't
frightened of the  bumble  bee.  This  is simply incredible! We should never
have found the  box on foot. Our landmark fell down a few minutes before our
arrival. Yes, indeed! To be fearless is the same as to be lucky!"
     The Professor passed his hand  over his bald head and  continued, quite
moved by the events:
     "So,  my dears,  in a  few minutes we  shall  once  again  become  big,
ordinary  people.  Here  at  the wall of  this box ends  our  difficult  and
dangerous journey. We  are  standing  on the threshold of the big world. But
before  we throw  off this little world I would like to  say a  few words to
you. You have seen a lot in the past days but to tell you the truth you have
only started to look into one of the tiny corners  of the little  world. You
have just read a few pages out of the thick  book entitled Nature. And these
pages, I  might say,  are by no  means the most interesting. In  the book of
nature there  are  other pages from which it  is almost impossible  to  tear
oneself away.
     "You have seen just a tiny part of  the world  we live in. It is small,
it is unnoticed, this part; we often pay it no attention at all. Yet it is a
very important part of the big world in which  you and I will soon be living
again.
     "Its life  is closely knit with our lives, much, much closer  than many
people are aware of.
     "In this  little world there are  our friends  and there  are also  our
enemies.
     "We need to know them both.
     "We must come back  again  here sometime. We must come back  with a big
expedition   equipped   from  head  to  foot,   and  we  must  conquer  this
too-little-known world.
     "For this expedition we shall not have recourse  to a lilliput  liquid.
We shall come with microscopes, with the great knowledge and  the experience
of numbers of scientists.
     "Our equipment will be patience.
     "But we  must talk  about this in detail at home when we have  got back
there.  But  now  let  us  proceed with  something  we must not  any  longer
postpone.
     "To make ourselves big again!"
     The Professor then stepped to  the wall  of  the  plywood  box. Looking
through the solitary window he announced cheerfully, rubbing his hands:
     "Everything is there. Climb in, my friends, one at a time. The box with
the enlarging powder is in the right-hand corner. Carry on!"
     Karik and Valya after him climbed through the little window.
     The Professor helped  them through and was just about to climb  through
himself when suddenly  a moth with shining wings  of a metallic hue alighted
on the wall of the box.
     It  was  a  very small  moth; in all only  a few times  the size of the
Professor.
     The old man took a look at it and froze in his tracks.
     "An  Olive  Oecophora,"  he  whispered,   taking  a  deep  breath  with
excitement.
     He pressed close to the plywood wall and was all on tenterhooks, like a
hunter who has spotted nearby some rare wild beast.
     The  Oecophora, paying no attention to  the Professor, crawled past him
along the wall.
     The old man's heart beat and hammered. "Stop!" he cried, and jumping up
high he seized the Oecophora by the wing.
     The moth tried to escape and they fell heavily together to the ground.
     The moth  started hitting out, waved its  free wing up  and  down,  and
pressed the Professor's chest  with its feet; but the  old man would not let
go.
     Lying on the ground under the butterfly he made every effort to hold on
to his valuable prey.
     He forgot about everything else in the world.
     Yes, and it was not to be wondered at.
     In his  hands there  was struggling an Olive Oecophora - a moth rare in
our climate, the very smallest specimen of the Lepidopterae, or scale-winged
insects.
     How it came to appear by the side of the plywood box - a moth native of
warm climates, the Professor never  at this moment questioned. He remembered
only  one thing: in his ample collection  in  the  moth cabinets where under
glass sitting  on  pins with their wings spread out were  carpet  moths, fur
moths,  hair, grain,  cherry,  hawthorn,  burdock  and field moths, in  this
collection there had never been an Olive Oecophora.
     And now there would be one.
     "Yes, you  just wait.  Ah, what  a beauty !"  the  old  man scolded the
stubborn moth which dragged him along the ground, trying in every way to get
free.
     "Yes, now then  .  . .  now  then .  .  . that's enough . . . Now then,
stop!"

     * * * * *

     Whilst the Professor was wrestling with the Olive Oecophora,
     Karik and Valya had reached the  right-hand  corner of  the chest where
the little  box with the enlarging powder was standing. Gradually their eyes
became  used to the semi-darkness. They looked round the empty room with the
bare walls.  Through  the  round  little window there fell  on  the floor  a
narrow, slanting beam of sunlight. Golden dust swam in  the sunlight and the
beam appeared full of life.
     "It is jolly  here. Isn't it, Karik?" said Valya, looking around. Karik
not replying walked over to the corner in  which there was  standing  a huge
trunk-like white box covered with a thick sheet of parchment.
     "There it is!" said Karik.  He  clambered  up to  the  edge of the box,
drummed  with his bare  heels on  its sides and stretched out  his  hand  to
Valya.
     "Climb up here! Come on!"
     Valya scrambled up and sat beside Karik.
     Karik bent down and tore the parchment lid off the box.
     "Eat! And become big again!" he announced in a loud voice, bending over
the box.
     "Oughtn't we to wait for the Professor?" asked Valya.
     "No - and do  you know  what. Let's get big before the Professor. Think
how interesting  that will be. We shall already be  big  whilst he is  still
tiny."
     "All right ! I agree," said Valya, and quickly plunged her hand beneath
the parchment and fetched out a whole handful of glistening powder.
     She put her hand up to  her  mouth, opened  it and then suddenly taking
her hand away turned to Karik:
     "How much of it should one eat to get big again?"
     "Eat plenty of it."
     "But supposing we grow very big. . . . it would not be very pleasant to
be a girl of giant size."
     "Don't  worry, eat  it  up!" replied Karik calmly,  "if you do grow too
much  - you  can  drink  some reducing liquid  and get yourself right again.
That's all. Look how I am eating. Like this!"
     Then Karik poured a whole fistful of powder into his mouth.
     "Ready!"
     Valya swallowed the powder and said with a frown:
     "The reducing liquid was much nicer."
     "No, there is nothing wrong with the powder. It is a little acid."
     Karik jumped down to the floor and pulled Valya after him.
     "Now we must clear out of here quickly."
     "Why?"
     "Why, because it will soon become tight."
     "Why tight?"
     "Why,  why, why?" Karik got  angry.  "For the simple reason that we are
going to turn into  big people . . . you  see  . . . Ow!" he shouted, having
bitten his tongue. His head had hit the ceiling.
     With a loud crack the chest  split open. The  bright  daylight  blinded
Karik. He screwed his eyes up, rubbed them and once more opened them.
     Before him stood Valya. She had not changed in the  slightest. However,
everything  around had become  quite  different: the green jungle had turned
back into ordinary grass. On the grass lay a thick pole with a red rag faded
in the sun and the gnats had once again become gnats.
     "Isn't  it  grand!"  said Valya.  "Just  think, we  need  no longer  be
frightened of a gnat. Just one clap of the hand and it's a goner."
     "Wait!" Karik interrupted her in  a  worried voice.  "Where is the  box
with the powder?"
     They looked down at their feet.
     In the grass were the broken pieces of the chest. Amid these pieces lay
the  box turned  over and alongside it a tiny parchment sheet. The  wind was
blowing a white dust over the grass.
     "That's our  enlarging powder!" shouted Karik in alarm,  and  dashed to
catch the dust.
     But it was already too late.
     "Now what will happen?" asked Valya, anxiously.  "Does it mean that our
Professor  will have to stay small  for  ever? Good gracious,  maybe we have
squashed him already."
     "Don't you get fussed!" Karik yelled at her. "What's the  use of it and
you may in fact squash him."
     Valya froze  in  her place, but Karik squatting on his haunches started
to rake the cool grass with his fingers spaced out like the teeth of a comb.
     But it was all in vain.
     "Karik," said  Valya, "he must  be  here somewhere and he would  surely
hear us. Let him come out himself."
     "Yes, yes," agreed Karik.
     He found amongst the pieces  of the chest  a  small smooth board, wiped
the dust off it and laying it on a flat place said gently but plainly:
     "Professor.  Can you hear  us? Come out on to the board. On to  this" -
Karik knocked the board with his knuckle. "Don't be afraid. We won't move."
     Several minutes passed.
     The children sat perfectly  still  on their haunches and  bending their
heads watched the board.
     Then suddenly on the yellow surface a sort of midge appeared.
     "There he is!" panted Valya.
     "Wait  a minute!" whispered Karik. "Don't puff like a steam engine. You
will blow him off the board."
     Holding  his breath, Karik bent lower over  the board, screwing  up one
eye he started to  gaze fixedly at the tiny object  which  ran backwards and
forwards on the board.
     "It  is  our Professor!" said Karik,  holding his hand  in front of his
mouth.
     "Look, look," whispered Valya. "Can  you  see  his hands moving? What a
teeny person. Were we really like that?"
     "Even smaller," answered Karik. "Don't talk, sit and hold your tongue!"
     Valya even stopped breathing.
     Then suddenly in the complete silence  they caught the sound of a tiny,
tiny squeak - weaker than a mosquito.
     "He  is saying something!" whispered  Karik,  bending  his  car  to the
board.
     "What is he saying?"
     "I can't understand!"
     Meanwhile the Professor jumped off the board to the ground and vanished
in the grass.
     "He has gone away!"
     "Where to?"
     "We must just sit and wait."
     After several minutes the old man appeared  again. This time he was not
alone.
     "Look, look," said Valya. "Something is attacking him."
     The children bent over  the board, but  the longer they looked the less
they  could  understand:  whether  it  was the Professor  himself  that  was
dragging a  dark moth after him or whether  it  was the moth that  held  the
Professor and would not let him get up on to the board.
     The  moth  was  struggling,  napping  its  wings,  and  it  knocked the
Professor off his feet.
     "Let's help him,"  suggested  Valya, "or this Rotton thing will eat him
up."
     The Professor floundering on the edge of the board squeaked something.
     "Do you hear, Karik? He is shouting, 'Help, help'."
     Valya stretched out her hand to the moth.
     "Wait a bit!" Karik stopped his sister. "He is saying something else."
     But Valya  seized the moth and with a whisk threw it aside, then raised
the board with the old man on it to her very eyes.
     "He is evidently very upset about something!" announced Valya.
     "The butterfly evidently hurt him badly."
     The  Professor raised  his hands to the heavens and ran up and down the
board squeaking. He shook his fists and stamped his tiny feet.
     "Don't be frightened," comforted Valya, "it won't hurt you. I've killed
it."
     But this did not calm the old man. He waved his arms more furiously and
even  appeared to  spit several times.  By all appearance it was no trifling
matter he was raging over.
     "Well,  all right, all right," Valya  soothed him. "I'll find it  in  a
minute and squash it. I'll teach it not to hurt little things."
     The Professor no sooner had heard these words than he clasped his hands
behind his head, staggered about and then started to jump up  and  down,  so
impatiently squeaking all the  time  that Karik at once understood the great
man wished to say something very important.
     "I'll squash it in a minute," shouted Valya.
     "Now, don't go shouting," said Karik in a whisper.  "You'll deafen him.
After all, he is tiny. Give him to me now!"
     Karik carefully  shook the old man from the  board into the palm of his
hand and lifted him up to his ear.
     "Oecophora"  he  heard the weak voice  of  the  Professor. "A  solitary
Oecophora. Such a specimen! Such a specimen!"
     "He is saying something about Ecofor," whispered Karik.
     "I expect that's  what the powder is  called," replied  Valya  quietly,
"but there is no more powder."
     Karik looked at the palm of his hand and said slowly and clearly:
     "Professor,  what are we  to do? The wind has scattered all the powder.
It wasn't our fault."
     He again put his hand to his ear.
     "That doesn't matter," squeaked the scarcely audible voice. "I have got
another gramme of the powder in my laboratory. Carry me home. But first find
the Oecophora . . . it is here . .'. in the grass."
     "But what is this Oecophora?" asked Karik.
     "The Oecophora," squeaked the old man,  "is a moth.  They live  only in
the south. In our climate such moths are extremely rare - and Valya  took it
away from me. You must most certainly find it."
     "There you are,  Valya," said Karik. "Look for the  moth. You  threw it
away and it is very rare. You must find it again."
     Valya bent down,  searched in the grass and picked up  a tiny half-dead
moth by its wing.
     "Is this it?" asked  Karik,  showing the moth to the Professor. "That's
it!  that's  it!"  rejoiced the  old man. "Take it home, only please be more
careful. Don't crush the wing!"
     "But which direction should we take to go home?" asked Karik.
     "First of all  go straight to the  pond,  not turning  in any way,  and
beyond the pond you yourselves will see the road to the town."
     Karik plucked the broad leaf of  a plantain, deftly rolled up a twisted
funnel of  this leaf and carefully placed  in  the bottom of this funnel the
great scholar - Professor Ivan Hermogenovitch Enotoff.
     "And now let's run home," he said to Valya. "Only don't whatever you do
lose the valuable Oecophora moth."
     "Wait. We cannot go through the town naked!"
     "Good gracious!" shouted Karik in contempt.
     "No, no," said Valya. "I won't go. It would be unpleasant."
     "What do you mean unpleasant?" Karik was surprised.
     "Well, all  my  bones are sticking out.  Look how thin I  am. Everybody
would laugh at me."
     "That's nothing, we'll run there."
     "No, no," insisted Valya, shaking her head. "We must dress."
     Valya picked up the Professor's  crumpled shirt from the ground and put
it over her head. Looking at his sister, Karik started laughing.
     "What a scarecrow! Whatever do you think you look like?"
     The old  man's  shirt reached down  to Valya's  very heels. The sleeves
hung down to her knees. All the same it was some sort of dress.
     Valya  started to roll  up the  sleeves, and  she gathered up the shirt
tails like a train.
     "What about  you?" she demanded of  Karik, not paying any attention  to
his laughter. You put on something of the Professor's."
     Karik decided to get into the old man's trousers.
     He drew them on up to his very neck.
     "Very becoming!" Valya approved.
     Swamped  in the trousers,  Karik made several steps, stumbled and fell.
Fortunately he was able to hold up the hand in which the Professor was in or
else he would certainly have lost or squashed the poor chap.
     "Turn  up the legs!" advised  Valya,  helping her brother to get up and
wrestle with the trousers.
     Karik did this.
     At last the dressing was finished.
     Karik took his sister by the hand  and  they  both, as if in a concert,
sang cheerfully:

     FORWARD! The bugles blow
     From battle most glorious.
     Forward! and home will go,
     The children victorious."

     Beyond  the pond, like an arrow,  lay  an asphalt road.  It  led to the
town.




     An unexpected  attack - Biology has its  uses - Home again - Excitement
and pleasure - Elephants and fleas

     IT WAS ALREADY EVENING  BY THE TIME KARIK  AND  VALYA ENTERED the  dark
streets of the town.
     In the windows of the houses yellow lights were twinkling.
     The streets were empty.
     Somewhere far ahead children were shouting. They were evidently playing
at Cossacks and brigands.
     Over  the dark green public gardens called "The  second five-year plan"
there rose up like a sort of blue rainbow the reflection of electric lights.
Music was to  be heard  there,  swings  creaked; people in  the  garden were
making  noises and laughing: bells  were  ringing  cheerfully and a  trumpet
welcomed noisily.
     "Amusements in the gardens!" said Karik, listening. "That means it is a
holiday today."
     But when did we disappear?" asked Valya.
     "Ages ago."
     "A fortnight ago!" sighed Valya. "But somehow it seems years."
     The gardens were not far from home.
     "Let's run!" suggested Valya.
     "Right you are!"
     The children cheerfully dashed towards  their home. But they had hardly
run more than a few steps when out of the gate of a big  grey house jumped a
hairy, crooked-legged cur with a torn  ear. Panting  and barking,  he  threw
himself at Karik and Valya, trying to seize their legs.
     Karik threw a stone at it. The cur whimpered and with  its tail between
its legs vanished under the gate.
     "Heh!" shouted someone behind the gate. "Who's hurting our Tusick?"
     The gate creaked.
     A crowd of rough children ran out into the street.
     Karik and Valya stopped.
     Holding his slipping trousers  up with one hand and  raising high above
his head the other hand  in which was clutched the  plantain  leaf  with the
Professor, Karik said:
     "Your Tusick shouldn't attack people."
     The children came closer and packed tightly round Karik and Valya.  One
youngster in  a waistcoat stuck his hands  in  his  pockets up to  the  very
elbows, spat wickedly and looked them over from head to foot.
     "Who are these  people?" he demanded jeeringly. "What are they doing in
our street?"
     "We - we are travellers!" said Valya, timidly.
     The gang laughed.
     "She is travelling with mother to market!" shouted one.
     "What do you mean? This is the daughter of the actual seal which was on
Papanin's icefloe."
     "Nothing of the sort! She is travelling to a circus!"
     Karik frowned.
     "Now look here,"  he  said, putting one leg forward.  "You let us go or
else. . . ."
     "What'll happen?"
     "You'll see soon enough!"
     The urchins  started to pull Valya by her  long shirt, and Karik by the
Professor's wide trousers.
     "Stop, please!" whimpered Valya. "We must  get  home. We have been away
for a long time."
     "But where have you come from?"
     "What's that got to do with you?" said Karik.
     "Everything  to  do  with  us.  In  our  orchard  two  scarecrows  have
disappeared, one in a shirt and the other in trousers."
     The gang laughed.
     "Eh, chaps!" shouted one of them,  "drag  them into the orchard and let
them frighten the birds."
     "Now push off!" said Karik, bravely.
     He raised the hand with the Professor in it high above his head, rolled
his eyes and roared out in the queerest of voices:
     Microga-a-aster nemo-o-o ru-umi"
     The urchins looked at each other.
     "Triungu-uli-i-na," wailed Valya.
     "Car-r-rabus!" Karik ground his teeth.
     Valya raised  her arms  above her head  spreading  out  her fingers and
stamping her feet.
     "Cor-r-rixa! Bewa-a-are of Corr-r-rixa!"
     The urchins broke away suddenly.
     "Oy, they're lunatics!" shouted one of the children in alarm.
     In the darkness white patches of shirts flashed and right and left door
latches clicked.
     The street was suddenly deserted.
     "There you are," said Karik, breathing heavily, "biology has  its uses.
But now  let's  run as quickly as possible so as to meet  no more people. We
are evidently very like scarecrows."
     With the wind whistling in their ears, Karik and  Valya dashed along at
full  speed. Houses, side streets, streets, blocks, gardens - all flashed by
exactly as in a cinema.
     Here at last were the familiar green gates. The children flew into  the
courtyard.
     "You haven't lost the Professor?" demanded Valya, panting for breath.
     Karik carefully unwrapped a corner of the leaf.
     "He's there. He's sitting down."
     The courtyard was empty.
     The  children raised their heads. The windows on the second  floor were
alight. Through the curtains someone could be seen moving - granny or mother
- going from the table to the sideboard.
     "They are laying supper!" whispered Valya.
     "Oh! we mustn't be late for supper!" said Karik, "Come on !"
     "Oy, Karik, this is terrible! Mother is sure to scold us, isn't she?"
     "What next? Surely mother cannot be worse than a Pottery wasp?"
     The children dashed on: jostling each other and racing each other, they
ran up the staircase and stopped at Flat 39.
     Karik hastily pressed the white knob. Behind the door a bell rang.
     After half  a minute's  silence, which seemed  an age to  the children,
hasty  footsteps  were  heard. The door chain  rattled. The  door flung wide
open.
     On the threshold was mother.
     "You!" she  shouted, and  started  to cry. "My little  sparrows! Let me
kiss you!"
     She started to squeeze the children to herself.
     "Mother, stop! Wait!" shouted Valya, breaking away. "You will crush the
Professor."
     "Little  Valya,  whatever  is wrong  with  you?" lamented  mother,  and
started to cry even more.
     "Stop,  mother,  don't cry!"  said  Karik seriously. "Better  give us a
small, clean wine glass."
     "A wine glass?"
     "Well, yes!" Karik nodded his head. "We can put the Professor in a wine
glass, I am so afraid of losing him."
     Mother threw up her hands.
     "Both of them! Both mad! Whatever has happened?"
     Bumping  against  chairs and  knocking them  over, mother dashed to the
telephone, tore off the receiver and shouted with a tearful voice:
     "Ambulance!  Immediately!  Hurry  up!  What?  What  address?  Ach,  our
address?"
     "Do stop, mother," said Karik, taking the telephone receiver  away from
his  mother. "He only needs a wine glass, and you  are trying to get a whole
ambulance. He would get lost in the saloon of the  ambulance and will wander
around it for years. Much better give us the glass."
     Mother hesitated, frightened.  She remembered that it  is always better
to agree with lunatics than to argue  with them. For this reason, not saying
another word,  she got a clean wine  glass out of the  sideboard and  wiping
away her tears gave it to Karik.
     Holding her breath  she waited to see what Karik would do. He unwrapped
the bruised plantain leaf and laying the wine glass on its side, said:
     "Gross over into  your crystal palace, Professor." Then suddenly mother
saw a  tiny  insect move with very small step  along the green leaf and then
briskly  run  into the  wine  glass. Karik carefully  turned the  wine glass
upright and stood it on the table.
     "Are  you comfortable there?"  he asked, and bent his  ear to  the very
edge of the glass.
     In the glass something squeaked.
     "All  right,"  replied  Karik,  "I'll  cover the  palace  with a  clean
handkerchief and for a mattress I'll  throw you a piece of cotton wool. Have
a good rest meanwhile!"
     "Now I understand." Mother smiled  through her tears. "This is some new
game. But whatever is the beetle you put in the glass?"
     "Beetle?" Karik was most offended. "That's a nice business! . . . It is
very rude to call a Professor that."
     "I understand!" Mother started to smile. "You call it a scholar."
     "Not us, the whole world and not it but him."
     "Very well then, show me! Let me see what you have got there."
     Mother bent  over the wine  glass.  She expected  to see some  sort  of
trained insect.
     "A ma-a-an!" she suddenly screamed with all her force.
     "Well,  no, mother,  it isn't  just  a  man,"  said  Karik.  "It's  our
Professor Ivan Hermogenovitch. He invented a liquid which has made him tiny.
We were  also like that, even smaller. Then we ate some enlarging powder and
became big again.  There wasn't  sufficient powder for the Professor. But he
has some  more  in  his study.  We'll get some immediately and  make him big
again."
     Mother listened to  the children with amazement  and  at last  realised
that they were not mad.
     "But, children," she said, "the Professor's  flat has been sealed up by
the militia. We shall have to wait till morning. Tell the Professor this!"
     Karik distinctly and quietly repeated it all to the Professor.
     "It doesn't matter, Karik," squeaked the old man cheerfully. "I've made
myself very comfortable here . . . wait till morning!"
     Karik raised his head and said to mother, "Let's wait till morning."
     In the wine glass something was again squeaking.
     Karik listened and said:
     "Sit  down,  mother. Ivan  Hermogenovitch  would  like me  to  tell you
something."
     Mother sat listening.
     Karik  coughed  and  then  without hurrying started to  tell  about the
strange  adventures of the  three important  travellers,  on the  ground and
under  the  ground, on the water and under the water, between sky and earth,
in  the  air, in  the forests, on  the  mountains, in the  caves and  in the
crevices.  And once again all  three  lived through  their exploits  in this
story: they once  again battled bravely, floated in ships, flew through  the
air and fell down deep, dark holes.
     Listening   to  Karik,  mother  nodded  her  head,  sometimes  sobbing,
sometimes  laughing,  but most  often  listening with wide,  open-frightened
eyes, not daring to breathe or to stir.
     "My  poor darlings!" mother exclaimed,  wiping  the tears  away with  a
handkerchief. "What a lot  you have had to endure!  How granny  will take on
when she comes home and hears about your adventures."
     "Do you  know  what,  mother?" said  Karik.  "We  had better  not  tell
granny."
     Mother thought a little and smiled.
     "You  are  right,"  she said. "Granny is  delicate. It might  be  quite
harmful for her to listen  to such a story. I'll tell her you  were at  your
Uncle Peter's.  . . . But now, how can we entertain you? What would you like
to eat?"
     "Oh, Mother!" said Valya. "We shall cat everything you've got."
     Mother hustled around.  Dishes started to  clatter in  the dining-room.
The gas burners started to hiss in the kitchen.
     By the time the children had washed and dressed themselves,  mother had
laid the table and there had appeared hot from the frying-pan bacon and eggs
followed by cold  chicken, salad, cheese,  mountains of soft delicious rolls
and all sorts of sardiny things.
     Standing in  front of the sideboard, as if in thought, mother opened  a
glass door and took out a black bottle with a gold  title on a white label -
"Port wine."
     "It would be a good idea," said mother, "in such an event as this if we
drank a little wine with hot water."
     When it was all ready everybody sat down.
     "May  I  invite  you  to   our   table,  Professor?"  said  Karik,  and
triumphantly placed the wine glass between his plate and that of Valya.
     Karik threw a crumb of cheese into the glass.
     "Help yourself, Professor!" he said.
     There was a squeaking in the glass.
     "He wants some  bread,"  said Valya, and dropped a crumb, of bread into
the wine glass.
     "What about wine?" asked Mother. "How can we entertain the Professor to
wine?"
     "I know!" Karik jumped up out of his chair. "We'll pour a drop into the
shell of a sunflower seed."
     He ran out, got a sunflower seed and shelled it. Mother poured one drop
of port wine into  the shell, and Karik cautiously slipped it  down the side
of the tilted glass.
     Soon the party became very jolly.
     "Your health, Ivan Hermogenovitch!" shouted Karik, raising a tumbler of
hot water coloured with port wine.
     "To our travels!" shouted Valya.
     Everyone touched glasses, drank and ate.
     The Professor did not waste his  time either. He ate  bread  and cheese
and drank port wine.
     Karik bent over to see how he was getting on and exclaimed:
     "He's singing! What a good thing he is still small!"

     * * * * * *

     Soon the household was fast asleep.
     Karik and Valya were quietly and  evenly breathing in their clean beds,
whilst the  Professor snored, comfortably curled up  on his piece of  cotton
wool in the wine glass.
     For the first time for many  days their sleep was  calm and untroubled.
No dangers lurked around them any more.

     * * * * * *

     Next day the Professor  was  sitting in  his  study  as  if nothing had
happened to him.
     Ten  newspaper correspondents took his  photograph and wrote  about his
adventures in notebooks.
     Shortly after there appeared in one of the papers a marvellous  article
about everything,  with  a  big  portrait of  Professor Ivan  Hermogenovitch
Enotoff.
     Someone spread the rumour that Professor Enotoff  had discovered how to
change elephants  into fleas, and  then this was muddled up and it  was said
"He makes elephants out of fleas."
     Mind you, there may be a Professor who can make elephants out of fleas,
but I don't know him and I am not going to say anything about him, because I
never like to write about anything I have not seen with my own eyes.





     _____________________________________


     About the author:

     The wonderful  children's writer Yan Leopoldovich  Larri (February  15,
1900 - March  18, 1977)- was born  according to some  encyclopedias in Riga,
but he  himself  mentions  the  Moscow region. He  started  his career as  a
children's author in 1926.
     After his book "  The Country of the Happy" was  published  in 1931 his
name became  blacklisted and later he was arrested. He spend 15 years in the
Gulag and was released only in 1956.


Last-modified: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 18:56:41 GMT

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