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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
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