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"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
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