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them.
It was indeed difficult to climb.
The Professor stumbled at practically every step. The mountainside slid
away under his feet, becoming a rumbling stream of hot rocks. To scramble in
the tracks of their guide was a dangerous matter. Karik and Valya made an
effort, overtook him and kept by his side.
The climb became steeper and steeper.
The young alpinists were forced to crawl on all fours, clinging to
jutting-out rocks with their hands.
"Just like the ascent of Mount Everest!" puffed the Professor.
Neither Karik nor Valya had ever heard of Everest, but they could both
at once guess that Everest was just such a mountain as the one which they
were now climbing.
At last here was the top. Dripping with the exertion their guide and
the children came to the crest of the mountain.
The professor straightened himself up and put his hand up to shield his
eyes, turned his head and started to search the horizon.
"Now then! Now then!" he started saying. "We'll see! We'll look for our
landmark, then. . . ."
He did not finish his sentence. The ground beneath his feet started to
slide away. He sank in up to his waist. The children rushed to help him. But
the hill beneath them started to shake and suddenly open like a mouth.
The Professor, followed by the two children, hurtled down a narrow,
sloping chimney, stones and earth roared down after them.
Valya screamed. Karik fell on the Professor and they landed with a
fearful plunge in a wet, sticky floor.
The first to recover consciousness was the Professor. Grunting and
groaning he extricated himself from the thick clinging mud and wiping
himself, ruefully observed:
"A nasty jump without a parachute! Allow me to congratulate you on your
successful landing. Get up, my dears!"
He wiped his hands on his tights, looked anxiously at the children who
were still floundering in the mud, and asked:
"All right, I hope? How's Valya? You haven't hurt yourself, have you?"
"Nothing to speak of," replied Valya, getting up. "Only my elbow
appears to be grazed."
"What about you, Karik?"
"I have bruised my knee."
The children, rubbing their injured spots, gazed around in fear at the
dark walls of the narrow well.
"That's a mere nothing!" said their guide. "Why, I have lost the
knapsack with the food and the plate. That's much worse."
"Where are we?" inquired Valya.
"We'll soon see," muttered their guide, sticking his beard in the air.
High above their heads glimmered the distant sky. The pale light of day
fell on the higher slopes, but at the bottom of this deep, gloomy well it
was practically dark.
"I suppose," said Karik, "that we have fallen into the den of an
underground spider. They are terrible spiders. I have read about them."
"What?" Valya shuddered. "Spiders again? In the air, on the ground,
under the water and now under the ground - spiders?"
"Calm yourself," said the Professor, "the underground spiders about
which Karik is talking live in Italy and in the South of France. We haven't
got any here."
"Well, then, whose hole is it?"
The Professor did not answer. Pulling at his beard, he made his way
round the bottom of the well sounding the walls with his fist, then he said:
"Yes, yes. . . . That's what it is. Andrena !"
"What's an Andrena?" Valya started to whimper.
"Yes, yes. . . . It's just what I thought. Everything is all right, my
dears. Nothing dangerous. This time we have had a very fortunate fall, we
have fallen right into a confectioner's shop."
Valya's eyes became round with amazement.
"You mean to say we can find tarts and pies here?" she demanded.
"Yes!" smiled the Professor.
"But where are they? I can see nothing but mud."
"Patience is a virtue!"
The Professor sounded the wall with his fist. "Open Sesame!"
The wall resounded as if he had been hitting the bottom of an empty
barrel.
"It hasn't opened!" said Valya, licking her lips.
"You needn't be surprised!" smiled their guide. "It is only in fairy
stories that everything is accomplished by commands. We have to work a bit.
Dig in to the earth! Just here."
He went up to the wall and started to root away like a bear, tearing
out heavy sticky lumps of earth with his hands.
Karik and Valya hastened to help him. Karik was especially zealous.
Lumps of earth and stones fairly flew under his hands.
"Steady, steady!" shouted the Professor. "You'll bury us all like that.
Be more careful! Please don't hurry!"
Karik wanted to say something in reply, but at that moment the wall
shook, stones fell away at the feet of the travellers and all could see a
deep recess in the wall.
The air now smelt of fresh honey cakes.
"Whatever is it?" Valya licked her lips. "It smells like tea-time."
"It is the confectioner's shop itself!" replied the Professor, bending
forward. "But now stand to one side. There! Splendid!"
He rummaged in the recess with both hands and having planted his legs
widely apart tried to pull something out.
"Here we are! here we are!" he laughed, and straining himself handed
out a big grey ball covered in what appeared to be a yellow powder - with
fine sand.
"That's the lot!" he said, gently lowering the ball on to the ground.
With a sharp stone he cleared the sand off it and with some difficulty
tore something white off the top of it.
It was just like a goose's egg, only much larger.
"Oho!" said Karik. "Omelette again!"
"You don't make omelettes out of this egg," grinned the Professor. "You
do better this way," and he knocked off a bit of the ball with his hand and
it looked like a huge loaf of milk bread.
"Flower tart!" he announced. He wiped his hands on his tights, broke
off a bit of the loaf and put it in his mouth. The Professor's eyebrows shot
upwards. A contented smile appeared on his face.
"Not bad," he said, munching away, "not at all bad! Help yourselves, my
dears."
The scented, sticky dough smelt of honey and flowers. It simply melted
in the mouth.
"That is delicious," said Valya. "Better than cream buns."
"You are simply famished," answered their guide, "and not to be
wondered at. We had breakfast in the middle of the night almost, and now it
is nearly mid-day."
"No, no, it's true this is delicious!" insisted Valya.
"But what is it?" asked Karik, tucking in both cheeks full of the
scented dough.
"Flower pollen and honey!" replied the Professor.
"Why is it at the bottom of the well?"
The Professor picked up a white egg with a tough skin from the ground
and he put it on the palm of his hand.
"That is why," he answered. "The tart was prepared for the larva which
will come out of the egg, and both tart and egg were put here by the
underground bee - the Andrena."
"If it is an underground bee," said Valya. "We must get out of here
quickly."
The Professor smiled.
"Andrena is called an underground bee only because it builds its nest
under ground, but the Andrena itself lives there up above us; where the
dragonflies, flies and gnats live. Actually, you may often find its nest on
the surface of the earth: in Rotton stumps, in the trunks of fallen trees
but most often in the earth. That is why the scientists call it the
underground bee."
The Professor then told Karik and Valya how the larvae come out of the
eggs, how they feed on the dainty cake which had been prepared for them and
how finally they are transformed into winged Andrena bees.
"There are always several such cakes in each nest of an Andrena bee,"
said their guide. "If you wish I'll get you another one."
The children started to laugh.
"What do you think we are - elephants?" said Karik. "We could never eat
it. It would be better to drag ourselves out of this before the Andrevna bee
returns."
"In the first place it is an Andrena not an Andrevna," the Professor
corrected Karik, "and in the second place I have already said that after
this bee has dug out its nest, laid its eggs in it and prepared the food for
its young it never looks at it again. There is nothing more for it to do
here. . . . Yes, and there is nothing more to keep us here. We have had a
good feed, so let's say good-bye to this place."
Their guide went over to the sloping wall and catching hold of some
roots with his hands started to climb up. The children quickly clambered
after him like monkeys.
Their movement upwards had soon to be made one step at a time, and they
slowly crept up the side of the well towards the big round opening through
which the blue sky was peeping. Every now and then they stopped to get their
breath and then climbed on upwards. The rocks, dislodged by their feet, fell
with a rumble to the very bottom of the Andrena nest.
The Professor was the first to reach the edge of the well. Here it was
light and warm.
"Oof!" he sighed heavily. "My word! That was a climb. . . . What's up
with you, children? I am an old man and I got up before you."
He bent over the dark well and stretched his arm down.
"Let me help you!"
But Karik did not succeed in catching hold of his hand. The Professor
suddenly appeared to bounce up like a rubber ball. High above the well they
saw his heels and - he vanished.
Karik clung to the side of the well in terror.
"Sh-sh-sh!"
"What is it?" asked Valya.
"A bird has pecked him off!" whispered Karik. "A huge, huge bird with
enormous wings!"
Valya shuddered.
"You saw it?"
"Yes, I saw the wings - enormous. Like sails!"
The children looked at each other. Tears started to Valya's eyes.
Karik said:
"All the same he'll get away!"
Valya started to cry quietly.
"Now, don't cry, please! He'll get away!" Karik comforted his sister,
and looking cautiously out of the well, shouted loudly:
"Professor! Professor!"
There was no answer.
Valya wiped away the tears with her fist and said resolutely:
"We must climb out!"
"We must!" agreed Karik. And the children helping each other climbed
out of the well.
They stood once more on the summit of the "Golden View" peak. Not far
from them strewn on the ground they saw the Professor's sack, the remains of
the omelette and the dish. Before them there stretched a yellow wilderness
of hills. Behind them like a green sea there rustled the grass jungle
through which they had made their way that morning. To the right and left of
them was the blue of lakes showing through tall reed forests which grew
along their shores.
But the Professor was nowhere to be seen.
"Professor Enot - off! Where are you?" screamed Valya.
She listened.
Not a sound.
"Profess - or!"
The only answer was the wind's melancholy sigh on the top of the peak
and a discordant echo which died away in the hills.
"Let's shout together!" Karik suggested.
The children held hands.
"Prof - ess - or!" they bawled as one.
" - ess - or!" answered the echo and was silent.
Tears started to stream from Valya's eyes. She covered her face with
her hands and sobbed aloud. At that moment a whirlwind howled around her.
She was thrown aside somewhere and fell on sharp rocks.
When she at last managed to get to her feet and look around there was
no Karik! - but only a moment ago he had been standing here, at this round
rock.
"Karik!" yelled Valya, cold with fear. "Karik where are you? Why are
you frightening me?" High - high above the clouds someone seemed to cry in a
feeble voice, "Valya!"
In the clutches of a winged monster - The travellers meet again - The
Mont Blanc tree - About living "hams" - Karik and Valya are wafted away
VALYA DASHED ABOUT THE SLOPES OF THE PEAK IN PANIC. SHE ran down and
then ran up to the top and looked into the dark well.
"Karik!" she screamed. "Professor!"
There was no answer.
"Oh, dear! Wherever can they be?" she muttered.
The poor girl was quite exhausted. She sat down on the hot rocks and
pressing her hands to her face started to cry.
Through tears, as if she was looking through a window wet with rain,
she saw now and then huge winged creatures flying. They swooped right past
her. Their wings caused quite a whirlwind. She crouched down and ducked her
head, watching these monsters in terror. They flew now upwards and now with
a swish landed on the ground. They folded up their transparent, shining
wings, and having uncurled their striped bodies they clambered in a clumsy
fashion over the rocks; then having got hold of something on the ground once
again shot up into the sky.
One of these creatures crawled right up to Valya. It actually hit her
with its wing. The powerful blow sent Valya sprawling on the ground. The
striped monster quickly turned towards her and started to gaze at her with
shining, protruding eyes.
Valya felt she was going to faint.
The creature leisurely started to move away. But the girl stirred ever
so slightly and in an instant the monster leaped towards her and stopped,
swaying its feelers above her head. Valya was cold with fear. Holding her
breath she watched the long feelers with eyes wide with terror. She could
not see the rest of the monster, but felt that it must be right beside her.
A silence ensued broken only by Valya's own breathing. Then she heard
the monster moving away, dragging itself noisily over the ground, getting
further and further away every minute.
She jumped up. She was shaking all over. Her body was covered with a
cold perspiration. With her arms waving she dashed with a yell down the hill
towards the foot. But suddenly strong, hairy paws wound around her body. A
sharp point pierced her spiderweb jacket and tore the skin of her back. It
hurt terribly, but Valya did not succeed in crying out. Above her head, huge
wings drummed and shook, and the next instant Valya found herself in the
air.
Strong arms clutched her to a hairy breast which now contracted, now
expanded like the bellows of a concertina. Valya tried to turn her head and
see what sort of monster it was that held her in its grip, but as soon as
she stirred the arms squeezed her like iron pincers.
She groaned in pain.
"Help!" cried Valya.
The whistle of the wind drowned her voice. She screamed until she was
hoarse, but she could hardly hear her own voice.
Below her, green fields and woods swayed, rivers and lakes glittered
and endless yellow sand stretched out in ribbons. All the time, Valya flew
further and further from the well where she felt she had left the Professor
and Karik.
Where was the fearsome winged beast carrying her to now?
What would she do alone in the nightmare grassy jungle? How would she
find her way home, and indeed would she ever get back to that big,
comfortable world?
Valya wriggled, turned her head and ferociously fastened her teeth in
the strong, rigid arm. The arm was hard and smooth like polished wood.
Valya's teeth just slipped along it.
At that instant, the clutching pincers squeezed the poor girl even
tighter. It was quite useless to fight the monster. It could squash her like
a fly.
"I'll die," sobbed Valya. "I'll die and no one will even know that I am
dead."
She started to feel ever so sorry for herself and sobbed aloud.
Then her tears dried up. Her eyes became dry as if every tear had been
poured out, to the last one. Then she started to kick and scream:
"Let go! What's the matter? Did I touch you? Let go! Go away ! Let me
loose!"
But the winged monster just flew on, whirring its hard, resonant wings
which made a noise like a sawmill at work.
At last, in a gliding flight it swooped down, started to flutter its
wings in the air and suddenly the arms holding Valya were stretched out in
front and pushed her, like a dish into the oven, into some sort of dark
hole.
Valya hit her head against something hard and slid precipitously
downwards as if she was on an ice mountain.
"Falling!" The terror of it gripped Valya's brain.
She shut her eyes. Then suddenly felt herself caught by other claws.
"Ooh!" Valya screamed, hitting out with her arms and legs.
She opened her eyes in alarm and saw that the claws which held her were
really not claws at all but the hands of . . . the old Professor !
"Professor! Is it really you?" she shouted.
"It is I, little Valya, it is I!" replied the Professor affectionately,
setting her down on the sloping floor.
"And I'm here too!" Valya heard Karik's voice.
"But wherever are we all?" she asked.
"All right, all right! We'll soon find out," said their guide. "The
main thing is that we are all together."
Valya started to look round wildly. In the half-darkness she could see
smooth walls: they sloped steeply upwards. There was no roof. Above, through
a broad circular opening, the rays of the sun were striking in. In the beams
of light dust was floating.
The prison in which Valya, Karik and the Professor now found themselves
was like a deep basket. But this basket was not standing upright but was
sloping as if it had got caught on something when falling and now hung at an
angle in mid-air.
Valya looked at the dark walls, at Karik and at the Professor.
How had the Professor and Karik both got here? Who had imprisoned them
in this giant basket? Was it really the same monster which had carried her,
Valya, there?
She started to question them but the Professor interrupted her.
"Later, later," he said, frowning. "There is no time for gossip now. If
we don't climb out of this, this very instant, we may lose our lives. . . .
Come on, children, let's try."
Their guide got down on to all-fours and slowly made his way up the
smooth, sloping wall. The children came after him.
The climb was difficult.
Arms and legs slipped as if on ice. The Professor had nearly reached
the edge of the basket when suddenly his knees wobbled, his hands slipped
and he rolled back to the bottom with a rumble, carrying the children with
him.
"No luck!" he said, getting up on to his feet. "We must try again."
The travellers once again edged their way up the smooth wall. Once
again they rolled all the way down again.
"We can't climb out of this," groaned Valya.
"Silence!" ordered the Professor, angrily.
He measured with his eyes the distance from the edge of the basket to
the floor, surveyed Karik from head to foot, and said resolutely:
"Come on now! Climb on to my shoulders!"
Karik jumped up, like a bouncing ball, caught hold of the Professor's
neck and hoisted himself on to his shoulders.
"Try and reach the top!" commanded their guide.
Karik cautiously started to straighten himself out. With his hands
against the wall he straightened his bent knees and finally stood erect at
his full height.
"Now climb on to the palms of my hands!" ordered their guide, putting
his two hands up.
Karik placed first one foot and then the other on the palms of the
Professor's hands.
"You won't fall?" asked the Professor. "I won't fall!"
The Professor made a great effort and, groaning, managed to lift Karik
upwards like a heavy beam.
"Got it!" shouted Karik, grabbing the uneven edge of the basket.
"Splendid! Pull yourself higher, still higher !"
Karik started to stretch out his whole body with his toes firmly
planted in the Professor's hands.
"Now, now, now!" encouraged their guide.
At last, Karik gave a jump and skilfully got astride of the edge of the
basket.
"That's fine !" said the Professor. "Now get hold of Valya!"
He caught up Valya and handed her up to Karik. Then he quickly started
to unwind the spider's cord in which he was clothed. Having half stripped
himself, he made a loop in the end of the cord.
"Catch!" he shouted, throwing the loop up at the children.
Karik caught the cord and put it over a projecting part of the basket.
"Ready!" he announced cheerfully.
The Professor pulled on the cord, testing to see whether it was firmly
secured, and then grasping it with both hands slowly hoisted himself up,
moving in short bursts. Puffing and blowing, he at length made his
appearance on the edge of the basket.
The travellers looked below.
The basket on which they found themselves was fastened to a huge beam
covered with red knobs. From this log, other smaller beams stretched out in
all directions, and from these there stuck out like green feathers rows of
huge lances.
Through the chinks between the beams they could see far, far below the
ground.
"Wherever have we got to?" asked Valya, looking around herself in giddy
terror.
The Professor grimaced.
"We are on a very ordinary pine tree branch."
"On a branch?" persisted Valya, shaking her head in an unbelieving way.
"Yes, on the branch of a pine tree which you, I am sure, have seen
heaps of times in your life. The branch is just as usual but you yourself
have got a lot smaller. That is why you are so puzzled."
"Well, all right! If it's a branch, it's a branch, but however do we
get down to the ground?" interrupted Karik. "Surely without a parachute we
can do nothing."
"We'll manage and without a parachute," their guide assured them. He
patted his "tights" and cheerfully winked at the children. "You are still
laughing at my rig-out. No, my dears! For poor travellers like us, every
piece of cord is a treasure."
And their guide thereupon started to unwind more of the silvery cord in
which he was wrapped.
"Should we also unroll ours?" demanded Valya.
"Of course! My suit will not be enough."
Karik and Valya set to work. They unwrapped the rings of their silver
jackets and carefully coiled each cord down beside themselves.
"Hurry! hurry up, my dears!" the Professor urged them on. "The awful
creature that brought us here will be back very soon and we shall be done."
"We are all ready now!" shouted Valya.
"Splendid! Try and twist up a thick rope."
"How do you do that?"
"Very simply. Like this!" And their guide showed them what was
necessary to twist the cords together.
Helping each other, the travellers hastily twisted the cords together
and out of the cords produced a thick rope.
At last all was ready for the descent.
The Professor coiled the rope down in a heap and wound one end round a
sharp projection from the basket and then threw the rest of the coil off the
basket with a kick of his foot.
The heavy coil slipped between the branches and plunged downwards,
unwinding itself in flight into a long, knotted rope.
The end of the rope hung just above the lower branches of the pine
tree.
"First Valya must go!" ordered the Professor.
"Why me?"
"There is no time for argument!" The Professor was stern.
"Well, all right, all right!" said Valya hastily. "I'll go down first,
but please don't be angry!"
She bravely clutched the rope and quickly slid down.
"Safe journey!" The Professor waved his hand. "When you get down, hold
the end of the rope!"
The Professor and Karik leant over and silently watched how their small
comrade was letting herself down.
"Don't be a coward!" shouted Karik.
"I wasn't even thinking!" came back a faint reply from Valya.
She was calmly slipping down the rope from knot to knot and had already
reached the middle of it. Then suddenly a gust of wind came.
Valya started to swing like a pendulum. She clung convulsively to a
knot in the rope and turned her head beseechingly upwards to the Professor.
"Let yourself down!" the Professor and Karik shouted together.
The wind set the rope swinging even more. Valya was describing wide
circles above . . . empty space.
"Let yourself down!"
Valya closed her eyes tightly and once again started to slide down the
rope from knot to knot. At last her foot touched something firm. This was
the lower branch of the pine tree, which was yet broader and considerably
thicker than the upper branches. Valya found she could walk about as freely
on its surface as people strolling along a main street pavement.
"I'm down!" shouted Valya, looking upwards.
High above her head hung the clumsy basket. On its edge sat the
Professor and Karik, and they were shouting something. Valya strained her
ears.
"Hold the rope!" Karik was shouting from above. Valya got hold of the
end of the rope. The rope shook and then became taut. Karik and after him
the Professor now let themselves rapidly down it and were soon standing
alongside her.
"It is not so far from here to the ground now!" said their guide,
peering downwards. "Let's have a look for our landmark and see in which
direction it lies."
He looked to right and to left, and then shouted:
"There it is!"
"Where? Where?" demanded the children, turning their heads here and
there.
Through the foliage of pine needles the travellers were able to see on
the far horizon the pole with the red flag. But how far away it now seemed.
It looked quite tiny - like a flag on a toy steamer.
Valya, screwing up her eyes, looked at the flag, at Karik, at the
Professor, and then sighed heavily.
"We'll never get to it now!" she said. "We'll not reach it in a year!
We are so small and it is so far away."
"Hm! well!" grunted the Professor. "It may take us two or three months'
walking."
"Three months? But winter will have set in by that time . . . we'll
have to build a house," said Valya.
"Hm . . . possibly . . . . But what are we waiting here for? Let's go
along the branch to the trunk of the tree."
Their guide looked around him once more and then moved forward
confidently. The children followed behind him. They clambered over the dark
red hillocks of the pine bark and jumped across narrow deep clefts. In some
places these clefts had a thick growth of some light grey bushes on them.
"Let's have a rest, my dears," said the Professor, sitting down. "Then
we will go down the trunk like ants do."
The children looked down and stepped back involuntarily.
"That's terrible!" gasped Valya.
"All the same, we must get down," said their guide.
Valya clung to the red bark and shook her head.
"Don't worry, don't worry!" the Professor comforted her. "In the
Caucasus and on the Pamir, our alpinists get themselves up even steeper
mountains and naturally get themselves down again. But out there it is not
so easy either. Every so often they have to cross ice fields and glaciers.
The wind makes their eyes cry and the cold freezes the tears on their
cheeks. Br-r-r-r. Even to think of it is terrible. Well, on our 'Mont Blanc'
tree it is not nearly so dangerous to climb down."
"Dear, dear! I suppose we will get down somehow," sighed Valya sadly.
"Of course we'll get down," asserted Karik. "In any case there is no
other way, we must climb down the trunk."
The Professor unwound the remains of his "tights," plaited a
trustworthy rope from it and handed the end of it to Valya.
"You must go first again," he announced. "Tie the rope around your
waist and hold on to it tightly. Karik will come next and I'll climb down
last."
Their guide made a loop in the rope and threw it over Karik's
shoulders.
"Get your arms through. That's right!" Karik raised his arms, slipped
the loop down to his waist and pulled it tighter. "Well! that is all ready,"
said the Professor.
The travellers moved off down the trunk. First they let Valya down with
the rope. She sought about below with her feet and feeling a projecting
piece of bark, shouted:
"I'm standing! Let out some more rope!"
The rope slackened. Behind Valya came down Karik. The Professor waited
at the top with his legs wide apart, holding the rope with both hands. He
was following every movement of the children. As soon as Valya and Karik had
got a good hold in the new place, their guide threw them the rope and,
clinging to the projecting bark, let himself down cautiously.
In this manner they accomplished nearly half their dangerous journey.
The ground came closer and closer with every step. They could already
see the angular stems of the grass trees.
"All the same, it is a long way off still!" said their guide. "We shall
not reach the ground for at least another three hours."
All three of them were very tired.
Their shoulders and knees were covered with scratches, bruises, and
weals. Their hands shook so that they could hardly let themselves down. It
was time to rest.
On one of the broader standing places, the Professor and the children
stopped.
"Halt!" the Professor ordered, and fell wearily to the rough floor.
The children collapsed beside him. He lay breathing heavily and wiping
the perspiration from his face. Karik and Valya sat up with their legs
dangling over the precipice. All then was silent.
Suddenly Valya jumped up and waved her arms. "Eh! Look! What's that?"
"What? What do you want?" Their guide raised himself up to look.
And there he saw a huge head covered with a regular forest of bristles.
Short, strong feet gripped the edge of their resting place. Then the
creature hauled itself up on to the level and, bending its long, hairy body,
crawled along the bark using what appeared to be countless feet. Behind it
came another creature just as hairy, and just as long, and then another and
another.
"Don't be frightened!" the Professor reassured them, getting up on to a
projecting piece of bark. "These are Only caterpillars of the pine moth -
silkworms. They won't touch us."
"Oh, I'm frightened of them all the same," whispered Valya.
"Why are you such a coward?" said Karik. "If you are told they won't
touch you, it means they won't touch you. . . . What do they feed on?" he
asked the Professor.
"Green leaves and soft young pine shoots," answered their guide.
"There, you see! These are vegetarian-caterpillars. You can even stroke
them with your hand."
But Valya, in spite of this, only moved farther and farther away. The
Professor smiling, went up to her, patted her on the shoulder and said:
"Don't be frightened! don't be frightened, little one! They will all
crawl on in a minute. We are quite useless to them. They are hunting for the
young pine shoots. It is only some sort of greenery that'll do for these
hairy vegetarians. I know them well! I wrote a book about them once."
"A book about caterpillars?" marvelled Valya.
"What is there surprising about that?" The Professor shrugged his
shoulders. "These caterpillars actually are like locusts of the forest. They
assemble in uncountable swarms and devour the green shoots of the trees in
the same way as locusts eat up the crops. I once saw a forest which had been
visited by a swarm of pine moth caterpillars like this. It was completely
stripped by the greedy things. I rode for miles and miles but there wasn't a
green shoot to be seen, just bare twigs everywhere."
At that moment the Professor looked upwards and smiled as if he had
seen one of his best friends. "Why, there is a Microgasta nemorum!" he
announced. "Welcome! welcome!"
"Where is it? What is it you have seen?"
"You don't mean to say you can't see it?"
The children started to scratch their heads. Like a squadron of gliders
right above the silkworms, huge creatures with thin bodies and long
transparent wings were noiselessly swooping.
"Midges!" shouted Valya.
''''Microgasta nemorum!'' announced the Professor. '' Ichneumon flies
or - as we Russians commonly call them - Horsemen-flies!
The friends of forest and field. Watch, children, what'll happen now!
There are many scientists who would envy us now. Watch! Got it!" He started
counting. "That's number one' Got it! Another! Excellent! Got it! That's the
third! Brave boys! Watch! watch!"
The winged 'horsemen-flies' swooped down on the caterpillars like
vultures on their prey and landed on their backs.
"They are riding on them, they are riding on them," exclaimed Valya.
"They are proper horsemen!"
It was like one of those comic turns at a circus where dogs ride on the
backs of horses or mice on the backs of cats. The children clapped their
hands. But, suddenly, Valya dropped her hands, looked towards the Professor
and asked with alarm:
"These . . . micro . . . whatever are they doing?"
She had seen that the 'horsemen-flies' lift their bodies up and stick
the sharp sword they carried in their tails hard into the backs of the
caterpillars. Having jabbed the caterpillars, they at once flew upwards.
"They are fighting," Valya announced, "fighting and not riding!"
"They are neither fighting nor riding," replied their guide. "The
Ichneumon flies pierce the skin of the caterpillars with their sharp
egg-layer and lay their eggs. After some time, their larvas come out of the
eggs and proceed to devour the caterpillars. They eat the caterpillars
before they change into butterflies. If it was not for the 'horsemen-flies'
the pine moth caterpillar would eat the whole forest, but the microgasta
does not allow it to multiply. That is why we can consider this fly our very
best forest guard."
"But isn't it possible to rear these microjesters artificially?"
demanded Karik.
"Microgastae? . . . it is possible," said the Professor.
"Then why are they not reared?"
"It has been tried but the attempts have not always been successful,"
the Professor replied. "Unfortunately, another 'horseman-fly' lays its eggs
in the larvae of these 'horsemen-flies'. Naturally they are very tiny, but
these eggs kill the microgasta."
"There are parasites for you! But isn't it possible to destroy these
small fry?"
"Yes, it's possible. These tiny 'horsemen-flies' have in turn their
enemies, also 'horsemen-flies'. These are quite teeny."
"Well! Those are the ones to rear," said Karik.
"Yes, indeed, that is, of course, the intelligent thing," agreed the
Professor, "but there are even 'horsemen-flies' that lay their eggs in the
larvae of these useful teenies."
Karik waved his hands in disgust. "Oh, this is just like the fable
about the white ox. There is a beginning but there is simply no end."
"Exactly like it, exactly like it!" replied their guide. "There is a
time when you think you have at last found the end and know absolutely
everything about one or the other creature, but you have only to poke a
little deeper and a little more earnestly into the essential points when you
become convinced that it is not the end you have in your hands but only the
beginning of a new and fascinating chapter of investigation."
The Professor forgot that he was standing on a small piece of bark. He
jumped about and started to lecture on how scientists were like Christopher
Columbus travelling every day in unknown lands and how they were always
discovering new and yet newer continents.
Meanwhile, the pine moth caterpillars were crawling up the bark just as
if it was a broad country lane, down which to meet them there were now
coming some sort of beetle. Above the pine tree lane there fluttered winged
creatures. The Professor, without the slightest ceremony, bumped into
caterpillars who were making their way laboriously upwards. He also nearly
knocked a large black beetle off its legs, but he simply went on talking,
talking, talking. . . .
How long their learned guide would have stood on the piece of bark as
if it was a classroom platform no one could say. It is quite possible he
would have continued his lecture until nightfall.
But it was suddenly interrupted by some sort of winged beast.
The creature dropped right down beside the Professor like a stone and
knocked him down with its wing. Then having raised its body, which had a
long sharp sword at the end of it, the beast with a short powerful jab drove
it into the bark just by the Professor's head. The sword buried itself deep
in the bark.
The children had not had time to cry out before the creature had
withdrawn its sword and had disappeared in the same lightning-like manner as
it had arrived.
Karik and Valya clung to the red crag-like bark. They were pale with
fright, and were breathing heavily.
"Well, that's that!" The Professor sat up. "I am afraid I was talking
rather a lot. And we must get ourselves down to the ground before night
comes." He looked at Karik, at Valya, and said: "It's nothing dangerous! It
was a very ordinary Thalessa or, in simple language, another
'horseman-fly'."
"Did it lay its eggs in the bark?"
"Why in the bark?" replied the Professor. "It laid its eggs in the
larva of one of the enemies of the pine tree."
"In the larva?" Karik looked around. "Where is it?"
"Under the bark!"
"How can you see it there?"
"I haven't seen it but I am prepared to bet anything you like that
under us, under a layer of bark, there is wriggling the larva of some sort
of 'Long-horned' beetle."
"This means that the 'horseman-fly' can see through bark?"
"No. It also is unable to see the larva but it can sense it. . . . We
don't understand this. On the whole we know very little about the character
and life of insects. Much concerning the lives of these amazing creations is
completely unknown to us. We do not really know, for instance, what the
insects need their feelers for," their guide continued, and then he stood up
and wound the end of the rope around his hand. "Now get up, my dears! We
must get on our way."
Thus, once again they started the dangerous and exhausting climb down
the bark cliff. From time to time the Professor and the children, having
found a suitable place for a rest, lay silently against the red cliff.
Rubbing their stiffening arms and legs, they looked to see if the rope was
damaged or the knots frayed, then they got up again and once again started
on their way, jumping like goats from rock to rock.
At one of their halts the travellers stayed a fairly long time. It was
quite near the ground. The Professor and the children, after a short rest,
were preparing to climb down again when suddenly there was a sound of wings
above their heads. Their guide looked upwards and turned pale. Quickly
seizing the children by the arms he plunged with them into a narrow cleft.
"Sit quite quiet," he whispered.
A striped creature with a long narrow waist was flying past. Its
protruding body was covered with yellow and black stripes like a tiger's
skin. Cutting through the air with its transparent wings, the creature
swooped, pressing something to its belly, something wriggling, very like a
snake.
"Eumenina," whispered the Professor. "The 'Pottery' wasp."
The wasp flew up to the basket from which the Professor and the
children had just escaped, threw its prey into it and climbed into the
basket itself.
"Is that what carried us?" Valya asked.
"That's it," their guide nodded. "I expect, my dears, that the Pottery
wasp took us for caterpillars. But watch what it is doing."
The wasp crawled out of the basket, swooped rapidly down to the ground
and immediately flew up again. Fanning the travellers with a wind like a
whirlwind, it flew past them and having described a circle landed on the
basket. Restlessly crawling around the opening it picked at it deftly with
its feet and energetically tapped the basket with its head. Then the wasp
flew away.
The travellers could see that the entrance to the basket was now
completely covered up with something grey in colour.
In the centre of this, like a cork, a sharp stone was protruding.
"You see," said the Professor, "how the wasp seals up its basket. Well,
my dears, if we had not got out of it in time, we should have perished of
hunger."
"But surely it is possible to break the wall down?"
"No! The wasp makes such a strong cement out of dust and its own saliva
that even big people can hardly break it."
"All the same, I don't understand it," said Karik. "You see, it caught
us, then it shoved us in its basket . . . but what for? Why didn't it eat us
at once?"
"For the very reason that it did not capture us to eat us," replied the
Professor. "The Eumenina wasp feeds on the juice of flowers, but catches
caterpillars for its offspring, its future children. In that connection,
notice that it does not kill its prey. The jab of its sting only paralyses
the caterpillars, preserves them . . . makes a living 'ham' of the
caterpillars."
"Why then didn't the wasp paralyse us?" asked Valya.
"I don't know," their guide shrugged his shoulders. "I don't understand
it at all. It may have been that its sting could not penetrate the spider's
webbing of our jackets properly, or maybe its poison doesn't affect us. I do
not know. Yes, the whole business is very amazing. . . . I do not know why
it could confuse us with caterpillars . . . usually wasps do not make any
such mistakes. This is a complete mystery from a scientific point of view."
"But who makes the basket for it?" demanded Valya.
"The wasp makes it itself," replied the Professor, "out of dust and its
own saliva. . . . Behind these protective walls the larva can grow up
without the danger that something will gobble it up or squash it. There is
food already prepared enough and plenty. When the larva comes out of the egg
it drops down a little spiderlike thread and falls on to the caterpillars
and begins to eat them. And what a feed! For weeks it gnaws away at its
victim but to the very last day the caterpillar remains alive and its flesh
remains fresh. To begin with, the larva feeds only on the blood of the
caterpillar, then it eats the fat and then the muscles. The caterpillar
remains alive without blood, fat or muscles and still provides fresh meat
for the larva. In the end, the larva eats it all up, becomes a cocoon and
after a short time the cocoon bursts and out flies a male or female Eumenina
wasp. A male wasp should fly out of ours, but now. . . ."
"You don't know it is definitely a male?"
"I do know!" asserted their guide. "The wasp caught us three and then
brought one more victim - the caterpillar. Four caterpillars - that is the
supply of food for a future male. For an egg from which a female will come
out the wasp leaves an even ten caterpillars. Then this is quite to be
understood. The future female Pottery wasp is bigger than the male and
therefore it is necessary to leave more food for it."
"Does this mean that wasps can,-count up to ten?" asked Valya.
"I do not know whether they can actually count up to two," replied the
Professor, smiling. "You will remember that the wasp crawled into the basket
after we had got out of it. That's true, isn't it?"
"Certainly it climbed in."
"But it climbed in to lay the egg. It must therefore have seen that
instead of four caterpillars in the basket there was only one. But all the
same it never entered its head to fetch another three caterpillars, but it
just sealed the basket as it was and now, of course, the larva will perish."
The Professor went out of the cleft, looked to right and to left, and
said:
"It has flown away. We can now proceed in peace." The ground was not
far off and the travellers soon got safely down.
To the left, a grass forest appeared blue in the distance. Above the
forest, like a straw, the pole landmark was sticking out with a tiny red
flag, ever so far off. The travellers started on their way. The whole day
they travelled over sand, through forest and over mountains. They made their
way across ravines, they forded rivers.
Towards evening, tired and hungry, they stopped at the bank of a
rushing river. To get across the river was beyond the present strength of
the children.
Valya stretched herself on the bank and said:
"I can't go any farther."
The dusk was falling. The sky had grown dark. Purple clouds were heaped
up over the forest. Above, over their heads, a flock of birds stretched out
in noisy flight.
Their guide said, "Well, there is nothing for it but to spend the night
here."
"On the bank?"
"We'll try and find a crevice or some sort of den."
After a short search, Karik came upon an egg as big as a haystack and
brown. At the side in the solid wall of the giant egg a round hole showed
darkly.
Karik started to look inside and shouted:
"Do come here! I think I have found some sort of house."
The Professor went up to the egg, inspected it from all sides and
having thought a bit, said:
It was indeed difficult to climb.
The Professor stumbled at practically every step. The mountainside slid
away under his feet, becoming a rumbling stream of hot rocks. To scramble in
the tracks of their guide was a dangerous matter. Karik and Valya made an
effort, overtook him and kept by his side.
The climb became steeper and steeper.
The young alpinists were forced to crawl on all fours, clinging to
jutting-out rocks with their hands.
"Just like the ascent of Mount Everest!" puffed the Professor.
Neither Karik nor Valya had ever heard of Everest, but they could both
at once guess that Everest was just such a mountain as the one which they
were now climbing.
At last here was the top. Dripping with the exertion their guide and
the children came to the crest of the mountain.
The professor straightened himself up and put his hand up to shield his
eyes, turned his head and started to search the horizon.
"Now then! Now then!" he started saying. "We'll see! We'll look for our
landmark, then. . . ."
He did not finish his sentence. The ground beneath his feet started to
slide away. He sank in up to his waist. The children rushed to help him. But
the hill beneath them started to shake and suddenly open like a mouth.
The Professor, followed by the two children, hurtled down a narrow,
sloping chimney, stones and earth roared down after them.
Valya screamed. Karik fell on the Professor and they landed with a
fearful plunge in a wet, sticky floor.
The first to recover consciousness was the Professor. Grunting and
groaning he extricated himself from the thick clinging mud and wiping
himself, ruefully observed:
"A nasty jump without a parachute! Allow me to congratulate you on your
successful landing. Get up, my dears!"
He wiped his hands on his tights, looked anxiously at the children who
were still floundering in the mud, and asked:
"All right, I hope? How's Valya? You haven't hurt yourself, have you?"
"Nothing to speak of," replied Valya, getting up. "Only my elbow
appears to be grazed."
"What about you, Karik?"
"I have bruised my knee."
The children, rubbing their injured spots, gazed around in fear at the
dark walls of the narrow well.
"That's a mere nothing!" said their guide. "Why, I have lost the
knapsack with the food and the plate. That's much worse."
"Where are we?" inquired Valya.
"We'll soon see," muttered their guide, sticking his beard in the air.
High above their heads glimmered the distant sky. The pale light of day
fell on the higher slopes, but at the bottom of this deep, gloomy well it
was practically dark.
"I suppose," said Karik, "that we have fallen into the den of an
underground spider. They are terrible spiders. I have read about them."
"What?" Valya shuddered. "Spiders again? In the air, on the ground,
under the water and now under the ground - spiders?"
"Calm yourself," said the Professor, "the underground spiders about
which Karik is talking live in Italy and in the South of France. We haven't
got any here."
"Well, then, whose hole is it?"
The Professor did not answer. Pulling at his beard, he made his way
round the bottom of the well sounding the walls with his fist, then he said:
"Yes, yes. . . . That's what it is. Andrena !"
"What's an Andrena?" Valya started to whimper.
"Yes, yes. . . . It's just what I thought. Everything is all right, my
dears. Nothing dangerous. This time we have had a very fortunate fall, we
have fallen right into a confectioner's shop."
Valya's eyes became round with amazement.
"You mean to say we can find tarts and pies here?" she demanded.
"Yes!" smiled the Professor.
"But where are they? I can see nothing but mud."
"Patience is a virtue!"
The Professor sounded the wall with his fist. "Open Sesame!"
The wall resounded as if he had been hitting the bottom of an empty
barrel.
"It hasn't opened!" said Valya, licking her lips.
"You needn't be surprised!" smiled their guide. "It is only in fairy
stories that everything is accomplished by commands. We have to work a bit.
Dig in to the earth! Just here."
He went up to the wall and started to root away like a bear, tearing
out heavy sticky lumps of earth with his hands.
Karik and Valya hastened to help him. Karik was especially zealous.
Lumps of earth and stones fairly flew under his hands.
"Steady, steady!" shouted the Professor. "You'll bury us all like that.
Be more careful! Please don't hurry!"
Karik wanted to say something in reply, but at that moment the wall
shook, stones fell away at the feet of the travellers and all could see a
deep recess in the wall.
The air now smelt of fresh honey cakes.
"Whatever is it?" Valya licked her lips. "It smells like tea-time."
"It is the confectioner's shop itself!" replied the Professor, bending
forward. "But now stand to one side. There! Splendid!"
He rummaged in the recess with both hands and having planted his legs
widely apart tried to pull something out.
"Here we are! here we are!" he laughed, and straining himself handed
out a big grey ball covered in what appeared to be a yellow powder - with
fine sand.
"That's the lot!" he said, gently lowering the ball on to the ground.
With a sharp stone he cleared the sand off it and with some difficulty
tore something white off the top of it.
It was just like a goose's egg, only much larger.
"Oho!" said Karik. "Omelette again!"
"You don't make omelettes out of this egg," grinned the Professor. "You
do better this way," and he knocked off a bit of the ball with his hand and
it looked like a huge loaf of milk bread.
"Flower tart!" he announced. He wiped his hands on his tights, broke
off a bit of the loaf and put it in his mouth. The Professor's eyebrows shot
upwards. A contented smile appeared on his face.
"Not bad," he said, munching away, "not at all bad! Help yourselves, my
dears."
The scented, sticky dough smelt of honey and flowers. It simply melted
in the mouth.
"That is delicious," said Valya. "Better than cream buns."
"You are simply famished," answered their guide, "and not to be
wondered at. We had breakfast in the middle of the night almost, and now it
is nearly mid-day."
"No, no, it's true this is delicious!" insisted Valya.
"But what is it?" asked Karik, tucking in both cheeks full of the
scented dough.
"Flower pollen and honey!" replied the Professor.
"Why is it at the bottom of the well?"
The Professor picked up a white egg with a tough skin from the ground
and he put it on the palm of his hand.
"That is why," he answered. "The tart was prepared for the larva which
will come out of the egg, and both tart and egg were put here by the
underground bee - the Andrena."
"If it is an underground bee," said Valya. "We must get out of here
quickly."
The Professor smiled.
"Andrena is called an underground bee only because it builds its nest
under ground, but the Andrena itself lives there up above us; where the
dragonflies, flies and gnats live. Actually, you may often find its nest on
the surface of the earth: in Rotton stumps, in the trunks of fallen trees
but most often in the earth. That is why the scientists call it the
underground bee."
The Professor then told Karik and Valya how the larvae come out of the
eggs, how they feed on the dainty cake which had been prepared for them and
how finally they are transformed into winged Andrena bees.
"There are always several such cakes in each nest of an Andrena bee,"
said their guide. "If you wish I'll get you another one."
The children started to laugh.
"What do you think we are - elephants?" said Karik. "We could never eat
it. It would be better to drag ourselves out of this before the Andrevna bee
returns."
"In the first place it is an Andrena not an Andrevna," the Professor
corrected Karik, "and in the second place I have already said that after
this bee has dug out its nest, laid its eggs in it and prepared the food for
its young it never looks at it again. There is nothing more for it to do
here. . . . Yes, and there is nothing more to keep us here. We have had a
good feed, so let's say good-bye to this place."
Their guide went over to the sloping wall and catching hold of some
roots with his hands started to climb up. The children quickly clambered
after him like monkeys.
Their movement upwards had soon to be made one step at a time, and they
slowly crept up the side of the well towards the big round opening through
which the blue sky was peeping. Every now and then they stopped to get their
breath and then climbed on upwards. The rocks, dislodged by their feet, fell
with a rumble to the very bottom of the Andrena nest.
The Professor was the first to reach the edge of the well. Here it was
light and warm.
"Oof!" he sighed heavily. "My word! That was a climb. . . . What's up
with you, children? I am an old man and I got up before you."
He bent over the dark well and stretched his arm down.
"Let me help you!"
But Karik did not succeed in catching hold of his hand. The Professor
suddenly appeared to bounce up like a rubber ball. High above the well they
saw his heels and - he vanished.
Karik clung to the side of the well in terror.
"Sh-sh-sh!"
"What is it?" asked Valya.
"A bird has pecked him off!" whispered Karik. "A huge, huge bird with
enormous wings!"
Valya shuddered.
"You saw it?"
"Yes, I saw the wings - enormous. Like sails!"
The children looked at each other. Tears started to Valya's eyes.
Karik said:
"All the same he'll get away!"
Valya started to cry quietly.
"Now, don't cry, please! He'll get away!" Karik comforted his sister,
and looking cautiously out of the well, shouted loudly:
"Professor! Professor!"
There was no answer.
Valya wiped away the tears with her fist and said resolutely:
"We must climb out!"
"We must!" agreed Karik. And the children helping each other climbed
out of the well.
They stood once more on the summit of the "Golden View" peak. Not far
from them strewn on the ground they saw the Professor's sack, the remains of
the omelette and the dish. Before them there stretched a yellow wilderness
of hills. Behind them like a green sea there rustled the grass jungle
through which they had made their way that morning. To the right and left of
them was the blue of lakes showing through tall reed forests which grew
along their shores.
But the Professor was nowhere to be seen.
"Professor Enot - off! Where are you?" screamed Valya.
She listened.
Not a sound.
"Profess - or!"
The only answer was the wind's melancholy sigh on the top of the peak
and a discordant echo which died away in the hills.
"Let's shout together!" Karik suggested.
The children held hands.
"Prof - ess - or!" they bawled as one.
" - ess - or!" answered the echo and was silent.
Tears started to stream from Valya's eyes. She covered her face with
her hands and sobbed aloud. At that moment a whirlwind howled around her.
She was thrown aside somewhere and fell on sharp rocks.
When she at last managed to get to her feet and look around there was
no Karik! - but only a moment ago he had been standing here, at this round
rock.
"Karik!" yelled Valya, cold with fear. "Karik where are you? Why are
you frightening me?" High - high above the clouds someone seemed to cry in a
feeble voice, "Valya!"
In the clutches of a winged monster - The travellers meet again - The
Mont Blanc tree - About living "hams" - Karik and Valya are wafted away
VALYA DASHED ABOUT THE SLOPES OF THE PEAK IN PANIC. SHE ran down and
then ran up to the top and looked into the dark well.
"Karik!" she screamed. "Professor!"
There was no answer.
"Oh, dear! Wherever can they be?" she muttered.
The poor girl was quite exhausted. She sat down on the hot rocks and
pressing her hands to her face started to cry.
Through tears, as if she was looking through a window wet with rain,
she saw now and then huge winged creatures flying. They swooped right past
her. Their wings caused quite a whirlwind. She crouched down and ducked her
head, watching these monsters in terror. They flew now upwards and now with
a swish landed on the ground. They folded up their transparent, shining
wings, and having uncurled their striped bodies they clambered in a clumsy
fashion over the rocks; then having got hold of something on the ground once
again shot up into the sky.
One of these creatures crawled right up to Valya. It actually hit her
with its wing. The powerful blow sent Valya sprawling on the ground. The
striped monster quickly turned towards her and started to gaze at her with
shining, protruding eyes.
Valya felt she was going to faint.
The creature leisurely started to move away. But the girl stirred ever
so slightly and in an instant the monster leaped towards her and stopped,
swaying its feelers above her head. Valya was cold with fear. Holding her
breath she watched the long feelers with eyes wide with terror. She could
not see the rest of the monster, but felt that it must be right beside her.
A silence ensued broken only by Valya's own breathing. Then she heard
the monster moving away, dragging itself noisily over the ground, getting
further and further away every minute.
She jumped up. She was shaking all over. Her body was covered with a
cold perspiration. With her arms waving she dashed with a yell down the hill
towards the foot. But suddenly strong, hairy paws wound around her body. A
sharp point pierced her spiderweb jacket and tore the skin of her back. It
hurt terribly, but Valya did not succeed in crying out. Above her head, huge
wings drummed and shook, and the next instant Valya found herself in the
air.
Strong arms clutched her to a hairy breast which now contracted, now
expanded like the bellows of a concertina. Valya tried to turn her head and
see what sort of monster it was that held her in its grip, but as soon as
she stirred the arms squeezed her like iron pincers.
She groaned in pain.
"Help!" cried Valya.
The whistle of the wind drowned her voice. She screamed until she was
hoarse, but she could hardly hear her own voice.
Below her, green fields and woods swayed, rivers and lakes glittered
and endless yellow sand stretched out in ribbons. All the time, Valya flew
further and further from the well where she felt she had left the Professor
and Karik.
Where was the fearsome winged beast carrying her to now?
What would she do alone in the nightmare grassy jungle? How would she
find her way home, and indeed would she ever get back to that big,
comfortable world?
Valya wriggled, turned her head and ferociously fastened her teeth in
the strong, rigid arm. The arm was hard and smooth like polished wood.
Valya's teeth just slipped along it.
At that instant, the clutching pincers squeezed the poor girl even
tighter. It was quite useless to fight the monster. It could squash her like
a fly.
"I'll die," sobbed Valya. "I'll die and no one will even know that I am
dead."
She started to feel ever so sorry for herself and sobbed aloud.
Then her tears dried up. Her eyes became dry as if every tear had been
poured out, to the last one. Then she started to kick and scream:
"Let go! What's the matter? Did I touch you? Let go! Go away ! Let me
loose!"
But the winged monster just flew on, whirring its hard, resonant wings
which made a noise like a sawmill at work.
At last, in a gliding flight it swooped down, started to flutter its
wings in the air and suddenly the arms holding Valya were stretched out in
front and pushed her, like a dish into the oven, into some sort of dark
hole.
Valya hit her head against something hard and slid precipitously
downwards as if she was on an ice mountain.
"Falling!" The terror of it gripped Valya's brain.
She shut her eyes. Then suddenly felt herself caught by other claws.
"Ooh!" Valya screamed, hitting out with her arms and legs.
She opened her eyes in alarm and saw that the claws which held her were
really not claws at all but the hands of . . . the old Professor !
"Professor! Is it really you?" she shouted.
"It is I, little Valya, it is I!" replied the Professor affectionately,
setting her down on the sloping floor.
"And I'm here too!" Valya heard Karik's voice.
"But wherever are we all?" she asked.
"All right, all right! We'll soon find out," said their guide. "The
main thing is that we are all together."
Valya started to look round wildly. In the half-darkness she could see
smooth walls: they sloped steeply upwards. There was no roof. Above, through
a broad circular opening, the rays of the sun were striking in. In the beams
of light dust was floating.
The prison in which Valya, Karik and the Professor now found themselves
was like a deep basket. But this basket was not standing upright but was
sloping as if it had got caught on something when falling and now hung at an
angle in mid-air.
Valya looked at the dark walls, at Karik and at the Professor.
How had the Professor and Karik both got here? Who had imprisoned them
in this giant basket? Was it really the same monster which had carried her,
Valya, there?
She started to question them but the Professor interrupted her.
"Later, later," he said, frowning. "There is no time for gossip now. If
we don't climb out of this, this very instant, we may lose our lives. . . .
Come on, children, let's try."
Their guide got down on to all-fours and slowly made his way up the
smooth, sloping wall. The children came after him.
The climb was difficult.
Arms and legs slipped as if on ice. The Professor had nearly reached
the edge of the basket when suddenly his knees wobbled, his hands slipped
and he rolled back to the bottom with a rumble, carrying the children with
him.
"No luck!" he said, getting up on to his feet. "We must try again."
The travellers once again edged their way up the smooth wall. Once
again they rolled all the way down again.
"We can't climb out of this," groaned Valya.
"Silence!" ordered the Professor, angrily.
He measured with his eyes the distance from the edge of the basket to
the floor, surveyed Karik from head to foot, and said resolutely:
"Come on now! Climb on to my shoulders!"
Karik jumped up, like a bouncing ball, caught hold of the Professor's
neck and hoisted himself on to his shoulders.
"Try and reach the top!" commanded their guide.
Karik cautiously started to straighten himself out. With his hands
against the wall he straightened his bent knees and finally stood erect at
his full height.
"Now climb on to the palms of my hands!" ordered their guide, putting
his two hands up.
Karik placed first one foot and then the other on the palms of the
Professor's hands.
"You won't fall?" asked the Professor. "I won't fall!"
The Professor made a great effort and, groaning, managed to lift Karik
upwards like a heavy beam.
"Got it!" shouted Karik, grabbing the uneven edge of the basket.
"Splendid! Pull yourself higher, still higher !"
Karik started to stretch out his whole body with his toes firmly
planted in the Professor's hands.
"Now, now, now!" encouraged their guide.
At last, Karik gave a jump and skilfully got astride of the edge of the
basket.
"That's fine !" said the Professor. "Now get hold of Valya!"
He caught up Valya and handed her up to Karik. Then he quickly started
to unwind the spider's cord in which he was clothed. Having half stripped
himself, he made a loop in the end of the cord.
"Catch!" he shouted, throwing the loop up at the children.
Karik caught the cord and put it over a projecting part of the basket.
"Ready!" he announced cheerfully.
The Professor pulled on the cord, testing to see whether it was firmly
secured, and then grasping it with both hands slowly hoisted himself up,
moving in short bursts. Puffing and blowing, he at length made his
appearance on the edge of the basket.
The travellers looked below.
The basket on which they found themselves was fastened to a huge beam
covered with red knobs. From this log, other smaller beams stretched out in
all directions, and from these there stuck out like green feathers rows of
huge lances.
Through the chinks between the beams they could see far, far below the
ground.
"Wherever have we got to?" asked Valya, looking around herself in giddy
terror.
The Professor grimaced.
"We are on a very ordinary pine tree branch."
"On a branch?" persisted Valya, shaking her head in an unbelieving way.
"Yes, on the branch of a pine tree which you, I am sure, have seen
heaps of times in your life. The branch is just as usual but you yourself
have got a lot smaller. That is why you are so puzzled."
"Well, all right! If it's a branch, it's a branch, but however do we
get down to the ground?" interrupted Karik. "Surely without a parachute we
can do nothing."
"We'll manage and without a parachute," their guide assured them. He
patted his "tights" and cheerfully winked at the children. "You are still
laughing at my rig-out. No, my dears! For poor travellers like us, every
piece of cord is a treasure."
And their guide thereupon started to unwind more of the silvery cord in
which he was wrapped.
"Should we also unroll ours?" demanded Valya.
"Of course! My suit will not be enough."
Karik and Valya set to work. They unwrapped the rings of their silver
jackets and carefully coiled each cord down beside themselves.
"Hurry! hurry up, my dears!" the Professor urged them on. "The awful
creature that brought us here will be back very soon and we shall be done."
"We are all ready now!" shouted Valya.
"Splendid! Try and twist up a thick rope."
"How do you do that?"
"Very simply. Like this!" And their guide showed them what was
necessary to twist the cords together.
Helping each other, the travellers hastily twisted the cords together
and out of the cords produced a thick rope.
At last all was ready for the descent.
The Professor coiled the rope down in a heap and wound one end round a
sharp projection from the basket and then threw the rest of the coil off the
basket with a kick of his foot.
The heavy coil slipped between the branches and plunged downwards,
unwinding itself in flight into a long, knotted rope.
The end of the rope hung just above the lower branches of the pine
tree.
"First Valya must go!" ordered the Professor.
"Why me?"
"There is no time for argument!" The Professor was stern.
"Well, all right, all right!" said Valya hastily. "I'll go down first,
but please don't be angry!"
She bravely clutched the rope and quickly slid down.
"Safe journey!" The Professor waved his hand. "When you get down, hold
the end of the rope!"
The Professor and Karik leant over and silently watched how their small
comrade was letting herself down.
"Don't be a coward!" shouted Karik.
"I wasn't even thinking!" came back a faint reply from Valya.
She was calmly slipping down the rope from knot to knot and had already
reached the middle of it. Then suddenly a gust of wind came.
Valya started to swing like a pendulum. She clung convulsively to a
knot in the rope and turned her head beseechingly upwards to the Professor.
"Let yourself down!" the Professor and Karik shouted together.
The wind set the rope swinging even more. Valya was describing wide
circles above . . . empty space.
"Let yourself down!"
Valya closed her eyes tightly and once again started to slide down the
rope from knot to knot. At last her foot touched something firm. This was
the lower branch of the pine tree, which was yet broader and considerably
thicker than the upper branches. Valya found she could walk about as freely
on its surface as people strolling along a main street pavement.
"I'm down!" shouted Valya, looking upwards.
High above her head hung the clumsy basket. On its edge sat the
Professor and Karik, and they were shouting something. Valya strained her
ears.
"Hold the rope!" Karik was shouting from above. Valya got hold of the
end of the rope. The rope shook and then became taut. Karik and after him
the Professor now let themselves rapidly down it and were soon standing
alongside her.
"It is not so far from here to the ground now!" said their guide,
peering downwards. "Let's have a look for our landmark and see in which
direction it lies."
He looked to right and to left, and then shouted:
"There it is!"
"Where? Where?" demanded the children, turning their heads here and
there.
Through the foliage of pine needles the travellers were able to see on
the far horizon the pole with the red flag. But how far away it now seemed.
It looked quite tiny - like a flag on a toy steamer.
Valya, screwing up her eyes, looked at the flag, at Karik, at the
Professor, and then sighed heavily.
"We'll never get to it now!" she said. "We'll not reach it in a year!
We are so small and it is so far away."
"Hm! well!" grunted the Professor. "It may take us two or three months'
walking."
"Three months? But winter will have set in by that time . . . we'll
have to build a house," said Valya.
"Hm . . . possibly . . . . But what are we waiting here for? Let's go
along the branch to the trunk of the tree."
Their guide looked around him once more and then moved forward
confidently. The children followed behind him. They clambered over the dark
red hillocks of the pine bark and jumped across narrow deep clefts. In some
places these clefts had a thick growth of some light grey bushes on them.
"Let's have a rest, my dears," said the Professor, sitting down. "Then
we will go down the trunk like ants do."
The children looked down and stepped back involuntarily.
"That's terrible!" gasped Valya.
"All the same, we must get down," said their guide.
Valya clung to the red bark and shook her head.
"Don't worry, don't worry!" the Professor comforted her. "In the
Caucasus and on the Pamir, our alpinists get themselves up even steeper
mountains and naturally get themselves down again. But out there it is not
so easy either. Every so often they have to cross ice fields and glaciers.
The wind makes their eyes cry and the cold freezes the tears on their
cheeks. Br-r-r-r. Even to think of it is terrible. Well, on our 'Mont Blanc'
tree it is not nearly so dangerous to climb down."
"Dear, dear! I suppose we will get down somehow," sighed Valya sadly.
"Of course we'll get down," asserted Karik. "In any case there is no
other way, we must climb down the trunk."
The Professor unwound the remains of his "tights," plaited a
trustworthy rope from it and handed the end of it to Valya.
"You must go first again," he announced. "Tie the rope around your
waist and hold on to it tightly. Karik will come next and I'll climb down
last."
Their guide made a loop in the rope and threw it over Karik's
shoulders.
"Get your arms through. That's right!" Karik raised his arms, slipped
the loop down to his waist and pulled it tighter. "Well! that is all ready,"
said the Professor.
The travellers moved off down the trunk. First they let Valya down with
the rope. She sought about below with her feet and feeling a projecting
piece of bark, shouted:
"I'm standing! Let out some more rope!"
The rope slackened. Behind Valya came down Karik. The Professor waited
at the top with his legs wide apart, holding the rope with both hands. He
was following every movement of the children. As soon as Valya and Karik had
got a good hold in the new place, their guide threw them the rope and,
clinging to the projecting bark, let himself down cautiously.
In this manner they accomplished nearly half their dangerous journey.
The ground came closer and closer with every step. They could already
see the angular stems of the grass trees.
"All the same, it is a long way off still!" said their guide. "We shall
not reach the ground for at least another three hours."
All three of them were very tired.
Their shoulders and knees were covered with scratches, bruises, and
weals. Their hands shook so that they could hardly let themselves down. It
was time to rest.
On one of the broader standing places, the Professor and the children
stopped.
"Halt!" the Professor ordered, and fell wearily to the rough floor.
The children collapsed beside him. He lay breathing heavily and wiping
the perspiration from his face. Karik and Valya sat up with their legs
dangling over the precipice. All then was silent.
Suddenly Valya jumped up and waved her arms. "Eh! Look! What's that?"
"What? What do you want?" Their guide raised himself up to look.
And there he saw a huge head covered with a regular forest of bristles.
Short, strong feet gripped the edge of their resting place. Then the
creature hauled itself up on to the level and, bending its long, hairy body,
crawled along the bark using what appeared to be countless feet. Behind it
came another creature just as hairy, and just as long, and then another and
another.
"Don't be frightened!" the Professor reassured them, getting up on to a
projecting piece of bark. "These are Only caterpillars of the pine moth -
silkworms. They won't touch us."
"Oh, I'm frightened of them all the same," whispered Valya.
"Why are you such a coward?" said Karik. "If you are told they won't
touch you, it means they won't touch you. . . . What do they feed on?" he
asked the Professor.
"Green leaves and soft young pine shoots," answered their guide.
"There, you see! These are vegetarian-caterpillars. You can even stroke
them with your hand."
But Valya, in spite of this, only moved farther and farther away. The
Professor smiling, went up to her, patted her on the shoulder and said:
"Don't be frightened! don't be frightened, little one! They will all
crawl on in a minute. We are quite useless to them. They are hunting for the
young pine shoots. It is only some sort of greenery that'll do for these
hairy vegetarians. I know them well! I wrote a book about them once."
"A book about caterpillars?" marvelled Valya.
"What is there surprising about that?" The Professor shrugged his
shoulders. "These caterpillars actually are like locusts of the forest. They
assemble in uncountable swarms and devour the green shoots of the trees in
the same way as locusts eat up the crops. I once saw a forest which had been
visited by a swarm of pine moth caterpillars like this. It was completely
stripped by the greedy things. I rode for miles and miles but there wasn't a
green shoot to be seen, just bare twigs everywhere."
At that moment the Professor looked upwards and smiled as if he had
seen one of his best friends. "Why, there is a Microgasta nemorum!" he
announced. "Welcome! welcome!"
"Where is it? What is it you have seen?"
"You don't mean to say you can't see it?"
The children started to scratch their heads. Like a squadron of gliders
right above the silkworms, huge creatures with thin bodies and long
transparent wings were noiselessly swooping.
"Midges!" shouted Valya.
''''Microgasta nemorum!'' announced the Professor. '' Ichneumon flies
or - as we Russians commonly call them - Horsemen-flies!
The friends of forest and field. Watch, children, what'll happen now!
There are many scientists who would envy us now. Watch! Got it!" He started
counting. "That's number one' Got it! Another! Excellent! Got it! That's the
third! Brave boys! Watch! watch!"
The winged 'horsemen-flies' swooped down on the caterpillars like
vultures on their prey and landed on their backs.
"They are riding on them, they are riding on them," exclaimed Valya.
"They are proper horsemen!"
It was like one of those comic turns at a circus where dogs ride on the
backs of horses or mice on the backs of cats. The children clapped their
hands. But, suddenly, Valya dropped her hands, looked towards the Professor
and asked with alarm:
"These . . . micro . . . whatever are they doing?"
She had seen that the 'horsemen-flies' lift their bodies up and stick
the sharp sword they carried in their tails hard into the backs of the
caterpillars. Having jabbed the caterpillars, they at once flew upwards.
"They are fighting," Valya announced, "fighting and not riding!"
"They are neither fighting nor riding," replied their guide. "The
Ichneumon flies pierce the skin of the caterpillars with their sharp
egg-layer and lay their eggs. After some time, their larvas come out of the
eggs and proceed to devour the caterpillars. They eat the caterpillars
before they change into butterflies. If it was not for the 'horsemen-flies'
the pine moth caterpillar would eat the whole forest, but the microgasta
does not allow it to multiply. That is why we can consider this fly our very
best forest guard."
"But isn't it possible to rear these microjesters artificially?"
demanded Karik.
"Microgastae? . . . it is possible," said the Professor.
"Then why are they not reared?"
"It has been tried but the attempts have not always been successful,"
the Professor replied. "Unfortunately, another 'horseman-fly' lays its eggs
in the larvae of these 'horsemen-flies'. Naturally they are very tiny, but
these eggs kill the microgasta."
"There are parasites for you! But isn't it possible to destroy these
small fry?"
"Yes, it's possible. These tiny 'horsemen-flies' have in turn their
enemies, also 'horsemen-flies'. These are quite teeny."
"Well! Those are the ones to rear," said Karik.
"Yes, indeed, that is, of course, the intelligent thing," agreed the
Professor, "but there are even 'horsemen-flies' that lay their eggs in the
larvae of these useful teenies."
Karik waved his hands in disgust. "Oh, this is just like the fable
about the white ox. There is a beginning but there is simply no end."
"Exactly like it, exactly like it!" replied their guide. "There is a
time when you think you have at last found the end and know absolutely
everything about one or the other creature, but you have only to poke a
little deeper and a little more earnestly into the essential points when you
become convinced that it is not the end you have in your hands but only the
beginning of a new and fascinating chapter of investigation."
The Professor forgot that he was standing on a small piece of bark. He
jumped about and started to lecture on how scientists were like Christopher
Columbus travelling every day in unknown lands and how they were always
discovering new and yet newer continents.
Meanwhile, the pine moth caterpillars were crawling up the bark just as
if it was a broad country lane, down which to meet them there were now
coming some sort of beetle. Above the pine tree lane there fluttered winged
creatures. The Professor, without the slightest ceremony, bumped into
caterpillars who were making their way laboriously upwards. He also nearly
knocked a large black beetle off its legs, but he simply went on talking,
talking, talking. . . .
How long their learned guide would have stood on the piece of bark as
if it was a classroom platform no one could say. It is quite possible he
would have continued his lecture until nightfall.
But it was suddenly interrupted by some sort of winged beast.
The creature dropped right down beside the Professor like a stone and
knocked him down with its wing. Then having raised its body, which had a
long sharp sword at the end of it, the beast with a short powerful jab drove
it into the bark just by the Professor's head. The sword buried itself deep
in the bark.
The children had not had time to cry out before the creature had
withdrawn its sword and had disappeared in the same lightning-like manner as
it had arrived.
Karik and Valya clung to the red crag-like bark. They were pale with
fright, and were breathing heavily.
"Well, that's that!" The Professor sat up. "I am afraid I was talking
rather a lot. And we must get ourselves down to the ground before night
comes." He looked at Karik, at Valya, and said: "It's nothing dangerous! It
was a very ordinary Thalessa or, in simple language, another
'horseman-fly'."
"Did it lay its eggs in the bark?"
"Why in the bark?" replied the Professor. "It laid its eggs in the
larva of one of the enemies of the pine tree."
"In the larva?" Karik looked around. "Where is it?"
"Under the bark!"
"How can you see it there?"
"I haven't seen it but I am prepared to bet anything you like that
under us, under a layer of bark, there is wriggling the larva of some sort
of 'Long-horned' beetle."
"This means that the 'horseman-fly' can see through bark?"
"No. It also is unable to see the larva but it can sense it. . . . We
don't understand this. On the whole we know very little about the character
and life of insects. Much concerning the lives of these amazing creations is
completely unknown to us. We do not really know, for instance, what the
insects need their feelers for," their guide continued, and then he stood up
and wound the end of the rope around his hand. "Now get up, my dears! We
must get on our way."
Thus, once again they started the dangerous and exhausting climb down
the bark cliff. From time to time the Professor and the children, having
found a suitable place for a rest, lay silently against the red cliff.
Rubbing their stiffening arms and legs, they looked to see if the rope was
damaged or the knots frayed, then they got up again and once again started
on their way, jumping like goats from rock to rock.
At one of their halts the travellers stayed a fairly long time. It was
quite near the ground. The Professor and the children, after a short rest,
were preparing to climb down again when suddenly there was a sound of wings
above their heads. Their guide looked upwards and turned pale. Quickly
seizing the children by the arms he plunged with them into a narrow cleft.
"Sit quite quiet," he whispered.
A striped creature with a long narrow waist was flying past. Its
protruding body was covered with yellow and black stripes like a tiger's
skin. Cutting through the air with its transparent wings, the creature
swooped, pressing something to its belly, something wriggling, very like a
snake.
"Eumenina," whispered the Professor. "The 'Pottery' wasp."
The wasp flew up to the basket from which the Professor and the
children had just escaped, threw its prey into it and climbed into the
basket itself.
"Is that what carried us?" Valya asked.
"That's it," their guide nodded. "I expect, my dears, that the Pottery
wasp took us for caterpillars. But watch what it is doing."
The wasp crawled out of the basket, swooped rapidly down to the ground
and immediately flew up again. Fanning the travellers with a wind like a
whirlwind, it flew past them and having described a circle landed on the
basket. Restlessly crawling around the opening it picked at it deftly with
its feet and energetically tapped the basket with its head. Then the wasp
flew away.
The travellers could see that the entrance to the basket was now
completely covered up with something grey in colour.
In the centre of this, like a cork, a sharp stone was protruding.
"You see," said the Professor, "how the wasp seals up its basket. Well,
my dears, if we had not got out of it in time, we should have perished of
hunger."
"But surely it is possible to break the wall down?"
"No! The wasp makes such a strong cement out of dust and its own saliva
that even big people can hardly break it."
"All the same, I don't understand it," said Karik. "You see, it caught
us, then it shoved us in its basket . . . but what for? Why didn't it eat us
at once?"
"For the very reason that it did not capture us to eat us," replied the
Professor. "The Eumenina wasp feeds on the juice of flowers, but catches
caterpillars for its offspring, its future children. In that connection,
notice that it does not kill its prey. The jab of its sting only paralyses
the caterpillars, preserves them . . . makes a living 'ham' of the
caterpillars."
"Why then didn't the wasp paralyse us?" asked Valya.
"I don't know," their guide shrugged his shoulders. "I don't understand
it at all. It may have been that its sting could not penetrate the spider's
webbing of our jackets properly, or maybe its poison doesn't affect us. I do
not know. Yes, the whole business is very amazing. . . . I do not know why
it could confuse us with caterpillars . . . usually wasps do not make any
such mistakes. This is a complete mystery from a scientific point of view."
"But who makes the basket for it?" demanded Valya.
"The wasp makes it itself," replied the Professor, "out of dust and its
own saliva. . . . Behind these protective walls the larva can grow up
without the danger that something will gobble it up or squash it. There is
food already prepared enough and plenty. When the larva comes out of the egg
it drops down a little spiderlike thread and falls on to the caterpillars
and begins to eat them. And what a feed! For weeks it gnaws away at its
victim but to the very last day the caterpillar remains alive and its flesh
remains fresh. To begin with, the larva feeds only on the blood of the
caterpillar, then it eats the fat and then the muscles. The caterpillar
remains alive without blood, fat or muscles and still provides fresh meat
for the larva. In the end, the larva eats it all up, becomes a cocoon and
after a short time the cocoon bursts and out flies a male or female Eumenina
wasp. A male wasp should fly out of ours, but now. . . ."
"You don't know it is definitely a male?"
"I do know!" asserted their guide. "The wasp caught us three and then
brought one more victim - the caterpillar. Four caterpillars - that is the
supply of food for a future male. For an egg from which a female will come
out the wasp leaves an even ten caterpillars. Then this is quite to be
understood. The future female Pottery wasp is bigger than the male and
therefore it is necessary to leave more food for it."
"Does this mean that wasps can,-count up to ten?" asked Valya.
"I do not know whether they can actually count up to two," replied the
Professor, smiling. "You will remember that the wasp crawled into the basket
after we had got out of it. That's true, isn't it?"
"Certainly it climbed in."
"But it climbed in to lay the egg. It must therefore have seen that
instead of four caterpillars in the basket there was only one. But all the
same it never entered its head to fetch another three caterpillars, but it
just sealed the basket as it was and now, of course, the larva will perish."
The Professor went out of the cleft, looked to right and to left, and
said:
"It has flown away. We can now proceed in peace." The ground was not
far off and the travellers soon got safely down.
To the left, a grass forest appeared blue in the distance. Above the
forest, like a straw, the pole landmark was sticking out with a tiny red
flag, ever so far off. The travellers started on their way. The whole day
they travelled over sand, through forest and over mountains. They made their
way across ravines, they forded rivers.
Towards evening, tired and hungry, they stopped at the bank of a
rushing river. To get across the river was beyond the present strength of
the children.
Valya stretched herself on the bank and said:
"I can't go any farther."
The dusk was falling. The sky had grown dark. Purple clouds were heaped
up over the forest. Above, over their heads, a flock of birds stretched out
in noisy flight.
Their guide said, "Well, there is nothing for it but to spend the night
here."
"On the bank?"
"We'll try and find a crevice or some sort of den."
After a short search, Karik came upon an egg as big as a haystack and
brown. At the side in the solid wall of the giant egg a round hole showed
darkly.
Karik started to look inside and shouted:
"Do come here! I think I have found some sort of house."
The Professor went up to the egg, inspected it from all sides and
having thought a bit, said: