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tugged and now pushed at something, like the piston of an engine.
Karik remembered mother. This was just like the way she worked the
dough.
"Eh, hey," shouted the Professor. "Catch some fresh rolls." He looked
out of the flower, bent down and threw something to the ground.
Round little loaves fell drumming on the leaves and bouncing off,
rolled on to the ground.
Karik picked up one of the 'rolls' and bit a piece out of it.
"Well, how's that?' asked the old man from above.
The 'roll' was scented and just as delicious as the Andrena bee's
pastry.
"Is it made of flower pollen and honey?" asked Karik.
"Yes! Pollen and nectar. Do you like it?"
"It's lovely. What are you doing with them up there?"
"I am sprinkling the pollen into the nectar and kneading them like
dough."
The 'rolls' fell around Karik like autumn apples from an apple tree.
Karik collected them and stacked them in a pile.
At length the Professor climbed down the tree, sat on the ground and
choosing a 'roll' rather bigger than the rest at once bit off half of it.
"Life is not so bad actually !" The Professor winked in a friendly way
at Karik.
"No," agreed Karik, "it is possible to live here, but all the same . .
." he sighed and became silent.
"Well, well," grunted the old man, "don't worry. We'll get home and
everything will be grand."
He stood up.
"Although it is still a long time before evening comes, we mustn't go
away from the Oenothera wood. Let's go there, sit down and wait for Valya.
Bring the 'rolls.' I think Valya will like them."
"I am certain of it," nodded Karik. "She, poor girl, has had nothing to
eat all day. Everything will please her."
"That's good," said the old man, "but how are we to carry all these
rolls? Without a basket we certainly cannot carry more than a few. Look
here, my boy, you sit here a little while whilst I go and look for a
basket."
He looked to the right and to the left and then went over to one of the
big brown heaps which rose like hillocks on the river bank and, bending over
it, picked at it with his fingers.
"Excellent," he announced, "it seems to be just what we need."
He started to dig out a lump.
"Here you are, my dear, wash this thing!" handing Karik a big muddy
lump.
Karik took it and trying to hold it as far away from himself as
possible so as not to get dirty ran down to the river.
He went into the water up to his knees and lowered the Professor's find
into the river. The water became cloudy.
The clay melted away like a piece of butter on a frying-pan. Soon
something white appeared from beneath a layer of dirt. Karik started to
scrape off the clay with his hand and suddenly felt some sort of slender
handle.
"Apparently it is actually a basket," he marvelled.
Soon the strong current of water had completely washed away the clay,
and Karik found in his hands a basket of unusual beauty.
He lifted it by the handle, right up to his eyes and stood for a minute
gazing in admiration at its ornamental lattice work which looked as if it
had been wove out of ivory.
"How's that? Good enough for a basket?" Karik heard the old man's voice
behind him.
"It's exactly as if it had been made of lace," replied Karik, admiring
it. "Who ever made it?"
"I'll tell you that later," said the Professor, "but now wash these as
well."
He threw two heavy balls of clay on the ground and went back to his
excavations. Karik started work.
He carefully washed the clay off the extraordinary baskets and stood
them side by side on the bank; but the Professor brought more and more.
One basket was even more amazing than the others.
Fine silvery stems were platted- together in ornamented squares. On the
squares there were screens pierced by the stems and decorated with stars,
leaves and garlands. One would have thought that such delicate baskets must
have been made by the hands of a master craftsman. One basket reminded them
of some sort of tiny palace with openwork towers and fine Gothic windows.
Silver lattice work stood up around the palace-like walls. These walls were
decorated with flowers, stags' antlers and stars. Some of them were not like
baskets at all, but Karik did not throw them away but stood them beside the
baskets.
It was as though dishes, vases, helmets, spheres, stars, cubes and
crowns had been woven out of ivory.
"And they are all different!" marvelled Karik.
"Yes," said the Professor, "they are every sort of shape. You could
study them for a lifetime and yet every day you would always discover new
forms of the plant."
"What?" Karik turned quickly to the Professor. "Did you say it's a
plant?"
"Yes, it is a single-celled water weed. Diatoms, more exactly -
membranous plants. In these beautiful basket-like membranes live the simple
water plants - the diatoms. Thus, in this one," the old man pointed to a
round basket, "there lived the heliopelta diatom; in these triangles - a
tritserata; in this rhomboid - a navicula. That which you hold in your hand
is only the skeleton of the diatom. The water plants die, but their strong
membranes remain. In tens or even hundreds of years the amazing baskets will
not have been destroyed by age."
"Oho!" said Karik. "They are certainly very strong. Look, you can't
break them."
The Professor laughed.
"That is because the membrane is made of silica. That's a ' very strong
material."
"You said that this was a water plant. That means they live in water.
How is it that they - ?"
"You want to ask how they got on to the land? Apparently they must have
been deposited on the bank by a flood or a storm. Or maybe very long ago
there was a lake here which was filled with diatoms from the surface to the
bottom."
"Such little things! How could they fill a lake?"
"Yes, they are small, but against that there are so many of them. Like
dust in a broad sunbeam they exist throughout the whole mass of the water.
Millions and millions. Their life is short. They are born and having lived a
few hours they die. Day and night in seas, lake and rivers there falls
without ceasing a rain of their corpses.
"Their bodies lie on the bottom. On their bodies new bodies fall. Layer
after layer the pile of millions of diatom bodies rises up and thousands of
years pass. The diatoms rise from the bottom of the rivers in islands and
shoals. The river divided course around them into branches, they make the
river deltas. By this means. they change the course of the rivers. By this
means they change geography. Huge lakes slowly die under the layers of
diatoms. They turn into swamps. They vanish from the map.
"Not far from Leningrad there is the fortress of Kronstadt. You have to
go 30 kilometres of a water journey to reach it. But in two and a half
thousand years it will be possible to go from Leningrad to Kronstadt on
foot. The bodies of the diatoms will have covered the gap between with a
dense, firm causeway.
"So you see these teeny creatures, unnoticed by man, change the face of
the earth.
"Well! the membrane of the diatom has new significance now. Choose for
yourself baskets for the 'rolls.'
Karik thoughtfully filled two little baskets with 'rolls' and went
after the Professor.
They returned to the Oenothera wood, laid their baskets under a tree
and stretched themselves out in the cool shadow. With their arms under their
heads, they lay there talking quietly, but both started very soon to yawn.
"Let's sleep," proposed the old man.
"You sleep and I'll keep guard," said Karik.
The Professor went to sleep.
Karik lay beside him and listened to the measured breathing of the old
man. He started to think how pleased mother would be when he and Valya
arrived home and how she would exclaim when he started to tell her about
this wonderful journey.
Karik's eyes felt full of sand.
He turned on his side and was soon just as fast asleep as the
Professor.
In their sleep they heard some indistinct noise and soft steps as if a
wild beast was creeping up to them. All was silent. Then suddenly a very
ordinary human voice shouted.
"Ah, here you are ! Whatever has happened?"
The Professor and Karik opened their eyes.
Karik makes the acquaintance of a lion ant - A caw hospital - The
bumble bee's larder - Mysterious lights - An extraordinary horse - Besieged
by flies
IN THE ROSY GLOW OF THE EVENING SUNSET, THERE IN FRONT OF the Professor
and Karik stood Valya: the real live Valya.
She held in her hands one of the diatom baskets and she was attentively
examining its silvery pattern. She first put the little basket up close to
her eyes, then lifted it high above her head and peered at it with one eye
screwed up.
"Take a look, citizens!" grinned Karik. "The next instalment of the
film 'The girl from Kamchatka' has commenced. The missing damsel
mysteriously appears on the west coast."
The Professor didn't say anything. He just clasped Valya to him and
silently stroked her hair.
Valya wriggled out of his arms and stretching out the diatom basket
towards him, demanded:
"Did you really make this yourself? What is it made of? And why does it
smell so delicious? Can we eat it?"
"You cannot eat the basket but you may certainly cat the 'rolls' in the
basket," answered the old man.
"How many do you want? Two? Three?" asked Karik, taking the rolls out
of a basket.
"Five! I want five!" Valya answered quickly.
The Professor and Karik laughed.
"That is what they call famished!" said Karik.
"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter! Let her eat what she wants.
Indeed, we might all have a bite with you. Would you like something?"
"I could manage it !" agreed Karik.
The Professor arranged the baskets of 'rolls' opposite Karik and Valya,
and with a wide hospitable sweep of the arm invited the children to supper.
Valya took a bite of 'roll,' munched it, and announced:
"Most delicious!" and proceeded to stuff her two cheeks with 'roll'.
The other two watched her smilingly. Karik winked at the Professor and
asked in a very innocent way:
"Is it true that there was a man in Moscow who had the appetite of an
elephant?"
"I never heard that," said the Professor.
"But I heard it. They say he ate ten plates of soup."
"And I could eat them!" said Valya, shoving a huge piece of 'roll' into
her mouth.
Karik nudged the old man with his elbow. "And for a second course he
ate fifteen tender chops."
"And I could eat fifteen!" rejoiced Valya.
"Lastly, he ate twenty dishes of fruit salad," continued Karik.
"But I would like thirty!"
Karik moved the basket away from himself and wiped his fingers on a
petal.
"Then this chap tied a napkin across his chest and said:
"Well, I think I must have swallowed a worm. So now, if you please, I'd
like to start my proper dinner!"
"And I. . . ."
Valya stretched out her hand to the eighth 'roll\ but after touching
it, thought a little and then sighing heavily declared: "No, I don't want
anything now."
"Perhaps you will now tell us how you contrived, to get into the
Oenothera flower," said the Professor, clapping her on the shoulder.
"Karik and I were looking for you. . . . That's right, Karik?"
Karik nodded his head.
"I went on and on and suddenly I got hungry. In the wood there was
something which smelt just like a confectioner's shop. 'I'll climb up a
tree,' I thought. I climbed up. But then all of a sudden it shut and
wouldn't let me out. I shouted and shouted, until even my own ears ached."
"And you cried, surely?"
"A little. . . . But then I slept so soundly that I didn't even dream.
Afterwards I heard someone shouting 'Valya, Valya!' I wanted to wake up but
I simply couldn't."
"Well, all's well that ends well!" said the old man. "Now in order that
we shall not lose each other again, give me your word that you will not
wander off, not even one step, from me!"
"On my honour as a Pioneer!" said Karik.
"On my honour saluting!" Valya saluted.
"Then - on we go!" ordered the Professor, cheerfully, "on the march, my
dears, on the march!"
The travellers collected the baskets with 'rolls' and moved off beside
the river.
By nightfall they reached a big hill. Here in some sort of hole they
spent the night, and then next morning, having eaten some scented 'rolls',
they continued their journey.
Thus they proceeded for several days, spending the night in flowers, in
shells, in empty wasps' nests, under stones, and in mucky damp dens.
They fed on nectar, bees' honey, butterflies' eggs and green milk.
In the valley of Three Rivers the Professor succeeded in killing a
hedge sparrow. The travellers had roast and smoked fowl for three days and
indeed would have had sufficient meat for a further fortnight had not 'skin'
beetles attacked them on their journey, carried off all their provisions and
very nearly disabled the Professor.
* * * * *
Every day they got nearer and nearer to the lake on the opposite side
of which stood the pole landmark.
According to the Professor's calculations they were due to get to the
lake the following day in the evening. They had then only to get across the
lake, when they should be able to land quite near to the landmark.
"In a few days we should be home !" the Professor assured the children.
But their guide's calculations were not to prove correct.
When the travellers were near the lake an unfortunate event occurred.
It happened in the early morning.
The Professor and the children had just emerged from the cavern in
which they had passed the night and they were beginning their march in the
cold morning dew.
"I declare there's a frost!" shivered the old man.
Shaking with cold and with their teeth chattering the travellers
marched up hill and down dale. It seemed to them as if their bare feet were
moving over ice sprinkled here and there with earth. They wanted to stop and
tuck their feet up under themselves like a goose standing on the ice does.
At last the children could stand it no longer and in order to get warm
they started to run ahead.
"Don't run too far !" the old man shouted after them.
But the children were already dashing towards a chain of high hills,
overtaking each other, jumping in their chase over wide holes and little
rivers.
"Come back!" shouted the old man. "Come back, Karik! Come here, Valya?"
But Karik only waved his hand and quickly running up on to the crest of
a hill disappeared behind it.
Valya stopped as if undecided whether to turn back or to follow Karik,
but, after hesitating a little, went off after her brother and was also
disappearing behind the hill.
The Professor, alarmed, quickened his steps.
Then suddenly from behind the hill came a desperate cry. A few moments
later Valya reappeared on the top of the hill. She waved her hands and
called to the Professor for help.
"Quickly, quickly! . . . They are attacking!" she shouted.
The old man ran as fast as ever he could. He simply flew up the hill.
"Where is he? Where?" he panted at Valya.
"There! There he is!" Valya replied.
At the bottom of a sort of funnel up to its neck in sand a terrible
monster was twisting and digging. A large black head with long curving
pincers was rapidly throwing up sand and rocks in a regular spray.
On the slope of the funnel stood Karik, quite dazed. He was helplessly
covering his head with his hands and turning this way and that way. Sand and
rocks hurtled straight at him. He fell down, got up and fell down again. The
monster did not stop showering him. The sandy wall of the funnel fell away
under his feet and Karik started to slide down, down, down, right into the
monster's lair.
"Turn on your back," shouted the Professor. But Karik couldn't
understand anything and couldn't hear. Then the old man rushed down, seized
Karik by the arms and clambered out of the funnel, up the crumbling side.
A regular hail of rocks followed the fugitives. But the Professor set
his teeth and, not letting go of Karik, quickly climbed upwards, with his
head well down in his shoulders and bending down to the very ground.
At last he got out of the funnel, carefully laid Karik on the ground
and grunted:
"Goodness gracious! are we really out of it?"
Karik lay there pale with a thin stream of blood creeping down his
cheek. His head and the whole of his spider's web suit were powdered with
sand.
Valya ran up to her brother.
"Is he alive?" she demanded of the Professor in alarm, as she dropped
on her knees beside her brother.
"He's alive all right," said the old man, frowning. "He'll soon recover
consciousness!"
"The sooner the better! We must get away from here as soon as possible.
That frightful thing will climb out and start throwing stuff at us again."
"It won't climb out!" replied the Professor curtly, and, looking
angrily at Valya, continued, "Didn't I tell you, didn't I shout at you? Oh,
no . . . must have it your own way!"
He put his ear to Karik's chest, then felt for his pulse and looking
skywards started to move his lips, making no sounds.
Karik sighed.
"Can you hear me?" asked the Professor, loudly.
Karik raised himself up, gazing at the Professor with dull eyes. His
lips moved ever so slightly.
"It's .. . gone?" he asked in a weak voice.
"It's gone away, it's gone away !" said the Professor. "Now how about
you? Can you get up?"
"I think I can!" said Karik.
Swaying, he stood up, said "Come on!" and clenched his teeth.
For some time the travellers moved on in silence, but the old man could
not remain angry for long. When presently they sat down to rest he looked at
Karik and laughed:
"What a hero. . . . Eh? Look at him! Fell into a lion's den!"
"I was unlucky," said Karik. "I was running and running - and suddenly
the funnel appeared and - well! I rolled down it."
"You would do much better if you watched your step instead of chasing
wild geese. A little longer -and you would have made a nice dinner for a
'lion-ant'."
"What did you say it was called, a 'lion-ant'?" demanded Valya.
"Yes, that's what it is called," nodded the old man.
"However, this was not actually a 'lion-ant' itself but its larva. It
doesn't live in a hole itself, it flies about, but most often climbs about
trees. I think you must have actually seen one at one time or other. . . ."
"What is it? What's it like?"
"It is rather like a dragonfly. But it is an idler, a terrible
lazybones. It sits on a tree letting its four wings flop. Yes, and it'll sit
there all day long, just as if it had been stuck there on a pin. But this
bully which sits in a hole and hurls stones - this is its larva. That is how
it hunts. You saw what a cunning trap it had set for ants who don't look
where they are going!"
"For ants?"
"Not only for ants. It doesn't let other insects get out. But what is
most insulting," smiled the Professor, "this creature who wanted to eat you
hasn't even got a mouth."
"Well, then. . . . How was it going to eat me? With its feet?"
"Yes, in a way - with its pincers!" replied the Professor. "You see, my
dears, the 'lion-ant' has no mouth opening, but on the contrary has two huge
pincers on its head with which it attaches itself to its prey, and through
which it sucks their blood. Another two or three minutes and you would have
made the acquaintance of these pincers."
The Professor got up from the ground and said:
"Well, ready? Let's go on!"
Valya trotted behind the old man and Karik dragged himself along behind
them both, trying not to get separated from Valya.
At times a sharp pain made him jump and stop. It seemed to him as if he
had trodden on a long, sharp needle.
For all that he kept going. Frowning, making faces, biting his lips, he
nevertheless kept moving and did not drop behind a single step.
The old man looked around every so often and stole a glance at Karik.
When Karik stumbled the Professor asked him with alarm in his voice:
"Well, what's the matter with you? Perhaps you would like to lean on
me, wouldn't you?"
"No, no, it's nothing!" replied Karik, hastily, "it's just. . . . I
trod on a sharp stone!"
At last Karik began to lag. He now no longer walked but hopped,
trailing one leg behind the other one after him along the ground.
The Professor stopped and said:
"Well, I can see you are quite exhausted."
"No, no!" protested Karik. "I could do another fifty miles still." He
straightened himself up and started to walk quickly forward but, having made
a few steps, fell, and clutching his bad leg groaned. Then the Professor
without saying a word lifted Karik up on to his back.
"No, I can stick it. Let me go! I can manage it myself!" resisted
Karik.
"Sit there!" scolded the Professor. " 'I can stick it,' indeed! You
think you're a champion."
Holding Karik tightly, he walked on frowning and looking down at his
feet. Beside him came Valya, with a guilty look on her face.
Karik laid his head on the Professor's shoulder, his eyes were soon
shut and he was sound asleep.
When next he opened his eyes he saw that he was lying on the bank of a
big lake. The Professor was standing on a rock and using his hand to shade
his eyes was gazing at the opposite bank where the landmark stood up
solitary in the distance.
Karik heard Valya ask something but what it was he could not make out.
He raised his head from the ground and listened. At that moment the old
man was speaking:
"We'll build a boat and sail or row across. But to begin with let's
look for a suitable lodging-place. We may probably have to spend a week on
the bank."
"But why ever?"
"What do you mean why ever? You must have seen how ill our Karik is?"
"You don't need to!" said Karik, raising himself on his elbows.
"Don't need what?"
"You don't need to spend a week on the shore. I can crawl into the
boat, and I am sure I could row!"
"Stuff and nonsense!" the Professor waved his hands. "What will happen
if a storm suddenly springs up. You'll go to the bottom like a stone."
The old man bent over Karik and carefully touched his swollen knee with
his hand.
"Look how blue it has become! And it hurts, no doubt?"
"It is painful," Karik wrinkled up his eyes. "It burns all the time as
if someone was ironing the knee with a hot iron."
The Professor started to think and then suddenly clapping his hand to
his head ran to the lake.
"0-oh, isn't it swollen!" Valya touched Karik's sore leg with the top
of her finger.
"Yes. If you had been bombarded like that you would be swollen too!"
rejoined Karik, rubbing his bad knee.
"If you don't put your weight on that leg it will soon go! Would you
like me to find you a crutch?"
At this moment the Professor arrived back. He held in front of himself
on outstretched hands a tiny leaf from which water was trickling down on to
the sand.
"Well, now, turn a little!" said the old man, "and give me your leg."
Then having laid the wet, cold leaf on the hot, swollen knee he
skilfully bound up Karik's bad leg.
"How's that?"
"Very good," said Karik, "a sort of compress. It started to get better
at once."
"Excellent! Lie quiet, and Valya and I will go and look for a place to
spend the night."
As luck would have it the travellers did not have to look long for
their refuge. The whole bank of the lake was pierced with deep caverns. The
old man and Valya started inspecting first one and then another, and at last
chose a dry sandy cave with a low roof and narrow entrance.
"Let's stay in this one!" suggested Valya.
The Professor agreed.
He returned to the bank, lifted Karik and carried him to the cave in
his arms.
"Lie there!" he said, putting Karik down beside the wall. "Is that
comfortable for you?"
Karik did not answer. He was already sleeping the heavy sleep of the
sick.
The old man and Valya sat at the entrance and, by the fading light of
evening, ate a supper of the remains of the honey dough.
"Now we must go to sleep!" said the Professor.
Blocking up the entrance to the cave with rocks the travellers
stretched themselves out on the dry sand and were soon asleep.
* * * * * *
Towards morning the Professor dreamt he saw a lion-ant. The lion was
firmly holding Karik in its curved pincers and was staring at him with huge
protruding eyes.
Karik was hitting the monster on the head with his arms and legs and
quietly groaning.
The old man opened his eyes.
"Good gracious, I was dreaming!" he thought.
However, the groans continued. It wasn't a dream after all!
"Karik, are you all right?" the Professor hailed him.
Karik did not answer.
It was dark in the cave.
The old man got up and feeling the wall with his hand made his way to
the mouth of the cave. In the darkness, touching the barricade of rocks
which blocked up the entrance, he took off two big rocks from the top and
gently, so as not to wake the children, lowered them down to the ground.
It now became light in the cave.
The grey light which comes before the dawn filtered in and touched the
floor where the children were sleeping.
In the centre of the cave Valya could be seen curled up like a cat,
Karik was sleeping near the wall with his arms flung widely apart. He
was all red in the face. Sweat stood on his forehead. He was shivering and
groaning in his sleep.
The Professor went over to him, bent down and quietly touched the
swollen knee wrapped in the leaf.
Without waking Karik drew up the leg and groaned loudly.
"Do you want something to drink, Karik?" he asked.
Karik opened his eyes. Unable to grasp anything, he gazed at the
Professor for a long time and then turned away from him towards the wall.
"Would you like me to get you some water?"
"No-o!" said Karik, through his teeth.
"But would you like me to change the compress?" asked the old man.
"Yes . . . compress, please!"
The Professor brought a fresh damp petal and fastened it around the
swollen knee.
"How's that? Better?"
"Better!" sighed Karik.
"That's fine! Sleep away! Meanwhile I'll go and look for something to
eat. If Valya wakes up, don't let her go out of the cave. I'll be back
soon."
Karik silently nodded his head. '
The Professor filled up the entrance to the cave with rocks and,
looking around himself in order to remember quite clearly where the children
were, went off to find something for breakfast.
Not far from the cave a hill rose up covered with thick bushes.
The old man went to the foot of the hill, examined it carefully,
touched the soft feathery foliage of the green bushes.
"Evidently it is moss! Yes, indeed, just ordinary moss. Now let's see
if there is anything eatable here."
He climbed daringly through the thick growth of moss. But he had only
gone a few steps when he disappeared up to the waist.
Falling, he managed to clutch hold of some of the foliage.
With his legs swinging above a dark hole he peered downwards and in the
half darkness descried earthy arches and a smooth, trampled floor. The weak
light filtered in from above through the thick foliage and lit the dark
cellar fitfully.
In the depths of the cellar along the wall white barrels stood in even
rows.
"Apparently it's a bumble bee's store!" muttered the Professor.
He measured with his eye the distance to the earthern floor and letting
go the foliage with his hands dropped down. The earth beneath his feet was
dry and warm.
Examining the cellar with curiosity the old man went over to the
barrels. They were each of them closed with a white cover. He lifted the
cover off one of the barrels, bent over it and sniffed.
"That's just what it is!"
The barrel was full to the very brim with scented honey. Alongside
stood other barrels, and they too were filled with honey.
It was very much like a storeroom in which supplies were kept "for a
rainy day."
In actual fact this was what it was - a bumble bee's storeroom.
The female bumble bee lays its eggs in a nest and leaves alongside them
little balls of honey and pollen. The larvae come out of the eggs, eat the
balls of honey and pollen and turn into cocoons, which are barrel-shaped.
After a little while the young bumble bees open the top of the barrels and
fly out. But the cocoons are not wasted. In the summer the bumble bees fill
them with honey and in cold, rainy weather, when it is not possible to fly
out of the nest, they feed on this.
The Professor, in no hurry, breakfasted and then chose one of the
stronger barrels and started to drag it out of the storeroom.
This was no easy task.
The barrel, as if it had been alive, jerked itself out of the old man's
hands, bumped him and knocked him off his feet. But for all this the
Professor managed to get it up out of the cellar.
His knees shook. His hands were numb. His heart beat so furiously that
he could feel it clearly even in his temples.
"And now how can I roll it to the cave," he puzzled.
He was afraid to turn the barrel on its side and roll it along the
ground as one normally rolls the ordinary barrel. The lid might open and all
the honey would pour out on to the ground.
"There's nothing for it but to try some other way." He gripped the edge
of the barrel with his hands and shook it fiercely.
The barrel rocked.
"Aha! It'll soon come!" he rejoiced.
He tipped the barrel over on one side and proceeded to push, at the
same time rolling the barrel from side to side as if he wanted to bore a
hole in the earth.
Slowly, step by step, pushing the barrel with his hands and leaning his
full weight against if, the old man drove it to the cave.
When the Professor got to the bank of the lake Valya came to meet him,
"Up already?" he asked, stopping and taking breath. "How is Karik
getting on?"
"He is asleep! Let me help you!"
"Certainly, help if you can!"
"But what is this? What is the barrel?"
"Honey!"
"A whole barrel! That's really grand!"
Valya took hold of the barrel and began to push it, helping the
Professor.
With their combined efforts they rolled the barrel into the cave and
stood it in a corner.
"You have breakfast, little Valya," said the Professor, wiping his hot
neck with his hands, "I must go and look for a bed for Karik. It's not very
comfortable for him, poor chap, to sleep on the bare ground."
He went out.
Valya successfully threw off the lid and at once dug her hands into the
honey. Her fingers became covered with the scented liquid. She ate so
enthusiastically that soon her face, neck and arms, up to the very elbows,
were coated as if with glue, in amber-yellow honey.
"Now what shall I do?" Valya spread her sticky fingers apart. "There
isn't even anything to wipe them on. I'll go to the lake and wash."
She went out of the cave and ran to the lake.
On the sandy beach Valya stopped to make sure that there were no
monsters in the neighbourhood and only after this did she get into the water
and start to wash.
After bathing she ran back. On her way back she collected a piece of
petal and dragged it into the cave.
"It will be useful," she considered. "It is certain to be useful to us
now!"
At the cave itself she saw the Professor, who was dragging a mass of
feathery hair.
"Now where have you been running to?" he asked, stopping.
"To wash myself!"
The Professor shook his head.
"Now, that doesn't please me at all. I warned you most seriously. I
warned you not to go out without me."
"But I was all covered with honey!"
"All the more likely," gruff-gruffed the old man, "that a fly, wasp or
a bee would carry you off with the honey - in fact, there are few of our
neighbours here who could resist a girl covered in honey."
He went into the cave and threw the pile of tangled hair on the floor.
"Well, there you are, there's a bed for Karik! Yes, and there is enough
hair for you and me as well."
"It's just like a real mattress!" Valya touched the hair. "Where did
you get it?"
"I took it from a gipsy moth!"
"Does a gipsy moth sleep on a mattress?"
"No," smiled the Professor, "it doesn't sleep itself. It flies. But its
next generation are covered carefully by it with this down. Neither rain nor
cold are harmful to the eggs of gipsy moths, which lie under such dense
feathery eiderdowns."
"What is this feathery stuff? It's surely ordinary horsehair!"
"You forget that you and I are not ordinary ourselves and that is why
this down appears to us as horsehair. However, let us make up a bed for
Karik now."
"I'll make the bed!" said Valya.
She laid hair near the sandy wall, beat it up with her hands as one
puffs up a pillow, then threw a big bunch of hair at the head of the bed and
went a little way away.
"It looks quite nice," she said admiringly.
"Excellent," approved the Professor. He took the sleeping Karik up in
his arms and transferred him to the bed. Valya opened the petal up and laid
it over Karik like a quilt.
"He seems pretty comfortable now. Look after him while I go out for
half an hour or so," said the old man. "I have some things to do outside. If
Karik wakens feed him!"
"Right you are," said Valya. "You go on, I have some things to do too."
When the Professor had gone, Valya made up two more beds, dragged in
two new blue quilts made from harebell petals, swept the floor with a piece
of petal, then rolled into the cave four big stones, put a flat rock on top
of them and on top of that laid as a tablecloth the white petal of an
ox-eyed daisy.
This provided a splendid table.
Around the table Valya arranged smaller stones, put the remainder of
the hair on these and covered it with yellow petals.
"There are our comfy chairs!" said Valya.
Having finished work she inspected the cave and was very pleased - it
was now really cosy.
"Now we could stay here even a whole month while Karik gets well."
She went over on tiptoe to her brother's bed, bent over him and
carefully rearranged the quilt.
"He is asleep," she said in a whisper.
Soon the Professor arrived back. Breathing heavily, he rolled a second
barrel of honey into the cave and stood it up by the wall.
"Look what I have done here," boasted Valya.
"What's happened?" asked the old man in alarm, but on looking around
the cave nodded his head approvingly. "Bravo, bravo! You're a champion! Yes,
you're a regular housewife!" He praised Valya. "By the way, I too may be
able to add something to the comfort of our dwelling. Just here by the cave
I found an interesting little thing."
He went out and in ten minutes returned with a little leaf in his
hands. Using the leaf as if it was a tray he carried in a mound of oblong
little eggs.
"What are those?" asked Valya, "Can we eat them?"
"No," replied the Professor, "they cannot be eaten but they will be
useful to us, very useful!"
"But what use can they be?"
"Live and learn!"
The Professor put the tray of eggs on a barrel and said:
"I have been thinking things over: Our patient will evidently have to
stay in bed for some days. In order not to waste time you and I will roll
all the barrels of honey into the cave and then we can set about building
our battleship."
"What battleship?"
"Well, something is sure to turn up that we can make into a ship! Then
as soon as Karik gets well, we can set out on our voyage. Since our landmark
is on the opposite side of the lake, it means we must go across in a
vessel."
Having fed themselves on honey, Valya and the old man set about rolling
the barrels of honey from the bumble bees' store to the cave. Each time they
came back the Professor went over to Karik, listened to his uneven breathing
and felt his pulse.
Karik slept as if he was dead.
When the whole corner of the cave was stocked with barrels of honey the
Professor announced:
"That's that. Now, little Valya, let's go and build a ship."
"That will be interesting!" rejoiced the girl.
"I don't know if it will be interesting," said her companion, "but I am
ready to wager that we'll have a spot of work to do!"
Having closed up the entrance to the cave with rocks in order that no
wild beasts should get in to Karik, the old man and the girl set out to the
lake.
"What can we make the ship out of?" demanded Valya, marching along
beside the Professor.
"We'll find something. There are quite a few dry tree leaves on the
bank. We can build it out of these. This morning 1 saw behind the hills some
ordinary trees."
"It is very likely that the wind carries their leaves here. At any
rate, we shall soon see."
The Professor and Valya went along the bank and no sooner had the old
man got a little way away from Valya than she suddenly cried out:
"I have found it! Found it! Found it already!"
"Where?" the old man turned to her.
"Here we are!"
By the lake itself lay a huge yellow leaf with deeply indented edges.
Thick veins spread fan-like in all directions.
The Professor walked around the leaf, looked at it from every
direction, lifted its edge and looking underneath said:
"Yes, this is an oak leaf, but unfortunately we cannot make a ship out
of it."
"Why not?"
"There are galls on the leaf. Do you see? The whole leaf is covered
with galls!"
"Galls. What are they?"
The Professor lifted the edge of the oak leaf still higher.
Valya squatted down and looked under the leaf. The whole of its lower
surface was covered with dark balls. These balls appeared just as if they
had been glued on to the leaf. Valya touched them with her hands. They were
as hard as stones.
"We could never move such a leaf!" the old man announced.
"Whatever are these things?" demanded Valya.
"They are insects' nests!" said the Professor. "Numerous insects lay
their eggs directly on leaves. But the leaves don't like this and they
protect themselves with all their resources against unwelcome guests. The
cells of the leaf collect around the egg, trying to push it away, just as
the white corpuscles of the blood push away a thorn which has got into your
finger.
"It is for this reason that an inflammation appears on your finger
around the thorn whilst on the leaves swellings appear - these very galls.
They are usually called 'ink nuts' or 'oak apples,' although by no means all
of these galls are inky nor are they very inviting apples."
"But what insects do this?" asked Valya.
The Professor shrugged his shoulders. "One or two!" he said. "Let me
see! The following lay their eggs on leaves: 60 sorts of butterflies, 113
sorts of beetles, 486 sorts of flies and, well, 290 sorts of other insects."
"Can we ever find a leaf without galls?"
"We shall have to find one!" answered the Professor.
It was already dusk by the time they at length found a dry oak leaf
suitable for launching. But it lay a good distance from the bank, so far
that it was quite beyond the Professor and Valya to push it into the water.
"We'll never get it there!" Valya shook her head.
The Professor started to think. Stroking his beard he stood on the
leaf, silently gazing at its thick veins, which stretched in every
direction.
"What if? . . . Yes, of course!" gruff-gruffed the old man, and then
suddenly started laughing.
"What are you up to?" Valya looked surprised.
"I am up to just this," replied the Professor. "We'll go home now.
To-morrow we'll harness a horse to do the job."
"A horse?" Valya was still more surprised.
The Professor did not say anything in reply. Muttering something under
his breath he quickly set out in the direction of the cave. Valya ran
skipping along behind him.
"Now, Professor dear, do tell me what are these horses? Where will you
get them from?"
"I will not tell you!"
"Tell me!" insisted Valya.
"Don't be curious! You'll see for yourself to-morrow."
"Oh, Professor," whimpered Valya again, and suddenly became silent.
In front of them a light twinkled. Valya seized the old man by the hand
and stopped.
"It's on fire! Look! There is a fire in our cave!"
The light was coming between the rocks which blocked the entrance to
the cave.
"A fire! A fire in our cave!" Valya screamed in fright. "Hurry - Karik
is burning!"
"It is nothing! Nothing terrible! Your brother is not burning."
But Valya, not listening to the Professor, had already dashed headlong
to the cave.
"Karik!" she shouted, as she ran. "Are you burning? Are you burning,
Karik?"
"No, it is not I," Valya heard Karik's calm voice.
She quickly pulled the rocks aside. Jumping into the cave she stopped
as if she was rooted to the spot.
"Whatever is it?"
The corner where the mound of little eggs had been laid on their tray
was glowing with a dazzling blue light just as the lamps on a New Year's
tree, only brighter. One could have read a book by the light.
"Well, how do you like it?" Valya heard the old man's voice behind her.
"Isn't it lovely !" said Valya, in ecstasy.
"It's those . . . those eggs are glowing."
"Yes," smiled the Professor, "the eggs of a glow-worm."
"Ah, I know!" Valya nodded her head. "It's that worm. The glow-worm!
The 'St. John's day' worm, as the peasants call it!"
"Yes, that's what it is called, although it actually is not a worm but
a beetle. That you can easily understand when you consider what it eats. The
ordinary worm lives underground and eats earth but the beetle lives in damp
grass and feeds on snails."
"Yes, yes! I remember. These beetles shine in the grass."
"Perfectly correct. They glow themselves, their larvae glow and their
eggs glow. . . . Pretty, isn't it?"
"Very pretty," said Karik from his corner. "How lucky it was that you
found them."
"Well, now how do you feel. Better or worse?" The old man went over to
the patient. "Would you like something to eat?"
"Had it !" said Karik. "I have already had it! When you were away I had
a look all round, found the honey and had a jolly good feed."
"You shouldn't have got up." frowned the Professor. "It is too soon for
you to get up ! Too soon, my dear! If you don't look out you'll make
yourself worse !"
"Do you know what?" said Karik. "When I woke up and looked around - the
table, then the chairs, and the light burning. Why, I thought I was at home
again, it was morning, and I must get up."
"But do you like our new flat?" asked Valya.
"Very much!" replied Karik. "Particularly the little glow-worm lamps.
Haven't they got a strong light?"
"You could have more than that," said the Professor. "Now if you
brought a couple of Pyropheri in here . . . there you would see some light!"
"And what are these things . . . py . . . your pyrough."
"They are beetles, too! They live in Guiana, Brazil and Mexico. And
then if some Brazilian or Mexican wants to go out in the forest at night he
catches one of these beetles and fastens it to his hat. The light given off
by these beetle-lanterns is so strong that you can go through the very
darkest of tropical undergrowth and not lose your way - some people call
them 'Ford bugs' because they are like motor-car headlamps. Mexican women
adorn themselves with these Pyropheri They hide them in their hair, beside
diamonds or make themselves jewels of fire or fasten them round their waists
to make a girdle of fire. After a ball the local belles bathe the tired
insects in a bath and put them in a glass vase and there the Pyropheri light
the bedrooms of these Mexican women all night with a gentle, pleasant
light."
"But is the glow-worm the only one we have which glows?"
"It's not the only thing," replied the Professor. "I could arrange the
same sort of lighting using glowing bacteria. . . . When I was a student I
once made a real lamp out of such bacteria. By the light of this lamp I
could read and write."
"Bacteria? These are so small that you cannot see them with the naked
eye. How can they light up anything? You couldn't see them."
"When you have lots of them," replied the old man, "then you can see
the light, although the individual bacteria, naturally, cannot be seen.
Karik remembered mother. This was just like the way she worked the
dough.
"Eh, hey," shouted the Professor. "Catch some fresh rolls." He looked
out of the flower, bent down and threw something to the ground.
Round little loaves fell drumming on the leaves and bouncing off,
rolled on to the ground.
Karik picked up one of the 'rolls' and bit a piece out of it.
"Well, how's that?' asked the old man from above.
The 'roll' was scented and just as delicious as the Andrena bee's
pastry.
"Is it made of flower pollen and honey?" asked Karik.
"Yes! Pollen and nectar. Do you like it?"
"It's lovely. What are you doing with them up there?"
"I am sprinkling the pollen into the nectar and kneading them like
dough."
The 'rolls' fell around Karik like autumn apples from an apple tree.
Karik collected them and stacked them in a pile.
At length the Professor climbed down the tree, sat on the ground and
choosing a 'roll' rather bigger than the rest at once bit off half of it.
"Life is not so bad actually !" The Professor winked in a friendly way
at Karik.
"No," agreed Karik, "it is possible to live here, but all the same . .
." he sighed and became silent.
"Well, well," grunted the old man, "don't worry. We'll get home and
everything will be grand."
He stood up.
"Although it is still a long time before evening comes, we mustn't go
away from the Oenothera wood. Let's go there, sit down and wait for Valya.
Bring the 'rolls.' I think Valya will like them."
"I am certain of it," nodded Karik. "She, poor girl, has had nothing to
eat all day. Everything will please her."
"That's good," said the old man, "but how are we to carry all these
rolls? Without a basket we certainly cannot carry more than a few. Look
here, my boy, you sit here a little while whilst I go and look for a
basket."
He looked to the right and to the left and then went over to one of the
big brown heaps which rose like hillocks on the river bank and, bending over
it, picked at it with his fingers.
"Excellent," he announced, "it seems to be just what we need."
He started to dig out a lump.
"Here you are, my dear, wash this thing!" handing Karik a big muddy
lump.
Karik took it and trying to hold it as far away from himself as
possible so as not to get dirty ran down to the river.
He went into the water up to his knees and lowered the Professor's find
into the river. The water became cloudy.
The clay melted away like a piece of butter on a frying-pan. Soon
something white appeared from beneath a layer of dirt. Karik started to
scrape off the clay with his hand and suddenly felt some sort of slender
handle.
"Apparently it is actually a basket," he marvelled.
Soon the strong current of water had completely washed away the clay,
and Karik found in his hands a basket of unusual beauty.
He lifted it by the handle, right up to his eyes and stood for a minute
gazing in admiration at its ornamental lattice work which looked as if it
had been wove out of ivory.
"How's that? Good enough for a basket?" Karik heard the old man's voice
behind him.
"It's exactly as if it had been made of lace," replied Karik, admiring
it. "Who ever made it?"
"I'll tell you that later," said the Professor, "but now wash these as
well."
He threw two heavy balls of clay on the ground and went back to his
excavations. Karik started work.
He carefully washed the clay off the extraordinary baskets and stood
them side by side on the bank; but the Professor brought more and more.
One basket was even more amazing than the others.
Fine silvery stems were platted- together in ornamented squares. On the
squares there were screens pierced by the stems and decorated with stars,
leaves and garlands. One would have thought that such delicate baskets must
have been made by the hands of a master craftsman. One basket reminded them
of some sort of tiny palace with openwork towers and fine Gothic windows.
Silver lattice work stood up around the palace-like walls. These walls were
decorated with flowers, stags' antlers and stars. Some of them were not like
baskets at all, but Karik did not throw them away but stood them beside the
baskets.
It was as though dishes, vases, helmets, spheres, stars, cubes and
crowns had been woven out of ivory.
"And they are all different!" marvelled Karik.
"Yes," said the Professor, "they are every sort of shape. You could
study them for a lifetime and yet every day you would always discover new
forms of the plant."
"What?" Karik turned quickly to the Professor. "Did you say it's a
plant?"
"Yes, it is a single-celled water weed. Diatoms, more exactly -
membranous plants. In these beautiful basket-like membranes live the simple
water plants - the diatoms. Thus, in this one," the old man pointed to a
round basket, "there lived the heliopelta diatom; in these triangles - a
tritserata; in this rhomboid - a navicula. That which you hold in your hand
is only the skeleton of the diatom. The water plants die, but their strong
membranes remain. In tens or even hundreds of years the amazing baskets will
not have been destroyed by age."
"Oho!" said Karik. "They are certainly very strong. Look, you can't
break them."
The Professor laughed.
"That is because the membrane is made of silica. That's a ' very strong
material."
"You said that this was a water plant. That means they live in water.
How is it that they - ?"
"You want to ask how they got on to the land? Apparently they must have
been deposited on the bank by a flood or a storm. Or maybe very long ago
there was a lake here which was filled with diatoms from the surface to the
bottom."
"Such little things! How could they fill a lake?"
"Yes, they are small, but against that there are so many of them. Like
dust in a broad sunbeam they exist throughout the whole mass of the water.
Millions and millions. Their life is short. They are born and having lived a
few hours they die. Day and night in seas, lake and rivers there falls
without ceasing a rain of their corpses.
"Their bodies lie on the bottom. On their bodies new bodies fall. Layer
after layer the pile of millions of diatom bodies rises up and thousands of
years pass. The diatoms rise from the bottom of the rivers in islands and
shoals. The river divided course around them into branches, they make the
river deltas. By this means. they change the course of the rivers. By this
means they change geography. Huge lakes slowly die under the layers of
diatoms. They turn into swamps. They vanish from the map.
"Not far from Leningrad there is the fortress of Kronstadt. You have to
go 30 kilometres of a water journey to reach it. But in two and a half
thousand years it will be possible to go from Leningrad to Kronstadt on
foot. The bodies of the diatoms will have covered the gap between with a
dense, firm causeway.
"So you see these teeny creatures, unnoticed by man, change the face of
the earth.
"Well! the membrane of the diatom has new significance now. Choose for
yourself baskets for the 'rolls.'
Karik thoughtfully filled two little baskets with 'rolls' and went
after the Professor.
They returned to the Oenothera wood, laid their baskets under a tree
and stretched themselves out in the cool shadow. With their arms under their
heads, they lay there talking quietly, but both started very soon to yawn.
"Let's sleep," proposed the old man.
"You sleep and I'll keep guard," said Karik.
The Professor went to sleep.
Karik lay beside him and listened to the measured breathing of the old
man. He started to think how pleased mother would be when he and Valya
arrived home and how she would exclaim when he started to tell her about
this wonderful journey.
Karik's eyes felt full of sand.
He turned on his side and was soon just as fast asleep as the
Professor.
In their sleep they heard some indistinct noise and soft steps as if a
wild beast was creeping up to them. All was silent. Then suddenly a very
ordinary human voice shouted.
"Ah, here you are ! Whatever has happened?"
The Professor and Karik opened their eyes.
Karik makes the acquaintance of a lion ant - A caw hospital - The
bumble bee's larder - Mysterious lights - An extraordinary horse - Besieged
by flies
IN THE ROSY GLOW OF THE EVENING SUNSET, THERE IN FRONT OF the Professor
and Karik stood Valya: the real live Valya.
She held in her hands one of the diatom baskets and she was attentively
examining its silvery pattern. She first put the little basket up close to
her eyes, then lifted it high above her head and peered at it with one eye
screwed up.
"Take a look, citizens!" grinned Karik. "The next instalment of the
film 'The girl from Kamchatka' has commenced. The missing damsel
mysteriously appears on the west coast."
The Professor didn't say anything. He just clasped Valya to him and
silently stroked her hair.
Valya wriggled out of his arms and stretching out the diatom basket
towards him, demanded:
"Did you really make this yourself? What is it made of? And why does it
smell so delicious? Can we eat it?"
"You cannot eat the basket but you may certainly cat the 'rolls' in the
basket," answered the old man.
"How many do you want? Two? Three?" asked Karik, taking the rolls out
of a basket.
"Five! I want five!" Valya answered quickly.
The Professor and Karik laughed.
"That is what they call famished!" said Karik.
"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter! Let her eat what she wants.
Indeed, we might all have a bite with you. Would you like something?"
"I could manage it !" agreed Karik.
The Professor arranged the baskets of 'rolls' opposite Karik and Valya,
and with a wide hospitable sweep of the arm invited the children to supper.
Valya took a bite of 'roll,' munched it, and announced:
"Most delicious!" and proceeded to stuff her two cheeks with 'roll'.
The other two watched her smilingly. Karik winked at the Professor and
asked in a very innocent way:
"Is it true that there was a man in Moscow who had the appetite of an
elephant?"
"I never heard that," said the Professor.
"But I heard it. They say he ate ten plates of soup."
"And I could eat them!" said Valya, shoving a huge piece of 'roll' into
her mouth.
Karik nudged the old man with his elbow. "And for a second course he
ate fifteen tender chops."
"And I could eat fifteen!" rejoiced Valya.
"Lastly, he ate twenty dishes of fruit salad," continued Karik.
"But I would like thirty!"
Karik moved the basket away from himself and wiped his fingers on a
petal.
"Then this chap tied a napkin across his chest and said:
"Well, I think I must have swallowed a worm. So now, if you please, I'd
like to start my proper dinner!"
"And I. . . ."
Valya stretched out her hand to the eighth 'roll\ but after touching
it, thought a little and then sighing heavily declared: "No, I don't want
anything now."
"Perhaps you will now tell us how you contrived, to get into the
Oenothera flower," said the Professor, clapping her on the shoulder.
"Karik and I were looking for you. . . . That's right, Karik?"
Karik nodded his head.
"I went on and on and suddenly I got hungry. In the wood there was
something which smelt just like a confectioner's shop. 'I'll climb up a
tree,' I thought. I climbed up. But then all of a sudden it shut and
wouldn't let me out. I shouted and shouted, until even my own ears ached."
"And you cried, surely?"
"A little. . . . But then I slept so soundly that I didn't even dream.
Afterwards I heard someone shouting 'Valya, Valya!' I wanted to wake up but
I simply couldn't."
"Well, all's well that ends well!" said the old man. "Now in order that
we shall not lose each other again, give me your word that you will not
wander off, not even one step, from me!"
"On my honour as a Pioneer!" said Karik.
"On my honour saluting!" Valya saluted.
"Then - on we go!" ordered the Professor, cheerfully, "on the march, my
dears, on the march!"
The travellers collected the baskets with 'rolls' and moved off beside
the river.
By nightfall they reached a big hill. Here in some sort of hole they
spent the night, and then next morning, having eaten some scented 'rolls',
they continued their journey.
Thus they proceeded for several days, spending the night in flowers, in
shells, in empty wasps' nests, under stones, and in mucky damp dens.
They fed on nectar, bees' honey, butterflies' eggs and green milk.
In the valley of Three Rivers the Professor succeeded in killing a
hedge sparrow. The travellers had roast and smoked fowl for three days and
indeed would have had sufficient meat for a further fortnight had not 'skin'
beetles attacked them on their journey, carried off all their provisions and
very nearly disabled the Professor.
* * * * *
Every day they got nearer and nearer to the lake on the opposite side
of which stood the pole landmark.
According to the Professor's calculations they were due to get to the
lake the following day in the evening. They had then only to get across the
lake, when they should be able to land quite near to the landmark.
"In a few days we should be home !" the Professor assured the children.
But their guide's calculations were not to prove correct.
When the travellers were near the lake an unfortunate event occurred.
It happened in the early morning.
The Professor and the children had just emerged from the cavern in
which they had passed the night and they were beginning their march in the
cold morning dew.
"I declare there's a frost!" shivered the old man.
Shaking with cold and with their teeth chattering the travellers
marched up hill and down dale. It seemed to them as if their bare feet were
moving over ice sprinkled here and there with earth. They wanted to stop and
tuck their feet up under themselves like a goose standing on the ice does.
At last the children could stand it no longer and in order to get warm
they started to run ahead.
"Don't run too far !" the old man shouted after them.
But the children were already dashing towards a chain of high hills,
overtaking each other, jumping in their chase over wide holes and little
rivers.
"Come back!" shouted the old man. "Come back, Karik! Come here, Valya?"
But Karik only waved his hand and quickly running up on to the crest of
a hill disappeared behind it.
Valya stopped as if undecided whether to turn back or to follow Karik,
but, after hesitating a little, went off after her brother and was also
disappearing behind the hill.
The Professor, alarmed, quickened his steps.
Then suddenly from behind the hill came a desperate cry. A few moments
later Valya reappeared on the top of the hill. She waved her hands and
called to the Professor for help.
"Quickly, quickly! . . . They are attacking!" she shouted.
The old man ran as fast as ever he could. He simply flew up the hill.
"Where is he? Where?" he panted at Valya.
"There! There he is!" Valya replied.
At the bottom of a sort of funnel up to its neck in sand a terrible
monster was twisting and digging. A large black head with long curving
pincers was rapidly throwing up sand and rocks in a regular spray.
On the slope of the funnel stood Karik, quite dazed. He was helplessly
covering his head with his hands and turning this way and that way. Sand and
rocks hurtled straight at him. He fell down, got up and fell down again. The
monster did not stop showering him. The sandy wall of the funnel fell away
under his feet and Karik started to slide down, down, down, right into the
monster's lair.
"Turn on your back," shouted the Professor. But Karik couldn't
understand anything and couldn't hear. Then the old man rushed down, seized
Karik by the arms and clambered out of the funnel, up the crumbling side.
A regular hail of rocks followed the fugitives. But the Professor set
his teeth and, not letting go of Karik, quickly climbed upwards, with his
head well down in his shoulders and bending down to the very ground.
At last he got out of the funnel, carefully laid Karik on the ground
and grunted:
"Goodness gracious! are we really out of it?"
Karik lay there pale with a thin stream of blood creeping down his
cheek. His head and the whole of his spider's web suit were powdered with
sand.
Valya ran up to her brother.
"Is he alive?" she demanded of the Professor in alarm, as she dropped
on her knees beside her brother.
"He's alive all right," said the old man, frowning. "He'll soon recover
consciousness!"
"The sooner the better! We must get away from here as soon as possible.
That frightful thing will climb out and start throwing stuff at us again."
"It won't climb out!" replied the Professor curtly, and, looking
angrily at Valya, continued, "Didn't I tell you, didn't I shout at you? Oh,
no . . . must have it your own way!"
He put his ear to Karik's chest, then felt for his pulse and looking
skywards started to move his lips, making no sounds.
Karik sighed.
"Can you hear me?" asked the Professor, loudly.
Karik raised himself up, gazing at the Professor with dull eyes. His
lips moved ever so slightly.
"It's .. . gone?" he asked in a weak voice.
"It's gone away, it's gone away !" said the Professor. "Now how about
you? Can you get up?"
"I think I can!" said Karik.
Swaying, he stood up, said "Come on!" and clenched his teeth.
For some time the travellers moved on in silence, but the old man could
not remain angry for long. When presently they sat down to rest he looked at
Karik and laughed:
"What a hero. . . . Eh? Look at him! Fell into a lion's den!"
"I was unlucky," said Karik. "I was running and running - and suddenly
the funnel appeared and - well! I rolled down it."
"You would do much better if you watched your step instead of chasing
wild geese. A little longer -and you would have made a nice dinner for a
'lion-ant'."
"What did you say it was called, a 'lion-ant'?" demanded Valya.
"Yes, that's what it is called," nodded the old man.
"However, this was not actually a 'lion-ant' itself but its larva. It
doesn't live in a hole itself, it flies about, but most often climbs about
trees. I think you must have actually seen one at one time or other. . . ."
"What is it? What's it like?"
"It is rather like a dragonfly. But it is an idler, a terrible
lazybones. It sits on a tree letting its four wings flop. Yes, and it'll sit
there all day long, just as if it had been stuck there on a pin. But this
bully which sits in a hole and hurls stones - this is its larva. That is how
it hunts. You saw what a cunning trap it had set for ants who don't look
where they are going!"
"For ants?"
"Not only for ants. It doesn't let other insects get out. But what is
most insulting," smiled the Professor, "this creature who wanted to eat you
hasn't even got a mouth."
"Well, then. . . . How was it going to eat me? With its feet?"
"Yes, in a way - with its pincers!" replied the Professor. "You see, my
dears, the 'lion-ant' has no mouth opening, but on the contrary has two huge
pincers on its head with which it attaches itself to its prey, and through
which it sucks their blood. Another two or three minutes and you would have
made the acquaintance of these pincers."
The Professor got up from the ground and said:
"Well, ready? Let's go on!"
Valya trotted behind the old man and Karik dragged himself along behind
them both, trying not to get separated from Valya.
At times a sharp pain made him jump and stop. It seemed to him as if he
had trodden on a long, sharp needle.
For all that he kept going. Frowning, making faces, biting his lips, he
nevertheless kept moving and did not drop behind a single step.
The old man looked around every so often and stole a glance at Karik.
When Karik stumbled the Professor asked him with alarm in his voice:
"Well, what's the matter with you? Perhaps you would like to lean on
me, wouldn't you?"
"No, no, it's nothing!" replied Karik, hastily, "it's just. . . . I
trod on a sharp stone!"
At last Karik began to lag. He now no longer walked but hopped,
trailing one leg behind the other one after him along the ground.
The Professor stopped and said:
"Well, I can see you are quite exhausted."
"No, no!" protested Karik. "I could do another fifty miles still." He
straightened himself up and started to walk quickly forward but, having made
a few steps, fell, and clutching his bad leg groaned. Then the Professor
without saying a word lifted Karik up on to his back.
"No, I can stick it. Let me go! I can manage it myself!" resisted
Karik.
"Sit there!" scolded the Professor. " 'I can stick it,' indeed! You
think you're a champion."
Holding Karik tightly, he walked on frowning and looking down at his
feet. Beside him came Valya, with a guilty look on her face.
Karik laid his head on the Professor's shoulder, his eyes were soon
shut and he was sound asleep.
When next he opened his eyes he saw that he was lying on the bank of a
big lake. The Professor was standing on a rock and using his hand to shade
his eyes was gazing at the opposite bank where the landmark stood up
solitary in the distance.
Karik heard Valya ask something but what it was he could not make out.
He raised his head from the ground and listened. At that moment the old
man was speaking:
"We'll build a boat and sail or row across. But to begin with let's
look for a suitable lodging-place. We may probably have to spend a week on
the bank."
"But why ever?"
"What do you mean why ever? You must have seen how ill our Karik is?"
"You don't need to!" said Karik, raising himself on his elbows.
"Don't need what?"
"You don't need to spend a week on the shore. I can crawl into the
boat, and I am sure I could row!"
"Stuff and nonsense!" the Professor waved his hands. "What will happen
if a storm suddenly springs up. You'll go to the bottom like a stone."
The old man bent over Karik and carefully touched his swollen knee with
his hand.
"Look how blue it has become! And it hurts, no doubt?"
"It is painful," Karik wrinkled up his eyes. "It burns all the time as
if someone was ironing the knee with a hot iron."
The Professor started to think and then suddenly clapping his hand to
his head ran to the lake.
"0-oh, isn't it swollen!" Valya touched Karik's sore leg with the top
of her finger.
"Yes. If you had been bombarded like that you would be swollen too!"
rejoined Karik, rubbing his bad knee.
"If you don't put your weight on that leg it will soon go! Would you
like me to find you a crutch?"
At this moment the Professor arrived back. He held in front of himself
on outstretched hands a tiny leaf from which water was trickling down on to
the sand.
"Well, now, turn a little!" said the old man, "and give me your leg."
Then having laid the wet, cold leaf on the hot, swollen knee he
skilfully bound up Karik's bad leg.
"How's that?"
"Very good," said Karik, "a sort of compress. It started to get better
at once."
"Excellent! Lie quiet, and Valya and I will go and look for a place to
spend the night."
As luck would have it the travellers did not have to look long for
their refuge. The whole bank of the lake was pierced with deep caverns. The
old man and Valya started inspecting first one and then another, and at last
chose a dry sandy cave with a low roof and narrow entrance.
"Let's stay in this one!" suggested Valya.
The Professor agreed.
He returned to the bank, lifted Karik and carried him to the cave in
his arms.
"Lie there!" he said, putting Karik down beside the wall. "Is that
comfortable for you?"
Karik did not answer. He was already sleeping the heavy sleep of the
sick.
The old man and Valya sat at the entrance and, by the fading light of
evening, ate a supper of the remains of the honey dough.
"Now we must go to sleep!" said the Professor.
Blocking up the entrance to the cave with rocks the travellers
stretched themselves out on the dry sand and were soon asleep.
* * * * * *
Towards morning the Professor dreamt he saw a lion-ant. The lion was
firmly holding Karik in its curved pincers and was staring at him with huge
protruding eyes.
Karik was hitting the monster on the head with his arms and legs and
quietly groaning.
The old man opened his eyes.
"Good gracious, I was dreaming!" he thought.
However, the groans continued. It wasn't a dream after all!
"Karik, are you all right?" the Professor hailed him.
Karik did not answer.
It was dark in the cave.
The old man got up and feeling the wall with his hand made his way to
the mouth of the cave. In the darkness, touching the barricade of rocks
which blocked up the entrance, he took off two big rocks from the top and
gently, so as not to wake the children, lowered them down to the ground.
It now became light in the cave.
The grey light which comes before the dawn filtered in and touched the
floor where the children were sleeping.
In the centre of the cave Valya could be seen curled up like a cat,
Karik was sleeping near the wall with his arms flung widely apart. He
was all red in the face. Sweat stood on his forehead. He was shivering and
groaning in his sleep.
The Professor went over to him, bent down and quietly touched the
swollen knee wrapped in the leaf.
Without waking Karik drew up the leg and groaned loudly.
"Do you want something to drink, Karik?" he asked.
Karik opened his eyes. Unable to grasp anything, he gazed at the
Professor for a long time and then turned away from him towards the wall.
"Would you like me to get you some water?"
"No-o!" said Karik, through his teeth.
"But would you like me to change the compress?" asked the old man.
"Yes . . . compress, please!"
The Professor brought a fresh damp petal and fastened it around the
swollen knee.
"How's that? Better?"
"Better!" sighed Karik.
"That's fine! Sleep away! Meanwhile I'll go and look for something to
eat. If Valya wakes up, don't let her go out of the cave. I'll be back
soon."
Karik silently nodded his head. '
The Professor filled up the entrance to the cave with rocks and,
looking around himself in order to remember quite clearly where the children
were, went off to find something for breakfast.
Not far from the cave a hill rose up covered with thick bushes.
The old man went to the foot of the hill, examined it carefully,
touched the soft feathery foliage of the green bushes.
"Evidently it is moss! Yes, indeed, just ordinary moss. Now let's see
if there is anything eatable here."
He climbed daringly through the thick growth of moss. But he had only
gone a few steps when he disappeared up to the waist.
Falling, he managed to clutch hold of some of the foliage.
With his legs swinging above a dark hole he peered downwards and in the
half darkness descried earthy arches and a smooth, trampled floor. The weak
light filtered in from above through the thick foliage and lit the dark
cellar fitfully.
In the depths of the cellar along the wall white barrels stood in even
rows.
"Apparently it's a bumble bee's store!" muttered the Professor.
He measured with his eye the distance to the earthern floor and letting
go the foliage with his hands dropped down. The earth beneath his feet was
dry and warm.
Examining the cellar with curiosity the old man went over to the
barrels. They were each of them closed with a white cover. He lifted the
cover off one of the barrels, bent over it and sniffed.
"That's just what it is!"
The barrel was full to the very brim with scented honey. Alongside
stood other barrels, and they too were filled with honey.
It was very much like a storeroom in which supplies were kept "for a
rainy day."
In actual fact this was what it was - a bumble bee's storeroom.
The female bumble bee lays its eggs in a nest and leaves alongside them
little balls of honey and pollen. The larvae come out of the eggs, eat the
balls of honey and pollen and turn into cocoons, which are barrel-shaped.
After a little while the young bumble bees open the top of the barrels and
fly out. But the cocoons are not wasted. In the summer the bumble bees fill
them with honey and in cold, rainy weather, when it is not possible to fly
out of the nest, they feed on this.
The Professor, in no hurry, breakfasted and then chose one of the
stronger barrels and started to drag it out of the storeroom.
This was no easy task.
The barrel, as if it had been alive, jerked itself out of the old man's
hands, bumped him and knocked him off his feet. But for all this the
Professor managed to get it up out of the cellar.
His knees shook. His hands were numb. His heart beat so furiously that
he could feel it clearly even in his temples.
"And now how can I roll it to the cave," he puzzled.
He was afraid to turn the barrel on its side and roll it along the
ground as one normally rolls the ordinary barrel. The lid might open and all
the honey would pour out on to the ground.
"There's nothing for it but to try some other way." He gripped the edge
of the barrel with his hands and shook it fiercely.
The barrel rocked.
"Aha! It'll soon come!" he rejoiced.
He tipped the barrel over on one side and proceeded to push, at the
same time rolling the barrel from side to side as if he wanted to bore a
hole in the earth.
Slowly, step by step, pushing the barrel with his hands and leaning his
full weight against if, the old man drove it to the cave.
When the Professor got to the bank of the lake Valya came to meet him,
"Up already?" he asked, stopping and taking breath. "How is Karik
getting on?"
"He is asleep! Let me help you!"
"Certainly, help if you can!"
"But what is this? What is the barrel?"
"Honey!"
"A whole barrel! That's really grand!"
Valya took hold of the barrel and began to push it, helping the
Professor.
With their combined efforts they rolled the barrel into the cave and
stood it in a corner.
"You have breakfast, little Valya," said the Professor, wiping his hot
neck with his hands, "I must go and look for a bed for Karik. It's not very
comfortable for him, poor chap, to sleep on the bare ground."
He went out.
Valya successfully threw off the lid and at once dug her hands into the
honey. Her fingers became covered with the scented liquid. She ate so
enthusiastically that soon her face, neck and arms, up to the very elbows,
were coated as if with glue, in amber-yellow honey.
"Now what shall I do?" Valya spread her sticky fingers apart. "There
isn't even anything to wipe them on. I'll go to the lake and wash."
She went out of the cave and ran to the lake.
On the sandy beach Valya stopped to make sure that there were no
monsters in the neighbourhood and only after this did she get into the water
and start to wash.
After bathing she ran back. On her way back she collected a piece of
petal and dragged it into the cave.
"It will be useful," she considered. "It is certain to be useful to us
now!"
At the cave itself she saw the Professor, who was dragging a mass of
feathery hair.
"Now where have you been running to?" he asked, stopping.
"To wash myself!"
The Professor shook his head.
"Now, that doesn't please me at all. I warned you most seriously. I
warned you not to go out without me."
"But I was all covered with honey!"
"All the more likely," gruff-gruffed the old man, "that a fly, wasp or
a bee would carry you off with the honey - in fact, there are few of our
neighbours here who could resist a girl covered in honey."
He went into the cave and threw the pile of tangled hair on the floor.
"Well, there you are, there's a bed for Karik! Yes, and there is enough
hair for you and me as well."
"It's just like a real mattress!" Valya touched the hair. "Where did
you get it?"
"I took it from a gipsy moth!"
"Does a gipsy moth sleep on a mattress?"
"No," smiled the Professor, "it doesn't sleep itself. It flies. But its
next generation are covered carefully by it with this down. Neither rain nor
cold are harmful to the eggs of gipsy moths, which lie under such dense
feathery eiderdowns."
"What is this feathery stuff? It's surely ordinary horsehair!"
"You forget that you and I are not ordinary ourselves and that is why
this down appears to us as horsehair. However, let us make up a bed for
Karik now."
"I'll make the bed!" said Valya.
She laid hair near the sandy wall, beat it up with her hands as one
puffs up a pillow, then threw a big bunch of hair at the head of the bed and
went a little way away.
"It looks quite nice," she said admiringly.
"Excellent," approved the Professor. He took the sleeping Karik up in
his arms and transferred him to the bed. Valya opened the petal up and laid
it over Karik like a quilt.
"He seems pretty comfortable now. Look after him while I go out for
half an hour or so," said the old man. "I have some things to do outside. If
Karik wakens feed him!"
"Right you are," said Valya. "You go on, I have some things to do too."
When the Professor had gone, Valya made up two more beds, dragged in
two new blue quilts made from harebell petals, swept the floor with a piece
of petal, then rolled into the cave four big stones, put a flat rock on top
of them and on top of that laid as a tablecloth the white petal of an
ox-eyed daisy.
This provided a splendid table.
Around the table Valya arranged smaller stones, put the remainder of
the hair on these and covered it with yellow petals.
"There are our comfy chairs!" said Valya.
Having finished work she inspected the cave and was very pleased - it
was now really cosy.
"Now we could stay here even a whole month while Karik gets well."
She went over on tiptoe to her brother's bed, bent over him and
carefully rearranged the quilt.
"He is asleep," she said in a whisper.
Soon the Professor arrived back. Breathing heavily, he rolled a second
barrel of honey into the cave and stood it up by the wall.
"Look what I have done here," boasted Valya.
"What's happened?" asked the old man in alarm, but on looking around
the cave nodded his head approvingly. "Bravo, bravo! You're a champion! Yes,
you're a regular housewife!" He praised Valya. "By the way, I too may be
able to add something to the comfort of our dwelling. Just here by the cave
I found an interesting little thing."
He went out and in ten minutes returned with a little leaf in his
hands. Using the leaf as if it was a tray he carried in a mound of oblong
little eggs.
"What are those?" asked Valya, "Can we eat them?"
"No," replied the Professor, "they cannot be eaten but they will be
useful to us, very useful!"
"But what use can they be?"
"Live and learn!"
The Professor put the tray of eggs on a barrel and said:
"I have been thinking things over: Our patient will evidently have to
stay in bed for some days. In order not to waste time you and I will roll
all the barrels of honey into the cave and then we can set about building
our battleship."
"What battleship?"
"Well, something is sure to turn up that we can make into a ship! Then
as soon as Karik gets well, we can set out on our voyage. Since our landmark
is on the opposite side of the lake, it means we must go across in a
vessel."
Having fed themselves on honey, Valya and the old man set about rolling
the barrels of honey from the bumble bees' store to the cave. Each time they
came back the Professor went over to Karik, listened to his uneven breathing
and felt his pulse.
Karik slept as if he was dead.
When the whole corner of the cave was stocked with barrels of honey the
Professor announced:
"That's that. Now, little Valya, let's go and build a ship."
"That will be interesting!" rejoiced the girl.
"I don't know if it will be interesting," said her companion, "but I am
ready to wager that we'll have a spot of work to do!"
Having closed up the entrance to the cave with rocks in order that no
wild beasts should get in to Karik, the old man and the girl set out to the
lake.
"What can we make the ship out of?" demanded Valya, marching along
beside the Professor.
"We'll find something. There are quite a few dry tree leaves on the
bank. We can build it out of these. This morning 1 saw behind the hills some
ordinary trees."
"It is very likely that the wind carries their leaves here. At any
rate, we shall soon see."
The Professor and Valya went along the bank and no sooner had the old
man got a little way away from Valya than she suddenly cried out:
"I have found it! Found it! Found it already!"
"Where?" the old man turned to her.
"Here we are!"
By the lake itself lay a huge yellow leaf with deeply indented edges.
Thick veins spread fan-like in all directions.
The Professor walked around the leaf, looked at it from every
direction, lifted its edge and looking underneath said:
"Yes, this is an oak leaf, but unfortunately we cannot make a ship out
of it."
"Why not?"
"There are galls on the leaf. Do you see? The whole leaf is covered
with galls!"
"Galls. What are they?"
The Professor lifted the edge of the oak leaf still higher.
Valya squatted down and looked under the leaf. The whole of its lower
surface was covered with dark balls. These balls appeared just as if they
had been glued on to the leaf. Valya touched them with her hands. They were
as hard as stones.
"We could never move such a leaf!" the old man announced.
"Whatever are these things?" demanded Valya.
"They are insects' nests!" said the Professor. "Numerous insects lay
their eggs directly on leaves. But the leaves don't like this and they
protect themselves with all their resources against unwelcome guests. The
cells of the leaf collect around the egg, trying to push it away, just as
the white corpuscles of the blood push away a thorn which has got into your
finger.
"It is for this reason that an inflammation appears on your finger
around the thorn whilst on the leaves swellings appear - these very galls.
They are usually called 'ink nuts' or 'oak apples,' although by no means all
of these galls are inky nor are they very inviting apples."
"But what insects do this?" asked Valya.
The Professor shrugged his shoulders. "One or two!" he said. "Let me
see! The following lay their eggs on leaves: 60 sorts of butterflies, 113
sorts of beetles, 486 sorts of flies and, well, 290 sorts of other insects."
"Can we ever find a leaf without galls?"
"We shall have to find one!" answered the Professor.
It was already dusk by the time they at length found a dry oak leaf
suitable for launching. But it lay a good distance from the bank, so far
that it was quite beyond the Professor and Valya to push it into the water.
"We'll never get it there!" Valya shook her head.
The Professor started to think. Stroking his beard he stood on the
leaf, silently gazing at its thick veins, which stretched in every
direction.
"What if? . . . Yes, of course!" gruff-gruffed the old man, and then
suddenly started laughing.
"What are you up to?" Valya looked surprised.
"I am up to just this," replied the Professor. "We'll go home now.
To-morrow we'll harness a horse to do the job."
"A horse?" Valya was still more surprised.
The Professor did not say anything in reply. Muttering something under
his breath he quickly set out in the direction of the cave. Valya ran
skipping along behind him.
"Now, Professor dear, do tell me what are these horses? Where will you
get them from?"
"I will not tell you!"
"Tell me!" insisted Valya.
"Don't be curious! You'll see for yourself to-morrow."
"Oh, Professor," whimpered Valya again, and suddenly became silent.
In front of them a light twinkled. Valya seized the old man by the hand
and stopped.
"It's on fire! Look! There is a fire in our cave!"
The light was coming between the rocks which blocked the entrance to
the cave.
"A fire! A fire in our cave!" Valya screamed in fright. "Hurry - Karik
is burning!"
"It is nothing! Nothing terrible! Your brother is not burning."
But Valya, not listening to the Professor, had already dashed headlong
to the cave.
"Karik!" she shouted, as she ran. "Are you burning? Are you burning,
Karik?"
"No, it is not I," Valya heard Karik's calm voice.
She quickly pulled the rocks aside. Jumping into the cave she stopped
as if she was rooted to the spot.
"Whatever is it?"
The corner where the mound of little eggs had been laid on their tray
was glowing with a dazzling blue light just as the lamps on a New Year's
tree, only brighter. One could have read a book by the light.
"Well, how do you like it?" Valya heard the old man's voice behind her.
"Isn't it lovely !" said Valya, in ecstasy.
"It's those . . . those eggs are glowing."
"Yes," smiled the Professor, "the eggs of a glow-worm."
"Ah, I know!" Valya nodded her head. "It's that worm. The glow-worm!
The 'St. John's day' worm, as the peasants call it!"
"Yes, that's what it is called, although it actually is not a worm but
a beetle. That you can easily understand when you consider what it eats. The
ordinary worm lives underground and eats earth but the beetle lives in damp
grass and feeds on snails."
"Yes, yes! I remember. These beetles shine in the grass."
"Perfectly correct. They glow themselves, their larvae glow and their
eggs glow. . . . Pretty, isn't it?"
"Very pretty," said Karik from his corner. "How lucky it was that you
found them."
"Well, now how do you feel. Better or worse?" The old man went over to
the patient. "Would you like something to eat?"
"Had it !" said Karik. "I have already had it! When you were away I had
a look all round, found the honey and had a jolly good feed."
"You shouldn't have got up." frowned the Professor. "It is too soon for
you to get up ! Too soon, my dear! If you don't look out you'll make
yourself worse !"
"Do you know what?" said Karik. "When I woke up and looked around - the
table, then the chairs, and the light burning. Why, I thought I was at home
again, it was morning, and I must get up."
"But do you like our new flat?" asked Valya.
"Very much!" replied Karik. "Particularly the little glow-worm lamps.
Haven't they got a strong light?"
"You could have more than that," said the Professor. "Now if you
brought a couple of Pyropheri in here . . . there you would see some light!"
"And what are these things . . . py . . . your pyrough."
"They are beetles, too! They live in Guiana, Brazil and Mexico. And
then if some Brazilian or Mexican wants to go out in the forest at night he
catches one of these beetles and fastens it to his hat. The light given off
by these beetle-lanterns is so strong that you can go through the very
darkest of tropical undergrowth and not lose your way - some people call
them 'Ford bugs' because they are like motor-car headlamps. Mexican women
adorn themselves with these Pyropheri They hide them in their hair, beside
diamonds or make themselves jewels of fire or fasten them round their waists
to make a girdle of fire. After a ball the local belles bathe the tired
insects in a bath and put them in a glass vase and there the Pyropheri light
the bedrooms of these Mexican women all night with a gentle, pleasant
light."
"But is the glow-worm the only one we have which glows?"
"It's not the only thing," replied the Professor. "I could arrange the
same sort of lighting using glowing bacteria. . . . When I was a student I
once made a real lamp out of such bacteria. By the light of this lamp I
could read and write."
"Bacteria? These are so small that you cannot see them with the naked
eye. How can they light up anything? You couldn't see them."
"When you have lots of them," replied the old man, "then you can see
the light, although the individual bacteria, naturally, cannot be seen.