ak. 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!" CHAPTER XII In the clutches of a winged monster - The travellers meet again - The Mont Blanc tree - About living "hams" - Karik and Valya are wafted away VALYA DASHED ABOUT THE SLOPES OF THE PEAK IN PANIC. SHE ran down and then ran up to the top and looked into the dark well. "Karik!" she screamed. "Professor!" There was no answer. "Oh, dear! Wherever can they be?" she muttered. The poor girl was quite exhausted. She sat down on the hot rocks and pressing her hands to her face started to cry. Through tears, as if she was looking through a window wet with rain, she saw now and then huge winged creatures flying. They swooped right past her. Their wings caused quite a whirlwind. She crouched down and ducked her head, watching these monsters in terror. They flew now upwards and now with a swish landed on the ground. They folded up their transparent, shining wings, and having uncurled their striped bodies they clambered in a clumsy fashion over the rocks; then having got hold of something on the ground once again shot up into the sky. One of these creatures crawled right up to Valya. It actually hit her with its wing. The powerful blow sent Valya sprawling on the ground. The striped monster quickly turned towards her and started to gaze at her with shining, protruding eyes. Valya felt she was going to faint. The creature leisurely started to move away. But the girl stirred ever so slightly and in an instant the monster leaped towards her and stopped, swaying its feelers above her head. Valya was cold with fear. Holding her breath she watched the long feelers with eyes wide with terror. She could not see the rest of the monster, but felt that it must be right beside her. A silence ensued broken only by Valya's own breathing. Then she heard the monster moving away, dragging itself noisily over the ground, getting further and further away every minute. She jumped up. She was shaking all over. Her body was covered with a cold perspiration. With her arms waving she dashed with a yell down the hill towards the foot. But suddenly strong, hairy paws wound around her body. A sharp point pierced her spiderweb jacket and tore the skin of her back. It hurt terribly, but Valya did not succeed in crying out. Above her head, huge wings drummed and shook, and the next instant Valya found herself in the air. Strong arms clutched her to a hairy breast which now contracted, now expanded like the bellows of a concertina. Valya tried to turn her head and see what sort of monster it was that held her in its grip, but as soon as she stirred the arms squeezed her like iron pincers. She groaned in pain. "Help!" cried Valya. The whistle of the wind drowned her voice. She screamed until she was hoarse, but she could hardly hear her own voice. Below her, green fields and woods swayed, rivers and lakes glittered and endless yellow sand stretched out in ribbons. All the time, Valya flew further and further from the well where she felt she had left the Professor and Karik. Where was the fearsome winged beast carrying her to now? What would she do alone in the nightmare grassy jungle? How would she find her way home, and indeed would she ever get back to that big, comfortable world? Valya wriggled, turned her head and ferociously fastened her teeth in the strong, rigid arm. The arm was hard and smooth like polished wood. Valya's teeth just slipped along it. At that instant, the clutching pincers squeezed the poor girl even tighter. It was quite useless to fight the monster. It could squash her like a fly. "I'll die," sobbed Valya. "I'll die and no one will even know that I am dead." She started to feel ever so sorry for herself and sobbed aloud. Then her tears dried up. Her eyes became dry as if every tear had been poured out, to the last one. Then she started to kick and scream: "Let go! What's the matter? Did I touch you? Let go! Go away ! Let me loose!" But the winged monster just flew on, whirring its hard, resonant wings which made a noise like a sawmill at work. At last, in a gliding flight it swooped down, started to flutter its wings in the air and suddenly the arms holding Valya were stretched out in front and pushed her, like a dish into the oven, into some sort of dark hole. Valya hit her head against something hard and slid precipitously downwards as if she was on an ice mountain. "Falling!" The terror of it gripped Valya's brain. She shut her eyes. Then suddenly felt herself caught by other claws. "Ooh!" Valya screamed, hitting out with her arms and legs. She opened her eyes in alarm and saw that the claws which held her were really not claws at all but the hands of . . . the old Professor ! "Professor! Is it really you?" she shouted. "It is I, little Valya, it is I!" replied the Professor affectionately, setting her down on the sloping floor. "And I'm here too!" Valya heard Karik's voice. "But wherever are we all?" she asked. "All right, all right! We'll soon find out," said their guide. "The main thing is that we are all together." Valya started to look round wildly. In the half-darkness she could see smooth walls: they sloped steeply upwards. There was no roof. Above, through a broad circular opening, the rays of the sun were striking in. In the beams of light dust was floating. The prison in which Valya, Karik and the Professor now found themselves was like a deep basket. But this basket was not standing upright but was sloping as if it had got caught on something when falling and now hung at an angle in mid-air. Valya looked at the dark walls, at Karik and at the Professor. How had the Professor and Karik both got here? Who had imprisoned them in this giant basket? Was it really the same monster which had carried her, Valya, there? She started to question them but the Professor interrupted her. "Later, later," he said, frowning. "There is no time for gossip now. If we don't climb out of this, this very instant, we may lose our lives. . . . Come on, children, let's try." Their guide got down on to all-fours and slowly made his way up the smooth, sloping wall. The children came after him. The climb was difficult. Arms and legs slipped as if on ice. The Professor had nearly reached the edge of the basket when suddenly his knees wobbled, his hands slipped and he rolled back to the bottom with a rumble, carrying the children with him. "No luck!" he said, getting up on to his feet. "We must try again." The travellers once again edged their way up the smooth wall. Once again they rolled all the way down again. "We can't climb out of this," groaned Valya. "Silence!" ordered the Professor, angrily. He measured with his eyes the distance from the edge of the basket to the floor, surveyed Karik from head to foot, and said resolutely: "Come on now! Climb on to my shoulders!" Karik jumped up, like a bouncing ball, caught hold of the Professor's neck and hoisted himself on to his shoulders. "Try and reach the top!" commanded their guide. Karik cautiously started to straighten himself out. With his hands against the wall he straightened his bent knees and finally stood erect at his full height. "Now climb on to the palms of my hands!" ordered their guide, putting his two hands up. Karik placed first one foot and then the other on the palms of the Professor's hands. "You won't fall?" asked the Professor. "I won't fall!" The Professor made a great effort and, groaning, managed to lift Karik upwards like a heavy beam. "Got it!" shouted Karik, grabbing the uneven edge of the basket. "Splendid! Pull yourself higher, still higher !" Karik started to stretch out his whole body with his toes firmly planted in the Professor's hands. "Now, now, now!" encouraged their guide. At last, Karik gave a jump and skilfully got astride of the edge of the basket. "That's fine !" said the Professor. "Now get hold of Valya!" He caught up Valya and handed her up to Karik. Then he quickly started to unwind the spider's cord in which he was clothed. Having half stripped himself, he made a loop in the end of the cord. "Catch!" he shouted, throwing the loop up at the children. Karik caught the cord and put it over a projecting part of the basket. "Ready!" he announced cheerfully. The Professor pulled on the cord, testing to see whether it was firmly secured, and then grasping it with both hands slowly hoisted himself up, moving in short bursts. Puffing and blowing, he at length made his appearance on the edge of the basket. The travellers looked below. The basket on which they found themselves was fastened to a huge beam covered with red knobs. From this log, other smaller beams stretched out in all directions, and from these there stuck out like green feathers rows of huge lances. Through the chinks between the beams they could see far, far below the ground. "Wherever have we got to?" asked Valya, looking around herself in giddy terror. The Professor grimaced. "We are on a very ordinary pine tree branch." "On a branch?" persisted Valya, shaking her head in an unbelieving way. "Yes, on the branch of a pine tree which you, I am sure, have seen heaps of times in your life. The branch is just as usual but you yourself have got a lot smaller. That is why you are so puzzled." "Well, all right! If it's a branch, it's a branch, but however do we get down to the ground?" interrupted Karik. "Surely without a parachute we can do nothing." "We'll manage and without a parachute," their guide assured them. He patted his "tights" and cheerfully winked at the children. "You are still laughing at my rig-out. No, my dears! For poor travellers like us, every piece of cord is a treasure." And their guide thereupon started to unwind more of the silvery cord in which he was wrapped. "Should we also unroll ours?" demanded Valya. "Of course! My suit will not be enough." Karik and Valya set to work. They unwrapped the rings of their silver jackets and carefully coiled each cord down beside themselves. "Hurry! hurry up, my dears!" the Professor urged them on. "The awful creature that brought us here will be back very soon and we shall be done." "We are all ready now!" shouted Valya. "Splendid! Try and twist up a thick rope." "How do you do that?" "Very simply. Like this!" And their guide showed them what was necessary to twist the cords together. Helping each other, the travellers hastily twisted the cords together and out of the cords produced a thick rope. At last all was ready for the descent. The Professor coiled the rope down in a heap and wound one end round a sharp projection from the basket and then threw the rest of the coil off the basket with a kick of his foot. The heavy coil slipped between the branches and plunged downwards, unwinding itself in flight into a long, knotted rope. The end of the rope hung just above the lower branches of the pine tree. "First Valya must go!" ordered the Professor. "Why me?" "There is no time for argument!" The Professor was stern. "Well, all right, all right!" said Valya hastily. "I'll go down first, but please don't be angry!" She bravely clutched the rope and quickly slid down. "Safe journey!" The Professor waved his hand. "When you get down, hold the end of the rope!" The Professor and Karik leant over and silently watched how their small comrade was letting herself down. "Don't be a coward!" shouted Karik. "I wasn't even thinking!" came back a faint reply from Valya. She was calmly slipping down the rope from knot to knot and had already reached the middle of it. Then suddenly a gust of wind came. Valya started to swing like a pendulum. She clung convulsively to a knot in the rope and turned her head beseechingly upwards to the Professor. "Let yourself down!" the Professor and Karik shouted together. The wind set the rope swinging even more. Valya was describing wide circles above . . . empty space. "Let yourself down!" Valya closed her eyes tightly and once again started to slide down the rope from knot to knot. At last her foot touched something firm. This was the lower branch of the pine tree, which was yet broader and considerably thicker than the upper branches. Valya found she could walk about as freely on its surface as people strolling along a main street pavement. "I'm down!" shouted Valya, looking upwards. High above her head hung the clumsy basket. On its edge sat the Professor and Karik, and they were shouting something. Valya strained her ears. "Hold the rope!" Karik was shouting from above. Valya got hold of the end of the rope. The rope shook and then became taut. Karik and after him the Professor now let themselves rapidly down it and were soon standing alongside her. "It is not so far from here to the ground now!" said their guide, peering downwards. "Let's have a look for our landmark and see in which direction it lies." He looked to right and to left, and then shouted: "There it is!" "Where? Where?" demanded the children, turning their heads here and there. Through the foliage of pine needles the travellers were able to see on the far horizon the pole with the red flag. But how far away it now seemed. It looked quite tiny - like a flag on a toy steamer. Valya, screwing up her eyes, looked at the flag, at Karik, at the Professor, and then sighed heavily. "We'll never get to it now!" she said. "We'll not reach it in a year! We are so small and it is so far away." "Hm! well!" grunted the Professor. "It may take us two or three months' walking." "Three months? But winter will have set in by that time . . . we'll have to build a house," said Valya. "Hm . . . possibly . . . . But what are we waiting here for? Let's go along the branch to the trunk of the tree." Their guide looked around him once more and then moved forward confidently. The children followed behind him. They clambered over the dark red hillocks of the pine bark and jumped across narrow deep clefts. In some places these clefts had a thick growth of some light grey bushes on them. "Let's have a rest, my dears," said the Professor, sitting down. "Then we will go down the trunk like ants do." The children looked down and stepped back involuntarily. "That's terrible!" gasped Valya. "All the same, we must get down," said their guide. Valya clung to the red bark and shook her head. "Don't worry, don't worry!" the Professor comforted her. "In the Caucasus and on the Pamir, our alpinists get themselves up even steeper mountains and naturally get themselves down again. But out there it is not so easy either. Every so often they have to cross ice fields and glaciers. The wind makes their eyes cry and the cold freezes the tears on their cheeks. Br-r-r-r. Even to think of it is terrible. Well, on our 'Mont Blanc' tree it is not nearly so dangerous to climb down." "Dear, dear! I suppose we will get down somehow," sighed Valya sadly. "Of course we'll get down," asserted Karik. "In any case there is no other way, we must climb down the trunk." The Professor unwound the remains of his "tights," plaited a trustworthy rope from it and handed the end of it to Valya. "You must go first again," he announced. "Tie the rope around your waist and hold on to it tightly. Karik will come next and I'll climb down last." Their guide made a loop in the rope and threw it over Karik's shoulders. "Get your arms through. That's right!" Karik raised his arms, slipped the loop down to his waist and pulled it tighter. "Well! that is all ready," said the Professor. The travellers moved off down the trunk. First they let Valya down with the rope. She sought about below with her feet and feeling a projecting piece of bark, shouted: "I'm standing! Let out some more rope!" The rope slackened. Behind Valya came down Karik. The Professor waited at the top with his legs wide apart, holding the rope with both hands. He was following every movement of the children. As soon as Valya and Karik had got a good hold in the new place, their guide threw them the rope and, clinging to the projecting bark, let himself down cautiously. In this manner they accomplished nearly half their dangerous journey. The ground came closer and closer with every step. They could already see the angular stems of the grass trees. "All the same, it is a long way off still!" said their guide. "We shall not reach the ground for at least another three hours." All three of them were very tired. Their shoulders and knees were covered with scratches, bruises, and weals. Their hands shook so that they could hardly let themselves down. It was time to rest. On one of the broader standing places, the Professor and the children stopped. "Halt!" the Professor ordered, and fell wearily to the rough floor. The children collapsed beside him. He lay breathing heavily and wiping the perspiration from his face. Karik and Valya sat up with their legs dangling over the precipice. All then was silent. Suddenly Valya jumped up and waved her arms. "Eh! Look! What's that?" "What? What do you want?" Their guide raised himself up to look. And there he saw a huge head covered with a regular forest of bristles. Short, strong feet gripped the edge of their resting place. Then the creature hauled itself up on to the level and, bending its long, hairy body, crawled along the bark using what appeared to be countless feet. Behind it came another creature just as hairy, and just as long, and then another and another. "Don't be frightened!" the Professor reassured them, getting up on to a projecting piece of bark. "These are Only caterpillars of the pine moth - silkworms. They won't touch us." "Oh, I'm frightened of them all the same," whispered Valya. "Why are you such a coward?" said Karik. "If you are told they won't touch you, it means they won't touch you. . . . What do they feed on?" he asked the Professor. "Green leaves and soft young pine shoots," answered their guide. "There, you see! These are vegetarian-caterpillars. You can even stroke them with your hand." But Valya, in spite of this, only moved farther and farther away. The Professor smiling, went up to her, patted her on the shoulder and said: "Don't be frightened! don't be frightened, little one! They will all crawl on in a minute. We are quite useless to them. They are hunting for the young pine shoots. It is only some sort of greenery that'll do for these hairy vegetarians. I know them well! I wrote a book about them once." "A book about caterpillars?" marvelled Valya. "What is there surprising about that?" The Professor shrugged his shoulders. "These caterpillars actually are like locusts of the forest. They assemble in uncountable swarms and devour the green shoots of the trees in the same way as locusts eat up the crops. I once saw a forest which had been visited by a swarm of pine moth caterpillars like this. It was completely stripped by the greedy things. I rode for miles and miles but there wasn't a green shoot to be seen, just bare twigs everywhere." At that moment the Professor looked upwards and smiled as if he had seen one of his best friends. "Why, there is a Microgasta nemorum!" he announced. "Welcome! welcome!" "Where is it? What is it you have seen?" "You don't mean to say you can't see it?" The children started to scratch their heads. Like a squadron of gliders right above the silkworms, huge creatures with thin bodies and long transparent wings were noiselessly swooping. "Midges!" shouted Valya. ''''Microgasta nemorum!'' announced the Professor. '' Ichneumon flies or - as we Russians commonly call them - Horsemen-flies! The friends of forest and field. Watch, children, what'll happen now! There are many scientists who would envy us now. Watch! Got it!" He started counting. "That's number one' Got it! Another! Excellent! Got it! That's the third! Brave boys! Watch! watch!" The winged 'horsemen-flies' swooped down on the caterpillars like vultures on their prey and landed on their backs. "They are riding on them, they are riding on them," exclaimed Valya. "They are proper horsemen!" It was like one of those comic turns at a circus where dogs ride on the backs of horses or mice on the backs of cats. The children clapped their hands. But, suddenly, Valya dropped her hands, looked towards the Professor and asked with alarm: "These . . . micro . . . whatever are they doing?" She had seen that the 'horsemen-flies' lift their bodies up and stick the sharp sword they carried in their tails hard into the backs of the caterpillars. Having jabbed the caterpillars, they at once flew upwards. "They are fighting," Valya announced, "fighting and not riding!" "They are neither fighting nor riding," replied their guide. "The Ichneumon flies pierce the skin of the caterpillars with their sharp egg-layer and lay their eggs. After some time, their larvas come out of the eggs and proceed to devour the caterpillars. They eat the caterpillars before they change into butterflies. If it was not for the 'horsemen-flies' the pine moth caterpillar would eat the whole forest, but the microgasta does not allow it to multiply. That is why we can consider this fly our very best forest guard." "But isn't it possible to rear these microjesters artificially?" demanded Karik. "Microgastae? . . . it is possible," said the Professor. "Then why are they not reared?" "It has been tried but the attempts have not always been successful," the Professor replied. "Unfortunately, another 'horseman-fly' lays its eggs in the larvae of these 'horsemen-flies'. Naturally they are very tiny, but these eggs kill the microgasta." "There are parasites for you! But isn't it possible to destroy these small fry?" "Yes, it's possible. These tiny 'horsemen-flies' have in turn their enemies, also 'horsemen-flies'. These are quite teeny." "Well! Those are the ones to rear," said Karik. "Yes, indeed, that is, of course, the intelligent thing," agreed the Professor, "but there are even 'horsemen-flies' that lay their eggs in the larvae of these useful teenies." Karik waved his hands in disgust. "Oh, this is just like the fable about the white ox. There is a beginning but there is simply no end." "Exactly like it, exactly like it!" replied their guide. "There is a time when you think you have at last found the end and know absolutely everything about one or the other creature, but you have only to poke a little deeper and a little more earnestly into the essential points when you become convinced that it is not the end you have in your hands but only the beginning of a new and fascinating chapter of investigation." The Professor forgot that he was standing on a small piece of bark. He jumped about and started to lecture on how scientists were like Christopher Columbus travelling every day in unknown lands and how they were always discovering new and yet newer continents. Meanwhile, the pine moth caterpillars were crawling up the bark just as if it was a broad country lane, down which to meet them there were now coming some sort of beetle. Above the pine tree lane there fluttered winged creatures. The Professor, without the slightest ceremony, bumped into caterpillars who were making their way laboriously upwards. He also nearly knocked a large black beetle off its legs, but he simply went on talking, talking, talking. . . . How long their learned guide would have stood on the piece of bark as if it was a classroom platform no one could say. It is quite possible he would have continued his lecture until nightfall. But it was suddenly interrupted by some sort of winged beast. The creature dropped right down beside the Professor like a stone and knocked him down with its wing. Then having raised its body, which had a long sharp sword at the end of it, the beast with a short powerful jab drove it into the bark just by the Professor's head. The sword buried itself deep in the bark. The children had not had time to cry out before the creature had withdrawn its sword and had disappeared in the same lightning-like manner as it had arrived. Karik and Valya clung to the red crag-like bark. They were pale with fright, and were breathing heavily. "Well, that's that!" The Professor sat up. "I am afraid I was talking rather a lot. And we must get ourselves down to the ground before night comes." He looked at Karik, at Valya, and said: "It's nothing dangerous! It was a very ordinary Thalessa or, in simple language, another 'horseman-fly'." "Did it lay its eggs in the bark?" "Why in the bark?" replied the Professor. "It laid its eggs in the larva of one of the enemies of the pine tree." "In the larva?" Karik looked around. "Where is it?" "Under the bark!" "How can you see it there?" "I haven't seen it but I am prepared to bet anything you like that under us, under a layer of bark, there is wriggling the larva of some sort of 'Long-horned' beetle." "This means that the 'horseman-fly' can see through bark?" "No. It also is unable to see the larva but it can sense it. . . . We don't understand this. On the whole we know very little about the character and life of insects. Much concerning the lives of these amazing creations is completely unknown to us. We do not really know, for instance, what the insects need their feelers for," their guide continued, and then he stood up and wound the end of the rope around his hand. "Now get up, my dears! We must get on our way." Thus, once again they started the dangerous and exhausting climb down the bark cliff. From time to time the Professor and the children, having found a suitable place for a rest, lay silently against the red cliff. Rubbing their stiffening arms and legs, they looked to see if the rope was damaged or the knots frayed, then they got up again and once again started on their way, jumping like goats from rock to rock. At one of their halts the travellers stayed a fairly long time. It was quite near the ground. The Professor and the children, after a short rest, were preparing to climb down again when suddenly there was a sound of wings above their heads. Their guide looked upwards and turned pale. Quickly seizing the children by the arms he plunged with them into a narrow cleft. "Sit quite quiet," he whispered. A striped creature with a long narrow waist was flying past. Its protruding body was covered with yellow and black stripes like a tiger's skin. Cutting through the air with its transparent wings, the creature swooped, pressing something to its belly, something wriggling, very like a snake. "Eumenina," whispered the Professor. "The 'Pottery' wasp." The wasp flew up to the basket from which the Professor and the children had just escaped, threw its prey into it and climbed into the basket itself. "Is that what carried us?" Valya asked. "That's it," their guide nodded. "I expect, my dears, that the Pottery wasp took us for caterpillars. But watch what it is doing." The wasp crawled out of the basket, swooped rapidly down to the ground and immediately flew up again. Fanning the travellers with a wind like a whirlwind, it flew past them and having described a circle landed on the basket. Restlessly crawling around the opening it picked at it deftly with its feet and energetically tapped the basket with its head. Then the wasp flew away. The travellers could see that the entrance to the basket was now completely covered up with something grey in colour. In the centre of this, like a cork, a sharp stone was protruding. "You see," said the Professor, "how the wasp seals up its basket. Well, my dears, if we had not got out of it in time, we should have perished of hunger." "But surely it is possible to break the wall down?" "No! The wasp makes such a strong cement out of dust and its own saliva that even big people can hardly break it." "All the same, I don't understand it," said Karik. "You see, it caught us, then it shoved us in its basket . . . but what for? Why didn't it eat us at once?" "For the very reason that it did not capture us to eat us," replied the Professor. "The Eumenina wasp feeds on the juice of flowers, but catches caterpillars for its offspring, its future children. In that connection, notice that it does not kill its prey. The jab of its sting only paralyses the caterpillars, preserves them . . . makes a living 'ham' of the caterpillars." "Why then didn't the wasp paralyse us?" asked Valya. "I don't know," their guide shrugged his shoulders. "I don't understand it at all. It may have been that its sting could not penetrate the spider's webbing of our jackets properly, or maybe its poison doesn't affect us. I do not know. Yes, the whole business is very amazing. . . . I do not know why it could confuse us with caterpillars . . . usually wasps do not make any such mistakes. This is a complete mystery from a scientific point of view." "But who makes the basket for it?" demanded Valya. "The wasp makes it itself," replied the Professor, "out of dust and its own saliva. . . . Behind these protective walls the larva can grow up without the danger that something will gobble it up or squash it. There is food already prepared enough and plenty. When the larva comes out of the egg it drops down a little spiderlike thread and falls on to the caterpillars and begins to eat them. And what a feed! For weeks it gnaws away at its victim but to the very last day the caterpillar remains alive and its flesh remains fresh. To begin with, the larva feeds only on the blood of the caterpillar, then it eats the fat and then the muscles. The caterpillar remains alive without blood, fat or muscles and still provides fresh meat for the larva. In the end, the larva eats it all up, becomes a cocoon and after a short time the cocoon bursts and out flies a male or female Eumenina wasp. A male wasp should fly out of ours, but now. . . ." "You don't know it is definitely a male?" "I do know!" asserted their guide. "The wasp caught us three and then brought one more victim - the caterpillar. Four caterpillars - that is the supply of food for a future male. For an egg from which a female will come out the wasp leaves an even ten caterpillars. Then this is quite to be understood. The future female Pottery wasp is bigger than the male and therefore it is necessary to leave more food for it." "Does this mean that wasps can,-count up to ten?" asked Valya. "I do not know whether they can actually count up to two," replied the Professor, smiling. "You will remember that the wasp crawled into the basket after we had got out of it. That's true, isn't it?" "Certainly it climbed in." "But it climbed in to lay the egg. It must therefore have seen that instead of four caterpillars in the basket there was only one. But all the same it never entered its head to fetch another three caterpillars, but it just sealed the basket as it was and now, of course, the larva will perish." The Professor went out of the cleft, looked to right and to left, and said: "It has flown away. We can now proceed in peace." The ground was not far off and the travellers soon got safely down. To the left, a grass forest appeared blue in the distance. Above the forest, like a straw, the pole landmark was sticking out with a tiny red flag, ever so far off. The travellers started on their way. The whole day they travelled over sand, through forest and over mountains. They made their way across ravines, they forded rivers. Towards evening, tired and hungry, they stopped at the bank of a rushing river. To get across the river was beyond the present strength of the children. Valya stretched herself on the bank and said: "I can't go any farther." The dusk was falling. The sky had grown dark. Purple clouds were heaped up over the forest. Above, over their heads, a flock of birds stretched out in noisy flight. Their guide said, "Well, there is nothing for it but to spend the night here." "On the bank?" "We'll try and find a crevice or some sort of den." After a short search, Karik came upon an egg as big as a haystack and brown. At the side in the solid wall of the giant egg a round hole showed darkly. Karik started to look inside and shouted: "Do come here! I think I have found some sort of house." The Professor went up to the egg, inspected it from all sides and having thought a bit, said: "An empty nutshell. The discarded home of a larva of the nut weevil. Climb in, children. It's a tolerable hotel all right." It had already become dark. The children could not keep their eyes open with tiredness. Their legs were aching. Quickly clambering through the hole in the nutshell, Karik and Valya threw themselves on the rough floor and at once fell dead asleep. Meanwhile, the Professor wandered, sighing, around the nut. The entrance hole was so small that he could only get his head into it. His shoulders would not pass. "What a nuisance!" he muttered. Grunting angrily, he once more peered into the nut, heard how evenly the children were breathing in their sleep, and wandered off then to find a night's lodging for himself. Not far away from the nut, he found in a little hollow the shell of a snail. He examined it. The shell was empty. The Professor, grunting and sighing, clambered into it. The sloping floor of the shell was hard and cold but the Professor, wearied by the journeyings, didn't even notice this. Putting his fist under his head, he stretched out full length and at once fell asleep. About midnight, something started humming in the air. The Professor in a confused way heard this in his sleep. It was probably the wind getting up. Waking from the cold, he opened his eyes. The sky was cloudy and the moon was swimming amongst the clouds. The Professor shrunk into himself, tucked his legs up under him and departed into dreamland again, turning restlessly in his sleep. Outside the walls of the shell a cold tearing wind was rising to a frenzy. Dust, grass, petals were being carried along spinning. The nut shook with the gusts of wind and at last rocked violently, rolled over and in the grip of the gale started to slide down slowly towards the river. A fresh gust of wind drove the nut into the water. It started dancing on the waves and floated away on the stream. In their dreams, the children felt that they were being rocked as if in a cradle. Pressing close to each other, they slept on, smiling in their sleep. But the river was hurrying the nut away, carrying the children ever farther and farther from the Professor. The moon shone down. It covered the river with sparkling silver scales, lit up the quiet, deserted bank and the curled top of the snail shell from which were resounding the snores of the professor, mighty though miniature. Had he awoken and looked out, he would have seen, away along the river, as if on some silver road, a black shape moving farther and farther away until it vanished round a dark bend in the distance. The nut was out of sight. CHAPTER XIII The landing at an unknown harbour - In captivity again - The Professor "sees" things - A "lion" which breathes with its tail - An unexpected discovery BEFORE THE DAWN A STRONG WIND AROSE. The nut plunging in the waves was now scudding along on their high crests and now lost in the white boiling foam. The waves broke over it noisily, tossing and heaving on all sides. Cold spray came sprinkling from above through the hole which fortunately was on top like a hatchway, and fell on to Karik and Valya. But the children at first only turned over restlessly in their sleep, covered their faces and necks with their hands and arms and moved further from the hatch. They were so tired out and exhausted that even this icy shower bath could not wake them. However, the strong current then started to turn the nut as if it was in a whirlpool. The nut rocked sharply and listed over on one side. Karik rolled right over his sister and hit his head painfully against the wall. "Oh! What's happened?" he jerked out as he awoke. He tried to get up but the nut again rocked and Karik again fell on the floor. Clutching on to the rough wall of the nut he somehow managed to get up again and yelled out: "Valya, something's happened! Get up! Something is dragging our nut away!" Rubbing her sleepy eyes with her hands, Valya gazed confusedly at Karik. "Maybe some sort of wild animal has pounced on us. We must wake the Professor quickly. Professor!" shouted Valya, struggling to get up. But no sooner than she had straightened herself up than the floor beneath her feet lurched and she was hurled against the wall. She collided with Karik and with him fell in a heap on the rough floor. It was quite dark all around them and it was only from above through the round hatchway that the blue light of the night penetrated. Clutching the wall of the nut, Karik crawled up to the hole and poked his head out of it. A wave lashed his face. The wind was sweeping across the water raising steep foaming rollers. Waves raged around them and the water bubbled as if it were boiling. Karik shouted: "Valya! Quickly! See what's happened! Look, we are afloat!" Valya made her way up to the hatch with some difficulty and held on to the edge with her hands. "We are sailing!" said Valya, with fear in her voice. "Sailing - but where to?" The nut was rolling just as if the children were on the ocean itself. Valya looked around herself then gazed at Karik, then looked around