again and grew pale:
     "But where is the Professor?"
     "I don't know.  . . .  It may  be  he is somewhere quite near," replied
Karik, uncertainly.
     "What do  you mean quite near?" cried out Valya. "We are in the nut. Do
you realise, in a nut? All around us is water."
     A powerful  blow dislodged the  children from the  hatchway.  The floor
twisted and lurched beneath them.
     Karik and Valya fell down again.
     The wind  was blowing in angry gusts over the river. All around them it
howled  and  whistled.  Waves  broke  into the hatch  and  the children were
drenched  from head to  foot with cold water. Soaking and shivering they sat
on the floor  tightly holding each  other and  gazing  frightenedly  at  the
hatch.
     Above the hatch across the troubled sky  black clouds were chasing each
other.
     The nut heeled over and then  foaming  rollers seemed  to be leaping at
the  hole, but it  heeled again and once again clouds appeared - being swept
across  the  hatchway and in and out  of  the clouds  there plunged the pale
moon. With each fresh lurch the children were flung apart, but Valya at once
crawled hastily  back  to her brother and  clutched  hold of him firmly. The
poor  children  could  not  understand  what  had  happened: Where  had  the
Professor got to, how the nut got into the river, where the river was taking
them to? ...
     But  the nut whirled  on and on, now riding on the crests of the waves,
now burying itself in the trough.
     Then at length it seemed as if the storm had started  to abate. The nut
no  longer was thrown about and no  longer  lurched but  just  rocked like a
cradle.
     The children got up.
     "It  looks  as if  the worst is over," said Karik. He climbed up to the
hatchway and looked out.
     Quite close the banks of the river clad in forest seemed to be floating
past. The waves were now quietly lapping below him.
     Then the nut suddenly stopped. Black masses of earth rose up before the
very  hatchway  like  walls. The shore  was so close that it was possible to
stretch out and touch it.
     The nut  had come  alongside  some unknown jetty. "Well, we have got to
somewhere," said Valya, quietly. "Climb up quickly!" ordered Karik, gripping
the edge of the hatch with his hands.
     Helping each other, Karik and  Valya made their way out of the nut  and
jumped ashore.

     * * * * * *


     It was early morning.
     In the grey twilight before the dawn a hill stood  gaunt and silent. On
the far horizon a pink edge was barely noticeable.
     The nut floated black and wet in a silent bay right beside the bank.
     Beyond, the  river swirled noisily past, the  current carrying  in  its
waves poles, branches and  petals.  Some  of these were carried into the bay
and  forced against  the bank.  They spun around and  floating past  the nut
jostled it as if they were trying to move it on.
     The  whole bay was covered as it  were with a husk in the form of dried
fin.  The  children climbed  up  a hillock and  stopped  undecidedly  there.
Shivering with cold they stood looking at each other, half dazed.
     In which direction should they go?
     What should they do?
     Oh! if only the Professor was there; just there beside them!
     "Can he have got lost?" sighed Valya.
     "We'll find him!"  said Karik, with decision.  "He is here. He  must be
somewhere here. . . ."
     He put the palms  of his hands together as a trumpet, stood on tip-toes
and shouted as loud as ever he could.
     "Pro-fess-ess-or!"
     Somewhere behind, away behind the dark hills, leaves rustled.
     The children listened.
     Steps?
     No. It was the wind. That was what stirred the trees.
     Valya again sighed deeply.
     "Don't  worry, don't  worry!  We'll find  him. You just see.  He  won't
desert us."
     Karik took his sister by the hand along the bank of the river.
     Every five or six steps they stopped and yelled loudly:
     "Pro-fess-ess-or."
     But there was no answering shout from the Professor.
     "Do you know  what?" said Karik. "I'll go  along the bank and  you go a
little further inland. Over there - you see? - -there is some sort of a wood
beyond the hills. There it is! You  go to this wood and shout, only  louder.
First I'll shout, then you, then I again, and then you. O.K.?"
     "O.K."
     "Only don't go far away, and look around you carefully. Be careful now.
Go on!"
     Karik went  along  the shore  and Valya set out for the dark wood. From
time to time the children stopped, shouted and once again moved on.
     Valya got to the wood.
     In the wood it was dark and very  forbidding. Black angular  trunks  of
trees  lifted up bent,  crooked branches, broad leaves hung down to the very
ground.
     "Eh, Va-ly-ya!" came floating from somewhere near the river.
     "Aha!" replied Valya, "I am here. Got to the wood!"
     She went up to a dark tree with lots of branches. A pleasant appetising
smell came from the tree.
     Very odd - the smell  was just like fresh almond slices, just as it was
before a holiday  at  home when mother took  the  trays out  of the oven and
delicious  smells of vanilla, of almonds and of  hot  dough filled the whole
flat.
     Valya  at once remembered that she had had nothing to eat since the day
before.
     "I must see what it is that smells so delicious," she thought, and went
resolutely up to the tree. "I'll climb up and look."
     "Hey! Karik!" she shouted. "I am going to climb a tree. I'll shout from
the tree. Do you hear?"
     "Climb  away and  shout!  Only  more  loudly!  I'll come  over  to  you
directly," called back Karik.
     Valya  grasped  the wet slippery branches and quickly climbed up like a
monkey.
     Pushing aside the broad leaves which hung from the stem and blocked her
way, she climbed higher and higher. Every now and then she looked upwards.
     Soon she saw quite close above her head something like a huge cup.  She
got up to  it, clung  on to  the damp,  stringy, rubbery side and started to
look inside.
     In front of her very nose there were swaying feathery  balls. They were
suspended on thick long stems attached to the bottom of a cup.
     It was from these falls that the strong and delicious smell came.
     Valya felt that if she  did not  that very minute eat the ball right in
front of her nose she would simply die of hunger.
     She pulled  herself up with her arms and sat astride of  the lip of the
cup.
     The delicious  ball was-close  beside  her. Valya  clutched it with her
hands and pulled it hard  towards her.  She was not able, however, to wrench
it off. The ball held firmly.
     Valya tugged harder.
     The side on which  she was sitting  swayed so  that she nearly lost her
balance. In order not to fall the girl let go the ball and clung to the edge
of the cup.
     The  ball  flew away  from  her,  hit the  other  side  of  the cup and
immediately bobbed back in front of Valya's eyes.
     Then Valya tore at the ball  so violently that the whole cup started to
shake. The  ball ripped away from the pole and  next  instant Valya  and her
booty fell with a crash to the bottom of the cup.
     Not  letting go  the  ball  she  jumped  up, looked upwards  and around
herself. She was in  the centre of an enormous flower. The  damp petals rose
up  around  her  like  the smooth  inside  of a  round tower. Through chinks
between the dark petals the pink light of dawn now showed.
     Somewhere far, far away the birds had started to sing.  Below, rustling
the leaves, something ran about quickly turning them over with light feet.
     "I must climb down to the ground," thought Valya.
     Clutching the delicious ball closely to her bosom  she moved around the
flower  cup until she stopped in front of a narrow chink between petals. She
tried to squeeze through the chink but it was too narrow.
     Then Valya tried to climb  up one of the poles,  but she had only  just
gripped it with her hands when the walls of  the cup started to  move as  if
they were alive and slowly came nearer.
     The huge flower  in which Valya had  climbed closed its petals over her
head. It suddenly became pitch dark.
     In vain did she struggle to move the petals and escape from the flower.
The petals had contracted rigidly and would not let  her  out of her scented
prison.
     "Karik! Karik!" the  poor girl started to scream. "Hurry up! Here! Here
I am."
     She yelled  with  all her  might but her voice could not  penetrate the
soft, thick walls. It was just  as if she  was  shouting with her face stuck
into a feather pillow.
     This strangled,  almost inaudible cry reached Karik like the sound of a
distant echo. He stopped and listened. It seemed to him as if somewhere far,
far beyond the hills the Professor was shouting.
     "Ah!" Karik cheered up. "He's coming. He is sure to find us."
     He quickly ran up  to the top of a high hillock and once again making a
trumpet of his hands started to shout.
     "He-ere! Over here! We're here!"
     The only answer was the hoot of an owl.
     At the  foot  of the hillock the river ran on noisily. The  waves  were
splashing the shore. Sand falling from the steep bank was rustling softly.
     "Now in which direction was it that he called?"  thought Karik. "To the
right or to the left?"
     He  stood a little and then  shouted  again.  But  no  one replied.  He
shouted again and again in different directions.
     It was all in vain. There was simply no reply.
     Karik frowned.
     "No.  Something  must have happened." He  looked towards the  dark wood
where Valya was and said loudly:
     "Valya, did you hear? Wasn't it  just as if the Professor had  shouted?
Did you hear it or not?"
     But this time even Valya did not reply to Karik.
     "Gracious! Hasn't  enough happened  without' her disappearing," thought
Karik, and shouted again louder:
     "Va-alya!"
     A  rock  rumbled down the  steep bank into  the  water.  Karik started,
looked around, stood still a little and shouted again still louder.
     "Va-al-ya-ya!"
     There was no reply from Valya.
     "There you are! I told her to sit in the tree and wait, and now she has
gone off somewhere. . . . Get muddled up with girls and you are never happy,
never!"
     Then he slowly made his way across the field to the wood.
     Now here was the wood.
     Karik went up to the trees.
     Throwing his head back he stared up into their thick foliage.
     The  morning breeze was quietly  rocking the  broad  leaves out  of the
middle of which were peeping huge yellow balls. Valya was not  to be seen up
the trees. "Wherever  is she?" Karik was  quite perplexed.  He shouted again
and yet again, but only the wind murmured in reply.
     Valya gave no answering call. Karik bit his lip, stopped and started to
think:
     "Valya  cannot  have run far.  What does it mean? . . .  It  means that
something has caught her, dragged her off and maybe . . . eaten her!"
     Karik shuddered.
     "Oh,  if  only  the Professor was here!  He  would certainly  think out
something and certainly find Valya."
     Karik gazed around helplessly.
     Around him lay the hills, quietly indifferent.  A  cold,  lowering  sky
hung over the dull sandy shore. Dead trees, bare and  dry, creaked  dismally
on a neighbouring hill.
     A giant  beetle whizzed above his head and grazed the  dead trees  with
its wings.
     Something strange, unusual and sinister seemed  to be in the air. Karik
shuddered.  Then with a  piercing cry he dashed off,  not worrying  in which
direction he went.

     * * * * * *

     The Professor was awakened  before dawn  by the terrible cold. He moved
towards the  wall but immediately  jumped  back from it as  if  he had  been
stung.  The  curved  wall  of  the shell was  as  cold as ice.  It was quite
impossible  to sleep in such an  ice house. The Professor betook himself out
of the shell and started to run around it, trying to warm himself up a bit.
     The moon was still shining.
     The  cold wind blew now  on his face and now on his back, sweeping with
it a cloud of small stones which lashed his arms and legs.
     "There's a night  for you!"  grunted  the Professor.  "It's  lucky  the
children are so snug."
     He decided to look and see how they were sleeping in the nut. Were they
comfortable?  Were  they  peaceful? Then,  shivering in  the  cold,  he went
towards the river.
     The pale  moon  lit  up the  bare  promontory  with a single dead  tree
standing on its  crest. The Professor  ran up the hillside and gazed  around
perplexedly.
     There was  nothing  on  the  promontory. Just  the  dry,  crooked  tree
creaking in the wind, rustling its parched leaves sadly. The dark shadows of
the leaves moved dismally over the cold ground.
     "Strange! . . . very strange! . . ." he muttered.
     He  could quite  clearly  remember that the  nut had been lying here in
this very spot. There was the slight hollow pressed down by  its round side.
Yes, most certainly, this was the place. There could be no doubt of that.
     He bent over and started to examine the ground carefully.
     From the hollow a black broad mark stretched down to the  river just as
if something heavy had been dragged over it quite recently.
     The Professor straightened himself  and followed  this  track,  bending
down to examine it from time to time.
     The track led to the river.
     He stopped at the very top  of the  steep bank and  thoughtfully looked
below at the black river whose waters were flowing noisily past.
     There was nowhere now to go.
     Twisting his beard and lowering  his eyebrows, the  Professor  stood on
the top of the bank and talked aloud to himself:
     "If anything had fallen upon them they would have cried out, would have
called to me. I always sleep so lightly I should certainly have  heard them.
What  then can have happened.?  Something dragged the nut away,  is that it?
Well, no!  What use would  an old spoilt nutshell  be to anything? Nonsense.
The whole business is much simpler: the nut was blown into the water."
     He quickly made his way down to the water's edge.
     "Which way has the nut been carried? To right or to left?"
     He picked up a piece of dry leaf and threw it into the water.
     The current  caught the  leaf twisted it around and whirled it away  in
the foam of its waves.
     The Professor ran along the bank in the direction in which the leaf had
been carried.
     The forest came right down to the river.
     He now  wormed his  way through the trees and  now  went through  water
which was warm, like new milk. It was a light, moonlit night. It was only on
the  banks where the tall grass trees grew that the broad shadows were lying
in black stripes.
     In the middle of the river it was bright moonlight and petals, gigantic
leaves and logs were being swept along faster than the Professor could move.
     They  plunged  along now disappearing, now  bobbing  up  again - in the
distance it looked as if someone was swimming, battling with the waves.
     Each time that the Professor saw a log come plunging past in the middle
of the river he would stop and watch it in alarm:
     "Is it the children swimming?"
     He climbed down to the river and  went into the water up  to  his waist
ready  to dash  to their help. But then the log would float closer until its
naked branches could be seen.
     "Phew!" the  Professor  would  exclaim in relief, and continue  on  his
journey.
     The river for a long time  twisted amongst dark woods and mountains and
then  at  last  widened before the  Professor's eyes  into a broad,  shining
reach.
     Pushing the wet twigs aside with his arms, he  strode out of the forest
and suddenly stopped involuntarily.
     "The children!"
     Along the river in moonlight Karik and Valya were swimming.
     "Yes, yes, it is they !" whispered the Professor.
     There,  right  in the  middle of  the  river, Karik was swimming  and a
little to the right  of him  nearer to  the  bank - Valya.  Their heads  now
disappeared under the water  now reappeared just like fishing floats. It was
quite clear  that the children must a  long time ago  have been exhausted by
the struggle and at any moment they might disappear for good.
     Oh, if only there was time !
     The Professor flung himself into the water. The current  caught him and
swept him along downstream.
     "Stick to it!" he yelled at the top of his voice.
     Cutting through  the water with a fast stroke  he  quickly swam towards
the children.
     With each stroke  of his arms the distance between him and the children
decreased.
     Now he was  right upon  them  and stretched out his  hand. But what was
this?
     He saw under the water a  ribbed body bending like a letter S. "Ah, bad
luck to you!" he burst out  with  vexation as  he  turned  back  towards the
shore. What he had taken for the children by the uncertain light of the moon
was only the very ordinary larvae of a Hover fly which Russians call  "Lion"
flies.  These larvae  cling  to  the  surface  film of  the river with their
wonderful tails which are like tousled wigs thus  float head downwards,  and
in this manner prey on unsuspecting inhabitants  of the  river. They breathe
through their tails.
     At one time in his  youth the Professor had collected these  larvae for
his aquarium. Later  on,  flies had come out of the larvae,  with black  and
yellow stripes  resembling a  wasp and had,  indeed, laid  their eggs on the
flowering water weeds of the aquarium.
     The Professor had actually written a book about grasshoppers which hear
with  their feet and  about  Hover fly larvae  which  breathe through  their
tails.
     At  any other time you  would not have been able  even forcibly to tear
the  Professor away from these amazing  creatures but now he had no time for
them.
     Having  felt  the bottom with his feet, he  waded  rapidly  ashore and,
shivering with cold, started to run to try and get warm.
     From time to  time he stopped and listened. But he could  only hear his
own heart beating and the wind noising above his head.
     Having noticed a little way off a  hillock,  he ran over to it, climbed
up and, making a trumpet of his hands, shouted loudly:
     "Ka-a-ari-ik! Va-alya!"
     Then once again he ran to the river.
     "If I could - only  get out into the river on  a raft?"  he thought, "I
might get two or three logs to collide with each other in the  water, secure
them together and the raft would be made. I could overtake the children much
more quickly floating down the river."
     But the Professor did not have to knock up a raft for himself.
     The  raft,  just  as if  in a  fairy story it  had  heard  his  desire,
presented itself -  floated up to the very bank. It stopped by a dark sandy,
shoal and started turning round and round in the one spot.
     "Well, that is marvellous!" shouted the Professor. With a run he jumped
on to the raft and began to rock it in order to help it off the sandy shoal.
     The raft shook, started to lift in the waves and slowly floated away in
the current. At this moment another raft floated past the Professor and then
following that more and more of them.
     "Odd! Where can all these rafts be coming from?" he puzzled.
     Out  on  the  moonlit  waterway the  Professor started to  examine  his
miracle craft  very carefully.  He  found  that it was formed of thick  logs
sharpened  at  each end. These logs were like  gigantic  cigars and  lay  so
firmly together that they might have been glued to each other. The Professor
bent over, touched one with his hand and muttered perplexedly:
     "You don't say! Can this raft? . . ."
     Now by the light of the moon he had recognised these fearsome cigars.
     The  vessel  on which  the  Professor was  floating  was  loaded with a
strange cargo: its holds were stuffed with fever. Each cigar-log held within
it the larva of the malarial mosquito - the anophelesa mosquito.
     "Well, I never thought that  I should ever have to  be the captain of a
malaria ship!" he laughed.
     Right and  left of the raft were floating other similar  malaria ships.
Evidently somewhere  up the river the anophelesa mosquitos  had  been laying
their eggs.
     From time. to time the eggs of the simple, very ordinary mosquito could
be seen. They floated fastened  together  like a saucer which  bobbed in the
water  like a fishing-float  and looked  in the  distance very like a  small
boat.
     At every bend and every turn of the river the Professor craned his neck
and stared  intently at any patches  of  darkness. Had the nut run ashore or
was it floating in some quiet creek?
     The wooded bank had long ago been left behind.
     The  river turned abruptly this way and that.  An endless chain of bare
hills was floating past.
     It became lighter.
     The moon  paled.  The  stars went out one after  the other just  as  if
someone  was  extinguishing them and there only remained  one greenish  star
hanging low above the hill.
     The  raft was  carried  by the  strong  current towards  the bank.  The
Professor stood at the very edge rubbing his cold hands,
     chest and sides.
     The  river  turned to the right. Then suddenly the  Professor heard far
away beyond the hills some sort of weak voice.
     He shook with excitement, his heart throbbed and hammered.
     "Ah-ha!" shouted someone from the shore.
     The  Professor started  to run  along  his rocking craft and shouted as
loud as ever he could:
     "Karik! Valya!"
     "Pro-fess-ess-or!" came from amongst the hills.
     "Here ! Here ! Over here !" he exerted himself even more.
     Then Karik's head appeared above  the hill, then his shoulders and then
he ran along the skyline looking wildly in all directions.
     "Here! Karik! Over here!" yelled the Professor.
     Having  seen  the Professor,  Karik gurgled something in an odd way and
with his head down ran towards the river.
     "Come ashore! Quickly! Come ashore!" he shouted, waving his arms madly.
     The Professor lay  down on the raft and  started hastily to paddle with
his hands,  but the  raft as if on  purpose  turned the  Other way  down the
river, spun around in a whirlpool and bumped against a rock.
     It then whirled past Karik and rapidly drew away from him.
     "Stop! For heaven's sake, stop!" shouted Karik, running after the raft.
     "In a minute, in a minute, my boy!" and the Professor started to paddle
even more furiously with his hands.
     But  the  raft  simply would  not  pay  any  attention  to  him. So the
Professor ran up to the end of the raft and dived into the water.
     Karik started crying, and rushed into the river.
     "Where are  you going? What's up?"  shouted  the Professor, raising his
head out of the water.
     But Karik, unable to think at all, waded to meet the Professor and  did
not stop until he was  waist deep.  He was breathing heavily, had his  mouth
wide open and his knees were shaking.  The Professor swam up to the  boy and
stood up beside him. "You're alone?  Where's Valya?  Has anything happened?"
he asked in growing alarm, as he looked at Rank's tear-stained face. "It has
happened! Valya is lost!"
     "What are you talking about?" the  Professor seized Karik by the  hand.
"What has happened? When did it happen? Where did you lose her? Why  are you
silent?"
     "Well! we floated to begin with in the nut, then we got to the bank and
went  to  look for you, and  then. . . ."  Karik waved his hands  and became
silent.  "Well!  What  followed?  What  happened?"  demanded the  Professor,
hastily. "Tell me where did you leave her?"
     "There," Karik waved his arm uncertainly, "behind those hills."
     "You remember the place?"
     "Yes. I could not find it from here, but I  could find it  from the nut
!"
     "Where is the nut?"
     "Over there in a bay."
     "Right  you are!" said the Professor, decidedly.  "We'll go  to the bay
where  the nut stopped first  of all, and then we shall soon see what to do.
Come on!"
     The Professor and Karik climbed out on to the bank and silently marched
along the cold wet ground.
     "Show  me  the way  !"  commanded the old man. "I'll show you,"  sighed
Karik, and again started to sob. "Here, this is the way !"
     "Now,  please  don't cry! We'll find her. She  is not  a  needle but  a
living being . . . and she  must be able to shout and we shall hear her. . .
. We'll find her.  Most certainly we'll find  her." In the  distance the bay
appeared.
     On  its calm blue waters, the  nut was rocking like a barge,  black and
huge.
     "There it is," Karik said quietly.
     "I see."
     The Professor stopped.
     " Can you remember where you went from here?" he asked.
     "I can remember," replied Karik. "I went along  the bank and Valya went
to the right. Over there."
     "Good! Take me where you think Valya went !"
     The travellers set out. When they reached the wood Karik said:
     "It was from  here that she  shouted  to me for the last time. And then
she vanished."
     "What she shouted, you cannot remember, I suppose?"
     "I think it was 'Aoo'! " Karik replied, without conviction.
     The Professor thought for a bit.
     "You looked for her here this morning?"
     "I looked for her, searched the whole wood."
     "Well, now! You go to the right and I'll go to the left," said the  old
man. "Don't lose  sight  of  the  wood. We'll  meet here  in the wood.  Full
speed!"
     The Professor and Karik set out in different directions. They proceeded
to examine every hole, to look under rocks, lift giant leaves off the ground
and see whether by any chance Valya had hidden there and gone to sleep.
     Karik shouted until he was hoarse but all in vain.
     Valya wasn't anywhere to be found.
     After a long search they returned  to the wood. They were both so tired
that they could hardly move their feet. They neither of them wanted to talk.
     Above the Professor's head hung the stems with yellow balls on them.
     The balls  swayed, moving  their round shadows over  the surface of the
ground. One ball was  just as if it was alive.  Its walls shook and it moved
most oddly  on the stem just as if it wanted to  break off  and jump down to
the ground.
     The other balls were quite at rest.
     "Well, now  then," sighed the  Professor.  "We  must  set out and  have
another look. You  go this way and I'll go  to  the bank of  the river. Then
we'll meet again in the wood. You understand?"
     "I see," said Karik, sadly.
     The Professor got up and set off for the river in a quick walk.
     Karik moved off  in the  opposite  direction. As he  was going  off  he
seemed to hear a weak, suffocated cry. He quickly turned.
     "Go  on.  Go  on!"   shouted  the  Professor.  "Don't   lose  any  time
unnecessarily."
     So once again  they set off upon a search, running over hills  and sand
every so often calling out to each other.
     Suddenly the Professor stopped. On one side of the wood he spotted some
sort of strange tracks. The soil was torn up and flung about. Marks  of some
sort of feet were visible on the soft heaps of earth. Clearly there had been
a sharp scuffle in this spot quite recently.
     The Professor bent down to the ground.
     A fresh broad track stretched away towards a sandy hillock.
     "This  is her," he straightened himself up. "We must hurry. Karik. Come
quickly here!" he waved his arm.
     "Have you found her?"
     "Come here!"
     When Karik arrived out of breath the Professor silently pointed out the
traces of a conflict on the ground.
     "What is it?" Karik turned pale.
     "It looks  as if she  had  been  attacked  here.  As you  can  see, she
resisted but . . . ."
     The Professor was silent.
     "They have torn her to pieces?" screamed Karik.
     "I do not think so," said the old man, without any assurance, "but they
have dragged her off to some den."
     "Why have they dragged her off?"
     "We can  talk about  that  later; but  now let's run  quickly along the
trail. I think I know already what it  is that has seized her. Let's run, we
may yet be in time."
     The Professor and Karik dashed along  the  trail.  They ran on, getting
further and further away from the wood  where Valya was caught in the yellow
flower.
     The wind raised tall columns of dust on the  hills, turned  and twisted
around  the Professor  and  Karik, wiping  away all traces on  the ground of
their light steps.


        CHAPTER XIV


     The meeting with  a hunting  wasp- - Treacherous  plants  - Interesting
conversations in the Oenothera wood  - The marvellous baskets - The  rain of
corpses


     THE  WOOD  HAD  BEEN  HIDDEN  FOR A  LONG TIME  BEHIND  THE HILLS.  The
travellers were now running along a wide  bare valley. To right  and left of
them steep sand mountains rose up like yellow walls.
     Here and  there by the  wayside  they  came  across grass trees.  Their
branches were broken. The leaves were sprinkled with sand.
     "She is alive!" shouted the Professor, as he ran on.  "Do you see?  She
has been clutching the bushes.  She has been struggling. We must run as fast
as ever we can. We shall yet succeed. Come on, Karik! Come on , my boy!"
     And they dashed on still faster.
     "I can  see them! I can  see them!" shouted  Karik.  "Look!  Over there
beyond the trees. There they are fighting."
     The grass trees rocked about as if someone was shaking them hard.
     "It's  little Valya! She is fighting!"  Karik  croaked  hoarsely. "Make
haste, Professor, make haste!"
     The Professor and Karik became immensely cheered. But when they came up
to the sparse trees there was nothing there.
     The trees  were  crushed to  the ground. A wide track led off Somewhere
farther into a thicket of the grassy jungle.
     "Come on! She is not far off!" shouted the Professor,  and dashed along
the trail.
     The trees came to an end and they  were  once more running on dead, dry
sand. Suddenly the Professor stopped. Karik nearly ran into him.
     "Stop!" growled the old man.
     "What is it?" asked Karik, softly.
     The Professor gently nudged Karik and pointed with his hand.
     Away  over the  yellow sand the boy  could  see  a  winged, long-legged
creature very like a wasp. It was dragging a huge grub along the ground. The
grub was big  and several  times  as large  as  the  wasp.  It was resisting
desperately, but it was clear to see it could not get  out of  the clutching
grasp of the wasp. The wasp was dragging it, leaving  a broad trail  on  the
ground.
     It was along this trail that the travellers had been running.
     "It's  a  sand  ammophilia  or hunting  wasp,"  the  Professor  grunted
gloomily. "It  has got  hold of a grub called  a 'leather jacket' - the most
terrible  ravager of wheat and beet fields.  'Leather jackets' become 'Daddy
Longlegs' flies. . . ."
     Karik interrupted. Gazing perplexedly at the old man, he asked:
     "But where is Valya then?"
     "We  must turn back," said the Professor. "She cannot have gone far. We
must look for her near the  bay. If we haven't found her by nightfall  we'll
set fire to some marsh gas. Valya will see the fire and will naturally guess
that it must  be us. Even if she does  not guess she will certainly  come to
the fire.
     By  now Karik  could  hardly  believe that they would  ever find  Valya
again.
     "She  is lost!  We shan't find her! We cannot  possibly find  her!"  he
thought, as he strode after the old man. And everything began  to seem quite
hopeless. He  wanted  to cry but his  eyes  were dry.  He sighed  deeply and
suddenly he began to realise he was very, very tired.
     His legs trembled.  He stumbled continually.  His mouth  was quite dry.
His tongue had swollen  and was burning as  if it was in a fire. Karik  felt
that  at that  moment he  could have drunk a whole pail of iced water at one
gulp,  but around him was nothing but dead, dry sand.  There was no water to
be found in such a wilderness.
     "If only there was some sort of stream or  even  a puddle,"  he thought
longingly, looking around in every direction.
     Then suddenly at the  foot  of  a yellow hill he  spotted a tall,  bare
stem.
     The stem was rocking gently in the breeze.
     Karik went  over  towards  it. Below the stem there  spread out  fleshy
grey-green leaves.
     Out of the leaves there protruded like the eyelashes of an enormous eye
slender curving whips.
     At the top of each eyelash there hung a huge silvery drop.
     "Dew!"  shouted Karik, rushing towards  the  strange  leaves. "Come on!
I'll get there first. I must have a drink of dew."
     Karik jumped over a ditch.
     "Stop!"  commanded the Professor.  "Do you  hear?  Stop!  Come back  at
once!"
     "But I want a drink," said Karik.
     The old man jumped over the ditch and quickly barred the way to Karik.
     "It's not dew. You mustn't drink it."
     He took Karik by the shoulder and led him up to the strange plant.
     "Look!" he said.
     He got a rock from  the ground and swinging it with  his arms hurled it
into the centre of one of the drops.
     No sooner had  the rock touched  the leaf than the whips bent  over and
covered it up tightly.
     The rock disappeared.
     "What is it?" marvelled Karik.
     "The  sun  dew plant," replied the old  man  calmly, "an insect-eating,
treacherous sort of plant."
     "How is that?"  Karik  was more  amazed.  "Surely we  haven't any  such
plants. They only grow in hot countries. I read about them in some book."
     "It is true," said the Professor, "that there are many more such plants
in hot  countries than we have here, but  all the  same  they do occur here.
They  are most frequently met with where the soil is very poor. In such soil
the ordinary plants cannot survive. But these treacherous plants do  not  do
so badly, even  on poor  soil.  The soil does  not feed them - they exist by
hunting.  They catch insects and suck the nourishing juices out  of them. In
this way they live and  indeed  multiply. Neither animal nor vegetable, they
are both one  and the other together. Remember now: as well as  the sun  dew
plant various  kinds of primroses and pitcher  plants  trap  insects; and in
ponds sometimes you come across the treacherous bladderwort which even traps
small fish. There are quite a number of these carnivorous plants, my dear. I
could name more than five hundred for you, but. . . ."
     "Stop!" screamed Karik. "It is all quite  clear now. Valya has perished
in one of these plants."
     "Wha-a-t?" The Professor stopped and gazed at Karik uneasily.
     "Yes, yes. I remember. She shouted out to me  'I am going to climb  the
tree.' This means she climbed the tree but it would  not let  her  get down.
That's why I didn't find her in the wood."
     The old man seized Karik by the hand. "Follow me, Karik!"
     And they dashed, jumping over the yellow hillocks.
     "And  how do they  eat?"  shouted Karik, as  he  ran. "All  at once  or
slowly?"
     "These plants," replied the Professor, panting, "begin by pouring juice
over their  victim and  keep it until  it gets  softened, then they suck the
juices out of it."
     "But will Valya not get soft?" asked Karik.
     "Don't talk nonsense !"
     The  Professor grasped Karik's hand more  firmly and  dragged him along
after him.
     They dashed on and on until they finally reached the  bay where the nut
was still floating dark and wet.
     "Here we are," shouted Karik. "Stop, it's here!"
     Breathing  heavily  they  stopped on a high hill.  Below them  lay  the
yellow waste. To the right of the travellers a small wood showed green.
     "But where  are these  trees?" asked the  Professor.  "I cannot  see  a
single insect-eating plant at this moment."
     "All the same  it was  there," asserted  Karik hastily.  "I remember it
quite well.  Little Valya  vanished  there  in  that wood"; and Karik  waved
towards  the side of the  wood where  the branching trees stood  with  their
yellow balls.
     "In that  wood?" queried the Professor.  "There  where we  have already
been? You are sure she climbed one of these particular trees?"
     "Well, yes. There are no others there."
     The  Professor went over  and  looked at the yellow  balls closely  and
suddenly clapped his hand to his forehead, laughing.
     "My goodness! Why on earth didn't I  think of it  before?  Why didn't I
spot it at once. Yes, of course, it's that. . . . Oy. . . ."
     He turned to Karik and quickly asked:
     "When did this happen? In the morning or the night?"
     "In the morning. The sun had not risen."
     The old man rubbed  his hands  excitedly. "Then it is now quite clear,"
he  said.  "Yes, indeed, I understand it all .  . . very  well.  . . . It is
absolutely grand."
     He sighed  noisily with relief, and,  smiling, seized Karik's hand  and
shook it heartily.
     "Valya is alive. She is there. Sitting in the flower."
     "In the flower?"
     "Yes,  certainly. This  is an Oenothera plant. Valya  is sitting in  an
Oenothera flower, in other words in an 'Evening Primrose'."
     "But isn't it dangerous?" demanded Karik.
     "No, no,"  replied  the  Professor. "We  shall soon  see  her alive and
well."
     "Then let's hurry!" shouted Karik, and seized the  old man by the hand.
"Let's climb up the Primrose quickly and help Valya to get out,"
     The Professor shook his head.
     "You see," he replied,  clearing  his voice  rather  specially, "at the
moment this would be useless. You and I  do  not know which  Oenothera Valya
climbed. That's the first thing. Let us suppose we could find the flower she
is sitting in. How should  we get  her out?  Unfortunately we could not free
her. We haven't got the strength to move the petals of  an Oenothera flower.
That is the second point."
     "But thirdly, won't Valya get suffocated in there?" demanded Karik.
     "She  won't be suffocated. The  flower  is  large and roomy. We'll wait
until the evening and the flower will open itself."
     "What an odd flower,"  said Karik, displeased. "Other flowers  open  in
the morning, and why does this open in the evening?"
     "An overseas visitor. A foreigner. Came here  from America and it still
follows its old American habits."
     Karik smiled rather unbelievingly.
     "I am not joking," continued  the  Professor, seriously. "The Oenothera
plant was brought from America. Three hundred years ago  its seeds were sent
to the botanist,  Caspar Bogen, in Europe. During these three hundred  years
the  Oenothera plant has spread all over Italy, France, Germany, Poland, and
at last appeared in our country, Russia. At the present time along the sandy
banks of many of our rivers you  will actually find more Evening Primroses -
foreigners - than you will local plants or indigenous, as they are called."
     "And it is certain to open in the evening?"
     "Quite  certain.  Every evening the flowers of  this plant open  up and
early every morning they close again.  It is not for nothing that  the plant
has been christened 'The  Night Light.' But, my dear, what  are we  going to
do? We have some hours at our disposal."
     "I," said Karik, "propose that we eat  something and  then lie down and
sleep."
     "A  reasonable  proposal."  The  Professor  nodded  his  head.  "Agreed
unanimously."
     Stretching himself and  yawning, he  stood up and  set off  towards the
bank of the river.
     "Let's go straight to  the flowers,  my  dear. We are certain  to  find
something to eat there."
     Karik cocked his  head from  side to side.  "But where did you  see any
flowers open?"
     "I haven't seen the flowers yet," said the old man, "but all the same I
can  hear quite  plainly that over there on  that  little headland bees  are
buzzing. That means there must be flowers."
     The Professor was not mistaken.
     Hardly  had they scrambled over the hilltop than they saw below them in
a valley huge trees  thrusting themselves  up  here and there.  The  tops of
these trees bent down under the weight of mauve flowers.
     The Professor hastened to one of the trees loaded with flowers, climbed
up it and shouted from on top:
     "Stay where you are!"
     He, got into one of the flowers and set to work rather laboriously.
     Karik stood below.
     He  could see through the green leaves glimpses of the Professor's red,
sunburnt back, moving up and down, as with elbows well apart the old man now
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 loa