LITMIR.BIZ

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found a friendly nut-tree, those large, satisfying, soft-shelled nuts we already knew so well, and filled our pockets.

      I see that I have not remarked that these women had pockets in surprising number and variety. They were in all their garments, and the middle one in particular was shingled with them. So we stocked up with nuts till we bulged like Prussian privates in marching order, drank all we could hold, and retired for the day.

      It was not a very comfortable place, not at all easy to get at, just a sort of crevice high up along the steep bank, but it was well veiled with foliage and dry. After our exhaustive three- or four-hour scramble and the good breakfast food, we all lay down along that crack—heads and tails, as it were—and slept till the afternoon sun almost toasted our faces.

      Terry poked a tentative foot against my head.

      “How are you, Van? Alive yet?”

      “Very much so,” I told him. And Jeff was equally cheerful.

      We had room to stretch, if not to turn around; but we could very carefully roll over, one at a time, behind the sheltering foliage.

      It was no use to leave there by daylight. We could not see much of the country, but enough to know that we were now at the beginning of the cultivated area, and no doubt there would be an alarm sent out far and wide.

      Terry chuckled softly to himself, lying there on that hot narrow little rim of rock. He dilated on the discomfiture of our guards and tutors, making many discourteous remarks.

      I reminded him that we had still a long way to go before getting to the place where we’d left our machine, and no probability of finding it there; but he only kicked me, mildly, for a croaker.

      “If you can’t boost, don’t knock,” he protested. “I never said ‘twould be a picnic. But I’d run away in the Antarctic ice fields rather than be a prisoner.”

      We soon dozed off again.

      The long rest and penetrating dry heat were good for us, and that night we covered a considerable distance, keeping always in the rough forested belt of land which we knew bordered the whole country. Sometimes we were near the outer edge, and caught sudden glimpses of the tremendous depths beyond.

      “This piece of geography stands up like a basalt column,” Jeff said. “Nice time we’ll have getting down if they have confiscated our machine!” For which suggestion he received summary chastisement.

      What we could see inland was peaceable enough, but only moonlit glimpses; by daylight we lay very close. As Terry said, we did not wish to kill the old ladies—even if we could; and short of that they were perfectly competent to pick us up bodily and carry us back, if discovered. There was nothing for it but to lie low, and sneak out unseen if we could do it.

      There wasn’t much talking done. At night we had our marathon-obstacle race; we “stayed not for brake and we stopped not for stone,” and swam whatever water was too deep to wade and could not be got around; but that was only necessary twice. By day, sleep, sound and sweet. Mighty lucky it was that we could live off the country as we did. Even that margin of forest seemed rich in foodstuffs.

      But Jeff thoughtfully suggested that that very thing showed how careful we should have to be, as we might run into some stalwart group of gardeners or foresters or nut-gatherers at any minute. Careful we were, feeling pretty sure that if we did not make good this time we were not likely to have another opportunity; and at last we reached a point from which we could see, far below, the broad stretch of that still lake from which we had made our ascent.

      “That looks pretty good to me!” said Terry, gazing down at it. “Now, if we can’t find the ‘plane, we know where to aim if we have to drop over this wall some other way.”

      The wall at that point was singularly uninviting. It rose so straight that we had to put our heads over to see the base, and the country below seemed to be a far-off marshy tangle of rank vegetation. We did not have to risk our necks to that extent, however, for at last, stealing along among the rocks and trees like so many creeping savages, we came to that flat space where we had landed; and there, in unbelievable good fortune, we found our machine.

      “Covered, too, by jingo! Would you think they had that much sense?” cried Terry.

      “If they had that much, they’re likely to have more,” I warned him, softly. “Bet you the thing’s watched.”

      We reconnoitered as widely as we could in the failing moonlight—moons are of a painfully unreliable nature; but the growing dawn showed us the familiar shape, shrouded in some heavy cloth like canvas, and no slightest sign of any watchman near. We decided to make a quick dash as soon as the light was strong enough for accurate work.

      “I don’t care if the old thing’ll go or not,” Terry declared. “We can run her to the edge, get aboard, and just plane down—plop!—beside our boat there. Look there—see the boat!”

      Sure enough—there was our motor, lying like a gray cocoon on the flat pale sheet of water.

      Quietly but swiftly we rushed forward and began to tug at the fastenings of that cover.

      “Confound the thing!” Terry cried in desperate impatience. “They’ve got it sewed up in a bag! And we’ve not a knife among us!”

      Then, as we tugged and pulled at that tough cloth we heard a sound that made Terry lift his head like a war horse—the sound of an unmistakable giggle, yes—three giggles.

      There they were—Celis, Alima, Ellador—looking just as they had when we first saw them, standing a little way off from us, as interested, as mischievous as three schoolboys.

      “Hold on, Terry—hold on!” I warned. “That’s too easy. Look out for a trap.”

      “Let us appeal to their kind hearts,” Jeff urged. “I think they will help us. Perhaps they’ve got knives.”

      “It’s no use rushing them, anyhow,” I was absolutely holding on to Terry. “We know they can out-run and out-climb us.”

      He reluctantly admitted this; and after a brief parley among ourselves, we all advanced slowly toward them, holding out our hands in token of friendliness.

      They stood their ground till we had come fairly near, and then indicated that we should stop. To make sure, we advanced a step or two and they promptly and swiftly withdrew. So we stopped at the distance specified. Then we used their language, as far as we were able, to explain our plight, telling how we were imprisoned, how we had escaped—a good deal of pantomime here and vivid interest on their part—how we had traveled by night and hidden by day, living on nuts—and here Terry pretended great hunger.

      I know he could not have been hungry; we had found plenty to eat and had not been sparing in helping ourselves. But they seemed somewhat impressed; and after a murmured consultation they produced from their pockets certain little packages, and with the utmost ease and accuracy tossed them into our hands.

      Jeff was most appreciative of this; and Terry made extravagant gestures of admiration, which seemed to set them off, boy-fashion, to show their skill. While we ate the excellent biscuits they had thrown us, and while Ellador kept a watchful eye on our movements, Celis ran off to some distance, and set up a sort of “duck-on-a-rock” arrangement, a big yellow nut on top of three balanced sticks; Alima, meanwhile, gathering stones.

      They urged us to throw at it, and we did, but the thing was a long way off, and it was only after a number of failures, at which those elvish damsels laughed delightedly, that Jeff succeeded in bringing the whole structure to the ground. It took me still longer, and Terry, to his intense annoyance, came third.

      Then Celis set up the little tripod again, and looked back at us, knocking it down, pointing at it, and shaking her short curls severely. “No,” she said. “Bad—wrong!” We were quite able to follow her.

      Then she set it up once more, put the fat nut on top, and returned to the others; and there those aggravating girls

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