The first week glided by, golden with sunshine. The children enjoyed themselves thoroughly, though Nora often complained of the heat. All of them now wore the Baronian dress, and fancied themselves very much in it.
The girls wore tight bodices of white and blue, with big silver buttons, and full skirts of red and blue. They wore no stockings, but curious little half-boots, laced up with red. The boys wore embroidered trousers, with cool shirts open at the neck, and a broad belt. They, too, wore the half-boots, and found them very comfortable.
At first they all felt as if they were in fancy dress, but they soon got used to it. “I shan’t like going back to ordinary clothes,” said Nora, looking at herself in the long mirror. “I do so love the way this skirt swings out round me. Look, Mike — there are yards of material in it.”
Mike was fastening his belt round him. He stuck his scout knife into it. He looked at himself in the mirror, too. “I look a bit like a pirate or something,” he said. “Golly, I wish the boys at school could see me now! Wouldn’t they be green with envy!”
“They’d laugh at you,” said Nora. “You wouldn’t dare to wear those clothes in England. I hope the Queen will let me take mine back with me. I could wear them at a fancy-dress party. I bet I’d win the prize!”
That first week was glorious. The children were allowed to do anything they wanted to, providing that Ranni or Pilescu was with them. They rode little mountain ponies through the hills. They bathed at least five times a day in the warm waters of the lake. They sailed every evening. They went by car to the nearest big town, and rode in the buses there. They were quaint buses, fat and squat, painted blue and silver. Everything was different, every thing was strange.
“England must have seemed very queer to you at first, Paul,” said Mike to the little prince, realizing for the first time how difficult the boy must have found living in a strange country.
Paul nodded. He was very happy to show his friends everything. Now, when he was back at school again in England, and wanted to talk about his home and his country, Jack and Mike would understand all he said, and would listen gladly.
Towards the end of the first week Pilescu made a suggestion. “Why do you not take your friends in the aeroplane, and show them how big your country is?” he asked Paul. “I will take you all.”
“Oh yes, Pilescu — let’s do that!” cried Mike. “Let’s fly over the mountains and the forests, and see everything!”
“I will show you the Secret Forest,” said Prince Paul, unexpectedly.
The others stared at him. “What’s the Secret Forest?” asked Jack. “What’s secret about it?”
“It’s a queer place,” said Paul. “Nobody has ever been there!”
“Well, how do you know it’s there, then?” asked Mike.
“We’ve seen it from aeroplanes,” said Paul. “We’ve flown over it.”
“Why hasn’t anyone ever been into this forest?” asked Peggy. “Someone must have, Paul. I don’t believe there is anywhere in the whole world that people haven’t explored now.”
“I tell you no one has ever been in the Secret Forest,” said Paul, obstinately. “And I’ll tell you why. Look — get me that map over there, Mike.”
Mike threw him over a rolled-up map. Paul unrolled it and spread it flat on a table. He found the place he wanted and pointed to it.
“This is a map of Baronia,” he said. “You can see what a rugged, mountainous country it is. Now look — do you see these mountains here?”
The children bent over to look. The mountains were coloured brown and had a queer name — Killimooin. Paul’s brown finger pointed to them. “These mountains are a queer shape,” said the little prince. “Killimooin Mountains form an almost unbroken circle — and in the midst of them, in a big valley, is the Secret Forest.”
His finger pointed to a tiny speck of green shown in the middle of Killimooin Mountains. “There you are,” he said. “That dot of green is supposed to be the Secret Forest. It is an enormous forest, really, simply enormous, and goodness knows what wild animals there are there.”
“Yes, but Paul, why hasn’t anyone been to see?” asked Mike, impatiently. “Why can’t they just climb the mountains and go down the other side to explore the forest?”
“For a very good reason!” said Paul. “No one has ever found a way over Killimooin Mountains!”
“Why? Are they so steep?” asked Nora, astonished.
“Terribly steep, and terribly dangerous,” said Paul.
“Does anyone live on the mountain-sides?” asked Peggy.
“Only goatherds,” said Paul. “But they don’t climb very high because the mountains are so rocky and so steep. Maybe the goats get to the top — but the goatherds don’t!”
“Well!” said Mike, fascinated by the idea of a secret forest that no one had ever explored. “This really is exciting, I must say. Do, do let’s fly over it in your aeroplane, Paul. Wouldn’t I just love to see what that forest is like!”
“You can’t see much,” said Paul, rolling up the map. “It just looks a thick mass of green that’s all, from the plane. All right — we’ll go tomorrow!”
This was thrilling. It would be grand to go flying again, and really exciting to roar over the Killimooin mountains and peer down at the Secret Forest. What animals lived there? What would it be like there? Had anyone ever trodden its dim green paths? Mike and Jack wished a hundred times they could explore that great hidden forest!
The next day all five children went to the runway beside the hangar where Paul’s aeroplane was kept. They watched the mechanics run it out on to the grass. They greeted Ranni and Pilescu as the two men came along.
“Ranni! Do you know the way to fly to Killimooin Mountains? We want to go there!”
“And when we get there, fly as low down as you can, so that we can get as near to the Secret Forest as possible,” begged Nora.
Ranni and Pilescu smiled. They climbed up into the aeroplane. “We will go all round Baronia,” said Pilescu, “and you will see, we shall fly over Killimooin country. It is wild, very wild. Not far from it is the little palace the King built last year, on a mountain-side where the winds blow cool. The summers have been very hot of late years in Baronia, and it is not healthy for children. Maybe you will all go there if the sun becomes much hotter!”
“I hope we do!” said Paul, his eyes shining. “I’ve never been there, Pilescu. We should have fun there, shouldn’t we?”
“Not the same kind of fun as you have in the big palace,” said Pilescu. “It is wild and rough around the little palace. It is more like a small castle. There are no proper roads. You can have no car, no aeroplane. Mountain ponies are all you would have to get about on.”
“I’d like that,” said Jack. He took his seat in the big plane, and watched the mechanics finishing their final checks on the plane. They moved out of the way. The engine started up with a roar. Nobody could hear a word.
Then off went the big plane, as smoothly as a car, taxiing over the grass. The children hardly knew when it rose in the air. But when they looked from the windows, they saw the earth far below them. The palace seemed no bigger than a doll’s house.
“We’re off!” said Jack, with a sigh. “Where is the map? You said you’d bring one, Paul, so that we could see exactly where we are each minute.”
It really was interesting to spread out the map, and try to find exactly where they were. “Here we are!” said Jack, pointing to a blue lake on the map. “See? There’s the lake down below us now — we’re right over it — and look, there’s the river flowing into it, shown on the map. Golly, this is geography really come alive! I wish we could learn this sort of geography at school! I wouldn’t mind having geography every morning of the week, if we could fly over the places we’re learning about!”
The children read out the names of the towns they flew over. “Ortanu, Tarribon, Lookinon, Brutinlin — what funny names!”
“Look — there are mountains marked here. We ought to reach them soon.”
“The plane is going up. We must be going over them. Yes — we are. Look down and see. Golly, that’s a big one over there!”
“Aren’t the valleys green? And look at that river. It’s like a silvery snake.”
“Are we coming near the Secret Forest? Are we near Killimooin? Blow, I’ve lost it again on the map. I had it a minute ago.”
“Your hand’s over it, silly! Move it, Jack — yes, there, look! Killimooin. We’re coming to the mountains!”
Ranni yelled back to the children. “Look out for the Secret Forest! We are coming to the Killimooin range now. Paul, you know it. Look out now, and tell the others.”
In the greatest excitement the five children pressed their faces against the windows of the big plane. It was rising over steep mountains. The children could see how wild and rugged they were. They could not see anyone on them at all, nor could they even see a house.
“Now you can see how the Killimooin Mountains run all round in a circle!” cried Paul. “See — they make a rough ring, with their rugged heads jagged against the sky! There is no valley between, no pass! No one can get over them into the Secret Forest that lies in the middle of their mighty ring!”
The children could easily see how the range of mountains ran round in a very rough circle. Shoulder to shoulder stood the rearing mountains, tall, steep and wild.
The aeroplane roared over the edge of the circle, and the children gazed down into the valley below.
“That’s the Secret Forest!” shouted Paul. “See, there it is. Isn’t it thick and dark? It fills the valley almost from end to end.”
The Secret Forest lay below the roaring, throbbing plane. It was enormous. The tops of the great trees stood close together, and not a gap could be seen. The plane roared low down over the trees.
“It’s mysterious!” said Nora, and she shivered. “It’s really mysterious. It looks so quiet — and dark — and lonely. Just as if really and truly nobody ever has set foot there, and never will!”
“Wouldn’t it be awful if our plane came down in the forest, and we were lost there, and could never, never find our way out and over the Killimooin mountains?” said Nora.
“What a horrid thought!” said Peggy. “Don’t say things like that! Ranni, let’s get over the mountains quickly! I’m afraid we might get lost here!”
Ranni laughed. He swooped upwards again, just as Jack spotted something that made him flatten his nose against the window and stare hard.
“What is it?” asked Nora.
“I don’t quite know,” said Jack. “It couldn’t be what I thought it was, of course.”
“What did you think it was?” asked Paul, as they flew high over the other side of the mountain ring.
“I thought it was a spiral of smoke,” said Jack. “It couldn’t have been, of course — because where there is smoke, there is a fire, and where there is a fire, there are men! And there are no men down there in the Secret Forest!”
“I didn’t see any smoke,” said Mike.
“Nor did I,” said Paul. “It must have been a wisp of low-lying cloud, Jack.”
“Yes — it must have been,” said Jack. “But it did look like smoke. You know how sometimes on a still day the smoke from a camp fire rises almost straight into the air and stays there for ages. Well, it was like that.”
“I think the Secret Forest is very, very strange and mysterious,” said Peggy. “And I never want to go there!”
“I would, if I got the chance!” said Mike. “Think of walking where nobody else had ever put their foot! I would feel a real explorer.”
“This is Jonnalongay,” called Ranni from the front. “It is one of our biggest towns, set all round a beautiful lake.”
The children began to take an interest in the map again. It was such fun to see a place on the big map, and then to watch it coming into view below, as the aeroplane flew towards it. But soon after that they flew into thick cloud and could see nothing.
“Never mind,” said Ranni. “We have turned back now, and are flying along the other border of Baronia. It is not so interesting here. The clouds will probably clear just about Tirriwutu, and you will see the railway lines there. Watch out for them.”
Sure enough, the clouds cleared about Tirriwutu, and the children saw the gleaming silver lines, as Pilescu took the great plane down low over the flat countryside. It was fun to watch the lines spreading out here and there, going to different little villages, then joining all together again as they went towards the big towns.
“Oh — there’s the big palace by the lake!” said Nora, half-disappointed. “We’re home again. That was simply lovely, Paul.”
“But the nicest part was Killimooin and the Secret Forest,” said Jack. “I don’t know why, but I just can’t get that mysterious forest out of my head. Just suppose that was smoke I saw! It would mean that people live there — people no one knows about — people who can’t get out and never could! What are they like, I wonder?”
“Don’t be silly, Jack,” said Mike. “It wasn’t smoke, so there aren’t people. Anyway, if people are living there now, they must have got over the mountains at some time or other, mustn’t they? So they could get out again if they wanted to! Your smoke was just a bit of cloud. You know what funny bits of cloud we see when we’re flying.”
“Yes, I know,” said Jack. “You’re quite right, it couldn’t have been real smoke. But I rather like to think it was, just for fun. It makes it all the more mysterious!”
The aeroplane flew down to the runway, and came to a stop. The mechanics came running up.
“You have had the best of it today!” one called to Ranni, in the Baronian language, which the children were now beginning to understand. “We have almost melted in the heat! This sun — it is like a blazing furnace!”
The heat from the parched ground came to meet the children as they stepped out of the plane. Everything shimmered and shook in the hot sun.
“Gracious!” said Nora. “I shall melt! Oh for an ice-cream!”
They walked to the palace and lay down on sunbeds on the terrace, under the big colourful umbrellas. Usually there was a little wind from the lake on the terrace — but today there was not a breath of air.
“Shall we bathe?” said Jack.
“No good,” said Mike. “The water was too warm to be pleasant yesterday — and I bet it’s really hot today. It gets like a hot bath after a day like this.”
A big gong boomed through the palace. It was time for lunch — a late one for the children. Nora groaned.
“It’s too hot to eat! I can’t move. I don’t believe I could even swallow an ice-cream!”
“Lunch is indoors for you today,” announced Ranni, coming out on to the terrace. “It is cooler indoors. The electric fans are all going in the play-room. Come and eat.”
None of the children could eat very much, although the dishes were just as delicious as ever. Ranni and Pilescu, who always served the children at meal-times, looked quite worried.
“You must eat little Prince,” Ranni said to Paul.
“It’s too hot,” said Paul. “Where’s my mother? I’m going to ask her if I need wear any clothes except shorts. That’s all they wear in England in the summer, when it’s holiday-time and hot.”