The goat understood. He trotted in front of Beowald, and waited for him when he leapt up on to a rock.
Beowald was as nimble as a goat himself, and it was amazing to the children to think that a blind youth should be so sure-footed. But then Beowald knew every inch of the mountain-side.
Up they went and up. Sometimes the way was so steep that the ponies almost fell as they scrambled along, and sent crowds of stones rumbling down the mountain-side. Ranni and Pilescu began to be doubtful about going farther. Ranni reined in his fat little pony.
“Beowald! Is the way much steeper?” he asked. “This is dangerous for the children.”
“Ranni! It isn’t!” cried Paul indignantly. “I won’t go back without seeing over the top. I won’t!”
“We shall soon be there,” said Beowald, turning his dark eyes to Ranni. “I can smell the forest already!”
The children all sniffed the air eagerly, but they could smell nothing. They wished they had ears and nose like Beowald’s. He could not see, but he could sense many things that they could not.
They came to a narrow ledge and one by one the ponies went round it, pressing their bodies close against the rocky side of the mountain, for a steep precipice, with a fall of many hundreds of feet, was the other side! Nora and Peggy would not look, but the boys did not mind. It was exciting to be so high.
The old goat rounded the ledge first, and Beowald followed. “We are here!” he called.
The ledge widened out round the bend — and the children saw that they were on the other side of Killimooin Mountains! They were not right at the top of the mountain they were on, but had rounded a bend on the shoulder, and were now looking down on the thing they wanted so much to see — the Secret Forest!
“The Secret Forest!” cried Paul, and Jack echoed his words.
“The Secret Forest! How big it is! How thick and dark! How high we are above it!”
All eight of them stared down into the valley that lay hidden and lost between the big ring of mountains. Only Beowald could not see the miles upon miles of dark green forest below, but his eyes seemed to rest on the valley below, just as the others’ did.
“Isn’t it mysterious?” said Jack. “It seems so still and quiet here. Even the wind makes no sound. I wish I could see that spire of smoke I thought I saw when we flew down low over the forest in the aeroplane.”
But there was no smoke to be seen, and no sound to he heard. The forest might have been dead for a thousand years, it was so still and lifeless.
“It’s funny to stand here and look at the Secret Forest, and know you can’t ever get to it,” said Mike. He looked down from the ledge he was standing on. There was a sheer drop down to the valley below, or so it seemed to the boy. It was quite plain that not even a goat could leap down.
“Now you can see why it is impossible to cross these mountains,” said Ranni. “There is no way down the other side at all. All of them are steep and dangerous like this one. No man would dare to try his luck down that precipice, not even with ropes!”
The girls did not like looking down such a strange, steep precipice. They had climbed mountains in Africa but none had been so steep as this one.
“I want to go back now,” said Nora. “I’m feeling quite giddy.”
“It is time we all went,” said Ranni, looking at his watch. “We must hurry too, or we shall be very late.”
“I can take you another way back,” said Beowald. “It will be shorter for you to go to the castle. Follow me.”
With his goats around him, the blind youth began to leap down the mountain-side. He was as sure-footed as the goats, and it was extraordinary to watch him. The ponies followed, slipping a little in the steep places. They were tired now, and were glad to be going home.
Down they all went and down. Nora gave a sudden shout that made the others jump. “I can see Killimooin Castle. Hurrah! Another hour and we’ll be home!”
They rounded a bend and then suddenly saw a strange place built into the rocky mountain-side. They stopped and stared at it.
“What’s that?” asked Paul. Ranni shook his head. He did not know and neither did Pilescu.
“It looks like some sort of temple,” said Nora, who remembered seeing pictures of stone temples in her history book. But this one was unusual, because it seemed to be built into the rock. There was a great half-broken archway, with roughly-carved pillars each side.
“Beowald! Do you know what this place is?” asked Jack. The goatherd came back and stood beside Jack’s pony.
“It is old, very old,” he said. “It is a bad place. I think bad men once lived there, and were turned into stone for their wickedness. They are still there, for I have felt them with my hands.”
“What in the world does he mean?” said Peggy, quite frightened. “Stone men! He’s making it up!”
“Let’s go and see,” said Jack, who was very seldom afraid of anything.
“No, thank you!” said the girls at once. But the boys badly wanted to see inside the queer, ruined old place. Beowald would not go with them. He stayed with the two girls.
“Come on. Let’s see what these wicked stone men are!” said Jack, with a grin. He dismounted from his pony, and passed through the great broken archway. It was dark inside the queer temple. “Have you got a torch, Mike?” called Jack. Mike usually had a torch, a knife, string, and everything anyone could possibly want, somewhere about his person. Mike felt about and produced a torch.
He flashed it on — and the boys jumped in fright. Even Ranni and Pilescu jumped. For there, at the back of the temple-like cave, was a big stone man, seated on a low, flat rock!
“Oooh!” said Paul, and found Ranni’s hand at once.
“It’s an old statue!” said Jack, laughing at himself, and feeling ashamed of his sudden fright. “Look — there are more, very broken and old. Aren’t they odd? However did they get here?”
“Long, long ago the Baronians believed in strange gods,” said Ranni. “These are probably stone images of them. This must be an ancient temple, forgotten and lost, known only to Beowald.”
“That sitting statue is the only one not broken,” said Jack. “It’s got a great crack down the middle of its body though — look. I guess one day it will fall in half. What a horrid face the stone man has got — sort of sneering.”
“They are very rough statues,” said Pilescu, running his hand over them. “I have seen the same kind in other places in Baronia. Always they were in mountain-side temples like this.”
“Let’s go home!” called Nora, who was beginning to be very tired. “What sort of stone men have you found? Come and tell us.”
“Only statues, cowardy custard,” said Jack, coming out of the ruined temple. “You might just as well have seen them. Gee-up, there! Off we go!”
Off they went again, on the downward path towards Killimooin Castle, which could be seen very plainly now in the distance. In a short while Beowald said goodbye and disappeared into the bushes that grew just there. His goats followed him. The children could hear him playing on his flute, a strange melody that went on and on like a brook bubbling down a hill.
“I like Beowald,” said Nora. “I’d like him for a friend. I wish he wasn’t blind. I think it’s marvellous the way he finds the path and never falls.”
The ponies trotted on and on, and at last came to the path that led straight down and round to the castle steps. Ranni took them to stable them, and Pilescu took the five tired children up the steps and into the castle.
They ate an enormous late tea, and then yawned so long and loud that Pilescu ordered them to bed.
“What, without supper!” said Paul.
“Your tea must be your supper,” said Pilescu. “You are all nearly asleep. This strong mountain air is enough to send a grown man to sleep. Go to bed now, and wake refreshed in the morning.”
The children went up to bed. “I’m glad we managed to see the Secret Forest,” said Jack. “And that funny temple with those old stone statues. I’d like to see them again.”
He did — and had a surprise that was most unexpected!
“Ah yes — it is very old. People do not go near it now because it is said that the statues come alive and walk at night.”
The children screamed with laughter at this. They thought some of the old superstitions were very funny. It seemed as if Yamen really believed in fairies and brownies, for always when she made butter, she put down a saucer of yellow cream by the kitchen door.
“It is for the brownie who lives in my kitchen!” she would say.
“But, Yamen, your big black cat drinks the cream, not the brownie,” Nora would say. But Yamen would shake her grey head and refuse to believe it.
Yamen used to go to buy what was needed at the village near the foot of the mountain each week. She had a donkey of her own, and Tooku had two of these sturdy little creatures. Tooku used sometimes to go with Yamen, and the third donkey would trot along behind them, with big baskets slung each side of his plump body, to bring back the many things Yamen bought for the household.
One day Yamen and Tooku started out with the third donkey behind them as usual. They set off down the track, and the children shouted goodbye.
“We shall be back in time to give you a good tea!” called Yamen. “You shall have new-baked rusks with honey.”
But when tea-time came there was no Yamen, no Tooku. Ranni and Pilescu looked out of the great doorway of the castle, puzzled. The two should be in sight, at least. It was possible to see down the track for a good way.
“I hope they haven’t had an accident,” said Nora.
An hour went by, and another. The children had had their tea, and were wandering round the castle, throwing stones down a steep place, watching them bounce and jump.
“Look!” said Ranni, suddenly. Everyone looked down the track. One lone donkey was coming slowly along, with someone on his back, and another person stumbling beside him. Ranni ran to get a pony and was soon galloping along the track to find out what had happened.
The children waited anxiously. They were fond of Tooku and Yamen. As soon as the three climbed the steps of the castle, the children surrounded them.
“What’s the matter, Yamen? Where are the other donkeys, Tooku? What have you done to your arm?”
“Aie, aie!” wept Yamen. “The robbers came and took our goods and our donkeys! Tooku tried to stop them but they broke his arm for him. Aie-aie, what bad luck we have had this day! All the goods gone, and the two fine little donkeys!”
“They took all three,” said Tooku, “But this one, my own good creature, must have escaped, for we heard him trotting after us as we hastened back home on foot.”
“What were the robbers like?” asked Jack.
“Strange enough,” answered Yamen. “Small and wiry, with strips of wolf-skin round their middles. Each had a wolf’s tail, dyed red, hanging behind him. Aie-aie, they were strange enough and fierce enough!”
“We heard tales in the town,” said Tooku, to Ranni and Pilescu. “Many travellers have been robbed. These robbers take goods but not money. They come down from the mountains like goats, and they go back, no man knows where!”
“Have the villagers searched for their hiding-place?” asked Ranni. “Have they hunted all about the mountain-sides?”
“Everywhere!” said Yamen. “Yes, not a place, not a cave has been forgotten. But nowhere is there a sign of the fierce robbers with their red wolves’ tails!”
“Poor Yamen!” said Nora. The frightened woman was sitting in a chair, trembling. Pilescu bound up Tooku’s arm. It was not broken, but badly gashed. The children felt very sorry.
Paul’s mother soon heard of the disturbance and she was angry and upset. “To think that such things should happen in Baronia!” she cried. “I will send word to the king, and he shall send soldiers to search the mountainside.”
“The mountain-folk themselves have already done that,” said Ranni. “If they have found nothing, the soldiers will find even less! It is a mystery where these men come from!”
“Perhaps they come from the Secret Forest!” said Jack. The others laughed at him.
“Idiot! Come from a place where nobody can go to!” said Mike.
“You children will not stir from this place without Ranni or Pilescu!” said Paul’s mother.
“Madam, they have already promised not to,” said Ranni. “Do not be anxious. They are safe with us. We have always our revolvers with us.”
“I wish we hadn’t come here now,” said the Queen, looking really worried. “I wonder if we ought to go back. But I hear that it is hotter than ever in the big palace.”
The children had no wish to return when they heard that. “We shall be quite safe here,” said Paul. “The robbers will not dare to come anywhere near this castle, mother!”
“Silly child!” said his mother. “Now that they know we are here, and that travellers will go to and fro, they will be all the more on the watch. They will haunt the road from here to the high road, and from here to the next village. I must get some more servants from the big palace. We must only go about in small companies, not alone.”
This was all very exciting. The boys talked about the robbers, and Mike felt three or four times an hour to see if his big scout-knife was safely in his broad belt. Paul thought of all the terrifying things he would do to the robbers if he caught them. Mike thought it would be marvellous to shut them all up in a cave somewhere. Jack pictured himself chasing the whole company down the mountain-side.
The girls were not so thrilled, and were not much impressed when the three boys promised to take care of them.
“What could you do against a company of robbers?” asked Nora.
“Well, this isn’t the first time we’ve had adventures, and had to fight for safety,” said Mike, grandly.
“No, it’s true we’ve had some exciting times and very narrow escapes,” said Peggy. “But I don’t particularly want to be chased and caught by robbers, even if you boys rescue me in the end!”
“Perhaps it’s the stone men in the cave that come alive and rob people!” said Paul, with a grin.
“I’d like to go and have a look at those statues again,” said Jack. “Ranni, can we go tomorrow? It’s only about an hour’s ride.”
“I don’t want to go too far from the castle,” said Ranni. “Well — we’ll go as far as that old temple if you really want to. Though why you should want to see ancient statues, broken to pieces, when you’ve already seen them once is a puzzle to me!”
The children set off the next day to go to the old temple. They were on foot, as it really was not a great distance away, and Ranni said it would be good for them to walk. So up the mountain they trudged.
It was late afternoon when they started. They had their tea with them. The sun shone down warmly and the children panted and puffed when they went up the hillside, so steep and stony.
“There’s the old temple,” said Jack, at last, pointing to the ruined archway, hewn out of the mountain rock. “It really is a funny place. It seems to be made out of a big cave, and the entrance is carved out of the mountain itself. Come on — let’s go in and have another look. Nora, you come this time, and Peggy. You didn’t come last time.”
“All right,” said Peggy. “We’ll come.”
They all went into the old temple, and switched on the torches they had brought. Once again they gazed on Beowald’s “stone men,” and smiled to think of his idea that the statues had once been wicked men, turned into stone.
The biggest statue of all, at the back of the cave, sat on his wide flat rock, gazing with blank eyes out of the entrance. He seemed to be in much better repair than the others, who had lost noses, hands and even heads in some cases. Jack flashed his torch around, and suddenly came to a stop as he wandered around.