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!
Robbers!
A few days went by, days of wandering in the lower slopes of the mountain, looking for wild raspberries and watching the swift shy little animals that lived on the mountain. Yamen and Tooku told the children more tales, and nodded their heads when Jack told them of the ruined temple and the queer statues.
“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.