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.
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.
“Look here!” he said.
The others came to him and looked down at the ground, where his torch made a round ring of bright light. In the light was the print of a small bare foot. Jack swung his torch here and there, and on the floor of the temple other footprints could be seen — all small and bare, the toes showing clearly.
“Someone comes here quite a lot!” said Jack.
“More than one person,” said Mike, kneeling down and looking closely at a few prints with his torch. “These are not the prints of the same person’s feet. Look at this print here — all the toes are straight — but this one has a crooked big toe-print. And that one is a little larger than the others.”
“It couldn’t be Beowald’s prints, could it?” asked Nora, remembering the bare feet of the goatherd.
“No. His feet are much bigger than those shown in these prints,” said Mike. “I remember thinking what big feet he had.”
“Well — could it be the robbers’ footprints?” cried Peggy, suddenly.
“It might be,” said Jack. “But they are plainly not here — not living here, I mean! Anyway, they would be discovered easily enough if they did live here. Beowald would know.”
Ranni called the children. “Come along. Tea is ready. We must hurry now, because it looks as if a mist is coming up.
The children hurried out of the dark temple into the bright sunshine. They sat down to have their tea, telling Ranni and Pilescu what they had seen. But the two big Baronians were not much impressed.
“The prints are probably made by the feet of the goatherds sent to search every nook and cranny of the mountain-side, to look for the robbers’ hiding-place,” said Ranni.
This was disappointing. The children had quite made up their minds that they must belong to the robbers! Mike pointed down the hillside.
“Look at the clouds down there below us,” he said. “They seem to be creeping up towards us.”
“They are,” said Pilesco, beginning to gather up the tea things. “Come along. I don’t want to get lost in a mountain mist!”
They all set off down the mountain-side. Jack suddenly spied some juicy wild raspberries, and slipped off the path to get them. Before he had eaten more than a dozen he found himself surrounded by a thick grey mist!
“Blow!” said Jack, making his way back to the path. “I can’t even see the others now! Well, I know the path, that’s one thing!”
He shouted, but could hear no answer. The others had gone round a bend, and could not hear him, though usually a shout in the mountains echoed round and round. But the thick mist muffled the sound, and Jack could hear no reply to his yell.
“I’ll just go on and hope to catch the others up,” thought the boy. He set off, but after a while he had no idea of the right direction at all. The mist became thicker and thicker and the boy felt cold. He pulled his fur-lined cloak round him, and wondered what to do.
Something familiar about the rocky face of the mountain caught his eye. “Well — look at that! I’m right back at the old temple!” said Jack, in astonishment. “I’ve doubled back on the path somehow, and reached the temple-cave again. Well, I can’t do better than shelter inside till the mist clears. Maybe it won’t be long. They come and go very quickly.”
He went inside the cave where the old stone images were. He found a corner where he could sit, and he squatted down to wait. He yawned and shut his eyes. He hoped Ranni and Pilescu would not be very angry with him.
He dozed lightly, whilst the mist swirled round outside. He was awakened by the sound of voices, and sat up, expecting to see the other children coming into the temple to look for him. He half got up — and then sank back in the greatest astonishment.
The cave was full of strange, hoarse voices, speaking in the Baronian language, but using a broad country accent that Jack could not understand. It was dark there, and the boy could not see the people to whom the voices belonged. He dared not switch on his torch.
Then one of the men went to the entrance of the cave and looked out, calling back that the mist was still there, but was clearing rapidly. Jack looked at him in amazement. He was small and wiry, and wore no clothes at all except for a strip of skin round his middle. The boy crouched back in his corner, suddenly scared.
The mist thinned outsided the cave, and the man at the entrance was joined by others. They went out, and Jack saw that each man had a wolf’s tail behind him, dyed red. They were the robbers!
There were many of them. Where had they come from? They had not been in the cave when the boy fell asleep, and if they had entered, he would have heard them. Where had they come from? There must be some secret entrance in the temple itself. But where could it be?