The door flew open — and there stood Yamen with Nora and Peggy close behind her. With screams of excitement and delight the two girls flung themselves on the boys. Yamen beamed in joy. The lost ones were home again! They were dragged indoors, and Yamen ran up the-big stone staircase, shouting at the top of her voice:
“Majesty! They’re back! The little prince is safe! He is safe!”
The whole household gathered to hear the story of the returned wanderers. Servants peered round the door. The smaller children, clinging to the hands of their nurses, gazed open-eyed at the untidy, dirty boys and the two big Baronians. Tooku, his arm still bound up, came running up from the kitchen. What an excitement there was!
“We’ve been to the Secret Forest!” announced Paul, grandly. He had forgotten his tiredness and his hunger. He was the Prince of Baronia, back from rescuing his men.
“The Secret Forest!” repeated Yamen, with awe in her voice, and all the servants sighed and nodded to one another. Truly their prince was a prince!
“No, Paul, no — you cannot have been there!” said his mother. She glanced at Ranni and Pilescu, who nodded, smiling.
“It’s true, mother,” said Paul. “We found that Ranni and Pilescu had been captured by the robbers, and taken down below the temple-cave. There’s a mountain river flowing underground there, and it’s the only way there is to the Secret Forest!”
Bit by bit the whole story came out. Everyone listened, entranced.
When Paul came to the part where the roof had fallen in and they had almost been drowned, his mother caught him up into her arms, and wept tears over him. Paul was very indignant.
“Mother! Let me go! I’m not a baby, to be cried over!”
“No — you’re a hero, little lord!” said Yamen, admiringly. “I go to get you a meal fit for the greatest little prince that Baronia has ever had!”
She turned and went down to her kitchen, planning a really royal meal. Ah, that little Paul — what a prince he was! Yamen marvelled at him, and at the two English boys, as she quickly rolled out pastry on her kitchen table. She would give them such a meal. Never would they forget it!
“Where is Beowald?” asked the Queen, when she had listened again and again to the thrilling tale of how Beowald had appeared just in time to free them before the cave filled with water. “I must thank Beowald and reward him.”
“Didn’t he come in with us?” said Jack. But no, Beowald was not there. He was far away on his mountain-side, playing to his goats, hidden by the mist.
“Mother, I want Beowald to come and live with me,” said Paul. “I like him, and he plays the flute beautifully. That shall be his reward, mother.”
“If he wants to, he shall,” promised the Queen, though she did not think that the blind goatherd would want such a reward. “Now, you must get yourselves clean, and then a good meal will be ready. Oh, how thankful I am that you are all back in safety!”
Half an hour later the whole party looked quite different. They were clean again, and had on spotless clothes. How tired they looked, thought the girls. But perhaps they were only hungry!
Yamen had prepared a marvellous meal. The smell of cooking came up from the big kitchen, and the five travellers could hardly wait for the first dish to appear — a thick, delicious soup, almost a meal in itself!
The boys had never eaten so much before. Ranni and Pilescu put away enormous quantities, too. Paul had to stop first. He put down his spoon with a sigh, leaving some of his pudding on his plate.
“I can’t eat any more,” he said, and his eyelids began to close. Pilescu gathered him up in his arms to carry him to bed. Paul struggled feebly, half asleep
“Put me down, Pilescu! I don’t want to be carried! How could you treat me like a weakling?”
“You are no weakling, little lord!” said Pilescu. “Did you not rescue me and Ranni by your own strength and wisdom? You are a lion!”
Paul liked hearing all this. “Oh, well, Mike and Jack are lions too,” he said, and gave an enormous yawn. He was asleep before he reached his bedroom, and Pilescu undressed him and laid him on the bed, fast asleep!
The girls hung on to Mike and Jack, asking questions and making them tell their story time and again.
“We were so worried about you!” said Nora. “When the villagers came and said they couldn’t find any of you, it was dreadful. And oh, that terrible storm! We hoped and hoped you were not caught in it.”
“Well, we were,” said Jack, remembering. “And it was all because of that storm, and the torrents of rain that came with it, that the waterfall in the cave became so tremendous and swelled up the river that ran from it. I wonder if the robbers got down safely! My word, if they got down to where they left their raft, and got on to it, they’d go down that river at about sixty miles an hour!”
“Now Mike and Jack, you must go to bed, too,” said big Ranni, coming up. “Paul is fast asleep. You have had a very hard time, and you need rest, too. Come.”
The children themselves could hardly believe that all their adventures really had happened, when they awoke next day. The boys lay and blinked at the ceiling. They felt stiff, but happy. They had rescued Rannie and Pilescu. They had found the robbers. They had been in the Secret Forest. They couldn’t help feeling very pleased with themselves.
“Mother, I’m going up on the mountain-side to find Beowald,” said Paul at breakfast time. “I’m going to tell him he must leave his goats and come to live with me. When we go back to the palace he must come too. I shall never forget all he did for us.”
“Take Ranni and Pilescu with you,” said his mother. “I’m afraid of those robbers still.”
“You needn’t be,” said Paul. “You will never see them again! Ranni! Will you come with me, and find Beowald?”
Ranni nodded. He and Pilescu looked none the worse for their adventure, except that Ranni had a great bump on his head.
The mist had entirely gone. The mountains shone clear all around, their summits sharp against the sky. The five children, with Ranni and Pilescu, mounted their ponies, and turned their shaggy heads up the mountain-side.
They came to the temple-cave after about an hour. Beowald was not anywhere there. Ranni lifted his great voice and shouted down the mountain-side:
“BEOWALD! BEOWALD!”
They heard an answering cry, musical and clear, coming from a distance. They sat down to wait for the blind goatherd. Paul was already planning a uniform for him. He would show Beowald what princely gratitude was!
Soon the children heard the playing of the little flute Beowald always carried with him. Then, rounding a curve nearby came a flock of capering goats. At the head of them marched the old goat with his big curling horns.
“Here he comes!” said the little prince, and he ran to meet the goatherd. Beowald came to sit down with the company, asking them how they felt after their adventure.
“Oh, Beowald — it was a thrilling time,” said Paul. “I don’t know what would have happened to us if it hadn’t been for you. I want to reward you, Beowald. We are all grateful to you — but I, most of all.”
“Do not speak to me of rewards, little lord,” said the goatherd, and he played a little tune on his flute.
“Beowald, I want you to come and live with me,” said Paul. “You shall come back to the big palace, and I will give you a uniform. You shall no longer herd goats on the mountain-side! You shall be my man and my friend!”
Beowald looked towards the little prince with his dark, empty eyes. He shook his head and smiled.
“Would you make me unhappy, little prince? I would break my heart in a strange place, under a roof. The mountains are my home. They know me and I know them. They know the feel of my feet, and I know the song of their winds and streams. And my goats would miss me, especially this old one.”
The big horned goat had been standing by Beowald all the time, listening as if he understood every word. He stamped with his forefoot, and came close to the goatherd, as if to say, “Master, I agree with you! You belong here! Do not go away!”
“I did so want to reward you,” said Paul disappointed.
“You can reward me, little lord,” said Beowald, smiling. “Come to see me sometimes, and let me play my tunes to you. That will be enough reward for me. And I will make you a flute of your own, so that you too may learn the mountain songs and take them back to the big palace with you.”
“Oh, I’d like that,” said Paul, picturing himself at once playing a flute, and making all the boys at school stare at him in admiration. “You must teach me all the tunes you know, Beowald!”
“Let’s go into the cave and have a look round,” said Jack. They all went in, but Ranni and Pilescu forbade the children to slip down the hole to the cave below.
“No,” he said. “No more adventures whilst we are here! We have had enough to last us for a lifetime — or, at any rate, for two months!”
“Now the Secret Forest will never again be visited by anyone!” said Mike. “The only way to it is gone. The water will always keep people from travelling through the mountain to get to it.”
“And the robber-people will never be able to leave the Secret Forest!” said Jack. “How strange! They will have to live there, year after year, a people lost and forgotten.”
This was a strange thought. “But perhaps it is a good punishment for robbers,” said Nora, thoughtfully. “It will be like keeping them in a great prison, which they can never escape from to rob other people!”
“We shall never see the Secret Forest again,” said Mike, sadly. “It is such an exciting place!”
But he was wrong. They did see it again, for when, towards the end of a lovely holiday, their mother and father flew over in the White Swallow to fetch the children. Ranni took the whole company, Captain and Mrs. Arnold as well, in the blue and silver aeroplane, right over the Killimooin Mountains, and over the Secret Forest!
“There it is, Daddy!” cried Mike. “Look! You can see where the river flows out of the mountain. Go down lower, Ranni. Look, there’s where it goes into the Secret Forest — and where it comes out again, after doubling back on itself. Oh, and there’s where it disappears into a chasm, falling right down into the heart of the earth!”
The aeroplane was now so low that it almost seemed as if it was skimming the tops of the trees! The robbers heard the great noise, and some of them ran out from the forest in wonder.
“There’s one of the robbers — and another — and another!” shouted Paul. “Goodbye, robber-people! You’ll have to live in the Secret Forest for ever and ever and ever.”
The aeroplane swept upwards and left the Secret Forest behind. Over Killimooin it went, and the children heaved a sigh.
“It’s been the loveliest holiday we’ve ever had!” said Nora. “I wonder what adventures we’ll have next time?”
“You’ve had quite enough,” said Ranni.
But they are sure to have plenty more. They are that kind of children!