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CHAPTER VIII

It was a cry of amazement. For suddenly—so suddenly that she did not have time to think how it had happened—she found herself up and dressed, and standing alone, gazing about her, in the open air!

But there were no high buildings on any side, no people passing to and fro, no motor-cars flashing by. And the grass underfoot was not the grass of a lawn, evenly cut and flowerless; it was tall, so that it brushed the hem of her dress, and blossom-dotted.

She looked up at the sky. It was not the sky of the City, distant, and marbled with streaks of smoke. It was close and clear; starless, too; and no moon hung upon it. Yet though it was night there was light everywhere—warm, glowing, roseate.

By that radiant glow she saw that she was in the midst of trees! Some were tall and slender and clean-barked; others were low and thick of trunk, but with the wide shapely spread of the great banyan in her geography; and, towering above the others, were the giants of that forest, unevenly branched, misshapen, aslant, and rugged with wart-like burls.

“Is—is this the Park?” she said aloud, still looking around. “Or—or the woods across the River?”

But there was no sign of a paved walk, such as traced patterns through the Park; nor of a chimney, to mark the whereabouts of a house. Behind her the ground sloped gently up to a wooded rise; in front of her it sloped as gently down to the edge of a narrow, noisy mountain stream.

“Why, I’m at Johnnie Blake’s!” she cried—then glanced over a shoulder cautiously. If this were indeed the place she had longed to revisit, it would be advisable to keep as quiet as possible, lest someone should hear her, and straightway come to take her home.

Still watching backward apprehensively, she pushed through the grass to the edge of the stream.

The moment she reached it she knew that it was not the trout-stream along which she had wandered while her father fished. It was, in fact, not ordinary water at all, but something lighter, more sparkling with color, swifter, and louder. It effervesced, so that a creamy mist lay along its surface—this the smoke of bursting bubbles. It was like the bottled water she drank at her nursery meals!

Hands clasped, she leaned to stare down. “Isn’t it funny!” she exclaimed half under her breath.

A voice answered her—from close at hand. It was a thin, cracked voice. “This is where They get their soda-water,” it said.

She turned, and saw him.

He was a queer little old thick-set, dark-skinned gentleman, with grizzled whiskers, a ragged hat and baggy trousers. His eyes were round and black under his brows, which were square and long-haired, and not unlike a certain new hand-brush that Jane wielded of a morning across Gwendolyn’s small finger-tips. Over one shoulder, by a strap, hung a dark box, half-hidden by a piece of old carpet. In one hand he held a huge, curved knife.

Though she could not remember ever having seen him at Johnnie Blake’s; and though the curved knife was in pattern the true type of a kidnaper’s weapon, and the look out of those round, dark eyes, as he strode toward her, was not at all friendly, she did not scamper away. She waited, her heart beating hard. When he halted, she curtsied.

“I’ve—I’ve always wondered about soda-water,” she faltered, trying to smile. “But when I asked—”

“Um!” he grunted; then, with a sidewise jerk of the head, “Take a drink.”

She lifted eager eyes. “All I want to?” she half-whispered.

He nodded. “Sip! Lap! Tipple!”

“Oo!” Fairly beaming with delight, she knelt down. For the first time in her life she could have all the soda-water she wanted!

First, she put the tip of one finger into the rushing sparkle, slowly, to lengthen out her joy. Next, with a little laugh, she sank her whole hand. Bubbles formed upon it,—all sizes of them—standing out like dewdrops upon leaves. The bubbles cooled. And tempted her thirst. With a deep breath, she bent forward until her red mouth touched the shimmering surface. Thus, lying prone, with arms spread wide, she drank deep of the flow.

When she straightened and sat back upon her heels, she made an astonishing discovery: The trees that studded the slope were not covered with leaves, like ordinary trees! Each branched to hold lights—myriads of lights! Some of these shone steadily; others burned with a hissing sound; others were silent enough, but rose and fell, jumped and flickered. It was these countless lights that illumed the forest like a pink sun.