“He wants to be your nurse,” chuckled Mike.
“Oh, do stop making jokes like that,” grumbled poor Jack. “I can’t help Mafumu behaving like this, can I? He will keep on doing it.”
“Tomorrow we shall see the Secret Mountain,” said Nora sleepily. “I’m just longing to get my first glimpse of it. I wonder what it will be like.”
“I wonder if Mafumu’s unpleasant uncle can possibly tell us any way to get into it,” said Mike. “It’s not going to be much good gazing at a secret mountain, if we don’t know the secret of getting into the middle of it!”
“Do you suppose there are halls and rooms and passages in it?” said Peggy, cuddling closer to Nora to try and get warm. “How I do love secret things!”
Mafumu took hold of Jack’s rug and pulled it more closely over the elder boy and for once in a way Jack did not stop him. The boy was almost asleep. He lay there in the cave, his eyes closing.
“Goodnight, Mafumu,” said Jack sleepily.
“Hallo, goodnight,” answered Mafumu, happy to be with his new friends.
“Tomorrow we shall see the — the — Secret — Mountain,” murmured Jack, and then fell fast asleep.
Tomorrow — yes, tomorrow!