“Look!” he yelled to the others. And at last they looked. When they saw the unexpected appearance of eight people in the middle of the smooth courtyard, and when Mike, Peggy and Nora saw that two of them were their own father and mother, what an excitement there was!
With shouts and shrieks the children rushed down the temple steps and ran towards the little company in the courtyard. In half a minute they were hugging their father and mother, exclaiming over them, thumping Jack on the back, shouting a hundred questions, and hugging little Mafumu, who was quite overjoyed at seeing all his lost friends so suddenly again.
“This is a surprise! This is a surprise!” everyone kept saying. And, indeed, it was!
The Escape Of Ranni And Pilescu
When everyone had calmed down a little, they looked round to see what had become of the four guards who had come up in the cage-lift with Jack and the others. But they were gone! They had silently stepped into the golden cage once more, and had disappeared from sight into the heart of the mountain!
Captain Arnold ran to where the trap-door lay smoothly in the floor of the courtyard. He tried to get his fingers between the edges of the door and the stone of the courtyard — but they fitted so exactly that it was impossible.
“In any case it will be locked and bolted the other side,” he said. “There’s no way of escape there. How did you get here, Mike? Through this trap-door?”
Mike told him about the enormous flights of shining steps that led up to the golden door. He showed the newcomers the door itself, but no matter how they tried they could not slide it back.
The children were all so excited at seeing their father and mother again, and at having Jack and Mafumu once more, that they forgot their worries and chatted happily, telling one another their adventures. Only the grown-ups looked grave, and talked solemnly together, apart from the children.
“Somehow we must think of a way to escape,” said Pilescu. “These Folk of the Secret Mountain are savage and ignorant. They think that the sun is angry with them, and they want to give him a servant to make their peace with him. Which of us will be chosen for that? I don’t like to think.”