The brooding silence of the dark forest was broken by the laughter of children and the sound of voices.
“Let’s go and see,” said Cyril.
“It’s only a dream,” said the learned gentleman to Jane, who hung back; “if you don’t go with the tide of a dream—if you resist—you wake up, you know.”
There was a sort of break in the undergrowth that was like a silly person’s idea of a path. They went along this in Indian file, the learned gentleman leading.
Quite soon they came to a large clearing in the forest. There were a number of houses—huts perhaps you would have called them—with a sort of mud and wood fence.
“It’s like the old Egyptian town,” whispered Anthea.
And it was, rather.
Some children, with no clothes on at all, were playing what looked like Ring-o’-Roses or Mulberry Bush. That is to say, they were dancing round in a ring, holding hands. On a grassy bank several women, dressed in blue and white robes and tunics of beast-skins sat watching the playing children.
The children from Fitzroy Street stood on the fringe of the forest looking at the games. One woman with long, fair braided hair sat a little apart from the others, and there was a look in her eyes as she followed the play of the children that made Anthea feel sad and sorry.
“None of those little girls is her own little girl,” thought Anthea.