"Don't be afraid," he said. "Only lie still and the storm will pass above us." She lay like a little frightened bird, trembling and quivering, but saying nothing. The great wind broke over them with a swirl as of fierce waters. It whistled and screamed, blowing with it a fine white dust, then as quickly as it had come it passed, and all was still. Banda Bela raised his head and looked around him. The wind had died down as suddenly as it had sprung up and the plain was so still that not even the grasses stirred. Their shepherd friends rose from the ground where they too had thrown themselves, and one of them called to the children to come back.
"Are you safe?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," said Banda Bela.
"I was frightened, but Banda Bela held my hand," said little Marushka. "Now I am very thirsty."
"The dust and wind always cause great thirst," said the herder. "But no one need be thirsty in the 'Land of a Thousand Springs!' Here is water cool and fresh in the great well, and a little sweet, white wine. Drink and then run quickly away to sleep, for it is late for small men and women."
"What are those giant things which stand so dark against the sky? They frighten me," cried Marushka, as she clung to Banda Bela and looked behind the shepherds' huts.
"Only mighty haystacks, little one. Enough hay is there to last twenty regiments of soldiers fifty years, so that our cattle need never go hungry. Go now. To-morrow you camp here and I will show you many things."
"Would that those children were mine," he said to himself as the two ran away to the camp. "The boy I like, he is clean and straight, and his music stirs my soul; but the little girl reaches my very heart."