‘You are welcome then,’ growled the bear surlily, and she sat back on her furry rump showing the leather soles of her hind feet. ‘It will be a hot day.’
Raphael seated himself on a dry log at the side of the road.
‘It is going to be a hot day,’ he repeated. ‘How far is it to Mechana, the city of the Sorcerer?’
‘What Sorcerer?’
Then he told the bear about Mechanus, and how he had stolen his sister Cassandra. Meanwhile the cub snuffled about Raphael’s feet until, becoming bored, he ambled off to root in a rotten tree for grubs.
When Raphael stopped talking, the she bear said: ‘I have heard of this Sorcerer. It is said that he is like a man, and that there is a city a long way to the west. But life is hard in the woods. I find it difficult enough to feed my children, and so I do not bother about what does not concern me.’
‘But that’s just it,’ argued Raphael. ‘It does concern you. To-day you have a forest to live in and pools to drink from. But to-morrow the Sorcerer may cut down this forest, the pools will dry, the berries will disappear; you will find nothing to feed on, and then how will your children live?’
RAPHAEL SEATED HIMSELF ON A DRY LOG
The bear looked at him out of cunning little eyes. ‘When that time comes, I shall move elsewhere to other forests.’ And she wrinkled her long nose in a yawn.