began pressing round to lick his face; but he pushed them off, and
ran away over the plain as fast as he could. The stars were shining,
but it was very dark and silent; only in moist places, where the
grass grew tall, he heard the crickets strumming sadly on their
little harps.

At length, tired with running, he coiled himself in a large tussock
of dry grass and went to sleep, just as if he had been accustomed to
sleep out of doors all his life.

CHAPTER V

THE PEOPLE OF THE MIRAGE

In that remote land where Martin was born, with its bright warm
climate and rich soil, no person need go very long hungry--not even
a small boy alone and lost on the great grassy plain. For there is a
little useful plant in that place, with small leaves like clover
leaves and a pretty yellow flower, which bears a wholesome sweet root,
about as big as a pigeon's egg and of a pearly white colour. It is
so well known to the settlers' children in that desert country that
they are always wandering off to the plain to look for it, just as
the children in a town are always running off with their halfpence
to the sweet-stuff shop. This pretty white root is watery, so that
it satisfies both hunger and thirst at the same time. Now when Martin
woke next morning, he found a great many of the little three-leaved
plants growing close to the spot where he had slept, and they
supplied him with a nice sweet breakfast. After he had eaten enough
and had amused himself by rolling over and over several times on the
grass, he started once more on his travels, going towards the
sunrise as fast as he could run. He could run well for a small boy,
but he got tired at last and sat down to rest. Then he jumped up and
went on again at a trot: this pace he kept up very steadily, only
pausing from time to time to watch a flock of small white birds that
followed him all the morning out of curiosity. At length he began to
feel so hot and tired that he could only walk. Still he kept on; he
could see no flowers nor anything pretty in that place--why should
he stay in it? He would go on, and on, and on, in spite of the heat,
until he came to something. But it grew hotter as the day advanced,
and the ground about him more dry and barren and desolate, until at
last he came to ground where there was scarcely a blade of grass: it
was a great, barren, level plain, covered with a slight crust of
salt crystals that glittered in the sun so brightly that it dazzled
and