“Because though he was fond of you and liked to follow you about and play with you, he is very fierce and powerful, and all the other beasts are afraid of him.  So long as he was with us they would not come, but now he has gone they will come to you and let you go to them.”

“Where are they?” said Martin, his curiosity greatly excited.

“Let us wait here,” she said, “and perhaps we shall see one by-and-by.”

So they waited and were silent, and as nothing came and nothing happened, Martin sitting on the mossy ground began to feel a strange drowsiness stealing over him.  He rubbed his eyes and looked round; he wanted to keep very wide awake and alert, so as not to miss the sight of anything that might come.  He was vexed with himself for feeling drowsy, and wondered why it was; then listening to the low continuous hum of the bees, he concluded that it was that low, soft, humming sound that made him sleepy.  He began to look at the bees, and saw that they were unlike other wild bees he knew, that they were like humble-bees in shape but much smaller, and were all of a golden brown colour:  they were in scores and hundreds coming and going, and had their home or nest in the rock a few feet above his head.  He got up, and climbing from his mother’s knee to her shoulder, and standing on it, he looked into the crevice into which the bees were streaming, and saw their nest full of clusters of small round objects that looked like white berries.

Then he came down and told her what he had seen, and wanted to know all about it, and when she answered that the little round fruit-like objects he had seen were cells full of purple honey that tasted sweet and salt, he wanted her to get him some.

“Not now—­not to-day,” she replied, “for now you love me and are contented to be with me, and you are my own darling child.  When you are naughty, and try to grieve me all you can, and would like to go away and never see me more, you shall taste the purple honey.”

He looked up into her face wondering and troubled at her words, and she smiled down so sweetly on his upturned face, looking very beautiful and tender, that it almost made him cry to think how wilful and passionate he had been, and climbing on to her knees he put his little face against her cheek.

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Then, while he was still caressing her, light tripping steps were heard over the stony path, and through the bushes came two beautiful wild animals—­a doe with her fawn!  Martin had often seen the wild deer on the plains, but always at a great distance and running; now that he had them standing before him he could see just what they were like, and of all the four-footed creatures he had ever looked on they were undoubtedly the most lovely.  They were of a slim shape, and of a very bright reddish fawn-colour, the young one with dappled sides; and both had large trumpet-like ears, which they held up as if listening, while they gazed fixedly at Martin’s face with their large, dark, soft eyes.  Enchanted with the sight of them, he slipped down from his mother’s lap, and stretched out his arms towards them, and the doe, coming a little nearer, timidly smelt at his hand, then licked it with her long, pink tongue.