She looked at Kandid and slackened to a walk. Kandid hauled himself to the nearest tree, leaned his back on it, the back of his head, finally all his weight and closed his eyes. He very much wanted to sit down, to fall down, but he was afraid. He assured himself; they're surely lying around the moss as well. But all the same he was afraid. His heart was beating like a mad thing, his legs might not have existed at all, his lungs were bursting and expanded painfully in his chest at every breath, and everything was slippery and salty with sweat.
"What if they catch up with us?" he heard Nava's voice as if through cotton wool. "What will we do, Dummy, when they catch us up. You're about all in, likely you couldn't fight anymore, eh?"
He wanted to reply: I could, but only managed to move his lips. He was no longer frightened of the robbers. He wasn't frightened of anything. He was only afraid of moving and of lying down in the moss. It was the forest, after all, whatever lies they told, it was the forest, this was something he well recalled, he never forgot that ever, even when he used to forget everything else.
"You haven't even got a stick now," Nava was saying. "Shall I look for a stick. Dummy, shall I?" "No," he mumbled. "Don't bother ... heavy..." He opened his eyes and listened intently. The robbers were near, and could be heard panting and trampling in the undergrowth, the trampling wasn't very lively either, the robbers too were having a hard time of it.
"Let's get on," said Kandid.
They passed through a zone of dangerous white moss, then a zone of dangerous red moss, the wet bog began again with still, thick water, on which reclined gigantic pale flowers with a repellent meaty smell, and out of each flower peered a gray, speckled animal, which followed them with eyes on stalks.
"You, Dummy, splash along a bit faster," Nava was saying practically, "or something'll suck you in and you'll never get free afterward, don't think just because you've had an inoculation, you won't get sucked in, 'cos you just will. Then it'll conk out, of course, but that won't help you any..."
The bog suddenly came to an end, and the terrain began to rise steeply. A tall striped grass with sharp cutting edges made its appearance. Kandid looked back and caught sight of the robbers. For some reason they had halted. For some reason they were standing up to their knees in swamp, leaning on their clubs and looking after them. Done in, thought Kandid, they're done in as well. One of the robbers raised his arm and made an inviting gesture, shouting:
"Come on down, what do you think you're doing?"
Kandid turned away and went after Nava. After the quagmire, walking on solid ground seemed an easy matter, even uphill. The robbers were shouting something, two and then three voices. Kandid turned for the last time. The robbers were still standing in the swamp, in the filth, full of leeches; they hadn't even come out onto dry land. Seeing him look back, they started waving their arms desperately and began shouting again discordantly; it was hard to make out.
"Back!" they were shouting, it seemed. "Ba-a-ck! We won't to-ouch you! ... You're goners, you foo-o-ols!"
You don't catch me, thought Kandid, with cheerful malice. Fools, yourselves, and I believed in you. I've had enough of believing... Nava had already disappeared behind the trees and he hastened after her.
"Come ba-a-ack! We'll let you go-o-o!" roared the leader.
They can't be as done in as all that if they can bawl like that, thought Kandid fleetingly and at once began to reflect that a little farther on and he would sit down and rest, and search out any leeches and ticks he had picked up.
