The Brothers Lionheart

And the message had gone.”

Jonathan’s eyes darkened. I had never seen him like that, never seen him so embittered. I recognized neither him nor his voice.

“That means it’s as I thought,” he said. “We’ve got a traitor in Cherry Valley.” “Yes, I think we have,” said Sofia. “I didn’t want to believe it. But now I see that it must be true.”

You could see how sad she was, and yet she turned to me and said:

“Come, Karl, you must come and look around my place all the same.”

She lived alone at Tulip Farm with her pigeons and her bees and her goats, with a garden so full of flowers that you could hardly make your way through it.

While Sofia took me around, Jonathan started digging and weeding in that way you have to in the spring.

I looked at everything, Sofia’s many beehives and her tulips and narcissuses and inquisitive goats, but all the time I kept thinking about that Violanta, whoever that was, who had been shot up there in the mountains.

We soon went back to Jonathan, who was on his knees weeding so hard that his fingers were black.

Sofia looked sorrowfully at him and then said:

“Listen, my little gardener's boy, I think you’ll soon have to get to work on something else now.”

“I can see that,” said Jonathan.

Poor Sofia, she was more worried than she wished us to see, I suppose. She went and gazed up toward the mountains, looking so troubled that I grew anxious too. What was she looking for? Who was she expecting?

We were soon to know, because suddenly Sofia said:

“There she is! Thank God, there’s Paloma!”

It was one of her pigeons that came flying in; at first it was nothing but a little speck against the mountains, but soon she was with us, landing on Sofia’s shoulder.

“Come, Jonathan,” said Sofia quickly.

“Yes, but Rusky--I mean Karl,” said Jonathan. “He must be told all about it now, mustn’t he?”

“Of course,” said Sofia. “Hurry now, both of you.”

With the pigeon on her shoulder, Sofia ran ahead of us into the house. She took us into a little room off the kitchen, and then she bolted the door and closed the shutters.