So the night passed. The children did not try to escape, and no one came on their trail.

The next day they kept going south but also west, so that by mid-afternoon they reached the hills. They did not try to run. The older children, even the five-year-old, walked, and they passed the two babies from one man to another, so their pace was steady if not fast. Along in the morning, the girl who had joined them pulled at ten Belen's tunic and kept pointing left, to a marsh: she made gestures of pulling up roots and eating. Since they had eaten nothing for two days, they followed her to the marsh. The older children waded out into the water and pulled up certain wide-leafed plants by the roots. They began to cram what they pulled up into their mouths, but the soldiers waded after them and took the muddy roots and ate them till they had had enough. Dirt people do not eat before Crown people eat. The children did not seem surprised.

When she had finally got a root for herself, the girl who had joined them pulled up another, chewed it up and spat it out into her hand for the babies to eat. One of them ate eagerly from her hand, but the other would not; she lay where she had been put down, and her eyes did not seem to see. Ten Han's girl and the one who had joined them held her and tried to make her drink water. She would not drink.

Dos ten Han stood in front of them and said, pointing to the elder girl, “Vui Handa,” naming her Vui and saying she belonged to his family. Bela named the one who had joined them Modh Belenda, and her little sister, the one he had carried off, he named Mal Belenda. The others named their prizes; but when Ralo ten Bal pointed at the sick baby to name her, the girl who had joined them, Modh, got between him and the baby, vigorously gesturing no, no, and putting her hand to her mouth for silence.

“What's she up to?” Ralo asked. He was the youngest of them, sixteen.