HE JUMPED, HE REARED, HE KICKED, HE PLUNGED, HE WRIGGLED, HE WHINNIED.
At last Nod managed to get to his feet again. He brushed the snow out of his eyes, and spat it out of his mouth. The Zevvera's hoof-prints were plain in the snow. He would follow them, he thought, till he could follow no longer. His brothers had forsaken him. His Wonderstone was gone. He felt it even now burning like a tiny fire beneath his breast-bone. He limped slowly on. But at every step he stumbled. His shoulder throbbed. He could scarcely see, and in a little while down he fell again. He lay still now, rolled up in his jacket, wishing only to die and be at peace. Soon, he thought, the prowling Minimuls would find him, stiff and frozen. They would wrap him up in leaves, and carry him home between them on a pole to their mounds, and pick his small bones for the morrow's supper. Everything he had done was foolish—the fire, the wild pig, the Ephelantoes. He could not even ride the smallest of the Little Horses of Tishnar. The languid warmth of his snow-bed began to lull his senses. The moon streamed through the trees, silvering the branches with her splendour. And in the beautiful glamour of the moonbeams it seemed to Nod the air was aflock with tiny wings. His heavy eyelids drooped. He was falling softly—falling, falling—when suddenly, close to his ear, a harsh and angry voice broke out.
"Hey, Mulgar! hey, Slugabones! how come you here? What are you doing here?"
He opened his eyes drowsily, and saw an old grey Quatta hare staring drearily into his face with large whitening eyes.
"Sleep," he said, softly blinking into her face.
"Sleep!" snarled the old hare. "You idle Mulgars spend all your days eating and sleeping!"
Nod shut his eyes again. "Do not begrudge me this, old hare," he said; "'tis Nōōmanossi's."
"Where did you steal that sheep's-coat, Mulgar? And how came you and the ugly ones to be riding under my Dragon-tree on the Little Horses of Tishnar?"
"Why," replied Nod, smiling faintly, "I stole my sheep's-coat from my mother, who gave it me; and as for 'riding on the Little Horses'—here I am!"
"Where have you come from? Where are you going to?" asked the old hare, staring.
"I've come from the Flesh-mounds of the Minimuls, and I think I'm going to die," said Nod—"that is, if this old Quatta will let me."
The old hare stiffened her long grey ears, and stamped her foot in the snow. "You mustn't die here," she said. "No Mulgar has ever died here. This forest belongs to me."
In spite of all his aches and pains, Nod grinned. "Then soon you will have Nod's little bones to fence it in with," he said.
The old hare eyed him angrily. "If you weren't dying, impudent Mulgar, I'd teach you better manners."
Nod wriggled closer into his jacket. "Trouble not, Queen of Munza," he said softly. "I shouldn't have time to use them now." He shut his eyes again, and all his pain seemed to be floating away in sleep.
The old hare sat up in the snow and listened. "What's amiss in Munza-mulgar?" she muttered to herself. "First these galloping Horses of Tishnar, one, two, three; now the angry Zōōts of the Minimuls, and all coming nearer?" But Nod was far away in sleep now, and numb with cold.
She tapped his little shrunken cheek with her foot. "Even in your sleep, Mulgar, you mustn't dream," she said. "None may dream in my forest." But Nod made no answer even to that. She sat stiff up again, twitching her lean, long, hairy ears, now this way, now that way. "Foh, Earth-mulgars!" she said to herself. She stamped in the snow, and stamped again. And in a minute anotherold Quatta came louping between the trees, and sat down beside her.
"Here's an old sheep's-jacket I've found," said the old Queen Quatta, "with a little Mulgar inside it. Let us carry it home, Sister, or the Minimuls will steal him for their feast."
The other old Quatta raised her lip over her long curved teeth. "Pull out the Mulgar first," she said.
But Mishcha said: "No, it is a strange Mulgar, a Mulla-mulgar, a Nizza-neela, and he smells of magic. Take his legs, Sister, and I will carry his head. There's no time to be lost." So these two old Quatta hares wrapped Nod round tight in his sheep-skin coat, and carried him off between them to their form or house in an enormous hollow Dragon-tree unimaginably old, and very snug and warm inside, with cotton-leaf, feathers, and dry tree-moss. There they laid him down, and pillowed him round. And Mishcha hopped out again to watch and wait for the Minimuls.
Sheer overhead the pygmy moon stood, when with drums beating and waving cudgels, in their silvery girdles, leopard-skin hats, and grass shoes, thirty or forty of the fury Minimuls appeared, hobbling bandily along, following the hoof-prints of the galloping Zevveras in the snow. But little clouds in passing had scattered their snow, and the track had begun to grow faint. The old hare watched these Earth-mulgars draw near without stirring. Like all the other creatures of Munza-mulgar, she hated these groping, gluttonous, cannibal gnomes. When they reached the place where Nod had fallen, the Minimulsstood still and peered and pointed. In a little while they came scuttling on again, and there sat old Mishcha under a great thorn-bush, gaunt in the snow.
They stood round her, waving their darts, and squeaking questions. She watched them without stirring. Their round eyes glittered beneath their spotted leopard-skin hats as they stood in their shimmering grasses in the snow.
"When so many squall together," she said at last, "I cannot hear one. What's your trouble this bright night?"
Then one among them, with a girdle of Mulla-bruk's teeth, bade the rest be silent.
"See here, old hare," he said; "have any filthy Mulgars passed this way, one tall and bony, one fat and hairy, and one little and cunning?"
Mishcha stared. "One and one's two, and one's three," she said slowly. "Yes, truly—three."
"Three, three!" they cried all together—"thieves, thieves!"
Mishcha's face wrinkled. "All Mulgars are thieves," she said; "some even eat flesh. Ugh!"
At this the Minimul-mulgars grew angry, their glassy eyes brightened. They raised their snouts in the air and waved their darts. But the old hare sat calmly under her roof of poisonous thorns.
"Answer us, answer us," they squeaked, "you dumb old Quatta!"
"H'm, h'm!" said Mishcha, staring solemnly. "Mulgars? There are hundreds, and tens of hundreds of Mulgars in my forest, of more kinds and tribes than I have hairs on my scut. How should old Mishcha raise an eyelidat only three? Olory mi, my third-gone grandmother used to tell me many a story of you thieving, gluttonous Mulgars, all alike, all alike. It's sad when one's old to remember, but it's sadder to forget."
Clouds had stolen again over the moon, and snow was falling fast. Let these evil-smelling Minimuls chatter but a little longer, she thought; not a hoof-print would be left.
"Listen, old hare," said the chief of the Minimuls. "Have you seen three Mulgars pass this way, two in red jackets, and one, a Nizza-neela, in a sheep's coat, and all galloping, galloping, on three Little Horses of Tishnar?"
Mishcha gazed at him stonily, with hatred in her eyes. She was grey with age, and now a little peaked cap of snow crowned her head, so still she had sat beneath the drifting flakes. "I am old—oh yes, old, and old again," she said. "I have ruled in Munza-mulgar one hundred, two hundred, five hundred years, but I never yet saw a Mulgar riding on a Little Horse of Tishnar. Tell me, Wise One, which way did they sit—withthe stripes, or cross-cross?"
"Answer us, grandam," squealed one of the Minimuls in a fury, "or I'll stick a poisoned dart down your throat."
Mishcha smiled. "Better a Minimul's dart than no supper at all," she said. "Swallow thy tongue, thou Mulgar!" she said; and suddenly her lips curled upward, her two long front teeth gleamed, her hair bristled. "Hobble off home, you thieving, flesh-eating, sun-hating earth-worms! Hobble off home before ears and nose and thumbs and toes are bitten and frozen in Tishnar's snows! Away with you, moon-maggots, grubbers of sand!" Shestamped with her foot, her old eyes greenly burning under the bush.
The Minimuls began angrily chattering again. At last the first who had spoken turned mousily and said: "To-day you go unharmed, old Quatta, but to-morrow we will come with fire and burn your Dragon-tree about your ears."
Mishcha stirred not one hair. "It's sad to burn, but it's sadder still to freeze." Her round eyes glared beneath her snow-cap. "A long march home to you, Minnikin-mulgar! A long march home! And if I should smell out the Sheep's-jacket on his Little Horse of Tishnar, I will tell him where to find you—burnt, bitten, brittle, baked hard in frozen snow!" She turned and began to hop off slowly between the shadow-casting trees.
At this, one of the Minimuls in his fury lifted a dart and flung it at the old hare. It stuck, quivering, in her shoulder. She turned slowly, and stared at him through the falling flakes; then, drawing the dart out with one of her forefeet, she spat on the point, and laid it softly down in the snow. And so wildly she gazed at them out of her aged and whitening eyes that the Minimuls fell into a sudden terror of the old witch-hare, and without another word turned back in silence and scuffled off in the thick falling snow by the way they had come.
Old Mishcha watched them till they were hidden from sight by the trees and the clouding snow-flakes; then, muttering a little to herself, nodding her thin long ears, she, too, turned and hopped off quickly to her house in the old Dragon-tree.
Nodstill lay huddled up in his jacket, his small, hairy face all drawn and grey, his eyes tight-shut and sorrowful beneath their thick black lashes. Mishcha squatted over him, and put her head down close to his little body. "He breathes no more, sister, than a moth or an Immamoosa-bud."
"Let us drag him out of his sheep-skin, and bury him in the snow," said Môha.
But Mishcha listened more closely still. "I hear his heart beating; I hear his drowsy blood just come and go. But what is it that, sweeter than a panther's breath, smells so of Magic? We must not harm the little Mulgar, sister; he is cunning. A Meermut of Magic would soon return to plague us." So she wrapped him up still closer in dry leaves and tree-moss, and opened his mouth to sprinkle a pinch of snow between his lips.
All that night and the next day Nod slept withoutstirring. But the evening after that, when the snow had ceased again, he opened his eyes and called "Wallah, wallah!" Mishcha hopped off and brought him snow in a plantain-leaf, and wrapped him up still warmer. But the little dry herbs and powdered root she put on his tongue he choked at, and could not swallow. His shoulder burned, he tossed to and fro with eyes blazing. Now he would start up and shout, "Thumb, Thumb!" then presently his face would all pucker up with fear, and he would scream, "The fire, the fire!" and then soon after he would be whispering, "Muzza, muzza, mutta; kara mutta, mutta!" just as if he were at home again in the little dried-up Portingal's hut.
Mishcha did all she could to soothe and quieten him. And at last she managed to make him swallow a little hard bright blue seed called Candar, which drives away fever and quiets dreams. But old Môha eyed him angrily, and wanted to throw him out into the forest to die. "Who'd sleep in a jacket that a gibbering Mulgar has died in?" she said.
When the next night was nearly gone, but before it was yet day, Nod awoke, cool and clear, and stared into the musty darkness of the Dragon-tree, wondering in vain where he was. Only one small spark of light could he see—the red star Antares, that was now burning through a little rift in the bark. He thought he heard a faint rustling of dry leaves.
"Hey, there!" he called out. "Where is Nod?"
"Hold your tongue, thieving Mulgar," cried an angry voice, "and let honest folk sleep in peace."
"If I could see," Nod answered weakly, "you wouldn't sleep much to-night, honest or no."
"You can't see," answered the voice softly, "because, my man of bones, you are dead and buried under the snow."
Nod grew cold. He pinched his legs; he opened and shut his mouth, and took long, deep breaths; then he laughed. "It's none so bad, then, being dead, Voice-of-Kindness," he said cheerfully, "if it weren't for this sore shoulder of mine."
But to this the morose voice made no answer. Not yet, even, could Nod remember all that had happened. "Hey, there!" he called out again presently, "who buried me, then?"
"Buried you? Why, Mishcha and Môha, the old witch-hares, who found you snuffling in the snow in your stolen sheep's-coat—Mishcha and Môha, who wouldn't touch monkey-skin, not for a grove of green Candar-trees."
"I remember Môha," said Nod meekly, "a gentle and sleek, a very, very handsome old Quatta. And is she dead, too?"
But again the sour voice made no reply.
"Once," said Nod, in a little while, "I had two brave brothers. I wonder where those Mulla-mulgars are now?"
"He wonders," said the voice slowly—"hewonders! Frizzling, frizzling, frizzling, my pretty Talk-by-Night, with seven smoking Gelica-nuts for company on the spit."
At this Nod fell silent. He lay quaking in his warm, rustling bed, with puckered forehead and restless eyes,wondering if the voice had told him the truth, while daybreak stole abroad in the forest.
When dusk began to stir within the Dragon-tree, Mishcha awoke and came and looked at him.
She hearkened at his ribs and mouth, and there seemed, Nod thought, a little kindness in her ways. So he put out his shrunken hand, and said: "Tell me truly, witch-hare. A voice in the night was merry with me, and told me for pleasure that my brothers Thumb and Thimble were frizzling on the cannibal Minimuls' spits. That is not true?"
"'One long and lean,'" said Mishcha, "'one fat and very heavy, and one sly and tiny, a Nizza-neela.' Here's the Nizza-neela Mulla-mulgar; I know nothing of the others."
"Ah, then," said Nod, starting up out of his bed, "I must be off to look for them. Their Little Horses ran faster than mine. And mine, he was a coward, and nibbled my sore shoulder to make me loose hold. But he could not buck or scrape me off, witch-hare, tried he never so hard. I must be off at once to look for my brothers. If they are dead, then I die too."
"Well, well," said the old hare, "it's sad to die, but it's sadder to live alone. But tell me first one thing," she said. "Where have these strange Mulgars come from in their rags and bravery?"
"Ohé," said Nod, and told her who they were.
"And tell me just one thing more," she said, when he had finished. "Where, little Mulgar, is all this Magic I can smell?"
And at that question Nod thought he could never keepfrom laughing. But he looked very solemn, and said: "There are three things, old hare, I always carry about with me—one is my sheep's-jacket, one is hunger, and the other is Magic; and the Magic just now is where my hunger is."
The old hare eyed him narrowly. "Well," she said, "wherever it is, if it hadn't been for the Magic, little Mulgar, the Jaccatrays would have been quarrelling over your bones. But there! remember old Mishcha sometimes in your travels, who hated every Mulgar except just one little one!" She bade him be very quiet, for her sister, after the night's talk, still lay fast asleep, her eyes wide open, in the gloom.
And she put Ukka-nuts, and dried berries and fruits of many kinds, and seven pepper-pods into his pockets, and buttoned the flaps. And she gave him also some powdered physic-nuts, three bright-blue Candar-seeds, and a little bunch of faded saffron-flower for a protection against the teeth of the dreaded Coccadrillo. She tied up his shoulder with soft clean moss, and fetched him a stout stick for cudgel out of the forest. And then she hobbled out with him to see him on his way. Dawn lay rosy and still upon the snow-laden branches.
"Where burns the Sulemnāgar, old hare?" said Nod, pretending utter bravery. And the wise old Quatta hare pointed out to him where still the Sulemnāgar gleamed faint and silver above the glistening trees.
So Nod thanked her, went forward a few paces, and stepped back to thank her again; then set out truly and for good.
He walked very cautiously, spying about him as he went.The red sun glinted on his cudgel. Once he saw a last night's leopard's track in the snow. So he roved his eyes aloft as well as to left and right of him, lest she should be lying in wait, crouched in the branches. A troop of Skeetoes pelted him with Ukka-nuts. But these, as fast as they threw them down, he gathered up and put into his bulging pockets, and waved his cap at them for thanks. They gibbered and mocked at him, and flung more nuts. "So long as it isn't stones, my long-tailed friends," he said to himself, "I will not throw back."
After a while he came to where Cullum and Samarak grew so dense amid the tree-trunks that he could scarcely walk upright. But he determined, as his mother had bidden him, to keep from stooping on to his fours as long as ever he could. Tumbling Numnuddies startled him, calling in the air. And once a clouded vulture with wings at least six cudgels wide dropped like a stone upon a leafless Bōōbab-branch, and watched him gloatingly go limping by.
He sat down in his loneliness and rested, and nibbled one of Mishcha's nuts. But try as he might, he could not swallow much. When once more he set out, for a long way some skulking beast which he could not plainly see stalked through the nodding grasses a few paces distant from him, but side by side. He flourished his cudgel, and sang softly the Mulla-mulgars' Journey-Song which Seelem had taught him long ago:
"That oneAloneWho's dared, and goneTo seek the Magic Wonderstone,No fear,Or care,Or black despair,Shall heed until his journey's done."Who knowsWhere blowsThe Mulgars' rose,In valleys 'neath unmelting snows—All secretsHeShall pierce and see,And walk unharmed where'er he goes."
"That oneAloneWho's dared, and goneTo seek the Magic Wonderstone,No fear,Or care,Or black despair,Shall heed until his journey's done."Who knowsWhere blowsThe Mulgars' rose,In valleys 'neath unmelting snows—All secretsHeShall pierce and see,And walk unharmed where'er he goes."
"That oneAloneWho's dared, and goneTo seek the Magic Wonderstone,No fear,Or care,Or black despair,Shall heed until his journey's done.
"Who knowsWhere blowsThe Mulgars' rose,In valleys 'neath unmelting snows—All secretsHeShall pierce and see,And walk unharmed where'er he goes."
Whether it was the Wonderstone under his breast-bone, on the sight of his cudgel, or a distaste for his shrill voice and skinniness, Nod could not tell, but in a little while, when he stopped a moment to peer between the thick streamers of Samarak, the secret beast was gone. Day drew on. He saw no tracks in the snow, except of wild pig and long-snouted Brackanolls. The only sound he heard was the falling of frosted clots of snow from the branches of the trees and the sad, continuous "Oo-ee, oo-ee, oo-ee!" of the little rust-coloured Bittock amid the sunlit snow. He did not dare now to rest, though his feet grew more painful at every step, and his poisoned shoulder itched and ached.
He stumbled on, scarcely heeding where his footsteps were leading him. Mulgar flies, speckled and humped, roused by the cloudless sun, buzzed round his eyes and bit and stung him. And suddenly his heart stood still at sight of seven amber and spotted beasts standing amid the grasses, casting a league-long shadow with their necks—such beasts as he had never seen before. But they were busy feeding, their heads and tiny horns and lustrous eyes half hidden in the foliage of the branches. Nod stared in fear and wonder, and passed their arbour very softly by.
Night began to fall, and the long-beaked bats to flit in their leathery hoods, seeking small birds and beasts to quench their thirst. It seemed now to Nod, his brave heart fallen, that he was utterly forsaken. Darkness had always sent him scuttling home to the Portingal's hut when he was little. How often his mother had told him that Nōōmanossi with his luring harp-strings roamed these farther forests, and strange beasts, too, that never show their faces to the sun! Worse still, as he lifted his poor wrinkled forehead to the tree-tops to catch the last beams of day, he felt a dreadful presence around him. Leopard it was not, nor Gunga, nor Minimul. He stood still, his left hand resting on its knuckles in the snow, his right clutching his cudgel, and leaning his round ear sidelong, he listened and listened. He put down his cudgel, and stood upright, his hands clasped behind his neck, and lifting his flat nose, sniffed and sniffed again the scarcely-stirring air. There was a smell, faint and strange. He turned as if to rush away, to hide himself—anywhere away from this brooding, terrifying smell, when, as if it were a little voice speaking beneath his ribs, he heard the words: "Fear not, Ummanodda; press on, press on!" He took up his cudgel with a groan, and limped quickly forward, and in an instant before he could start back, before even he could cry out, he heard a click, his foot slipped, out of the leaves whipped something smooth and shining, and he was jerked into the air, caught, bound fast in a snare.
He writhed and kicked, he spat and hissed. But the more he struggled, the tighter drew the cord round his neck. Everywhere, faint and trembling, rose the strange and dreadful unknown smell. He hung quite still. And as he dangled in pain, a night-wandering Bittock on a branch above him called piteously: "Oo-ee, oo-ee, oo-ee!"
"Why do you mock me, my friend?" groaned Nod.
"Oo-ee, oo-ee, oo-ee!" wailed the Bittock, and hopping down slowly, perched herself before his face. Her black eye gleamed. She clapped her tiny wings above her head, and softly let them fold. "Oo-ee, oo-ee, oo-ee!" she cried again.
Nod stared in a rage: "Oo-ee, oo-ee!" he mocked her feebly. "Who's caught me in this trap? Why do you come mocking me, swinging here to die? Put out my eyes, Bird of Sorrow. Nod's tired of being Nod."
The little bird seemed to listen, with rusty poll poked forward. She puffed out her feathers, raised her pointed bill, and piercingly into the shadows rang out her trembling voice again. "Oo-ee, oo-ee, oo-ee!" she sang, spread her wings, and left Nod quite alone.
His thong twitched softly. He shut his eyes. And once again, borne on the faint cold wind, that smell came sluggishly to his nostrils. His fears boiled up. His hair grew wet on his head. And suddenly he heard a distant footfall. Nearer and nearer—not panther's, nor Gunga's, nor Ephelanto's. And then some ancient voice whispered in his memory: "Oomgar, Oomgar!" Man!
There was only the last of day in the forest. But Nod, dangling in terror, could clearly see the Oomgar peering at him from beneath the unstirring branches—his colourless skin, his long yellow hair, his musket, his fixed, glittering eyes. And there came suddenly a voice out of the Oomgar, like none the little Mulgar had ever heard in his life before. Nod screamed and gnashed and kicked. But it was in vain. It only noosed him tighter.
"So, so, then; softly, now, softly!" said the strange clear voice. The Oomgar caught up the slack end of the noose and wound it deftly around him, binding him hand and foot together. Then he took a long steel knife from his breeches pocket, cut the cord round Nod's neck, and let him drop heavily to the ground. "Poorlittle Pongo! poor leetle Pongo!" he said craftily, and cautiously stooped to pick him up.
Nod could not see for rage and fear. He drew backhis head, and with all his strength fixed his teeth in that white terrible thumb. The Oomgar sucked in his breath with the pain, and, catching up the little Mulgar's own cudgel that lay in the snow, rapped him angrily on the head. After that Nod struggled no more. A thick piece of cloth was tied fast round his jaws. The Oomgar slipped the barrel of his musket through the Cullum-rope, lifted the little Mulgar on to his back, and strode off with him through the darkening forest.
They came out after a while from among the grasses, vines, and undergrowth. The Oomgar climbed heavily up a rocky slope, trudged on over an open and level space of snow, across an icy yet faintly stirring stream, and came at length to a low wooden house drifted deep in snow, in front of which a big fire was burning, showering up sparks into the starry sky. Here the Oomgar stooped and tumbled Nod over his shoulder into the snow at a little distance from the fire. He bent his head to the flames, and examined his bitten thumb, rubbed the blood off with a handful of snow, sucked the wound, bound it roughly with a strip of blue cloth, and tied the bandage in a knot with his teeth. This done, making a strange noise with his lips like the hissing of sap from a green stick, he began plucking off the wing and tail feathers of a large grey bird. This he packed in leaves, and uncovering a little hole beneath the embers, raked it out, and pushed the carcass in to roast.
He squinnied narrowly over his shoulder a moment, then went into his hut and brought out a cooking-pot, which he filled with water from the stream, and put into it a few mouse-coloured roots called Kiddals, which in flavour resemblean artichoke, and are very wholesome, even when cold. He hung his cooking-pot over the fire on three sticks laid crosswise. Then he sat down and cleaned his musket while his supper was cooking.
All this Nod watched without stirring, almost without winking, till at last the Oomgar, with a grunt, put down his gun, and came near and stood over him, staring down with a crooked smile on his mouth, between his yellow hair and the short, ragged beard beneath. He held out his bandaged thumb. "There, little master," he said coaxingly, "have another taste; though I warn ye," he added, wagging his head, "it'll be your werry last." Nod's restless hazel eyes glanced to and fro above the stifling cloth wound round his mouth. He felt sullen and ashamed. How his brother Thimble would have scoffed to see him now, caught like a sucking-pig in a snare!
The Oomgar smiled again. "Why, he's nowt but skin and bone, he is; shivering in his breeches and all. Lookee here, now, Master Pongo, or whatsomedever name you goes by, here's one more chance for ye." He took out his knife and slit off the gag round Nod's mouth, and loosened the cord a little. Nod did not stir.
"And who's to wonder?" said the Oomgar, watching him. He began warily scratching the little Mulgar's head above the parting. "It was a cruel hard rap, my son—a cruel hard rap, I don't gainsay ye; but, then, you must take Andy's word for it, they was cruel sharp teeth."
Nod saw him looking curiously at his sheep's-jacket, and, thinking he would show this strange being that Mulla-mulgars, too, can understand, he sidled his handgently and heedfully into his pocket and fetched out one of the Ukka-nuts that old Mishcha had given him.
At that the Oomgar burst out laughing. "Brayvo!" he shouted; "that's mother-English, that is! Now we's beginning to unnerstand one another." He poured a little hot water out of his cooking-pot into a platter and put it down in the snow. Nod sniffed it doubtfully. It smelt sweet and earthy of the root simmering in it. But he raised the platter of water slowly with his loosened hands, cooled it with blowing, and supped it up greedily, for he was very thirsty.
The Oomgar watched him with an astonished countenance. "Saints save us!" he muttered, "he drinks like a Christian!"
Nod wriggled his mouth, and imitated the sound as best he could. "Krisshun, Krisshun," he grunted.
The stooping Oomgar stared across the fire at Nod in the shadow as a man stares towards a strange and formidable shape in the dark. "Saints save us!" he whispered again, crossing himself, and sat down on his log.
He scraped back the embers and stripped the burnt skin and frizzled feathers off his roasted bird, stuck a wooden prong into a Kiddal, and, with a mouthful of bird and a mouthful of Kiddal, set heartily to his supper. When he had eaten his fill, he heaped up the fire with green wood, tied Nod to a thick stake of his hut, so that he could lie in comfort of the fire and to windward of its smoke; then, with a tossed-up glance at the starry and cloudless vault of the sky, he went whistling into the hut and noisily barred the door.
Softly crooning to himself in his sorrow and loneliness,Nod lay long awake. Of a sudden he would sit up, trembling, to glance as if from a dream about him, then in a little while would lie down quiet again. At last, with hands over his face and feet curled up towards the fire, he fell fast asleep.
When Nod woke the next morning the Oomgar was already abroad, and busy over his breakfast. The sun burned clear in the dark blue sky. Nod opened his eyes and watched the Oomgar without stirring. He stood in height by more than a hand's breadth taller than the Gunga-mulgar. But he was much leaner. The Gunga's horny knuckles had all but brushed the ground when he stood, stooping and glowering, on legs crooked and shapeless as wood. The Oomgar's arms reached only midway to his knees; he walked straight as a palm-tree, without stooping, and no black, cringing cunning nor bloodshot ferocity darkened his face. His hair dangled beaming in the sun about his clear skin. His hands were only faintly haired. And he wore a kind of loose jacket or jerkin, made of the inner bark of the Juzanda-tree (which is of finer texture than the Mulgars' cloth), rough breeches of buffskin, and monstrous boots. But most Nod watched flinchingly the Oomgar's light blue eyes, hard as ice, yet like nothing for strangeness Nod had ever seen in his life before, nor dreamed there was. But every time they wheeled beneath their lids piercingly towards him he closed his own, and feigned to be asleep.
At last, feeling thirsty, he wriggled up and crawled to the dish, which still lay icy in the snow, and raised it with both hands as far as his manacles would serve, and thrust it out empty towards the Oomgar.
The Oomgar made Nod a great smiling bow over the fire in answer, and filled it with water. Then, breaking off a piece of his smoking flesh, he flung it to the Mulgar in the snow. But Nod would not so much as stoop to smell it. He gravely shook his head, thrust in his fingers, and drew an Ukka-nut out of his pocket. "And who's to blame ye?" said the Oomgar cheerfully. "It's just the tale of Jack Sprat, my son, over again; only your little fancy's neether lean nor fat, but monkey-nuts!" He got up, and, screening his eyes from the sun, looked around him.
Then Nod looked, too. He saw that the Oomgar had built his hut near the edge of a kind of shelving rock, which sloped down softly to a cliff or gully. A little half-frozen stream flowed gleaming under the sun between its snowy banks, to tumble wildly over the edge of the cliff in blazing and frozen spray. Beyond the cliff stretched the azure and towering forests of Munza, immeasurable, league on league, flashing beneath the whole arch of the sky, capped and mantled and festooned with snow. Near by grew only thin grasses and bushes of thorn, except that at the southern edge of the steep rose up a little company or grove of Ukka-nuts and Ollacondas. Toward these strode off the Oomgar, with a thick billet of wood in his hand. When he reached them, he stood underneath, and flung up his billet into the tree, just as Nod himself had often done, and soon fetched down two or three fine clusters of Ukka-nuts. These he brought back with him, and held some out to the quiet little Mulgar.
"There, my son," he said, "them's for pax, which means peace, you unnerstand. I'm not afeerd of you, nor youisn't afeerd of me. All's spliced and shipshape." So there they sat beneath the blazing sun, the dazzling snow all round them, the Oomgar munching his broiled flesh, and staring over the distant forest, Nod busily cracking his Ukka-nuts, and peeling out the soft, milky, quincey kernel. Nod scarcely took his bewitched eyes from the Oomgar's face, and the longer he looked at him, the less he feared him. All creatures else he had ever seen seemed dark and cloudy by comparison. The Oomgar's face was strange and fair, like the shining of a flame.
"Now, see here, my son," said the Oomgar suddenly, when, after finishing his breakfast, he had sat brooding for some time: "I go there—there," he repeated, pointing with his hand across the stream; "and Monkey Pongo, he stay here—here," he repeated, pointing to the hut. "Now, s'posin' Andy Battle, which isme"—he bent himself towards Nod and grinned—"s'posin' Andy Battle looses off that rope's end a little more, will Master Pongo keep out of mischief, eh?"
Nod tried hard to understand, and looked as wise as ever he could. "Ulla Mulgar majubba; zinglee Oomgar," he said.
Battle burst out laughing. "Ugga, nugga, jugga, jingles! That's it—that's the werry thing," he said.
Nod looked up softly without fear, and grinned.
"He knows, by gum!" said Battle. "There be more wits in that leetle hairy cranny than in a shipload of commodores." He got up and loosened the rope round Nod's neck. "It's only just this," he said. "Andy Battle isn't turned cannibal yet—neither for white, black, nor monkey-meat. I wouldn't eat you, my son, not if they mademe King of England to-morrow, which isn't likely to be, by the look of the weather, sodon't ee have no meddlin' with the fire!"
"Middlinooiddyvire," said Nod, mimicking him softly.
And at that Battle burst into such a roar of laughter the hut shook. He filled Nod's platter with water, and gave him the rest of the Ukka-nuts. He went into the hut and fetched musket, powder, and bullets. He put a thick-peaked hat on his head, then, with his musket over his shoulder, he nodded handsomely at the little blinking Mulgar, and off he went.
Nod watched him stride away. With a hop, skip, and a jump he crashed across the frozen water, and soon disappeared down the steep path that led into the forest. When he was out of sight, Nod lay down in the shadow of the log-hut. He felt a strange comfort, as if there was nothing in all Munza-mulgar to be afraid of. His rage and sullenness were gone. He would rest here awhile with thisOomgarif he were as kind as he seemed to be, and try to understand what he said. Then, when his feet were healed of their sores and blains, and his shoulder was quite whole again, he would set off once more after his brothers.
All the next day, and the day after that, Nod sat patient and still, tethered with a long cord round his neck to the Oomgar's hut. When Battle spoke to him he listened gravely. When he laughed and showed his teeth, Nod showed his cheerfully, too. And when Battle sat silent and cast down in thought, Nod pretended to be unspeakably busy over his nuts.
And soon the sailor found himself beginning to lookforward to seeing the hairy face peering calmly out of the sheep's-jacket on his return from his hunting. On the third evening, when, after a long absence, he came home, tired out and heavy-laden, with a little sharp-horned Impolanca-calf and a great frost-blackened bunch of Nanoes, he took off Nod's halter altogether and set him free.
"There!" said he; "we're messmates now, Master Pongo. Andy Battle's had a taste of slavery himself, and it isn't reasonable, my son. It frets in like rusty iron, my son; and Andy's supped his fill of it. I takes to your company wonnerful well, and if you takes to mine, then that's plain-sailing, says I. But if them apes and monkeys over yonder are more to your liking than a shipwrecked sailor, who's to blame ye? Every man to his own, says I; breeches to breeches, and bare to bare. The werry first thing is for me and you to unnerstand one another."
Nod listened gravely to all this talk, and caught the sailor's meaning, what with a word here, a nod, a wink, or a smile there, and the jerk of a great thumb.
"But as for Andy Battle," went on the sailor, "he never were much struck at a foreign lingo. So, says I, Andy shall learn Master Pongo his'n. And here goes! That," said he, holding up a great piece of meat on his knife—"that'smeat."
"'Zmeat—ugh!" said Nod, with a shudder.
"And this here's nuts," said Battle.
"'Znuts!" repeated Nod, rubbing his stomach.
Battle rapped on his log. "Excellentissimo!" he said. "He's a scholard born. Now, monkeys like you," hewent on, looking into Nod's face, "if I make no mistake, the blackamoors calls 'Pongoes.'"
Nod shook his head.
"No? 'Njekkoes, then," said the sailor.
Nod shook his head again. "Me Mulla-mulgar, Pongo—Jecco"—he shook Ins head vehemently—"me Mulla-mulgar Ummanodda Nizza-neela."
The Oomgar laughed aloud. "Axing your pardon, then, Master Noddle Ebenezer, mine's Battle—Andrew, as which is Andy, Battle."
"Whizzizandy—Baffle," said Nod, with a jerk.
"Famous!" said the sailor. "Us was a downright dunce to you, my son. Now, then, hoise anchor, and pipe up! Andy Battle is an Englishman; hip, hooray! Andy Battle——"
"'Andy Baffle——'"
"'Is an——'"
"'Izzn——'"
"'Is an Englishman.'"
"'Izziningulissmum,'" said Nod very slowly.
"'Hip, hooray!'" bawled Battle.
"'Ippooray!" squealed Nod. And Battle rocked to and fro on his log with laughter.
"That's downright rich, my son, that is! 'Izzuninglushum!' As sure as ever mariners was born to be drownded,
"We'll sail away, o'er the deep blue say,And to old England we'll make our way."
"We'll sail away, o'er the deep blue say,And to old England we'll make our way."
"We'll sail away, o'er the deep blue say,And to old England we'll make our way."
A piece of silver for a paw-shake, and two for a good-e'en. Us 'll make a fortune, you and me, and go and livein a snug little cottage with six palm-trees and a blackamoor down Ippleby way. Andrew Battle, knight and squire, and Jack Sprat, Prince of Pongo-land. Ay, and the King shall come to sup wi' us, comfortable-like, 'twixt you and me, and drink hisself thirsty out of a golden mug."
And so it went on. Every day Battle taught Nod new words. And soon he could say a few simple things in his Mulgar-English, and begin to make himself understood. Battle taught him also to cook his meat for him, though Nod would never taste of it himself. And Nod, too, out of Sudd and Mambel-berries and Nanoes and whatever other dried and frosted fruits Battle brought home, made monkey-bread and a kind of porridge, which Battle at first tasted with caution, but at last came to eat with relish.
The sailor stitched his friend up a jacket of Juzanda cloth, with Bamba-shells for buttons, and breeches of buff-skin. These Nod dyed dark blue in patches, for his own pleasure, with leaves, as Battle directed him. Battle made him also a pair of shoes of rhinoceros-skin, nearly three inches thick, on which Nod would go sliding and tumbling on the ice, and a cap of needlework and peacocks' feathers, just as in his dream.
There were many things in Battle's hut gathered together for traffic and pleasure in his journey: a great necklace of Gunga's or Pongo's teeth; a bagful of Cassary beads, which change colour with the hour, a bolt-eyed Joojoo head, a bird-billed throwing-knife, also beads of Estridges' eggs, as large as a small melon. There was also, what Battle cherished very carefully, a little fat book of 566 pages and nine woodcuts that his mother had givenhim before setting out on his hapless voyagings, with a tongue or clasp of brass to keep it together. Moreover, Battle gave Nod a piece of looking-glass, the like of which he had never seen before. And the little Mulgar would often sit sorrowfully talking to his image in the glass, and bid the face that there answered his own be off and find his brothers. And Nod, in return, gave Battle for a keepsake the little Portingal's left-thumb knuckle-bone and half the faded Coccadrillo saffron which old Mishcha had given to him.
Of an evening these castaways had music for their company—a bell of copper that rang marvellously clear across the frosty air, and would bring multitudes of night-birds hovering and crying over the hut in perplexity at the sweet and hollow sound. And besides the bell, Battle had a cittern, or lute, made of a gourd, with a Jugga-wood neck like a fiddle. Stretched and pegged this was, with twangling strings made of a climbing root that grows in the denser forests, and bears a flower lovelier than any to be seen on earth beside. With Battle thrumming on this old crowd or lute, Nod danced many a staggering hornpipe and Mulgar-jig. Moreover, Battle had taught himself to pick out a melody or two. So, then, they would dance and sing songs together—"Never, tir'd Sailour," "The Three Cherrie-trees," "Who's seene my Deere with Cheekes so redde?" and many another.
Battle's voice was loud and great; Nod's was very changeable. For the upper notes of his singing were shrill and trembling, and so the best part of his songs would go; but when they dipped towards the bass, then his notes burst out so sudden and powerful, it might besupposed four men's voices had taken up the melody where a boy's had ceased. It pleased Battle mightily, this night-music—music of all the kinds they knew, white man's, Jaqqua-music, Nugga-music, and Mulla-mulgars'. Nod, too, often droned to the sailor, as time went on, the evening song to Tishnar that his father had taught him, until at last the sailor himself grew familiar with the sound, and learned the way the notes went. And sometimes Battle would sit and, singing solemnly, almost as if a little forlornly, through his nose, would join in too. And sometimes to see this small monkey perched up with head in air, he could scarce refrain his laughter, though he always kept a straight face as kindly as with a child.
But the leopards and other prowling beasts, when they heard the sound of their strings and music, went mewing and fretting; and many a great python and ash-scaled poison-snake would rear its head out of its long sleep and sway with flickering tongue in time to the noisy echoes from the rocky and firelit shelf above. Even the Jack-Alls and Jaccatrays squatted whimpering in their bands to listen, and would break when all was silent into such a doleful and dismal chorus that it seemed to shake the stars.