WhenNod opened his eyes beneath the vast blue arch of the cavern, not a sign of the Men of the Mountains was to be seen. He sat for awhile watching his brothers humped up in sleep on the floor, and wondering rather dismally when they should have done with their troubles and come to the palace of their Uncle Assasimmon. He was blained and footsore; his small bones stuck out beneath his furry skin, his hands were cracked and scorched. And the keen high air of Arakkaboa made him gasp at every breath.
When Thumb awoke they sat quietly mumbling and talking together a while. Beyond the mouth of the cavern stood the beehive-houses of the Mountain-mulgars, each in its splash of lengthening shadow. Day drew on to evening. An eagle squalled in space. Else all was still; no living thing stirred. For these Men of the Mountains have no need to keep watch. They sleep secure in theirwhite huts. None can come in, and none go out but first they must let down their ladders. Thumb scrambled up, and he and Nod hobbled off softly together to where the cataract hung like a shrine of hoarfrost in pillars of green ice from the frozen snows above. The evening was filled with light of the colour of a flower. Even the snow that capped the mountains was faintest violet and rose, and far in the distance, between the peaks of Zut and misty Solmi, stretched a band of darkest purple, above which the risen moon was riding in pale gold. And Nod knew that there, surely, must be Battle's Sea. He pointed Thumb to it, and the two Mulgars stood, legs bandy, teeth shining, eyes fixed. Nod gazed on it bewitched, till it seemed he almost saw the foam of its league-long billows rolling, and could catch in his thin round ear the roar and surge Battle had so often told him of. "Ohé! if my Oomgar were but with me now!" he thought. "How would his eyes stare to see his friend the sea!"
But the Men of the Mountains were now bestirring themselves. They came creeping, lean and hairy, out of their mushroom houses. Some fetched water, some looped down over the brink by which the travellers had come up. Some clambered up into little dark horseshoe courts cut in the rock like martins' holes in sand, and came down carrying sacks or suchlike out of their nut pantries and cheese-rooms. Some, too, of the elders sat combing their long beards with a kind of teasel that grows in the valleys, while their faint voices sounded in their gossiping like hundreds of grasshoppers in a meadow. Nod watched them curiously. Even the faces of quite the puny Mountain-mulgars were sad, with round and feeble eyes. And hecouldn't help nudging Thumb to look at these tiny creatures gravely combing their hairy chops—for all had whiskers, from the brindled and grey, whose hair fell below their knees, to the mouse and cane coloured babies lying in basins or cradles of Ollaconda-bark, kicking their toes towards the brightening stars.
The moonlight dwelt in silver on every crag. And, like things so beautiful that they seem of another world, towered the mountains around them, clear as emeralds, and crowned with never-melting snow.
Thimble, when he awoke, was fevered and aching. The heights had made his head dizzy, and the mountain cheese was sickly and faint. He lay at full length, with wandering eyes, refusing to speak. So, when the Mulla-moona sent for the three travellers, only Thumb and Nod went together. He was old, thin-haired and thick-skinned, and rather fat with eating of cheese; he wore a great loose hat of leopard-skin on his head. And he looked at them with his eyes wizened up as if they were creatures of no account. And he asked one of the Mountain-mulgars who stood near, Who were these strangers, and by whose leave they had come trespassing on the hill-walks of the Mountain-mulgars. "Munza is your country," he said. "The leaves are never still with you, thieves and gluttons, squealing and fighting and swinging by your tails!"
Thumb opened his mouth at this. "We are three, and you are many, Old Man of the Mountains," he barked, "but keep a civil tongue with us, for all that. We are neither thieves nor gluttons. We fight, oh yes, when it pleases us. But having no tails, we do not swing by them.We are Mulla-mulgars, my brothers and I, and we go to the kingdom of our father's brother, Assasimmon, Prince of the Valleys of Tishnar. He is a Prince, O Mulla-moona, who has more slaves in his palace and more Ukka-trees in the least of his seventy-seven gardens than your royal whiskers have hairs! On, then, we go! But be not afraid, Mulla-moona-mulgar. We will leave a few small stones of Arakkaboa behind us. But whether you will or whether you won't, on we go until the Harp sounds. Then our Meermuts will Tishnar welcome, and bid wander over these her mountains, never hungry, never thirsty, never footsore, with sweet-smelling lanterns to light us, and striped Zevveras to carry us, and gongs to make music. But if we live, Chief Mulgar of Kush, we will remember your words, I and my brother Ummanodda Nizza-neela, for he shall breathe them into a little book in the Zbaffle Oomgar's tongue for Prince Assasimmon to mock at in his Ummuz-fields."
Nod listened in wonder to this palaver. Had he, then, been talking in his sleep, that Thumb knew all about the Oomgar's little fat magic-book? The old Mountain-mulgar sat solemnly blinking, fingering the tassel of his long tail. He was a doleful and dirty fellow, and very sly.
"Why," he said at last, "I did but speak Munza fashion. Scratch if you itch, traveller. Even an Utt can grow angry. As for writing my words in the Oomgar's tongue, that is magic, and I understand it not. Rest in the cool of the shadow of Kush a little, and to-morrow my servants shall lead you as far across Arakkaboa as they know the way. But this I will tell you: Beyond Zut mypaths go not." He raised his pale eyes softly. "But then, Meermuts need no paths, Mulla-mulgars."
Thumb laughed. "All in good time, Prince," he said, showing his teeth. "I begin to get an itching for this Zut. We will rest only one day. The Mulla-mulgar Thimbulla has a poor stomach for your green cheese. We will journey on to-morrow."
The Mulla-moona then called an old Mulgar who stood by, whose name was Ghibba, and bade him take a rope (that is, about twenty) of the Mountain-mulgars with him to show the travellers the secret "walks" and passes across their country to the border round Zut. "After that," he said, turning sourly to Thumb, "though your Meermuts were three hundred and not three, and your Uncle, King Assasimmon, had more palaces than there are nuts on an Ukka-tree, I could help you no more. Sulâni, O Mulla-mulgars, and may Tishnar, before she scatters your bones, sweeten your tempers!"
And at that the old Mountain-man curled his tail over his shoulder and shut his eyes.
When Thumb and Nod came into the great cavern again to Thimble, they found him helpless with pain and fever. He could not even lift his head from his green pillow. His eyes glowed in their bony hollows. And when Thumb stooped over him he screamed, "Gunga! Gunga!" as if in fear.
Thumb turned and looked at Nod. "We shall have to carry him, Ummanodda," he said. "If he eats any more of their mouldy nuts and cheese our brother will die in these wild mountains. They must be sad stomachs that thrive on meat gone green with age. And now thephysic is gone, and where shall we find more in these great hills of ice? We must carry him—we must carry him, Nodnodda."
Then Ghibba, who was standing near, understanding a little of what Thumb said, though he had spoken low in Mulgar-royal, called four of his twenty. And together they made a kind of sling or hammock or pallet out of their strands of Cullum, and cushioned it with hair and moss. For once every year these Mulgars shave all the hair off their bodies, and lie in chamber until it is grown again. By this means even the very old keep sleek and clean. With this hair they make a kind of tippet, also cushions and bedding of all sorts. It is a curious custom, but each, growing up, follows his father, and so does not perceive its oddness. Into this litter, then, they laid Thimble, and lifted him on to their shoulders by ropes at the corners, plaited thick, so as not to chafe the bearers. Then, the others laden with great faggots of wood and torches, bags of nuts and cheese, and skin bottles of milk, they passed through an arch in the wall of the cavern, and the travellers set out once more. All the Men of the Mountains came out with their little ones in the starlight and torch-flare to see them go. Even the old chief squinnied sulkily out of his hut, and spat on the ground when they were gone.
The Mulgar-path on the farther side of this arch was so wide that here and there trees hung over it with frost-tasselled branches. And a rare squabbling the little Mountain-owls made out of their holes in the rock to see the travellers' torches passing by. First walked six of the Men of the Mountains, two by two. Then came Thimble,tossing and gibbering on his litter. Close behind the litter followed Ghibba, walking between Thumb and Nod. And last, talking all together in their thin grasshopper voices, the other ten Mountain-mulgars with more bags, more faggots, and more burning torches. It was, as I have said, clear and starry weather. Far below them the valleys lay, their blackness fleeced with mist; high above them glittered the quiet ravines of ice and snow. So cold had it fallen again, Nod huddled himself close in his sheep's-jacket, buzzing quiet songs while he waddled along with his stick. So all night they walked without resting, except to change the litter-bearers.
When dawn began to stir, they came to where the Mulgar-path widened awhile. Here many rock-conies dwelt that have, as it were, wings of skin with which they leap as if they flew. And here the travellers doused their torches, set Thimble down, and made breakfast. While they all sat eating together, on a narrow pass beneath them wound by another of the long-haired companies of the Men of the Mountains. From upper path to lower was about fifteen Mulgars deep, for that is how they measure their heights. All these Mulgars were laden with a kind of fresh green seaweed heaped up on their shallow head-baskets, and were come three days' journey from the sea from fetching it. This seaweed they eat in their soup, or raw, as a relish or salad. Perhaps they pit it against their cheese. Whether or no, its salt and refreshing savour rose up into the air as they walked. And Nod sniffed it gladly for simple friendship and memory of his master Battle.
Breakfast done, the snow-bobbins hopped down to pickup the crumbs. These little tufty birds, of the size of a plump bull-finch, but pure white, with coral eyes, hop among the Mountain-mulgar troops wheresoever they go, having a great fancy for their sour cheese-crumbs.
The Men of the Mountains then hung up on their rods or staves a kind of thick sheet or shadow-blanket, as they call it, woven of goats' wool and Ollaconda-fibre, under which they all hid themselves from the glare of the over-riding sun. Nod, too, and Thumb sat down in close shade beside Thimble's litter, and slept fitfully, tired out with their night-march, but anxious in the extreme for their brother.
Towards about three, as we should say, or when the sun was three parts across his bridge, having wound up their shadow-blankets and made all shipshape, the little company of grey and brown Mulgars set out once more. Thimble, who had lain drowsy and panting, but quiet, during the day, now began to toss and rave as if in fear. His cries rang piercing and sorrowful against these stone walls, and even the hairy Mountain-men, who carried him in such patience slung between them, grew at last weary of his clamour, and shook his litter when he cried out, as if, indeed, that might quiet him.
Nod stumped on for a long time in silence, listening to his brother's raving. "O Thumb, what should we do," he broke out at last—"what should we do, you and me, if Thimble died?"
Thumb grunted. "Thimble will not die, little brother."
"But how can you know, Thumb? Or do you say it only to comfort me?"
"I never could tell how I know, Ummanodda; but know I do, and there's an end."
"I suppose we shall get to Tishnar's Valleys—in time?" said Nod, half to himself.
"The Nizza-neela is downcast with long travel," said Ghibba.
"Ay," muttered Thumb, "and being a Mulla-mulgar, he does not show it."
Nod turned his head away, blinked softly, shrugged up his jacket, but made no answer. And Thumb, in his kindness, and perhaps to ease his own spirits, too, broke out in his great seesaw voice into the Mulgar journey-song. High above the squabbling of the little Mountain-owls, high above the remote thunder of the surging waters in the ravine, into the clear air they raised their hoarse voices together:
"In Munza a Mulgar once lived alone,And his name it was Dubbuldideery, O;With none to love him, and loved by none,His hard old heart it grew weary, O,Weary, O weary, O weary."So he up with his cudgel, he on with his bagOf Manaka, Ukkas, and Keeri, O;To seek for the waters of 'Old-Made-Young,'Went marching old Dubbuldideery, ODubbuldi-dubbuldi-deery."The sun rose up, and the sun sank down;The moon she shone clear and cheery, O,And the myriads of Munza they mocked and moppedAnd mobbed old Dubbuldideery, O,Môh Mulgar Dubbuldideery."He cared not a hair of his head did he,Not a hint of the hubbub did hear he, O,For the roar of the waters of 'Old-Made-Young'Kept calling of Dubbuldideery, O,Call—calling of Dubbuldideery."He came to the country of 'Catch Me and Eat Me'—Not a fleck of a flicker did fear he, O,For he knew in his heart they could never make mince-meatOf tough old Dubbuldideery, O,Rough, tough, gruff Dubbuldideery."He waded the Ooze of Queen Better-Give-Up,Dim, dank, dark, dismal, and dreary, O,And, crunch! went a leg down a Cockadrill's throat,'What'sone?' said Dubbuldideery, O,Undauntable Dubbuldideery."He cut him an Ukka crutch, hobbled along,Till Tishnar's sweet river came near he, O—The wonderful waters of 'Old-Made-Young,'A-shining for Dubbuldideery, O,Wan, wizened old Dubbuldideery."He drank, and he drank—and he drank—and he—drank:No more was he old and weary, O,But weak as a babby he fell in the river,And drownded was Dubbuldideery, O,Drown-ded was Dubbuldideery!"
"In Munza a Mulgar once lived alone,And his name it was Dubbuldideery, O;With none to love him, and loved by none,His hard old heart it grew weary, O,Weary, O weary, O weary."So he up with his cudgel, he on with his bagOf Manaka, Ukkas, and Keeri, O;To seek for the waters of 'Old-Made-Young,'Went marching old Dubbuldideery, ODubbuldi-dubbuldi-deery."The sun rose up, and the sun sank down;The moon she shone clear and cheery, O,And the myriads of Munza they mocked and moppedAnd mobbed old Dubbuldideery, O,Môh Mulgar Dubbuldideery."He cared not a hair of his head did he,Not a hint of the hubbub did hear he, O,For the roar of the waters of 'Old-Made-Young'Kept calling of Dubbuldideery, O,Call—calling of Dubbuldideery."He came to the country of 'Catch Me and Eat Me'—Not a fleck of a flicker did fear he, O,For he knew in his heart they could never make mince-meatOf tough old Dubbuldideery, O,Rough, tough, gruff Dubbuldideery."He waded the Ooze of Queen Better-Give-Up,Dim, dank, dark, dismal, and dreary, O,And, crunch! went a leg down a Cockadrill's throat,'What'sone?' said Dubbuldideery, O,Undauntable Dubbuldideery."He cut him an Ukka crutch, hobbled along,Till Tishnar's sweet river came near he, O—The wonderful waters of 'Old-Made-Young,'A-shining for Dubbuldideery, O,Wan, wizened old Dubbuldideery."He drank, and he drank—and he drank—and he—drank:No more was he old and weary, O,But weak as a babby he fell in the river,And drownded was Dubbuldideery, O,Drown-ded was Dubbuldideery!"
"In Munza a Mulgar once lived alone,And his name it was Dubbuldideery, O;With none to love him, and loved by none,His hard old heart it grew weary, O,Weary, O weary, O weary.
"So he up with his cudgel, he on with his bagOf Manaka, Ukkas, and Keeri, O;To seek for the waters of 'Old-Made-Young,'Went marching old Dubbuldideery, ODubbuldi-dubbuldi-deery.
"The sun rose up, and the sun sank down;The moon she shone clear and cheery, O,And the myriads of Munza they mocked and moppedAnd mobbed old Dubbuldideery, O,Môh Mulgar Dubbuldideery.
"He cared not a hair of his head did he,Not a hint of the hubbub did hear he, O,For the roar of the waters of 'Old-Made-Young'Kept calling of Dubbuldideery, O,Call—calling of Dubbuldideery.
"He came to the country of 'Catch Me and Eat Me'—Not a fleck of a flicker did fear he, O,For he knew in his heart they could never make mince-meatOf tough old Dubbuldideery, O,Rough, tough, gruff Dubbuldideery.
"He waded the Ooze of Queen Better-Give-Up,Dim, dank, dark, dismal, and dreary, O,And, crunch! went a leg down a Cockadrill's throat,'What'sone?' said Dubbuldideery, O,Undauntable Dubbuldideery.
"He cut him an Ukka crutch, hobbled along,Till Tishnar's sweet river came near he, O—The wonderful waters of 'Old-Made-Young,'A-shining for Dubbuldideery, O,Wan, wizened old Dubbuldideery.
"He drank, and he drank—and he drank—and he—drank:No more was he old and weary, O,But weak as a babby he fell in the river,And drownded was Dubbuldideery, O,Drown-ded was Dubbuldideery!"
WITH STICKS AND STAVES AND FLARING TORCHES THEY TURNED ON THE FIERCE BIRDS THAT CAME SWEEPING AND SWIRLING OUT OF THE DARK.
It was a long song, and it lasted a long time, and so many were the verses, that at last even the Men of the Mountains caught up the crazy Mulgar drone and wheezily joined in, too. A very dismal music it was—so dismal, indeed, that many of the eagles who make their nests or eyries in the crevices and ledges of the topmost crags of Arakkaboa flew screaming into the air, sweeping on their motionless wings between the stars over the echoing precipices.
The travellers had set to the last verse of the Journey-Song more lustily than ever, when of a sudden one of these eagles, crested, and bronze in the torchlight, swooped so close in its anger of the voices that it swept off Thumb's wool hat. In his haste he heedlessly struck at the shining bird with his staff or cudgel. Its scream rose sudden and piercing as it soared, dizzily wheeling in its anger, at evens with the glassy peak of Kush. Too late the Men of the Mountains cried out on Thumb to beware. In an instant the night was astir, the air forked with wings. From every peak the eagles swooped upon the Mulgars. And soon the travellers were fighting wildly to beat them off. They hastily laid poor Thimble down in his sling and covered up his eyes from the tumult with a shadow-blanket. And with sticks and staves and flaring torches they turned on the fierce birds that came sweeping and swirling out of the dark upon them on bristling feathers, with ravening beaks and talons. But against Thumb the eagles fought most angrily for his insult to their Prince, hovering with piercing battle-cry, their huge wings beating a dreadful wind upon his cowering head. Nod, while he himself was buffeting, ducking and dodging, could hear Thumb breathing and coughing and raining blows with his great cudgel. The moon was now sliding towards the mouth of Solmi's Valley, and her beams streamed aslant on the hosts of the birds. Wherever Nod looked, the air was aflock with eagles. His hand was torn and bleeding, agreat piece of his sheep's-jacket had been plucked out, and still those moon-gilded wings swooped into the torchlight, beaks snapped almost in his face, and talons clutched at him.
Suddenly a scream rose shrill above all the din around him. For a moment the birds hung hovering, and then Nod perceived one of the biggest of the eagles struggling in mid-air with something stretched and wrestling upon its back. It was a Man of the Mountains floating there in space, while the maddened eagle rose and fell, and poised itself, and shook and beat its wings, vainly striving to tear him off. And now many other of the eagles wheeled off from the Mulgars and swept in frenzy to and fro over this struggling horse and rider, darting upon them, beating the dying Mulgar with their wings, screaming their war-song, until at last, gradually, lower and lower they all sank out of the moonlight into the shadow of the valley, and were lost to sight. The few birds that remained were soon beaten off. Five lay dead in their beautiful feathers on the pass. And the breathless and bleeding Mulgars gathered together on this narrow shelf of the precipice to bind up their wounds and rest and eat. But three of them were nowhere to be found. They made no answer, though their friends called and called, again and again, in their shrill reedy voices. For one in fighting had stumbled and toppled over, torch in hand, from the path, one had been slit up by an eagle's claw, and one had been carried off by the eagles.
Andnow that the moon was near her setting, dark grew the air. The Men of the Mountains had at last ceased to call their lost companions, and on either side of the path were breaking up their faggots and building fires, leaving two wide spaces beneath the beetling rock for their encampment between the fires. Nod, sitting beside Thimble's litter, watched them for some time, and presently he fancied he heard a distant howling, not from the darkness below, but seemingly from the heights above the Mulgar-pass. He rose and limped along to Ghibba, who was busy about the fires. "Why are you heaping up such large fires?" he said, "and whose, Man of the Mountains, are those howlings I heard from the mountain-tops?"
Ghibba's face was scorched and bleeding; one of his long eyebrows was nearly torn off. "The fires and the howls are cousins, little Mulgar," he said. "The screams of the golden-folk have roused the wolves, and if we donot light big fires they will come down in packs along their secret paths to devour us. It is a good thing to fight bravely, but it's a better not to have to fight at all."
Nod came back and told this news to Thumb, who was sitting with a great strip of his jacket bound round his head like a Turk's turban. "It is good news, brother," he said—"it is good news. What stories we shall have to tell when we are old!"
"But two of the hairy ones are dead," said Nod, "and one is slipping, they say, from his second sleep."
"Then," said Thumb, looking softly over the valley, "they need fight no more."
Nod sat down again beside Thimble's litter and touched his hand. It was dry and burning hot. He heard him gabbling, gabbling on and on to himself, and every now and again he would start up and gaze fixedly into the night. "No, Thimble, no," Nod would say. "Lie back, my brother. It is neither the Harp-strings nor our father's Zevveras; it is only the little mountain-wolves barking at the icicles."
On either side of their camping-place he heard yelp answering to yelp, and then a long-drawn howl far above his head. He began to think, too, he could see, as it were, small green and golden marshlights wandering along the little paths. And, watching them where he sat quietly on his heels in a little hollow of the rock, it brought back, as if this were but a dream he was in, the twangle of Battle's Juddie, the restless fretting and howling of Immanâla's Jaccatrays. As the Moona-mulgar's fires mounted higher, great shadows sprang trembling up themountains, and tongues of flame cast vague shafts of light across the shadowy abyss; while, stuck along the wall in sconces of the rock, a dozen torches smoked.
Thumb grunted. "They'd burn all Munza up with fires like these," he muttered. "Little wolves need only little fires." But Thumb did not know the ferocity of these small mountain-wolves. They are meagre and wrinkle-faced, with prick ears and rather bushy tails. In winter they grow themselves thick coats as white as snow, except upon their legs, which are short-haired and grey, with long tapping claws. And they are fearless and very cunning creatures. Nod could now see them plainly in the nodding flamelight, couched on their haunches a few paces beyond the fires, and along the galleries above, with gleaming eyes, scores and scores of them. And now the eagles were returning to their eyries from their feasting in the valley, and though they swept up through the air mewing and peering, they dared not draw near to the great blaze of fire and torch, but screamed as they ascended, one to the other, until the wolves took up an answer, barking hard and short, or with long mournful ululation.
When at last they fell quiet, then the Men of the Mountains began wailing again for their lost comrades. They sit with their eyes shut, resting on their long narrow hands, their faces to the wall, and sing through their noses. First one takes up a high lamentable note, then another, and so on, faster and faster, for all the world like a faint and distant wind in the hills, until all the voices clash together, "Tish—naehr!" Then, in a little, breaks out the shrillest in solo again, and so they continue till they weary.
Nod listened, his face in his hands, but so faint and fast sang the voices he could only catch here and there the words of their drone, if words there were. He touched Thumb's shoulder. "These hairy fellows are singing of Tishnar!" he said.
Thumb grunted, half asleep.
"Who taught them of Tishnar?" Nod asked softly.
Thumb turned angrily over. "Oh, child!" he growled, "will you never learn wisdom? Sleep while you can, and let Thumb sleep too! To-morrow we may be fighting again."
But though the Ladder-mulgars soon ceased to wail, and, except for two who were left to keep watch and to feed the fires, laid themselves down to sleep, Nod could not rest. The mountains rose black and unutterably still beneath the stars. Up their steep sides enormous shadows jigged around the fires. Sometimes an eagle squawked on high, nursing its wounds. And whether he turned this way or that way he still saw the little wolves huddled close together, their pointed heads laid on their lean paws, uneasily watching. And he longed for morning. For his heart lay like a stone in him in grief for his brother Thimble. A little dry snow harboured in the crevices of the rocks. He filled his hands with it, and laid it on poor Thimble's head and moistened his lips. Then he walked softly along past the sleeping Mulgars towards the fire.
Where should we all be now, he thought, if the eagles had come in the morning? On paths narrow as those there was not even room enough to brandish a cudgel. The fire-watcher raised his sad countenance and peered through his hair at Nod.
"What is it in your mouldy cheese, Man of the Mountains, that has poisoned my brother?" said Nod.
The Mulgar shook his head. "Maybe it is something in the Mulla-mulgar," he answered. "It is very good cheese."
"Will morning soon be here?" said Nod, gazing into the fire.
The Mulgar smiled. "When night is gone," he answered.
"Why do these mountain-wolves fear fire?" asked Nod.
The Mulgar shook his head. "Questions, royal traveller, are easier than answers," he said. "Theydo."
He caught up a firebrand, and threw it with all his strength beyond the fire. It fell sputtering on the ledge, and instantly there rose such a yelping and snarling the chasm re-echoed. Yet so brave are these snow-wolves one presently came venturing pitapat, pitapat, along the frosty gallery, and very warily, with the tip of his paw, poked and pushed at it until the burning stick toppled and fell over, down, down, down, down, till, a gliding spark, it vanished into the torrent below. The Mountain-mulgar looked back over his shoulder at Nod, but said nothing.
Nod's eyes went wandering from head to head of the shadowy pack. "Is it far now to my uncle, Prince Assasimmon's? Is it far to the Valleys?" he said in a while.
"Only to the other side of death," said the watchman. "Come Nōōmanossi, we shall walk no more."
"Do you mean, O Man of the Mountains," said Nod, catching his breath, "that we shall never, never get there alive?" The watchman hobbled over and threw an armful of wood on to the fire.
"'Never' shares a big bed with 'Once,' Mulla-mulgar," he said, raking the embers together with a long forked stick. "But we have no Magic."
Nod stared. Should he tell this dull Man of the Mountains to think no more of death, seeing thathe, Ummanodda himself, had magic? Should he let him dazzle his eyes one little moment with his Wonderstone? He fumbled in the pocket of his sheep-skin coat, stopped, fumbled again. His hair rose stiff on his scalp. He shivered, and then grew burning hot. He searched and searched again. The Mulgar eyed him sorrowfully. "What ails you, O nephew of a great King?" he said in his faint, high voice. "Fleas?"
Nod stared at him with flaming eyes. He could not think nor speak. His Wonderstone was gone. He turned, dropped on his fours, sidled noiselessly back to Thimble's litter, and sat down.
How had he lost it? When? Where? And in a flash came back to his outwearied, aching head remembrance of how, in the height of the eagle-fighting, there had come the plunge of a lean, gaping beak and the sudden rending of his coat. Vanished for ever was Tishnar's Wonderstone, then. The Valleys faded, Nōōmanossi drew near.
He sat there with chattering teeth, his little skull crouching in his wool, worn out with travel and sleeplessness, and the tears sprang scalding into his eyes. What would Thumb say now? he thought bitterly. What hope was left for Thimble? He dared not wake them, but stooped there like a little bowed old man, utterly forlorn. And so sitting, cunning Sleep, out of the silence and darknessof Arakkaboa, came softly hovering above the troubled Nizza-neela; he fell into a shallow slumber. And in this witching slumber he dreamed a dream.
He dreamed it was time gone by, and that he was sitting on his log again with his master, Battle, just as they used to sit, beside their fire. And the Oomgar had a great flat book covering his knees. Nod could see the book marvellously clearly in his dream—a big book, white as a dried palm-leaf, that stretched across the sailor knee to knee. And the sailor was holding a little stick in his hand, and teaching him, as he used in a kind of sport to do, his own strange "Ningllish" tongue. Before, however, the sailor had taught the little Mulgar only in words, by sound, never in letters, by sight. But now in Nod's dream Battle was pointing with his little prong, and the Mulgar saw a big straddle-legged black thing in the book strutting all across the page.
"Now," said the Oomgar, and his voice sounded small but clear, "what's that, my son?"
But Nod in his dream shook his head; he had never seen the strange shape before.
"Why, that's old 'A,' that is," said Battle; "and what did old straddle-legs 'A' go for to do? What did 'A' do, Nod Mulgar?"
And Nod thought a voice answered out of his own mouth and said: "A ... Yapple-pie."
"Brayvo!" cried the Oomgar. And there, sure enough, filling plump the dog's-eared page, was a great dish something like a gourd cut in half, with smoke floating up from a little hole in the middle.
"A—Apple-pie," repeated the sailor; "and I wish wehad him here, Master Pongo. And now, what's this here?" He turned the page.
Nod seemed in his dream to stand and to stare at the odd double-bellied shape, with its long straight back, but in vain. "Bless ye, Nod Mulgar," said Battle in his dream, "that's old Buzz-buzz; that's that old garden-robber—that's 'B.'"
"'B,'" squealed Nod.
"And 'B'—he bit it," said Battle, clashing his small white teeth together and laughing, as he turned the page.
Next in the dream-book came a curled black fish, sitting looped up on its tail. And that, the Oomgar told him, leaning forward in the firelight, was "C"; that was "C"—crying, clawing, clutching, and croaking for it.
Nod thought in his dream that he loved learning, and loved Battle teaching him, but that at the word "croaking" he looked up wondering into the sailor's face, with a kind of waking stir in his mind. What was this "it"? What could this "IT" be—hidden in the puffed-out, smoking pie that "B" bit, and "C" cried for, and swollen "D" dashed after? And ... over went another crackling page.... The Oomgar's face seemed strangely hairy in Nod's dream; no, not hairy—tufty, feathery; and so loud and shrill he screamed "E," Nod all but woke up.
"'E,'" squeaked Nod timidly after him.
"And what—what—what did 'E' do?" screamed the Oomgar.
But now even in his dream Nod knew it was not the beloved face of his sailor Zbaffle, but an angry, keen-beaked, clamouring, swooping Eagle that was asking him the question, "'E,' 'E,' 'E'—what did 'E' do?" And clippedin the corner of its beak dangled a thread, a shred of his sheep's-jacket. What ever, ever did "E" do? puzzled in vain poor Nod, with that dreadful face glinting almost in touch with his.
"Dunce! Dunce!" squalled the bird. "'E' ate it...."
"E ... ate it," seemed to be still faintly echoing on his ear in the darkness when Nod found himself wide awake and bolt upright, his face cold and matted with sweat, yet with a heat and eagerness in his heart he had never known before. He scrambled up and crept along in the rosy firelight till he came to the five dead eagles. Their carcasses lay there with frosty feathers and fast-sealed eyes. From one to another he crept slowly, scarcely able to breathe, and turned the carcasses over. Over the last he stooped, and—a flock, a thread of sheep's wool dangled from its clenched black beak. Nod dragged it, stiff and frozen, nearer the fire, and with his knife slit open the deep-black, shimmering neck, and there, wrapped damp and dingily in its scrap of Oomgar-paper, his fingers clutched the Wonderstone. He hastily wrapped it up, just as it was, in the flock of wool, and thrust it deep into his other pocket, and with trembling fingers buttoned the flap over it. Then he went softly back to his brothers, and slept in peace till morning.
Whenhe awoke, bright day was on the mountains. The little snow-wolves had slunk back to their holes and lairs. The fires burned low. And Thimble lay in a sleep so quiet and profound it seemed to Nod the heart beneath the sharp-ribbed chest was scarcely stirring. It was bitter cold on these heights in the sunlessness of morning. And Nod was glad to sit himself down beside one of the wood-fires to eat his breakfast of nuts, and swallow a suppet or two of the thawed Mulgar-milk. But the Men of the Mountains had plucked and roasted the eagles, and were squatting, with not quite such doleful faces as usual, picking with pointed, rather catlike teeth, the bones.
Nod could not help watching them under his eyebrows, where they sat, with tail-tufts over their shoulders, in their fleecy hair, blinking mildly from their pale pink eyes. For, though here and there may be seen a Mountain-mulgar with eyes blue as the turquoise, by far themost of them have pink, and some (but these are what the Oomgar-nuggas would call Witch-doctors, or Fulbies) have one of either. They looked timid and feeble enough, these Moona-mulgars, yet with what fearless fury had they fought with the eagles! How swiftly they shambled dim-sighted along these wrinkled precipices! Some even now were seated on the rocky verge as easily as a Skeeto in its tree-top, their lean shanks dangling over. But they nibbled and tugged at their slender bird-bones, and peered and waved their long arms in faint talk; though, as their watchman had told Nod in the firelight, they knew they were all within earshot of the Harp.
Ghibba was sitting a little away from the others, eating with his eyes shut.
"Are you so sleepy, Prince of the Mountains, that you keep your eyes shut in broad day?" said Nod.
Ghibba wagged his head. "No, Mulla-mulgar, I am not sleepy; but one eye is scorched with the fire and one a little angry with the eagles, so that I can scarcely see at all."
"Not blind?" said Nod.
Ghibba opened his eyes, red and glittering. "Nay, twilight, not night, little Mulgar," he answered cheerfully. "I see no more of you than a little brown cloud against black mountains."
"But how will you walk on these narrow, icy shelves?" said Nod.
"Why," says he, "I have a tail, Mulgar-royal; and my people must lead me.... What of the morning, Nizza-neela?"
"It is bright as hoarfrost on the slopes and tops there,"said Nod, pointing. "It dazzles Ummanodda's eyes to look. But the sun is behind this huge black wall of ours, so here we sit cold in the shadow."
"Then we will wait," said Ghibba, "till he come walking a little higher to melt the frost and drive away the last of the wolves."
"Man of the Mountains," said Nod presently, "would you hold me if I crept close and put my head over the edge? I would like to see how many Mulgars-deep we walk."
Ghibba laughed. "This path is but as other Mulgar-paths, Mulla-mulgar; no traveller need stumble twice. But I will do as you ask me."
So Nod lay down flat on his stomach, while two of the Mountain-mulgars clutched each a leg. He wriggled forward till head and shoulders hung beyond the margent of the rock. He shut his eyes a moment against that terrific steep of air, and the huge shadow of the mountain upon the deep blue forest. All far beneath was still dark with night; only the frozen waters of the swirling torrent palely reflected the daybreak sky. But suddenly he shot out a lean brown paw. "Ahôh, ahôh! I say!"
The Men of the Mountains dragged him back so roughly that his broad snub nose was scraped on the stone. "Why do you do that?" he said angrily.
"You called 'O, O!' Mulla-mulgar, and we thought you were afraid."
"Afraid! Nod? No!" said Nod. "What is there to be afraid of?"
Ghibba twitched his long grey eyebrow. "The little Mulgar asks us riddles," he said.
"I called," said Nod, "because I spy something jutting there with a fluff of hair in the wind that leaps the chasm, and with thin ends that look to me like the arms and legs of a Man of the Mountains lying caught in a bush of Tummusc."
At the sound of Nod's "Ahôh!" Thumb had come scrambling along from the other fire, and many of the Mountain-mulgars fell flat on their faces, and leaned peering over the precipice. But their eyes were too dim to pierce far. They broke into shrill, eager whisperings.
"It is, perhaps, a wisp of snow, an eagle's feather, or maybe a nosegay of frost-flowers."
"What was the name of him who fell fighting?" said Nod eagerly.
"His name was Ubbookeera," said Ghibba.
"Then," said Nod, "there he hangs."
"So be it, Eyes-of-an-Eagle," said Ghibba; "we will go down before he melts and fetch him up." So they drove two of their long staves into a crevice of the rocks. And Ghibba, being one of the strongest of them, and also nearly blind, crept to the end and unwound himself down; then one by one the rest of the Mountain-mulgars descended, till the last and least was gone.
"Hold my legs, Thumb, my brother, that I may see what they're at," said Nod. Thumb clutched him tight, and Nod edged on his stomach to the end of the bending pole. He saw far down the grey string of the Men of the Mountains dangling, but even the last of them was still twenty or thirty Mulgars off the Tummusc-bush. He heard their shrill chirping. And presently the first sunbeam trembled over the wall of the mountain above them,and beamed clear into the valley. Nod wriggled back to Thumb. "They cannot reach him," he said. "He lies there huddled up, Thumb, in a Tummusc-bush, just as he fell."
"Why, then," said Thumb, "he must have hung dead all night. The eagles will have picked his eyes out."
In a little while the last and least of the Mountain-mulgars crept back over Ghibba's shoulders and scrambled on to the path. He was a little blinking fellow, and in colour patched like damask.
"Is he dead? Is he dead? Is thy 'Messimut' dead?" said Nod, leaning his head.
"He is dead, Mulla-mulgar, or in his second sleep," he answered.
Now, all the Mulgar beads on that strange string stood whispering and nodding together. Ghibba presently turned away from them, and began raking back the last smoulderings of their watch-fire.
"What will you do?" said Nod. "Why do you drag back the embers?"
"The swiftest of us is going back to bring a longer 'rope' and stronger staves and Samarak, and, alive or dead, they will drag him up. But we go on, Mulla-mulgar."
"Ohé," said Nod softly; "but will he not be melted by then, Prince of the Mountains? Will not the eagle's feather be blown away? Will not the frost flowers have melted from the bush?"
Ghibba turned his grave, hairy face to Nod.
"The Men of the Mountains will remember you in their drones, Mulla-mulgar, for saving the life of their kinsman;they will call you in their singing 'Mulla-mulgar Eengenares'"—that is, Royal-mulgar with the Eyes of an Eagle.
Nod laughed. "Already am I in my brothers' thoughts Prince of Bonfires, Noddle of Pork; if only I could see through Zut, they also might call me Eengenares, too."
All were in haste now, binding up what remained of faggots and torches, combing and beating themselves and quenching the fires. Soon the Mulgar who had been chosen to return had rubbed noses and bidden them all farewell, and had set out on his lonely journey home. Thimble still lay in a deep sleep, and so cold after the heats of fever that they had to muffle him twice or thrice in shadow-blankets to regain his warmth.
When they had trudged on a league or so the day began to darken with cloud. And a thin smoke began to fume up from below. The travellers pressed on in all haste, so fast that the tongues of the bearers of Thimble's litter lolled between their teeth. Wind rose in scurries, and every peak was shrouded. Unnatural gloom thickened around the lean, straggling troop of Mulgars. And almost before they had time to drive in their long poles, as shepherds drive in posts for their wattles, and to swathe and bind themselves close into the sloping rock, the tempest broke over them. A dense and tossing cloud of ice beat up on the wind, so that soon the huddled travellers looked like nothing else than a long low mound on the Mulgar pass, heaped high with the drifting crystals. On every peak and crest the lightning played blue and crackling. In its flash the air hung still, bewitched with snow-flakes. Thunder and wind made such a clamour betweenthem that Nod could scarcely hear himself think. But the travellers sat mute and glum, and moved never a finger. Such storms sweep like wild birds through these mountains of Arakkaboa, and, like birds, are as quickly flown away. For in a little while all was peace again and silence. And the sun broke in flames out of the pale sky, shining in peaceful beauty upon the mountains, as if, indeed, the snow-white Zevveras of Tishnar had passed by.
The travellers soon beat each other free of their snow, and danced and slapped themselves warm. And now they were rejoiced to see in the distant clearness peeping above the shoulder of Makkri that league-long needle Moot. The pass now began to widen, and a little before noonday they broke out into a broad and steep declivity of snow. And, seeing that they had but lately rested themselves, and soon would be journeying in shelter from the sun, they did not tarry for their "glare," or middle-day sleep.
Their breath hung like smoke on the icy air. They sank at every step wellnigh up to their middles in snow, and were all but wearied out when at last they climbed up into a gorge cut sheer between bare walls of rock, and so lofty on either hand that daylight scarcely trembled down to them at the bottom.
So steep and glazed with ice was this gorge or gully that they were compelled to tie themselves together with strands of Cullum. They laid Thimble's litter on three long pieces of wood strapped together. Then, Ghibba going foremost, one by one they followed the ascent after him, stumbling and staggering, and heaving at the Cullum-rope to drag up poor Thimble on his slippery bed.
The Men of the Mountains have bristly feet and long,hairy, hard-nailed toes. But Thumb and Nod, with their naked soles and shorter toes, could scarcely clutch the icy path at all, and fell so often they were soon stiff with bruises. Worse still, there frequents in the upper parts of these mountains a kind of witless or silly Mulgars, who are called Obobbomans, with very long noses. And just as men use a spyglass for sight, to magnify things and to bring things at a distance nearer, so these Obobbomans use their prolonged noses for smell. Long before Thumb and his company were come to their precipitous gully they had sniffed them out. And, being as mischievous as they are dull-witted, they had already scampered about, gathering together great heaps of stones, and had now set themselves in a row, sniffing and chattering, along the edge of the rock on both sides, and waited there concealed in ambush.
When the Men of the Mountains had climbed up some little way into the gorge, and were scrambling and stumbling on the ice, these Obobbomans began pelting them as fast as they could with their stones and snowballs and splinters of ice. These missiles, though not very large, fell heavily down the walls of the precipice. And soon the whole caravan of Mulgars was brought to a standstill, they were so battered and bewildered by the stones.
As soon as the travellers stopped, these knavish Long-noses ceased to pelt them. So cautious and furtive are they that not a sign of them could be distinguished by the Mulgars staring up from below, though, indeed, a hundred or more of their thin snouts were actually protruded over the sides of the chasm, sniffing and trembling.
"Does it always rain pebble-stones and lumps of ice in these miserable hills?" said Thumb bitterly.
And Ghibba told him that it was the Long-nose mulgars who were molesting them. They squatted down to breathe themselves, hoping to tire out the Obobbomans. But the instant they stirred, down showered snowball, ice, and stones once more. The travellers bound faggots and blankets over their heads, and struggled on, but the faggots kept slipping loose, and did not cover their stooping backs and buttocks. They shouted, threatened, shook their hands towards the heights; one or two even flung pebbles up that only bounced down upon their own heads again. It was all in vain. They halted once more, and squatted down in despair. To add to their misery, it was so cold in this gorge that the breath of the Hill-mulgars froze in long icicles on their beards, and whensoever they turned to speak to one another, or if they sneezed (as they often did in the cold, and with the snuff-like ice-dust), their fringes tinkled like glass. At last Ghibba, who had been sitting lost in thought of what to be doing next, suddenly groped his way forward, and bade two of his people sit down to their firesticks to make fire.
"What is this Whisker-face tinkering at now?" muttered Thumb. "What is he after now? We had best have come alone."
"I know not," said Nod; "but if he can fight Noses, Thumb, as well as he can fight Beaks, we shall soon be getting on again."
They crouched miserably in the snow, huddled up in shadow-blankets. The Obobbomans peeped further into the ravine, chattering together, at a loss to understandwhy the travellers were sitting there so still. But at last fire came to the firesticks, and Ghibba then bade two or three of his Mountaineers kindle torches. Whereupon he gave to each a bundle of the eagle feathers which they had plucked from the five carcasses on the pass, and told them to burn them piecemeal in their torches.
"Ghost of a Môh-man!" grunted Thumb sourly; "he has lost his cheesy wits!"
With feathers fizzling, away they went again, slipping, staggering, and straining at the rope. Down at once hailed the stones again, the Obobbomans gambolling and squealing with delight in their silly mischief. And now no longer little were the snowballs, for the Long-noses all this time had been busy making big ones. These four or five of them, shoving together, with noses laid sidelong, rolled slowly to the edge, and pushed over. Down they came, bounding and rebounding into the abyss, and broke into fragments on the travellers' heads. Some, too, of the craftier of the Long-noses had mingled stones and ice in these great balls.
Thumb groaned and sweated in spite of the cold, for he, being by far the fattest and broadest of the travellers, received the most stones, and stumbled and fell far more often than the rest on his clumsy feet on the ice. Now, however, the smoke of the burning bunches of eagles' feathers was mounting in pale blue clouds through the gorge. It was enough. At the first sniff and savour of this evil smoke the Long-noses paused in their mischief, coughing and sneezing. At the next sniff they paused no longer. Away they scampered headlong, higgledy-piggledy, toppling one over another in their haste to be gone,squealing with disgust and horror; and the travellers at last were left in peace.
"I began to fear, O Man of the Mountains," grunted Thumb to Ghibba, "that your wits had got frostbitten. But I am not too old nor fat to learn wisdom."
Ghibba lifted his face and peered from under the bandage he had wound over his sore eyes into Thumb's bruised face. "Munza or Mountains, there's wisdom for all, brave traveller," he said. "They are very old friends of ours, these Long-noses; they could smell out a mouse's Meermut in the moon."