Battle went out hunting as usual the next morning. Tracks of leopards
were everywhere in the night's thin snow. He ventured not far into the
forest, and returned with only a poor old withered bird, too cold and
weak to fly off from his gun.
"It's this way, my son," he said; "I've heard the thing before. That
howl brings half the forest against me, like blue-flies to meat. So all
I does is to keep a weather-eye open, and musket a-cock. One of these
days, Mulgar _mio_, Shadow or no Shadow, she shall have a brace of
bullets in her vitals, as sure as my name's Battle." But in spite of his
fine words, he crouched gloomy and distracted beside his fire all day,
casting ever and anon a stealthy glance over his shoulder, and lifting
his eye slowly above the flames, to survey the clustering fringes of the
forest around his hut.
But Nod told Battle nothing of his talk with the old hare. He did not
as much as tell him even that his brothers were near, or that he had
seen Immanâla. He cleaned his master's gun. He busied himself over his
Nano-cakes and nuts, and prevailed on Battle to eat by making him laugh
at his antics. The more he thought of leaving him, and of the danger of
the coming night, and the stony cruelty of Immanâla's gloating eyes, his
heart fell deeper and deeper into trouble and dismay. But each time when
it seemed he must run away and hide himself he gulped his terror down,
and touched his Wonderstone.
He himself lugged out Battle's Juddie when evening fell. But Battle had
no mind for merriment and braveries that night. He picked out idly on
the strings old mournful chanties that sailors sometimes sing; and he
taught Nod a new song to bray out in his queer voice, "She's me forgot":
"'Me who have sailèd
Leagues across
Foam haunted
By the albatross,
Time now hath made
Remembered not:
Ay, my dear love
Hath me forgot.
"'Oh, how should she,
Whose beauty shone,
Keep true to one
Such long years gone?
Grief cloud those eyes!--
I ask it not:
Content am I--
She's me forgot.
"'Here where the evening
Ooboë wails,
Bemocking
England's nightingales,
Bravely, O sailor,
Take thy lot;
Nor grieve too much,
She's thee forgot!'"
But even between his slow-drawled, shakety notes of deep and shrill Nod
listened for the least stir in the forest, and seemed to hear the low,
hungry calls and scamperings of Immanâla's hunting-pack, which she had
summoned from far and near to the tangled ravine beneath the rock.
He got Battle early to bed by telling him he would dress his wounded
shoulder, which was angry and inflamed, with a poultice of leaves such
as his mother, Mutta-matutta, had taught him to make. "Now," says he,
"it be broad full-moontime, master, and all Munza-mulgar will be gone
hunting. But wake not. Nod, Prince of Tishnar, will watch;" and even as
he said it came remembrance of the Pigs to mind.
Battle laughed, thinking what wondrous good sense these two-legged
monkeys seemed to have, concerning which King Angeca had yet himself
often assured him that it is all nothing but a show and pretence, since
man alone has wisdom and knowledge, and little remains over for the
beasts to share.
The warmth and sleepiness of his big poultice soon set him snoring. And
in a blaze of moonlight Nod warily opened the door, and stood in the
squat black shadow of the hut, looking out over the forest. He had
bound himself up tight. He had wound up his Wonderstone in a piece of
lead that he had found in the hut to keep it from hopping in his pocket,
and had stuck the sailor's sharp sheath-knife down the leg of his
breeches.
Then, like but an Utt or a gnome in that great waste of whiteness, he
sallied out to destroy the Nameless. He came to the rock, but no shadow
couched there now in the sheen. He crept on all fours, and between two
great frost-lit boulders peeped into the ravine. There, changing and
stirring, shone the numberless small green lanterns of the eyes of
Immanâla's hunting-pack. He heard their low whinings and the soft crunch
of their clawed feet in the snow. Else all was still.
And Nod called in a low voice: "Why do you hide from me, Immanâla, Queen
of Shadows?"
He waited, but no answer came. "Venture out, mistress," cried Nod
louder, "and we will be off together to the Oomgar's hut. You shall sit
on the roof and watch the hunting-dogs at their supper."
At that, up by a narrow path from the ravine stole Immanâla, and all the
Jack-Alls and Jaccatrays fell silent, staring with blazing eyes out of
the darkness.
"Call not so lustily, Prince of Tishnar!" she said, fawning; "we shall
awake the Oomgar."
"Ohé," said Nod boldly; "he sleeps deep. He fears neither beast nor
Meermut in all this frozen Munza. Bid your greedy slaves stand ready,
Immanâla. When I whistle them, supper is up."
Immanâla lifted her flat grey head, and seemed to listen. "I hear the
harps of Tishnar in the forest. The leaves of the branches of the trees
of my master N[=o][=o]manossi stir, and yet there moves no wind."
She fixed her colourless eyes on Nod, with her ears on her long, smooth
forehead pricked forward. "What is the cunning Mulgar thinking beneath
all he says? Like fine sand in water, I hear the rustling of his
thoughts."
Nod took a long breath and shut his eyes. "I was thinking," he said,
"what stupid fellows must be these dogs of yours, seeing that each and
every one keeps whimpering, 'The head--the head for me!' But they must
wait in patience yet a little longer, if even a knucklebone is to be a
share. I will go forward and choose out all that I and the
Mulla-mulgars, my brothers, want of the Oomgar's house-treasures before
the Jaccatrays tear everything to pieces."
"Softly, now, softly," said Immanâla. "You think very little of me,
Nizza-neela. Do you dream I came from far to protect you from my slaves,
Roses and Jaccatray, and now am to get nothing for my pains? What of
that stiff coat drenched with magic? That is mine. No, no, little greedy
Mulgar; we share together, or I have all."
"Well, well," said Nod, as if unwilling, "you shall take part, mistress,
though all that's there is truly Tishnar's. Follow quietly! I will see
if my Zbaffle be still asleep."
Immanâla crouched snarling in the moonlight, and Nod ran swiftly to the
hut. The moon streamed in on the sailor's upturned face, where, lying
flat on his back, he snored and snored and snored. Then Nod very quietly
took down from its wooden hook the sailor's great skin coat, his belt of
Ephelanto-hide, his huge hair hat, all such as in his wanderings he had
captured from black Kings and men of magic. He filled the pockets, he
stuffed them with bullets and copper rings and stones and lumps of
ice--everything heavy that he could find. At the rattling of the stones
Battle rolled over, muttering hoarsely in his sleep. Nod stopped
instantly and listened. No words he understood. Then once more he set to
work, and soon had dragged the huge stiff coat and hat and belt one by
one over the door-log into the snow.
"Hither, come hither! Hasten, mistress!" he called softly, capering
round about them. "Here's a sight to cheer your royal heart! Here's
riches! What have we here but the magic coat which the Oomgar stripped
from the M'keeso of the old Lord Shillambansa, that feeds a hundred
peacocks on his grave?"
Very, very heedfully Immanâla drew near on her belly in the snow.
Cat-like, she smelt and capered.
"Have no fear, Beast of Shadows," called Nod softly; "the Oomgar sleeps
like moss on the Tree of Everlasting."
Then all her vanity and greed welled up in the Beast of Shadows, for
whosoever her dam may be, and all her lineage of solitude and
strangeness, she has more greed than a wolf, more vanity than a vixen.
She thrust her long lean head into the Cap.
"Do but now let me help you, mistress," said Nod, "as I used to help the
Oomgar. Stand upright, and I will thrust your arms into the sleeves. We
must hasten, we must be quiet." At every glance her greed and vanity
increased. Nod heaved and tugged till his thick fur lay dank on his
poll, and at last the dreadful Beast was draped and swathed and mantled
from ears to tail in the Oomgar's coat.
"Now for the Dondo's belt of sorcery," said Nod. "Sure, none will dare
sneeze in Munza-mulgar when the sailorman is gone." He put the thick
belt round her lean body, though his head swam with her muskiness, and
drew it tight into the buckle.
"Gently, gently, little brother!" sighed Immanâla. "It is heavy, and I
scarce can breathe."
"The very Oomgar himself used often to snort," said Nod.
"But why does he keep so many stones in his pocket?" pined Immanâla.
"Why, Queen of Wisdom! What if the wind should blow, and all his magic
flit away? Ay, ay, ay! stripped from the M'keeso of the dead Lord
Shillambansa came this coat into my Messimut's hands, who feeds five
hundred peacocks on his grave! And now his wondrous Cap of Hair! Nine
Fulbies, as I live, were flayed to skin that cap withal," said Nod, "and
seven rogue Ephelantoes gave the Oomgar of their tails."
"Ah yes, ah yes!" groaned Immanâla; "but what are seventy Ephelantoes
compared with Immanâla, Queen of All?"
"Now," said Nod, "I will weary myself no more with speeches. Is it
warm?"
"I am in a furnace; I burn."
"Is it too loose? Does it wrinkle? Does it sag?"
"Oh, but I can breathe but a mouthful at a time!"
"Last and last again, then," said Nod, packing into the pockets one or
two of the stones and bullets and lumps of ice that had fallen out, "is
it comfortable?"
"O my friend, my scarce-wise Mulgar-royal, when did you ever hear that
grand clothes were comfortable?"
"Wait but a little moment, then, while I go in to fetch the magic-glass,
that will show you your face, Immanâla, handsome and lovesome."
The Beast struggled faintly in her magic coat. "Have a care--oh, have a
care, Ummanodda! The gun, the gun! The Oomgar might wake. Let me creep
swiftly to my stone, and bring the glass to me there."
"The Oomgar will not wake," said Nod; "he sleeps as deep as the Ghost of
the Rose upon the bosom of Tishnar."
"But, O Mulgar, think again. Strip off from my body this grievous belt,"
she pleaded; "you will keep nothing for yourself."
"Have no fear, friend," said Nod shakily; "I will keep"--and his eyes
met hers in the shadow of the hat, stony and merciless and ravenous--"I
will keep," he grunted, "my Zbaffle."
He went into the hut and seated himself on a little stool. Then very
carefully he took the Wonderstone out of his pocket and unwrapped it.
Its pale gleam mingled softly with the moonlight, as a rainbow mingles
with foam. Wetting his left thumb with spittle, he rubbed it softly,
softly, Samaweeza, three times round. And distant and clear as the
shining of a star a voice seemed to cry: "The Spirit of Tishnar answers,
Prince Ummanodda Nizza-neela; what dost thou require of me?"
"Oh, by Tishnar, only this," said Nod, trembling: "that the
nine-and-ninety hunting-dogs in their hunting mistake the ravening
Beast of Shadows, Immanâla, for the sailorman, Zbaffle, my master and
friend."
And surely, when Nod looked out from the doorway, it seemed that,
strange and terrible, the shape muffled within the Oomgar's coat was
swollen out, stretched lean and tall, that even lank gold hair did
dangle on her shoulders from beneath the furry cap. It seemed he heard a
far-away crying--crying, out of that monstrous bale, as the creature
within, standing hidden from the moonlight, began to sway and stir and
totter over the snow. And Nod, choking with terror, called one word
only--"Sulâni!" Then, with all his force, he whistled once, twice,
thrice, clear and loud and long and shrill; then he shut fast the door
and barred it, and went and crouched beside the Oomgar's bed.
Already Battle was wide awake. "Ahoy!" said he, and started up and
thrust out his hand for his gun.
"Steady--oh, steady, Oomgar Zbaffle!" said Nod. "It is dogs of the
Immanâla only, that soon will be gone."
Even as he spoke rose out of the distance a dreadful baying and howling.
Battle leapt up out of his bed to the window-hole. But Nod squatted
shivering, his face hidden in his hands.
"Ghost of me! What is it?" said Battle to himself. "What beast is this
they're after--M'keeso, or Man of the Woods?"
It reeled, it fell, it rose up; it wheeled slowly, faintly weeping and
whining, and then stood still, with arms lifted high, struggling like a
man with a great burden. But over the crudded snow, like a cloud across
the moon, streamed with brindled hair on end, jaws gaping and flaming
eyes, the hungry pack of the Shadow's hunting-dogs. "Oomgar, Oomgar,
Oomgar, Oomgar!" they yelled one to another. "Immanâla, Immanâla, death,
death, death!" And presently, while Battle in amazement watched, there
came one miserable cry of fear and pain. The tottering shape seemed to
melt, to vanish.
Then Nod scampered and opened the door.
"What say you now, hunting-dogs? Was the Oomgar tender or tough?"
"Tough, tough!" they yelled.
"Go, then, and tell your mistress, Queen of Shadows, Immanâla, that you
have supped with the Prince of Tishnar, and are satisfied."
"Why lurks the little Mulgar in the Oomgar's hut?" yelped a lank hoary
Jaccatray.
"I guard her treasures for the Nameless," said Nod; but he had hardly
said the word when he heard Battle striding to the door.
"It's no good prattling and blabbing, my son," he was saying. "If come
it be, it's come. Off, now, while your skin's whole, and let me give the
rogues a taste of powder."
Two or three of the hunting-dogs yelped aloud. "What, my brothers!" said
Nod. "Did you hear the Oomgar's Meermut calling for his gun?"
A few of the meaner dogs scampered off a few paces at this, sniffing and
cocking their ears.
"Out of the way, Pongo," whispered the Englishman through the doorway,
and the next moment there fell a crash that nearly toppled Nod into the
snow, and Battle strode out of the hut with his smoking musket. But the
cowardly Jack-Alls, at sound of his gun and at sight of the ghost of the
Oomgar they had torn to pieces, lifted up their voices in a howl of
terror, and in an instant over the snow they swept off at a gallop, and
soon were lost in the moonless silence and shadowiness of Munza.
Nod turned towards the hut. Battle stood in his breeches, his gun in his
hand, his blue eyes wide open as if in fear.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]