"What's these, what's these?" he muttered, for there, on the farther
bank of the stream, stood in the twilight of the sinking moon two
strange, solitary figures, motionless, staring. Nod ran to Battle, and
laid his long narrow hand on the glimmering gun-barrel. "Oh, not shoot,
not shoot!" he said, "black Oomgars--no; Mulla-mulgars, too, Nod's
friends, Nod's brothers!"
"What's he jabbering about?" said Battle, with eyes fixed brightly on
the two gaunt shapes.
"Nod's brothers, there," said Nod--"Thumb, Thimble, Thimble, Thumb. Nod
show Oomgar. Oh, wait softly!" He ran swiftly over the snow till he came
to the frozen bank of the stream. But still his brothers never stirred,
ragged and hollow-eyed with hunger and cold.
"Come," said Nod, lifting up his hands in salutation; "there is no fear,
no danger! Here is Nod, my brothers."
"What voice was that we heard?" said Thumb, trembling. "Can the mouth of
the Oomgar speak after it is shut in death?"
"The Oomgar is not dead, Thumb, my brother; the hunting-packs killed
only that Beast of Shadows, Immanâla, who hoped to kill us all, and the
Oomgar, too. Come over, my brothers! Every day, every night, Nod has
talked in his quiet with you."
"We do not understand the little Oomgar," said Thimble angrily. "Who are
you, the youngest of us all, to lie and make cunning against the people
of the forest? Let your master, the blood-spilling Oomgar, shoot us,
too. What are we in such a heap of bones? We have no fear of him. On all
fours, back, parakeet; tell him where the Mulgars' hearts lie hid. Maybe
he'll fling his Nizza-neela a bone."
"O Thimble, Mulla-mulgar, why do you seek out all the black words for
me? Haven't I done all for the best? Did I play false with you when I
saved you from the spits of the Minimuls? The little Horse of Tishnar
smelt out my wounded shoulder. And the Oomgar's strangling trap caught
me. But he did not kill me. He took me, and was kind to me, fed me and
shared his fire with me, and we were 'messimuts.' Yet all day, all
night, moon and no-moon, I have talked in myself with you, and run
looking for you in my dreams, while I slept in the hairless Oomgar's
hut. The Nameless is gone for a little while. The Oomgar is wise with
his hands and in little things. Now I may go. He kills only for meat,
Mulla-mulgars. He will do no harm to Ummanodda's brothers. Come over
with me!"
Thumb and Thimble, with toes a little turned in, and heads bent forward,
stood listening in the snow.
"Why, then," said Thumb, muttering, "if he kills only for food, and
relishes not his own flavour in the pot, let him hobble out here to us
now and greet us, like with like--Oomgar-mulgar with Mulla-mulgar--and
leave his spit-fire and his magic behind him. But into his hut, nor
stumbling among his Munza bones, we will _not_ go. And if he will not
come, brother to brother, then it is 'Gar Mulgar dusangee' between us
three, O youngest son of Seelem. Go back to your cooking-pots. I and
Thimble will journey on alone. All day would the Harp-strings be
twangling over Mulgars smelling of blood."
So Nod, cold with misery, went back to Battle, who sat yawning, gun on
knee, beside his fire.
"Oomgar!" he said, leaning a little on one small hand, and standing a
few paces distant from the sailor, "my brothers, the Mulla-mulgars, sons
of Seelem, brother of Assasimmon, Prince of the Valleys of Tishnar, are
here. They say Nod is not true, speaks lies, eater-of-flesh, no child of
Tishnar." He stared forlornly into Battle's face. "Tired of his living
is Nod now. Shoot straight with Oomgar Zbaffle's gun. Nod will be
still."
The Englishman crinkled up his eyelids, opened his mouth, and burst out
laughing.
"To tell ye sober truth, my son," he said, "bullets and powder Battle
haven't much left to waste. And what's lark-pie to a hungry sailor! As
for them hunched-up hobbagoblins over yonder, don't 'ee heed what envy
has to say. Battle is hands down on your side, my son, and let 'em
meddle if they dare! But mercy on us," he added under his breath, "what
wouldn't my old mother have said to hear these Pongoes chatter? 'Shoot
straight!' says he. 'Tired of his living!' says he. Button up your
sheep's-jacket, my son. We'll home to England yet. And, what's more"--he
waved his hand towards the lonely figures still standing motionless in
the silvery dusk--"Andy Battle's best respects to the hairy gentlemen,
and there's a warm welcome and fresh-picked bones for breakfast. But the
night's creeping cold, and bed's bed, old friend, and Andy's eyes was
never made for moth-hunting. So here goes." He went in with his gun, and
Nod heard him shut and bar the door.
Nod listened awhile, with eyes fixed sorrowfully on the fast-shut door;
then, having heaped more logs on to the fire, he went slowly back to his
brothers.
Now that the moon was down, and night at its darkest, the frost
hardened. And Thumb and Thimble, when they were sure the Oomgar was
asleep in his hut, were glad enough to hobble across the ice and to sit
and warm themselves before the fire. Their jackets hung in tatters.
Thumb's left second toe was frost-bitten, and Thimble's eyes were so
sore from the glaring whiteness of the snow he could only dimly see.
Moreover, they were weary of living and sleeping in their tree-houses
among the scatter-brained Forest-mulgars, and though at first they sat
shaky and sniffing, and started if but a dry leaf snapped in the fire,
they listened in silence to Nod's long story of his doings, and began to
see at last that what he had done by Mishcha's counsel had been for the
best, and not for his own sake only.
"But we cannot stay here, Ummanodda," said Thumb. "We could not rub
noses with the Oomgar. His voice, his smell! He is not of our kind,
little brother. And now that all the peoples of Munza-mulgar are our
enemies, we must press on, with no more idling and fine eating and
sitting shanks to fire, or we shall never reach the Valleys alive."
"I am ready, Thumb, my brother," Nod answered. "The Oomgar has been kind
to me, his own kind's kind. It was my Tishnar's Wonderstone that saved
him from the teeth of the Nine-and-ninety, and from Immanâla's magic,
though why should I tell it is so? Now they will think it is his
skin-bonneted Meermut that stalks to and fro with the ghost-gun of a
ghost. They will forsake this place, every one--claw and talon, upright
and fours, every one. How long shall a flesh-eater, hungry and
gluttonous, live on dried berries and nuts? Me gone; unless the frost
flies soon, or a great Bobberie, as he does say, comes up from that
strange water, the Sea, over yonder, the Oomgar will die. O brothers,
just as that Oomgar, the Portingal, died whose bones dangled over us
when we stood by Mutta's knee and listened to them clicking. Do but let
me stay to say good-bye, and we will go together at morning!"
So, when day began to break, Thumb and Thimble hastened away and hid
themselves in the Ukka-trees till Nod should come out to them. Nod
busied himself, and baked his last feast with his master. He broiled him
some bones--they were little else--of the Jack-All the sailor had shot
in the moonlight. And when Battle--strange and solitary as he seemed to
Nod now, after talking with and looking on his brothers--when Battle
opened the door and came out, Nod told him as best he could, in the few
words of his English, of Immanâla and her hunting-dogs, and of his
brothers. And he told him that he must leave him now, and go on his
travels again. Battle listened, scratching his head, and with a patient,
perplexed grin on his face, but he could understand only very little of
what Nod meant. For even a Mulla-mulgar, though he can repeat like a
child, or like a parrot, by rote, has small brains for really learning
another language, so that it may be a telling picture of his thoughts.
Indeed, Battle thought that poor Nod had fallen a little crazy with the
cold. He fondled him and scratched his head--this Prince of Tishnar--as
if he were at his hearth at home, and Nod his country cat. But at least
he knew that the little Mulgar wished to leave him, and he made no
hindrance except his own sadness to his going. He gave him out of his
own pocket a silver groat with a hole in it, and a large piece of fine
looking-glass, besides the necklet of clear blue Bamba-beads, and three
rings of copper. He gave him, too, one leaf of his little fat book, and
in this Nod wrapped his Wonderstone. Nor even in his kindness did Battle
say the least word about his big coat and Ephelanto-belt and his Fulby's
hairy hat--all which things he supposed (Mulgars being by nature thieves
and robbers in his mind) Nod's brothers had stolen.
"Good-bye, my son," he said. "'Bravely, ole sailor, take your lot!'
There, there; I make no dwelling on fine words. Good-bye, and don't
forget your larnin'. There's many a full-growed Christian Battle's come
acrost in his seafarin'--but there, flattery butters no parsnips.
Good-bye, once more, Mulgar _mio_, and thankee kindly."
Nod raised his hands above his head. "Oomgar, Oomgar," he said, with
eyes shut and trembling lips, "ah-mi, ah-mi; sulâni, ghar magleer."
Then, with a heavy heart, he turned away, and without looking back ran
scampering as fast as he could to the five Ukka-trees. His brothers had
long been awaiting him, and swang down gladly from their sleeping-bowers
in the trees. Then, with the hut and the Oomgar's pillar of smoke upon
their cudgel-hand, they set out once more, all but due North, towards
the Valleys of Assasimmon.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]