They cast off their burdens into the flowery meadows and besprinkled
themselves with the pools of crystal water beneath the fountains. And
Nod himself bathed Ghibba's eyes in the fountain-pool, so that he, too,
could see, looking close, the wandering flames lighting the platters and
goblets and fruits and nuts and flowers.
[Illustration: THEY FEASTED ON FRUITS THEY NEVER BEFORE HAD TASTED
NOR KNEW TO GROW ON EARTH]
The travellers sat down, all the nineteen of them, Nod at the head of
the table--that is, looking towards Mulgarmeerez--and Thumb at the foot,
with Thimble propped up on the one side and Ghibba on the other. Many of
the Mountain-mulgars, however, who eat always sitting on the ground,
soon found this perching on stools at a table irksome for their
pleasure, and squatted themselves down in the thick grasses for
Tishnar's supper. And they feasted on fruits they never before had
tasted nor knew to grow on earth: one, rosy and red and round and small,
with a long, slender stalk and a little pale hard stone, of the colour
of amber, in the middle; one very sweet and globular, jacketed in a
yellow rind, the inside all divided into little juicy wedges as if for a
mouthful each; another rough like lichen, with a tuft of leaves in a
spike, rusty without and pale within; yet another with a hard, smooth
coat like faded copper, but inside a houseful of hundreds of tiny fruits
like seeds of the colour of blood, and running over with pleasant
juices; also Manakin-figs, keeries, and love-apples, quinces, juleeps,
xandimons, and grapes.
There were nuts also--green, coral, and cinnamon, long and little,
hairy, smooth, crinkled, rough, in pairs, dark and double, round-ribbed
and nuggeted--every kind of nut the pouch of Mulgar knows. And they
drank from their goblets thin sweet wine, honey-coloured, and lilac. And
while they ate and drank and made merry, lifting their cups, cracking
their nuts, hungrily supping, a distant and beautiful music clashed in
the air around the feasting travellers, like the music of cymbal and
dulcimer. Nod sat silken-silvery, with every hair enlustred, his
wrinkles gone, his small right hand feeding him, while with his
woman-hand he clasped his Wonderstone, his little face bright as a
child's, with topaz eyes. Rejoiced were the sad-faced Mountain-mulgars
that they had not forsaken the wandering Princes and gone home. They
feasted like men.
And at last, when all were refreshed, they rose and raised their voices
to Tishnar, hoarse, and shrill, turning their faces towards the vast and
silent peak of Mulgarmeerez, that jutted to the stars above their heads.
Then they laid themselves down in the sweet Immanoosa-scented meadow,
and soon, lulled by the noise of the fountains and the faint, wandering
orchard music, they fell asleep. Nod, too, lay down, ruffled with fire,
burning like touchwood, amid the enchanted flowers. But as deeper and
deeper he sank to sleep, his small brown fingers loosened and unclasped
about his Wonderstone; it fell to the bottom of his sheep-skin pocket,
and then, like a dream, vanished, gone, were fountain, feast, and music.
And deep in snow, encircled by poison-thorns, slumbered the nineteen
travellers in their rags and solitude, come out of magic, though they
knew it not.
One by one they awoke, stiff and dazed from so deep a sleep. They made
no stay here, lest Tishnar should be angered with them. And to some the
night seemed a dream; some even whispered, "N[=o][=o]manossi." And all,
turning their faces, with daybreak broadening on their cheeks, hastily
took up their workaday bundles again and hurried off.
But when Nod lifted his eyes to Mulgarmeerez, it seemed as if many
phantom faces were looking down on them as they hastened, like some
small company of hares or coneys, straggling across the whiteness. Being
refreshed with sleep and Tishnar's phantom supper, the Mountain-mulgars
did not stay to take their "glare," but just screened their feeble eyes
against the sunbeams with eagle feathers, and, with Thimble swinging in
his litter, scurried on across these smoother slopes. By night
Mulgarmeerez, last of the seven peaks of Arakkaboa, was left behind
them, and it seemed the wind blew not so sharply out of the haze on this
side of the haunted woods. The travellers towards evening slept in a dry
cavern. But it was a fidgety sleep, for this cave was the haunt of an
odd and wily sand-flea that made the most of a Mulgar-supper, more
toothsome than anything it had feasted on for many a day.
Near about the middle of the next morning the travellers came in their
descent to a stream of water rushing swiftly but smoothly in the channel
it had graven for its waters out of the rock. This torrent was green,
icy, and deep. On its farther side the rock rose steep and smooth. The
travellers kindled themselves a fire and warmed their cold bones. Then,
having emptied their skin-bottles, they set off along the bank, or as
near to it as they could walk at ease. Thimble's shivering was now gone,
and he marched along with his brothers, rather hobbledy, but in very
good spirits. He took good care, however, to keep well in front of the
Mountain-mulgars, for if he so much as faintly sniffed their cheese, he
fell sick. Ever downward now they were marching. A warm wind was blowing
out of the valley, the snows were melting, and rills trickling
everywhere into the green and swirling water. And after a march all
morning, they came to a village of the Fishing-mulgars.
These are a peaceable and ugly tribe of Mulgars, with extremely long and
sinewy tails, which are tufted at the tip, like those of the
Moona-mulgars, with a bunch of fine silky hair. They smear upon this
tuft the pulp of a fruit that grows on a bush hanging over the water,
called Soota, which the fish that swim in this torrent never weary of
nibbling. Then, sitting huddled up and motionless in some little inlet
or rocky hole in the bank, the Fishing-mulgar pays out his long tail and
lets it drift with the stream. By-and-by, maybe, some hungry fish comes
swimming by that way and smells the pounded Soota. He softly stays,
nibbling and tasting. Very slowly the Fishing-mulgar, who instantly
perceives the least commotion in his tail-tuft, draws back his bait
without so much as blinking an eyelid. And when he has enticed the fish
quite close to the bank, still all intent on its feeding, he stoops in a
flash, and, plunging his sharp-nailed hands in the water, hooks the
struggler out.
They swarm about water, these Mulgars, and teach their tiny babies to
fish, too, by scooping out a hole or basin in the rock, which they fill
from the torrent. In this they set free two or three little half-grown
fish. These, with their infant tails, the children catch again and
again, and are rewarded at evening, according to their skill, with a
slice of roe or a backbone to pick. An old and crafty Fishing-mulgar
will sit happy all day in some smooth hollow, and, having snared perhaps
four or five, or even, maybe, as many as nine or twelve fat fishes, home
he goes to his leaf-thatched huddle or sand-hole, and eats and eats till
he can eat no more. After which his wife and children squat round and
feed on what remains. Some eat raw, and those of less gluttony cook
their catch at a large fire, which they keep burning night and day. Here
the whole village of them may be seen sitting of an evening toasting
their silvery supper. But, although they are such greedy feeders, there
is something in the fish that keeps these Mulgars very lean. And the
more they eat the leaner they get.
Sometimes, Ghibba told Nod, Fishing-mulgars, who have given up all
fruits and nuts to gluttonize, and live only on fish, have been known by
much feeding to waste quite away. Moreover, a few years of this cold
fishing paralyses their tails. And so many go misshapen. On being
questioned as to where they had learned to make fire, the
Fishing-mulgars told Ghibba that a certain squinting Môh-mulgar had come
their way once along the torrent, tongue-tied and trembling with palsy.
By the fire he had made for himself the Fishing-mulgars, after he was
gone, had stacked wood, and this was the selfsame fire that had been
kept burning ever since. Did once this fire die out, not knowing of, nor
having any, first-sticks, it would be raw fish for the tribe for
evermore. On hearing this, the travellers looked long at one another
between gladness and dismay--gladness to hear that their father Seelem
(if it was he) had come alive out of the Orchards, and dismay for his
many ills.
They made their camp for two nights with these friendly people. They are
as dull and stupid in most things as they are artful at fishing. But
they are, beyond even the Munza-mulgars, mischievous mimics. Even the
little ones would come mincing and peeping with wisps of moss and grass
stuck on their faces for eyebrows and whiskers, their long tails cocked
over their shoulders, their eyes screwed up, in imitation of the Men of
the Mountains. Lank old Thimble laughed himself hoarse at these
children. At night they beat little wood drums of different notes round
their fires, making a sort of wearisome harmony. They also play at many
sports--"Fish in the Ring," "A tail, a tail, a tail!" and "Here sups
Sullilulli." But I will not describe them, for they are just such games
as are played all the world over by Oomgar and Mulgar alike. They are
all, however, young and old, hale and paralysed, incorrigible thieves
and gluttons, and rarely comb themselves.
All along the rocky banks of the torrent the travellers passed next day
the snug green houses of these Fishing-mulgars. Nod often stayed awhile
to watch their fishing, and almost wished he had a tail, so that he,
too, might smear and dangle and watch and plunge. But their language Nod
could not in the least understand. Only by the help of signs and
grimaces and long palaver could even Ghibba himself understand them. But
he learned at least that, for some reason, the travellers would not long
be able to follow the river, for the Fishing-mulgar would first point to
the travellers, then to the water, and draw a great arch with their
finger in the air, shaking their little heads with shut eyes.
Ghibba tried in vain to catch exactly what they meant by these signs,
for they had no word to describe their meaning to him. But after he had
patiently watched and listened, he said: "I think, Mulla-mulgars, they
mean that if we keep walking along these slippery high banks, one by
one, we shall topple head over heels into the torrent, and be
drowned--over like that," he said, and traced with his finger an arch in
the air.
But this was by no means what the Fishing-mulgars meant. For, about
three leagues beyond the last of their houses, the travellers began to
hear a distant and steady roar, like a faint, continuous thunder, which
grew as they advanced ever louder and louder. And when the first faint
flowers began to peep blue and yellow along the margin where the sun had
melted the snow, they came to where the waters of the torrent widened
and forked, some, with a great boiling of foam and prodigious clamour,
whelming sheer down a precipice of rock, while the rest swept green and
full and smooth into a rounded cavern in the mountain-side.
Here, as it was now drawing towards darkness, the travellers built their
fire and made their camp. Next morning Ghibba decided, after long
palaver, to take with him two or three of the Mountain-mulgars to see if
they could clamber down beside the cataract, to discover what kind of
country lay beneath. Standing above, and peering down, they could see
nothing, because, with the melting of the snow, a thick mist had risen
out of the valley, and swam white as milk beneath them, into which great
dish of milk the cataract poured its foam. Ghibba took at last with him
five of the nimblest and youngest of the Moona-mulgars, not knowing what
difficulties or dangers might not beset them. But he promised to return
to the Mulla-mulgars before nightfall.
"But if," he said, "the first star comes, but no Ghibba, then do you, O
Royalties, if it please you, build up a big fire above the waters, so
that we may grope our way back to you before morning."
So, with bundles of nuts and a little of the mountain cheese that was
left, when the morning was high, Ghibba and his five set off. The rest
of the travellers sat basking in the sunshine all that day, dressing
their sores and bruises, dusting themselves, and sleeking out their
matted hair. Some even, so great was the neglect they had fallen into,
took water to themselves to ease their labour. But for the most part
Mulgars use water for their insides only (and that not often, so juicy
are their fruits), never for their out. But dusk began to fall, the
stars to shine faintly, darkness to sally out of the forest upon the
mountain-side, and Ghibba had not returned. The travellers heaped on
more wood, of which there was abundance, and lit a fire so fiery bright
that to the Rock-folk looking down--wolf, and fox, and eagle, and
mountain-leopard--it seemed like a great "palaver" of Oomgar-nuggas, who
had had their villages in this valley many years before the
Witzaweelw[=u]lla.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]