"Five or six," said Nod.
"Or six!" said the Gunga.
"Truly," said Nod softly, "he fishes not for minnows who knows the magic fish-song of the Water-middens."
The old Gunga turned his great black skull, and beneath the beetling porches of his eyes glowered greedily on Nod. "And what," he said cunningly--"what song is that, O Royal Stranger?" And he stooped down suddenly and pushed Nod"s jacket under the bench.
"Why do you push my sheep"s-coat under the bench?" said Nod angrily.
"I smelt--I smelt," said Gunga, throwing back his head, "scorching. But softly, Mulla-mulgar. What is this Water-middens" song that catches fishes five--six times as big as mine? And if you know all this wisdom, and are truly a Prince of Tishnar, why do you sit here, this freezing night, supping up a poor old Fish-catcher"s broth?"
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER V
By this time, it was plain, Thimble and Thumb had found something to raise them to the window-hole, for Nod, as he glanced up, saw half of both their astonished faces (one eye of each) peering in at the window.
He waved his lean little arms, and their faces vanished.
"Why do you wave your long thumbs in the air?" said the old Gunga uneasily.
"I wave to Tishnar," said Nod, "who watches over her wandering Princes, and will preserve them from thieves and cunning ones. And as for your filthy green-weed soup, how should a Mulla-mulgar soil his thumbs with gutting fish? And as for the Water-middens" song, _that_ I cannot teach you, nor would I teach it you if I could, Master Fish-catcher. But I can catch fish with it."
The old Gunga squatted close on his stool, and grinned as graciously as he could. "I am poor and growing old," he said, "and I cannot catch fish as once I could. How is that done, O Royal Traveller?"
Nod stood up and put his finger on his lips. "Secrets, Puss!" says he, and stepped softly over and peeped out of the door. He came back.
"Listen," he said. "I go down to the water--at daybreak; oh yes, just at daybreak. Then I row out a little way in my little Bobberie, quite, quite alone--no one must be near to spy or listen; then I cast my nets into the water and sing and sing."
"What nets?" said the Gunga.
Nod dodged a crisscross with his finger in the air.
"Sootli, sootli," mewed Puss, with her eyes half shut.
The old Gunga wriggled his head with his great lip sagging. "What happens then?" said he.
"Then," said Nod, "from far and near my Magic draws the fishes, head, fin, and tail, hundreds and hundreds, all to hear my Water-middens"
lovely song."
"And what then?" said Gunga.
"Then," said Nod, peeping with his eye, "I look and I look till I see the biggest fish of all--seven, eight, nine times as big as that up there, and I draw him out gently, gently, just as I choose him, into my Bobberie."
"And wouldn"t _any_ fish come to the little Prince unless he fished alone?" said the greedy Gunga.
"None," said Nod. "But there, why should we be gossiping of fishing? My boat is far away."
"But," said the Gunga cunningly, "I have a boat."
"Ohe, maybe," said Nod easily. "One cannot drown on dry land. But I did speak of a Bobberie of skin and Bemba-wood, made by the stamping Oomgar-nuggas next the sea."
"Ay," said the Gunga triumphantly, "but that"s just what my Bobberie _is_ made of, and I broke the backbone of the Oomgar-nugga chief that made it with one cuff of my cudgel-hand."
Nod yawned. "Tishnar"s Prince is tired," he said, "and cannot talk of fishes any more. A bowlful more broth, Master Fish-catcher, and then I"ll just put on my jacket and go to sleep." And he laughed, oh, so softly to himself to see that sooty, gluttonous, velvety face, and the red, gleaming eyes, and the thick, twitching thumbs.
"Ootz nuggthli!" coughed the Gunga sourly. He ladled out the broth, bobbing with broken pods, with a great nutsh.e.l.l, muttering angrily to himself as he stooped over the pot. And there, as soon as he had turned his back, came those two dark wondering faces at the window, grinning to see little Nod so snug and comfortable before the fire.
And when the Gunga had poured out the broth, he brought his stool nearer to Nod, and, leaning his great hands on the floor, he said: "See here, Prince of Tishnar, if I lend you my skin Bobberie to-morrow morning, will you catch _me_ some fish with your magic song?"
Nod frowned and stared into the fire. "The crafty Gunga would be peeping between the trees," he said, "and then----"
"What then?" said he.
"Then Tishnar"s Meermuts would come with their silver thongs and drive you squalling into the water. And the Middens would pick your eyes out, Master Fish-catcher."
"I promise, I promise," said the old Gunga, and his enormous body trembled.
"Where is this talked-of Bobberie?" said Nod solemnly. "Was it that old log Nod saw when whispering with the Water-middens?"
"Follow, follow," said the other. "I"ll show the Prince this log." But first Nod stooped under the bench, and pulled out his sheep"s-coat and put it on. Then he followed the old Fish-catcher down his frosty path between its banks of snow, clear now in the silver shining of the moon.
The Fish-catcher showed him everything--how to untie the knotted rope of Samarak, how to use the paddles, where the mooring-stone for deep water was. He held it up in his hand, a great round stone as big as a millstone. Nod listened and listened, half hiding his face in his jacket lest the Gunga-mulgar should see him laughing. Last of all, the Fish-catcher, lifting him lightly in his hand, pointed across the turbid water, and bade him have care not to drift out far in his fishing, for the stream ran very swiftly, the ice-floes or hummocks were sharp, and under the Shining-one, he said, snorting River-horses and the weeping Mumbo lurk.
"Never fear, Master Fish-catcher," said Nod. "Tishnar will watch over me. How many big fish, now, can the old Glutton eat in comfort?"
The Gunga lifted his black bony face, and glinted on the moon. "Five would be good," he said. "Ten would be better. Ohe, do not count, Royal Traveller. It makes the head ache after ten." And he thought within himself what a fine thing it was to have kept this Magic-mulgar, this Prince of Tishnar, for his friend, when he might in his rage have flung him clean across Obea-munza into that great b.o.o.bab-tree grey in the moon. "He shall teach me the Middens" song, and then I"ll fish for myself," he thought, all his thick skin stirring on his bones with greed.
So he cozened and cringed and flattered, and used Nod as if he were his mother"s son. He made him lie on his own bed; he put on him a great skin ear-cap; he filled a bowl with the hot fish-water to bathe his feet; and he fetched out from a lidded hole in the floor a necklet of scalloped Bamba-sh.e.l.ls, and hung it round his slender neck.
But Nod, as soon as he lay down, began thinking of those poor Mulla-mulgars, his brothers, hungry and shivering in the tree-tops. And he pondered how he could help them. Presently he began to chafe and toss in his bed, to sigh and groan.
Up started the old Gunga from his corner beside the fire. "What ails the Prince? Why does he groan? Are you in pain, Mulla-mulgar?"
"In pain!" cried Nod, as if in a great rage, "How shall a Prince sleep with twice ten thousand Gunga fleas in his blanket?"
He got up, dragging after him the thick Munzaram"s fleece off his bed, and, opening the door, flung it out into the snow. "Try that, my hungry hopping ones," he said, and pushed up the door again. "Now I must have another one," he said.
The old Fish-catcher excused himself for the fleas. "It is cold to comb in the doorway," he said, rubbing his flat nose. And he took another woolly skin out of his earth-cupboard and laid it over Nod.
"That"s one for Thumb," Nod said to himself, laughing. And presently once more he began fretting and tossing. "Oh, oh, oh!" he cried out, "What! More of ye! more of ye!" and with that away he went again, and flung the second ram"s fleece after the first.
"Master Traveller, Master Traveller!" yelped the old Fish-catcher, starting up, "if you throw all my blankets out, those thieves the smudge-faces will steal them."