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, Imma.n.a.la, 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 m.u.f.fled 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--"Sulani!" 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 Imma.n.a.la 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. "Imma.n.a.la, Imma.n.a.la, 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, Imma.n.a.la, 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 h.o.a.ry 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 c.o.c.king 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER XII
"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, Imma.n.a.la, 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 tw.a.n.gling 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 a.s.sasimmon, 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. b.u.t.ton 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 Imma.n.a.la"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 Imma.n.a.la 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-gla.s.s, 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 b.u.t.ters 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; sulani, 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 sw.a.n.g 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 a.s.sasimmon.
[Ill.u.s.tration]