CHAPTER XIX
The travellers marched slowly, keeping sharp watch, their cudgels readyin their hands. Behind them, paled by the moonlight, shook the fierysilver of the Salemn[=a]gar. With this at their backs and that NorthPole, M[=o][=o]t, in huge congealment, a little to their left, they madetheir way at an angle across the open snow, and approached the tangledthickets. Here they walked more closely together, with heads aslant andtails in air, like little old men, like pedlars, blinking and spying,wishing beyond measure they were sitting in comfort around theirwatch-fire. The farther they zigzagged betwixt the thorns, the moredoubtful grew the way. For the thorn-trees rise all so equal in heightand thickness they often with their tops shut out the stars, and therewas nothing by which the travellers could mark what way they went.
Still they pressed on, their hairy faces to the night-wind, which Ghibbahad observed before starting was drifting from the north. They shuffledcrisply over the snow, coughing softly, and gurring in their throats,winding in and out between the trees, and casting lean, gigantic shadowsacross the open spaces. For so dazzling bright the moon gleamed, shealmost put out the smoky flare of their torches. But it gave the Mulgarsmore courage to march encompassed with their own light. Their packs wereheavy, the thickets sloped continually upward. But the poison-thornscurl backward beneath the drooping hood of their leaves by night--in thehours, that is, when, it is said, they distil their poison--so thetravellers were no longer fretted by their stings. Thus, then, theygradually advanced till M[=o][=o]t was left behind them, and out of thegrey night rose Mulgarmeerez, mightiest of Arakkaboa's peaks, whosesnows have known no Mulgar footprints since the world began.
Only the whish of the travellers' feet on the snow was to be heard, whensuddenly all with one accord stopped dead, as if a voice had cried,"Halt!"
Their torches faintly crackled, their smoke rising in four straightpillars towards the stars. And they heard, as if everywhere around themin the air, clear yet marvellously small voices singing with a thin andpining sound like glass. It floated near, this tiny, multitudinousmusic--so near that the travellers drew back their face with wide-openeyes. Then it seemed out of the infinite distance to come, echoingacross the moonlit spars that towered above their heads.
And Ghibba said softly, jerking up his bundle and peering around himfrom beneath his eye-bandage: "Courage, my kinsmen! it is thedanger-song of Tishnar we hear, who loves the fearless."
At this one of the Men of the Mountains thrust up his pointed chin, andsaid, wagging his head: "Why do we march like this at night,Mulla-moona? These are not our mountain-passes. Let us camp here whilewe are still alive, and burn a great watch-fire till morning."
"You have faggots, Cousin of a Skeeto," said Ghibba. "Kindle a fire foryourself, and catch us up at daybreak."
The Mountain-men laughed wheezily, for now the singing had died away. Onthey pushed again. But now the thorn-trees gathered yet closer together,so that the Mulgars could no longer walk in company, but had to straggleup by ones or twos as best they could. Still up and up they clambered,laying hold of the thick tufts of leaves sticky with poison to dragthemselves forward. Many times they had to pause to recover theirbreath, and Nod turned giddy to look down on the moon-dappled forestthrough which they had so heavily ascended. Thus they continued, until,quite without warning, Thumb, who was leading, broke out into one loud,hard, short bark of fear, for he suddenly found himself standing beneathcontorted branches on the verge of another and wider plateau of snow. Hestood motionless, leaning heavily on his cudgel, the knuckles of hisother hand resting in the snow, his breath caught back, and his headstooping forward between his shoulders, staring on and on betweenastonishment and fear.
FOR THERE ... STOOD AS IF FROZEN IN THE MOONLIGHT THE MONSTROUS SILVER-HAIRED MEERMUTS OF MULGARMEEREZ, GUARDING THE ENCHANTED ORCHARDS OF TISHNAR.]
For there, all along the opposite ridge, as it were on the margin of anenormous platter, stood as if frozen in the moonlight the monstroussilver-haired Meermuts of Mulgarmeerez, guarding the enchanted orchardsof Tishnar. Thumb stood in deep shadow, for instantly, at sight of theseshapes, as one by one the travellers came straggling up together, theyquenched their hissing torches in the snow. No sign made the Meermutsthat they had seen the little quaking band of lean and ragged Mulgars.But even a squirrel cracking a nut could have been heard across thesewindless and icy altitudes. And even now it seemed that bark of fearwent echoing from spur to spur. The wretched Mulgars could only standand gaze in helpless confusion at the phantoms, whose eyes shonedismally in the moon beneath their silver hair and great purple caps.The Meermuts stood, as it were, for a living rampart all down theuntrodden snow towards the great Pit of Mulgarmeerez till lost in thefaint grey mists of the mountains.
"What's to be done now, Prince of Ladder-makers?" said Thumb presently."Are we not weary of wandering? There's room for us all in those greatshadowy bellies."
"Itthiluthi thoth 'Meermut' onnoth anoot oonoothi," lisped one of theMoona-mulgars--that is to say, in their own language, "But maybe theseMeermuts gnaw before swallowing."
As for Ghibba, he feigned that his eyes were too weak and sore, andpeered in vain beneath his bandages. "Tell me what's to be seen,Mulla-mulgar," he said. "Why do we linger? The frost's in my toes. Upwith fresh torches and go forward."
Thumb grunted, but made no answer. Then Ghibba drew softly back into thedeeper shadow, and the rest of the Mulgars, who by now were all comeup, stood whispering, some in perplexity, not knowing what to do; someitching and sniffing to go forward, and one or two for turning back. OneMoona-mulgar, indeed, mewing like a cat in his extreme fear, when he hadheard Thumb's sudden bark, had turned lean shanks and hairy arms andfled down by the way they had come. Fainter and fainter had grown thesounds of snapping twigs, until all again was silent.
"What wonder our father Seelem stumbled as he ran?" muttered Nod toThumb.
But Ghibba stood thinking, the skin of his forehead twitching up anddown, as is the habit of nearly all Mulgars, high and low. "This is ourriddle, O Mulla-mulgars," he said: "If we turn back and climb slowlyupward, so as to creep round in hiding from these giant Meermuts, weshall only come at last to batter our heads against the walls ofM[=o][=o]t. And M[=o][=o]t I know of old: there the Gunga-moonas maketheir huddles. And the other way, under the moon, there juts a precipicefive thousand Mulgars deep, through which, so the old news goes, creepsslowlier than moss Tishnar's never-melting Obea of ice. Here, then, isour answer, Princes: The valleys must be yet many long days' journey.Either, then, we go straight forward beneath the feet of Tishnar'sOrchard-meermuts, like forest-mice that gambol among a Mutti ofEphelantoes, or else, like shivering Jack-Alls, we go back, to live outthe rest of this littlest of lives itching, but having nowhere toscratch. What thinks the Mulgar Eengenares?"
And at that Nod remembered what the watchman had said, when they weretalking together by the eagles' watch-fires. He touched Thumb, speakingsoftly in Mulgar-royal. "Thumb, my brother, what of the Wonderstone?what of the Wonderstone? Shall we tell this Moona-mulgar of that?"
Thumb laughed sulkily. "Seelem kept all his wits for you, Jugguba," heanswered; "rub and see!"
So Nod spread open his pocket-flap and fetched out the Wonderstone,wrapped in its wisp of wool and the stained leaf of paper from Battle'slittle book. He held it out in his brown, hairless palm to Ghibbabeneath the thorn. "What think you of that, Mulla-moona?" he said. Andeven Ghibba's dim eyes could discern its milk-pale shining. They talkedlong together in the shadow of the thorns, while the rest of the skinnytravellers sat silent beside their bundles, coughing and blinking asthey mumbled their mouldy cheese-rind.
Ghibba said that, as Nod was a Nizza-neela, they should venture outalone together. "I am nothing but a skin of bones--nothing to pick," hesaid, "and all but sand-blind, and therefore could not see to beafraid."
"No, no, no, Mulla-moona," Thumb grunted stubbornly. "If mischief cameto my brother, how could I live on, listening to the chittering of hismother's Meerm
ut asking me, 'Where is Nod?' Stay here and guard mybrother, Thimbulla, who is too sick and weak to go with us; and if weneither of us return before morning, deal kindly with him, Mulla-moona,and have our thanks till you too are come to be a shadow."
So at last it was agreed between them. And Thumb and Nod returnedtogether to the edge of the wood and peered out once more towards thephantom-guarded orchards. Nod waited no longer. He wetted his thumb oncemore, and rubbed thrice, droning or crooning, and stamping nimbly in thesnow, till suddenly Thumb sprang back clean into the midst of athorn-tree in his dismay.
"Ubbe nimba sul ugglourint!" he cried hollowly. For the child stoodthere in the snow, shining as if his fur were on fire with silver light.About his head a wreath of moon-coloured buds like frost-flowers wasset. His shoulders were hung with a robe like spider-silk falling behindhim to his glistening heels. But it was Nod's shrill small laughter thatcame out of the shining.
"Follow, oh follow, brother," he said. "I am Fulby, I am Oomgar'sM'keeso; it is a dream; it is a night-shadow; it is Nod Meermut; it isfires of Tishnar. Hide in my blaze, Thumb Mulgar. And see these Noomascringe!"
Thumb grunted, beat once on his chest like a Gunga, and they steppedboldly out together, first Nod, then black Thumb, into the widesplendour of the waste. And the Men of the Mountains watched them frombetween the spiky branches, with eyes round as the Minimuls', and mouthsajar, showing in their hair their catlike teeth.
Out into the open snow that borders for leagues the trees of Tishnar'sorchard stepped Nod, with his Wonderstone. And, as he moved along, thefrost-parched flakes burned with the rainbow. But if the phantoms ofMulgarmeerez were not blind, they were surely dumb. They made no signthat they perceived this blazing pigmy advancing against them. Nod'slight heels fell so fast Thumb could scarcely keep pace with him. Hecame on grunting and coughing, plying his thick cudgel, his great darkeyes fixed stubbornly upon the snow. And lo and behold! when next Nodlifted his face he saw only moonlight shining upon the smooth trunks oftrees, which in the higher branches were stooping with coloured fruit.He laughed aloud. "See, Thumb," he said, "my magic burns. M'keesochatters. These Tishnar Meermuts are nought but trunks of trees!"
But Thumb stared in more dismal terror still, for he saw plainly nowtheir huge and shadowy clubs, their necklets of gold and ivory, and thehideous, purple-capped faces of the ghouls gloating down on him. "Presson, Ummanodda; your eyes burn magic, and trees to you are sudden deathto me." His hair stood out in a grisly mantle around him, for sheer fearand horror of these gigantic faces as they passed. But Nod edged lightlythrough, like mantling swan or peacock, seeing only Tishnar's lovelyorchards. No snow lay here in these enchanted glades, but the grass waspowdered with pure white flowers that caught the flame of him in theirbeauty as he passed. The strange small voices the travellers had heardon the hillside seemed haunting the laden boughs of the orchard. But toThumb all was darkness, and frozen snow, spiked thorn-trees, a-roostwith evil birds, and the horror of the motionless phantoms behind him.He seemed ever and again to hear their stride between the twigs, and tofeel a terrific thumb and finger closing over his matted scalp.
In a little while the path the two Mulgars thridded led out from underthe boughs, and they found themselves at the foot of the great peak theyhad all night been approaching. And Nod saw fountains springing in foamamid the flowery grasses, and all about them were trees laden withfruit, and the music of instruments and distant voices. But not on thesenear things was his mind set, but on the secret paths of Mulgarmeerez,winding down from the crested peak above.
"O brother, my brother! Tishnar is walking on the hills," he said. ButThumb, though he rubbed his eyes, could see nothing but the towering anddesolate scaurs of ice and snow and a kind of snow-choked ridge girdlingthe abrupt mountain-side. But Nod came to a stand, half crouching,amazed, and watched, as it seemed to him, the Middens of Tishnar ridingmore beautiful than daybreak in the moonlight of her hills. And he hearda clear voice within him cry: "Have no fear, Nizza-neela, Mulla-mulgarjugguba Ummanodda, neddipogo, Eengenares; feast and be merry. Tishnarwatches over the brave." And he told Thumb what the voice had said tohim.
And Thumb grew angry, for he was tired out of his courage. "Have it asyou will," he said. "It is easy to fear nothing and to see what is nothere when you meddle with magic, and shine like a fish out of water. Butas for me, I go back to my brother Thimble, and to my friends, the Menof the Mountains." And he stumped sullenly off, crouching low over hiscudgel.
Then Nod said softly: "Wonderstone, Wonderstone! call back my brotherand open his eyes." Instantly Thumb stopped and stood upright. Thorn andsnow, blain and ache and bruise, were gone. He saw the meadows alightwith starry flowers, the fountains and the fruit. And he smelled thesmoke of nard and soltziphal burning in the cressets of the servants ofTishnar. Nod laughed silently, and said: "Bring, too, O Wonderstone, mybrother Thimbulla on his litter, and the Prince Ghibba and his kinsfolkto feast with me."
For there, in the midst between the fountains, was a long low tablespread with flowers and strange fruits and nuts, and lit with clear,pear-shaped flames floating in the air like that of the Wonderstone, butof the colours of ivory and emerald and amethyst; with nineteen plattersof silver and nineteen goblets of gold. And presently they heard in thedistance the grasshopper voices of the Hill-mulgars, as they camestubbling along with Thimble's litter in their midst, carrying theirheavy faggots and bottles and bundles, their pink eyes blinking, theirknees trembling, not knowing whether to be joyful or afraid.