CHAPTER VII
It was bitterly cold, and as the three travellers stood there, raggedand sore and hungry, they thought they would never weary of gazing atthe starry sky and sniffing the keen night air between the trees. Butwhich way should they go? No path ran here, for the Earth-mulgars neverlet any path grow clear around their mounds. Thumb climbed a little wayup a Gelica-tree that stood over them, and soon espied low down in thesky the Bear's bright Seven, which circle about the dim Pole Star. So hequickly slid down again to tell his brothers. It so happened, however,that in this tree grows a small, round, gingerish nut that takes twowhole years to ripen, and hangs in thick clusters amid the branches.They have a taste like cinnamon, and with these the Earth-mulgarsflavour their meat. And as Thumb slid heavily down, being stiff and sorenow, and very heavy, he shook one of these same clusters, and down itcame rattling about Nod's head. They have but thin shells, these nuts,and are not heavy, but they tumbled so suddenly, and from such a height,that Nod fell flat, his hands thrown out along the snow. He clamberedup, rubbing his head, and in the quietness, while they listened, theyheard as it were a distant and continuous throbbing beneath them.
Thimble crouched down, with head askew. "The Minimuls, the Z[=o][=o]ts!"he grunted.
But even at the same moment Nod had cried out too. "Thumb, Thumb, OMulla-mulgar, the Wonderstone! the Wonderstone! the snow, the snow!" Nopale and tapering light hovered clearly beaming now beneath these coldand starlit branches. The Mounds of the Minimuls were awake and astir.Soon the furious little Flesh-eaters would come pouring up in theirhundreds, and to-morrow, their magic gone, all three brothers would bequickly frizzling, with these same Gelica-nuts for seasoning, on thespit.
Nod flung himself down; down, too, went Thumb and Thimble in theice-bespangled snow. At last they found the stone, shining like a palemoon amid the twinkling starriness of the frost. But it was only just intime. Even now they could hear the far-away crying and clamour, and thesurly Z[=o][=o]t-beating of the Earth-mulgars drawing nearer and nearer.
Without pausing an instant, Nod cast the stone into his mouth forsafety, and away went the three travellers, bundle and cudgel, rags andsheep's-coat, helter-skelter, between the silvery breaks of the trees,scampering faster than any Mulgar, Mulla, or Munza had ever run before.The snow was crisp and hard; their worn and hardened feet made but thefaintest flip-flap in the hush. And scarcely had they run their firstshort wind out, when lo and behold! there, in a leafy bower of snow intheir path, three short-maned snorting little Horses of Tishnar, orZevveras, stood, rearing and chafing, and yet it seemed tetheredinvisibly to that same frosty stable by a bridle from which they couldnot break away.
They whinnied in concert to see these scampering Mulgars come pantingover the snow. And Nod remembered instantly the longed-for gongs andstripes of his childhood, and he called like a parakeet: "Tishnar, OTishnar!" He could say no more. The Wonderstone that had lain couched onhis tongue, as he opened his mouth, slid softly back, paused for hiscry, and the next instant had glided down his throat. But by this timeThumb had straddled the biggest of the little plunging beasts. And, likearrows from the Gunga's bow, each with his hands clasped tight about hisZevvera's neck, away went Thumb, away went Thimble, away went Nod, thenight wind whistling in their ears, their rags a-flutter, the clearstripes of the Zevveras winking in the rising moon.
But the Little Horse of Tishnar which carried Nod upon his back was bymuch the youngest and smallest of the three. And soon, partly because ofhis youth, and partly because he had started last, he began to fallfarther and farther behind. And being by nature a wild and untamablebeast, his spirit flamed up to see his brothers out-stripping him sofast. He flung up his head with a shrill and piercing whinny, andplunged foaming on. The trees winked by. Now up they went, now down,into deep and darkling glades, now cantering softly over open andmoon-swamped snow. If only he could fling the clumsy, clinging Mulgaroff his back he would soon catch up his comrades, who were fastdisappearing between the trees. He jumped, he reared, he kicked, heplunged, he wriggled, he whinnied. Now he sped like the wind, then on asudden stopped dead, with all four quivering legs planted firmly in thesnow. But still Nod, although at every twist and turn he slipped up anddown the sleek and slippery shoulders, managed to cling fast with armsand legs.
Then the cunning beast chose all the lowest and brushiest trees to rununder, whose twigs and thorns, like thick besoms, lashed and scratchedand scraped his rider. But Nod wriggled his head under his sheep's-coat,and still held on. At last, maddened with shame and rage, the Zevveraflung back his beautiful foam-flecked face, and with his teeth snappedat Nod's shoulder. The Mulgar's wound was not quite healed. The gleamingteeth just scraped his sore. Nod started back, with unclasped hands, andin an instant, head over heels he shot, plump into the snow, and beforehe could turn to scramble up, with a triumphing squeal of delight, thelittle Zevvera had vanished into the deep shadows of the moon-chequeredforest.
HE JUMPED, HE REARED, HE KICKED, HE PLUNGED, HE WRIGGLED, HE WHINNIED.]
At last Nod managed to get to his feet again. He brushed the snow out ofhis eyes, and spat it out of his mouth. The Zevvera's hoof-prints wereplain in the snow. He would follow them, he thought, till he couldfollow no longer. His brothers had forsaken him. His Wonderstone wasgone. He felt it even now burning like a tiny fire beneath hisbreast-bone. He limped slowly on. But at every step he stumbled. Hisshoulder throbbed. He could scarcely see, and in a little while down hefell again. He lay still now, rolled up in his jacket, wishing only todie and be at peace. Soon, he thought, the prowling Minimuls would findhim, stiff and frozen. They would wrap him up in leaves, and carry himhome between them on a pole to their mounds, and pick his small bonesfor the morrow's supper. Everything he had done was foolish--the fire,the wild pig, the Ephelantoes. He could not even ride the smallest ofthe Little Horses of Tishnar. The languid warmth of his snow-bed beganto lull his senses. The moon streamed through the trees, silvering thebranches with her splendour. And in the beautiful glamour of themoonbeams it seemed to Nod the air was aflock with tiny wings. His heavyeyelids drooped. He was falling softly--falling, falling--when suddenly,close to his ear, a harsh and angry voice broke out.
"Hey, Mulgar! hey, Slugabones! how come you here? What are you doinghere?"
He opened his eyes drowsily, and saw an old grey Quatta hare staringdrearily into his face with large whitening eyes.
"Sleep," he said, softly blinking into her face.
"Sleep!" snarled the old hare. "You idle Mulgars spend all your dayseating and sleeping!"
Nod shut his eyes again. "Do not begrudge me this, old hare," he said;"'tis N[=o][=o]manossi's."
"Where did you steal that sheep's-coat, Mulgar? And how came you and theugly ones to be riding under my Dragon-tree on the Little Horses ofTishnar?"
"Why," replied Nod, smiling faintly, "I stole my sheep's-coat from mymother, who gave it me; and as for 'riding on the Little Horses'--hereI am!"
"Where have you come from? Where are you going to?" asked the old hare,staring.
"I've come from the Flesh-mounds of the Minimuls, and I think I'm goingto die," said Nod--"that is, if this old Quatta will let me."
The old hare stiffened her long grey ears, and stamped her foot in thesnow. "You mustn't die here," she said. "No Mulgar has ever died here.This forest belongs to me."
In spite of all his aches and pains, Nod grinned. "Then soon you willhave Nod's little bones to fence it in with," he said.
The old hare eyed him angrily. "If you weren't dying, impudent Mulgar,I'd teach you better manners."
Nod wriggled closer into his jacket. "Trouble not, Queen of Munza," hesaid softly. "I shouldn't have time to use them now." He shut his eyesagain, and all his pain seemed to be floating away in sleep.
The old hare sat up in the snow and listened. "What's amiss inMunza-mulgar?" she muttered to herself. "First these galloping Horses ofTishnar, one, two, three; now the angry Z[=o][=o]ts of the Minimuls, andall coming nearer?" But N
od was far away in sleep now, and numb withcold.
She tapped his little shrunken cheek with her foot. "Even in your sleep,Mulgar, you mustn't dream," she said. "None may dream in my forest." ButNod made no answer even to that. She sat stiff up again, twitching herlean, long, hairy ears, now this way, now that way. "Foh,Earth-mulgars!" she said to herself. She stamped in the snow, andstamped again. And in a minute another old Quatta came louping betweenthe trees, and sat down beside her.
"Here's an old sheep's-jacket I've found," said the old Queen Quatta,"with a little Mulgar inside it. Let us carry it home, Sister, or theMinimuls will steal him for their feast."
The other old Quatta raised her lip over her long curved teeth. "Pullout the Mulgar first," she said.
But Mishcha said: "No, it is a strange Mulgar, a Mulla-mulgar, aNizza-neela, and he smells of magic. Take his legs, Sister, and I willcarry his head. There's no time to be lost." So these two old Quattahares wrapped Nod round tight in his sheep-skin coat, and carried himoff between them to their form or house in an enormous hollowDragon-tree unimaginably old, and very snug and warm inside, withcotton-leaf, feathers, and dry tree-moss. There they laid him down, andpillowed him round. And Mishcha hopped out again to watch and wait forthe Minimuls.
Sheer overhead the pygmy moon stood, when with drums beating and wavingcudgels, in their silvery girdles, leopard-skin hats, and grass shoes,thirty or forty of the fury Minimuls appeared, hobbling bandily along,following the hoof-prints of the galloping Zevveras in the snow. Butlittle clouds in passing had scattered their snow, and the track hadbegun to grow faint. The old hare watched these Earth-mulgars draw nearwithout stirring. Like all the other creatures of Munza-mulgar, shehated these groping, gluttonous, cannibal gnomes. When they reached theplace where Nod had fallen, the Minimuls stood still and peered andpointed. In a little while they came scuttling on again, and there satold Mishcha under a great thorn-bush, gaunt in the snow.
They stood round her, waving their darts, and squeaking questions. Shewatched them without stirring. Their round eyes glittered beneath theirspotted leopard-skin hats as they stood in their shimmering grasses inthe snow.
"When so many squall together," she said at last, "I cannot hear one.What's your trouble this bright night?"
Then one among them, with a girdle of Mulla-bruk's teeth, bade the restbe silent.
"See here, old hare," he said; "have any filthy Mulgars passed this way,one tall and bony, one fat and hairy, and one little and cunning?"
Mishcha stared. "One and one's two, and one's three," she said slowly."Yes, truly--three."
"Three, three!" they cried all together--"thieves, thieves!"
Mishcha's face wrinkled. "All Mulgars are thieves," she said; "some eveneat flesh. Ugh!"
At this the Minimul-mulgars grew angry, their glassy eyes brightened.They raised their snouts in the air and waved their darts. But the oldhare sat calmly under her roof of poisonous thorns.
"Answer us, answer us," they squeaked, "you dumb old Quatta!"
"H'm, h'm!" said Mishcha, staring solemnly. "Mulgars? There arehundreds, and tens of hundreds of Mulgars in my forest, of more kindsand tribes than I have hairs on my scut. How should old Mishcha raise aneyelid at only three? Olory mi, my third-gone grandmother used to tellme many a story of you thieving, gluttonous Mulgars, all alike, allalike. It's sad when one's old to remember, but it's sadder to forget."
Clouds had stolen again over the moon, and snow was falling fast. Letthese evil-smelling Minimuls chatter but a little longer, she thought;not a hoof-print would be left.
"Listen, old hare," said the chief of the Minimuls. "Have you seen threeMulgars pass this way, two in red jackets, and one, a Nizza-neela, in asheep's coat, and all galloping, galloping, on three Little Horses ofTishnar?"
Mishcha gazed at him stonily, with hatred in her eyes. She was grey withage, and now a little peaked cap of snow crowned her head, so still shehad sat beneath the drifting flakes. "I am old--oh yes, old, and oldagain," she said. "I have ruled in Munza-mulgar one hundred, twohundred, five hundred years, but I never yet saw a Mulgar riding on aLittle Horse of Tishnar. Tell me, Wise One, which way did theysit--_with_ the stripes, or cross-cross?"
"Answer us, grandam," squealed one of the Minimuls in a fury, "or I'llstick a poisoned dart down your throat."
Mishcha smiled. "Better a Minimul's dart than no supper at all," shesaid. "Swallow thy tongue, thou Mulgar!" she said; and suddenly her lipscurled upward, her two long front teeth gleamed, her hair bristled."Hobble off home, you thieving, flesh-eating, sun-hating earth-worms!Hobble off home before ears and nose and thumbs and toes are bitten andfrozen in Tishnar's snows! Away with you, moon-maggots, grubbers ofsand!" She stamped with her foot, her old eyes greenly burning underthe bush.
The Minimuls began angrily chattering again. At last the first who hadspoken turned mousily and said: "To-day you go unharmed, old Quatta, butto-morrow we will come with fire and burn your Dragon-tree about yourears."
Mishcha stirred not one hair. "It's sad to burn, but it's sadder stillto freeze." Her round eyes glared beneath her snow-cap. "A long marchhome to you, Minnikin-mulgar! A long march home! And if I should smellout the Sheep's-jacket on his Little Horse of Tishnar, I will tell himwhere to find you--burnt, bitten, brittle, baked hard in frozen snow!"She turned and began to hop off slowly between the shadow-casting trees.
At this, one of the Minimuls in his fury lifted a dart and flung it atthe old hare. It stuck, quivering, in her shoulder. She turned slowly,and stared at him through the falling flakes; then, drawing the dart outwith one of her forefeet, she spat on the point, and laid it softly downin the snow. And so wildly she gazed at them out of her aged andwhitening eyes that the Minimuls fell into a sudden terror of the oldwitch-hare, and without another word turned back in silence and scuffledoff in the thick falling snow by the way they had come.
Old Mishcha watched them till they were hidden from sight by the treesand the clouding snow-flakes; then, muttering a little to herself,nodding her thin long ears, she, too, turned and hopped off quickly toher house in the old Dragon-tree.
The Three Mulla-mulgars Page 7
