The Three Mulla-mulgars

by Walter De la Mare

  CHAPTER XIII

  The sun rose and beat down on the bare expanse of snow. But soon theylurched headlong down again into the forest. But it was forest not sodense as the forest of the Minimul mounds, nor by a tenth part as darkas the forest where haunts the Telateuti. At scent of Nod every smallbeast and bird scuttled off and flew away. And it was dreary marchingfor the travellers where all that lived feared even their savour on thewind. But by evening they had pushed on past Battle's farthest hunting,and being wearied with their long day's march, nor any tracks ofleopards to be seen, they made no fire with their fire-sticks, butgathered a big heap of dry leaves scattered in abundance by this strangecold, this Witzaweelw[=u]llah, and huddled themselves close for warmthin sleep.

  Next day they broke out into the open again, and before them, clear asamber or coral, still and beautiful in the sunrise, rose afar off uponthe horizon the solitary peaks, which are seven--Kush, Zut, and Kippel,Solmi, Makkri, M[=o][=o]t, and Mulgar-meerez--the Mountains ofArakkaboa.

  All this day they trudged on in difficulty and discomfort, for theground was sharp and stony, and sloped now perpetually upward. Andthough at first sight of them it had seemed they had need but to stretchout a finger to touch the mountain-tops, they found the farther theyjourneyed towards them the more distant seemed these wonderful peaks tobe. And their spirits began to sink.

  On the evening of the fifth day Thumb and Thimble were stooping togetherover their fire-sticks in a great waste of bare rocks, while Nod waspounding up a sweet but unknown fruit they had found in their day'smarch growing close upon the ground, when suddenly they heard in thedistance a hubbub of shouts and cries the like of which they had neverheard in their lives before. They hastily concealed their small bundlesof food in a crevice of the rocks, and, creeping cautiously, peered outin the last rays of the sun in order to discover the cause of thisprodigious uproar.

  And they saw advancing towards them a vast host and multitude of thepainted Babbab[=o][=o]ma-mulgars, travelling, as is their custom, incompany across these desolate wastes. On they came rapidly, the biggestmales on the margins. But presently, while they were yet some little wayoff, at sound of a great shout all came to a standstill, the sun nowbeing set, to take up their night-quarters. Even in the fading lighttheir body-colours glowed, scarlet and purple, and bright Candar blue,where, squatting in their hundreds at supper (some meanwhile pacingsedately on the outskirts of the company like watchmen, to and fro onall fours, with long, doglike snouts and jutting teeth), they made theirevening encampment.

  All that night our Mulla-mulgars never ventured to kindle a fire. Theyhuddled for warmth as best they could in a crevice of the rocks, warmedonly by their own hairy bodies. For they had heard of old from Seelemhow these Babbab[=o][=o]ma troops resent with ferocity the leastmeddling with them. They will speedily stone to death any intruder, andwill tear a leopard in pieces with their teeth. But the travellers, allthree, curiously, cautiously peeping out, watched their doings whilethere was the least light left, taking good care that not a spark oftheir jackets should be seen, for these Babbab[=o][=o]mas fret morefiercely even than our bulls at the colour red.

  They watched them sprinkling, scratching themselves, like theMullabruks, with their feet, and dusting their great bodies with drysnow, rubbing it in with their hands, though for what purpose, seeingthat snow had never whitened their pilgrimages before, who can say? Thechildren, the Karakeena-Babbab[=o][=o]mas, squealed and frisked andgambolled in the last sunshine together, quarrelling and at play. Theold men sat silent, munching with half-closed eyes, and watching them.And it seemed that the big shes of the Babbab[=o][=o]mas had broughtsome small tufty, goatlike animals with them, which they now sat milkinginto pots or gourds. And with this milk they presently fed the littlestof the young ones.

  For many hours after the sun had gone down the three brothers sat wideawake, whispering together, listening to the talk and palaver of thechiefs of the Babbab[=o][=o]mas. Sometimes they seemed to be clamouring,fifty together; and then presently a great still voice would be liftedover them, and all would fall silent; while of its calm authority themaster-voice said, "So shall it be," or "Thus do we make it." Then oncemore the clamour of the rabble would break out again. But what itsmeaning was, and whether they were merely gossiping together, orquarrelling, or holding consultation, or whether it was that the loudvoice gave law and justice to the rest, Nod tried in vain to discover.So at last, though much against his brothers' counsel, very curious tosee what could occasion all this talk, he crept gradually, boulder byboulder, nearer to their great rocky bivouac. And there, by the silverylustre of a dying moon, he peeped and peered. But though he plainly sawagainst the whiteness the pacing sentinels, and others of theBabbab[=o][=o]mas, huddling by families close for warmth in sleepbeneath the rocks, he could not discover where their parliament ortalkers were assembled. But still he heard them gabbling, and still,ever and anon, the great harsh voice sounding above all until at lastthis, too, ceased, and save for the befrosted watchmen, the wholeinnumerable horde of them lay--with the peaks of Arakkaboa to north ofthem, and Sulemn[=a]gar to south--in that still dying moonlight fastasleep. Then he, too, scuffled softly back by the way he had come.

  By morning (for the Babbab[=o][=o]mas are on the march before daybreak),when the brothers awoke, cold and cramped, in their rocky cavern, thewhole concourse was gone, and not a sign left of them except theirscattered shells and husks, their innumerable footprints, and the stonesthey had rooted up in search of whatever small creeping food might lurkbeneath. Else they seemed a dream--Meermuts of the moonlight!

  By noon of next day the travellers approached the mountain-slopes. Theycrossed down into a valley, and now the farther they went the steeperrose the bare, snow-flecked mountain-side, and beyond and around themloftier heights yet, while in the midst spired into the midday Kush, thefirst of the seven of the sacred peaks of Tishnar. Ever and again theywere startled by the sudden crash of the snow sweeping in long-drawnavalanches from the steeps of the hills. And though it was desolate tosee those towering and unfriendly mountains, their snowy precipices anddazzling peaks, yet their hearts came back to them, for a warm wind wasblowing through the valley, and they knew the white and cold of the snowwould soon be over, and the forest be green again, and once more wouldcome the flowering of the fruit-trees, and the ripening of the nuts.

  But here it was that a bitter quarrel began between the brothers thatmight have ended in not one of them ever seeing Tishnar's Valleys alive.It was like this: Not knowing in which direction to be going in order toseek for a path or pass whereby to scale Arakkaboa, they were at a losswhat to be doing. Even the Munza-mulgars detest being more than theheight of the loftiest forest-tree above their shadows on the ground;more especially, therefore, did these Mulla-mulgars, who never, or veryrarely, as I have said many times already, climb trees at all. So theydetermined to stay awhile here and rest and eat until some Mulgar shouldcome along of whom they could ask the way. It was a valley rich withthe sweet ground-fruit I have already mentioned, whose spikes of a faintand thorny blue mount just above the snow, and whose berries, owing totheir sugary coats or pods, resist all coldness. So that, withoutmention of Ukka-nuts, of which a grove grew not far beyond the bend ofthe valley, the travellers had plenty to eat. They had also an abundanceof water, because of a little torrent that came roaring through its icenear by the trees they had chosen for their lodging. The wind thatsoftly blew along this low land was warmer, or, at least, not so keenand fitful as the forest wind, and they were by now growing accustomedto the cold. For the night, however, they raised up for themselves akind of leaning shelter, or huddle, of branches to be moved against thewind according as it blew up or down the valley.

  But idleness leads to mischief. And not to press on is to be slidingbackward. And to wait for help is to let help limp out of sight. Andovercome, perhaps, by the luscious fruit, of which they ate far too muchand far too often, and growing sluggardly with sleep, the travellerssoon went on to bickering and scuff
ling together. With all this food,too, and long sleep and idleness, their courage began to droop. And ifthey heard any sound of living thing, even so much as a call orcrackling branch, they would sneak off and hide in their night-shelter,not caring now for any kind of boldness nor to think of venturing overthese homeless mountains.

  So it came about that one night, as they were sleeping together undertheir huddle, as was their custom, Thumb, who had been nibbling fruitnearly all day long, cried out in a loud and terrible voice in hissleep, till Thimble, half awakened by his raving, picked up his thickcudgel and laid it soundly across his brother's shoulders where he lay.Thumb started up out of his sleep, and in an instant the two brotherswere up and at each other, wrestling and kicking, gnashing their teeth,and guzzling through their throats and noses like mere Gungas,Mullabruks, or Manquabees. Poor Nod, not knowing what was the cause ofall the trouble, got a much worse drubbing than either, till at last, intheir furious struggling, all three brothers rolled from under thewattles into the pale glimmering of the stars and snow. For in thisvalley after the sun goes moves a phantom light or phosphorescence overthe snow. Brought suddenly to their senses by the chill dark air, thetravellers sat dimly glaring one at another, hunched, bruised, andbreathless. And Nod, seeing his brothers so enraged, and preparing tofight again, and having had half his senses battered out by their roughusage, asked what was amiss.

  "Ask him, ask him!" broke out Thimble, "the fat and stupid, who deafensthe whole forest with his gluttonous screams."

  "'Glutton, glutton!'" shouted Thumb. "How many nights, my brotherUmmanodda, have we lain awake comforting one another that this dismalgrasshopper has only one nose to snore through! I'll teach you,graffalegs, to break my ribs with a cudgel! Wait till a blink of morningcomes! Oh, grammousie, to think I have put up with such a Mullabruk solong!" He lifted a frozen hunch of snow and flung it full in Thimble'sface, and soon once more they were scuffling and struggling, cuffing andkicking in the silence that lay like a cloak upon all the sacredValleys of Tishnar. They fought till, broken in wind and strength, theycould fight no more. And Nod was kept busy all the rest of the darknessof that night mending the wounds of, and trying to make peace with, nowone brother, now the other.

  As soon as daybreak began to stir between the hills, Thumb and Thimblerose up together, and without a word, with puffed and sullen faces, wentoff on their fours and began gathering a good store of fruit andUkka-nuts, each very cautious of approaching too near the other in hissearch. Nod skipped drearily from one to the other, pleading with themto be friends. But he got only hard words for his pains, and even atlast was accused by both of them of stirring up a quarrel between themfor his own pride and pleasure. He edged sadly back to the huddle, andsat gloomily watching them, wondering what next they would be at. He wassoon to know, for first Thimble came back to him where he sat besidetheir night-hut and bade him help tie up his bundle.

  "Where are you going to, Thimble?" said Nod. "O Thimble, think a littlefirst! All these days we have journeyed in peace together. What wouldour father, Royal Seelem, say to see us now fighting and quarrellinglike Mullabruks, and all because you cudgelled Thumb in his sleep?"

  "In his sleep!" screamed Thimble. "Tell that to your flesh-eatingOomgar, Prince of Bonfires! How could he be asleep, when he wassquealing like a B[=o][=o]bab full of parakeets? I go back--back _now_.Who can climb mountains with a fat hulk who takes two breaths to anUkka-nut? Come, if you dare! But I care not, whether or no." And withthat, catching up bundle and cudgel, with a last black look over hisshoulder at Thumb, Thimble started off down the valley towards theforest they had so bravely left behind.

  Not a moment had he been gone when Thumb came limping and waddling backto the shelter, loaded with nuts and berries.

  "Sit here and sulk, if you like, Nizza-neela," he growled angrily. "Comewith me, or traipse back with that scatterbrains. Whichever you please,I care not. I am sick of the glutton that eats all day and cannot sleepof nights for thinking of his supper."

  "How can I go with you," said Nod bitterly, "when I would not go withThimble? O Mulla-mulgar Thumb, you who are the eldest and strongest andwisest of us, be now the best, too! Hasten after Thimble, and bring himback to be friends. How can we show our faces to our Uncle Assasimmon,even if we get over these dreadful mountains, saying we wrangled andgandered all one cold night together simply because you screamed outwith fear in your sleep?"

  "Thumb scream! Thumb afraid! Thumb sweat after Lean-legs! If you had notbeen my mother's youngest son, Ummanodda, you should never open thatimpudent mouth again!" And with that, off went Thumb, too, not caringwhither, so long as it led him farthest away from Thimble.

  Now, not to make too much ado about this precious quarrel, this is whatbefell the travellers: Thimble, face towards Munza, trotted--one, two,three; one, two, three--stonily on. But in a while solitude began togather about him, and the cold after the heat of the fight struck chilland woke again his lazy senses. He sat down to wrap up his bruises,wondering where to be going, what to be doing. The Oomgar, the Nameless,the Minimuls, the River, the Gunga--even if, he thought, he shouldescape again all the dangers they had so narrowly but just come throughtogether, what lay at the end of it all? A little blackened heap ofashes, the mockery of Munza-mulgar, and his mother's speechless andsorrowful ghost. What's more, while he sat idly nibbling his nuts, forhis tongue had suddenly wearied of the luscious ground-fruit, he sawmoving between the rocks no sweeter company than a she-leopard gazinggrinningly on him where he sat beneath his rock.

  Now, these leopards, made cunning by experience, and knowing that aMulla-mulgar will fight long and bravely for his life, if, when they arehunting alone, they spy out such a one alone, too, they trot softly backuntil they meet with another of their kind. Then, with purring andclashing of whiskers, they come to a sworn and friendly understandingtogether, sharing out their supper-meat before they have so much assharpened their claws. Then at nightfall both go hunting their prey inharmony together. Thimble well knew this crafty and evil practice, andwhen dusk fell, he listened and watched without stirring. And soon, overthe snow, he heard the faint mewings and coughings of his enemies, bothshes, of wonderful clear, dark Roses, coming on as thievishly and assoftly towards him as a cat in search of her kittens. So he tore off alittle strip of his tattered red jacket and laid it in the snow. Thenaway he scuttled till he must needs pause to breathe himself beneath afarther rock.

  Meanwhile the ravenous huntresses, having come to the strip ofMulgar-scented rag, of their natures had to stop and sniff and todisport themselves with that awhile, as if to smell a dinner cooking isto enjoy it more when cooked. This done, they once more set forward withsharper hunger along Thimble's track. Three times did Thimble so playwith them, and at the third appetizing rag the leopards, famished andover-eager, hardly paused at all over his keepsake, but came swiftlycoursing after him. And the first, that (of her own craft) was much theyounger and fleeter, soon out-distanced her hunting-mate, the which wasexactly the reason of Thimble's trickery with his red flag. For when,panting and alone, the first Roses had got well ahead of the other,Thimble dashed suddenly out upon her from a rock, and before she couldbare her teeth, he had caught her forefoot between his grinding jaws andbitten it clean to the bone. It spoilt poor Roses' taste for supper,and, seeing now that her sister was past fighting, and only too eager toleave the Mulgar to his lone, her mate slunk off without more ado to herown lair, to feast on the morning's bones of a frost-bitten Mullabruk.

  But Thimble, though he had worsted the leopards, hadn't much liking orstomach for nights as wild as this. Thumb's nightmares were sweet peaceto it. All the next day he wandered about, not heeding whither hisfootsteps led him. And so it came about that just before evening hestumbled upon the very same valley he had left in his sulks the morningbefore. There, indeed, sat Nod, fast asleep in the evening light forsheer weariness of watching for his brothers, who, some faint hope hadtold him, would return.

  As for Thumb, after limping on up the valley a li
ttle more than aleague, he soon grew ashamed and sick at heart at having so easilybecome a silly child again. He sat down under a great boulder, humpedround with ants' nests, too desolate to go on, too proud to turn back.All that day and the next he sat moodily watching these never-idlelittle creatures, that, afraid of nothing, are feared of all. They hadtunnelled and walled, and wherever sunbeams fell had cast back the snowthat hung above the galleries. And all day long they kept going andcoming, carrying syrup and eggs and meat, and all this with endlesspalaver of their waving horns, as if there were nothing else that sideof Arakkaboa but the business of their city. Thumb alive they paid noheed to, but Thumb dead they would have picked to the bare bones beforesunset.

  The next evening Thumb's better head overcame him, and back he went tohis brothers, sitting miserable and forlorn in the new moonlight beneaththeir shelter. Nothing was said. They dared scarcely look into eachother's faces awhile, until Thumb caught Nod's bright, anxious littleeyes glancing under his puckered forehead from brother to brother, inmortal fear they would soon be breaking out again. And Nod looked soqueer, and small, and anxious, and loving, and all these things so muchat once, that Thumb burst out into a roar of laughter. And there theysat all three, rocking to and fro, holding their sides beneath thegigantic steeps of Arakkaboa, happy and at peace together again, whiletears ran down their nose-troughs, with their shouts on shouts oflaughter.