CHAPTER XIV
Next day the travellers were about very early, combing and groomingthemselves in the dawn-mist for the first time these many days, andbefore the sun had shot his first colours across Arakkaboa, they hadeaten and drunk and set out from the valley of the languid and lusciousfruits that had been the chief cause of all their folly.
They pushed up the valley, searching anxiously the hillsides for sign ofany track or path by which they might ascend. The day was crisp andgolden with sunlight. And that evening they made their night-quartersbeside a vast frozen pool in a kind of cup of the overhanging cliffs.Here every word they said came hollowly back in echo.
They cried, "Seelem!" "Seelem, Seelem!" replied the mocking voices.
"Ummani nata? Still we go on?" shouted Thumb hoarsely.
"Nata, nata! On, on, on!" sang echo hoarselier yet.
Wind had swept clean the glassy floor. In its black lustre gleamed theincreasing moon. And after dark had fallen, mists arose and trailed inmoonlit beauty across the granite escarpments of the hills. So thatnight the travellers lay in a vast tent of lovely solitude, with onlythe strange noises of the ice and the whisperings of the frost to tellpoor wakeful Nod he was anything more than a little Mulgar in a dream.
Next morning early they met one of those crack-brained Moh-mulgars thatwander, eat, sleep, live, and die alone, having broken away from alltraffic and company with their friends and kinsmen. He wore about hisneck a double-coiled necklet of little bones, and wound round his middlea plait of Cullum. He was dirty, bowed, and matted, and his eyes wereglazed as he lifted them into the sunlight in answer to Thumb's shout:
"Tell us, O Moh-mulgar, we beseech you, how shall three travellers tothe kingdom of Assasimmon find a pathway across these hills?"
The Moh-mulgar lifted both gnarled hands above his head.
"Geguslar n[=o][=o]ma gulmeta m[=u]h!" replied a thick, half-brutalvoice.
"What does he say?" said Nod, wondering to see him wave his spotted armsas he wagged his crazy head.
"Well," says Thumb, "what he says is this: 'Death's at the end of _all_paths.'"
Thimble coughed. "So it is," he said solemnly.
"Ay," said Thumb; "but what _I_ was asking was the longest way round....A track, a path to the beautiful Valleys of Tishnar," he shouted acrossto the solitary Moh-mulgar. Sorrowfully he waved his bony arms abouthis head, and stooped again. "Geguslar, n[=o][=o]ma gulmeta m[=u]h!"came back his dismal answer.
Thimble, with a sign to him, laid gravely down a little heap of nuts inthe snow. And the three travellers left the old pilgrim still standingdesolate and unquestionable in the snow, watching them till they weregone out of sight.
Coming presently after to some trees with tough, straight branches, thetravellers made themselves fresh cudgels. After which, to raise theirfallen spirits, they played hop-pole awhile in the sunshine, just asthey used to in the first days of the snow before they set out on theirtravels. And about noon, when the sun stood radiant above them, they metthree Men of the Mountains, with shallow baskets on their heads, comingdown to gather Ukka-nuts in the valley. These Mulgars have long silken,black-and-white hair and very profuse whiskers. They are sad in face,with pouting lips, have but the meanest of thumbs, and turn their toesin as they walk, one behind another, and sometimes in chains of ahundred together. Thumb stood in their path, and inquired of the firstof them, as before, which way they must follow to cross the mountains.
The voice of the Man of the Mountains who answered them was so high andweak Nod could scarcely hear his whisper. "There is no way over," hesaid.
"But over we must go," said Thumb.
The other shook his head, and looked sadder than ever. And on they allthree went again, lisping softly together, but without another word toThumb.
"What's to be done now?" said Nod.
"Where they came down, we can go up," said Thumb.
So, the Men of the Mountains being now hidden from sight by the rocksbelow, Thumb and his brothers turned up the narrow track between greatboulders of stone, by which they had come down. And glad they were ofthe new staves or cudgels they had broken off. Even with the help ofthese, so steep was the path that they had often to pull themselves upby roots and jutting rocks. And gradually, besides being steep, the waygrew so narrow that they were simply walking on a ledge of rock not morethan two Mulgar paces wide. And for giddiness Nod nearly fell flat whenby chance he turned his eyes and looked down to where, far below, afrozen torrent gleamed faintly amid huge boulders that looked from thisheight no bigger than pebble-stones.
It made him giddy even to keep his eyes fixed on the narrowing pathbefore him, and shuffle up, up, up.
Suddenly, Thumb, who was wheezing and panting a few paces in front, cameto a standstill.
"What is it, Thumb?" said Nod.
"Why do you stop, Nod?" said Thimble, who was last of all.
"Look, look!" said Thumb.
They slowly raised their eyes, and not a hundred paces beyond them, onthe same narrow ledge of rock against the deep blue sky, came slowlywinding down thirty at least of these same meagre and hairy Men of theMountains, a few with long staves in their hands, and every one with hislong tufted tail over his shoulder and a round shallow basket on hishead. These Men of the Mountains have very weak eyes; and it was notuntil they were come close that they perceived the three travellersstanding on their mountain-path. The first stopped, then he that wasnext, and so on, until they looked like a long black-and-whitecaterpillar, clinging to the precipice, with tiny tufts waving in theair.
Thumb raised his hand as if in peace. "We are, sirs, strangers to theserocks and hills. After the shade of Munza, our eyes dizzy with theheights. And we walk, journeying to the Courts of Assasimmon, in greatdanger of falling. How, then, shall we pass by?"
They heard a faint, shrill whispering all along the hairy row. Then thefirst of the Men of the Mountains came quite close, and told the threebrothers to lie down flat on their faces, and he and his thirty wouldall walk gently over them. "But to go on has no end," he said, "and thetravellers had better far turn back."
At this Thumb grew angry. "What does the old grey-beard mean?" hecoughed out of the corner of his mouth. "Mulla-mulgars stoop on theirfaces to no one. Do you lie down on yours."
The old Mountain-mulgar blinked. "We are thirty; you are three," hesaid. Thumb laughed.
"We are strangers to Arakkaboa, O Man of the Mountains. And we fear tolie down, lest we never rise up again." At this civil speech the oldMulgar went shuffling back to the others.
And, to Nod's astonishment, he presently saw him take his long staff oftough, sinewy wood, and thrust it into a little crevice of the rock,even with the path, so that about a third of its length overhung theprecipice. Meanwhile, another of these Mountain-mulgars had in the sameway thrust his staff into the rock a little farther down. The first Manof the Mountains, who was, perhaps by half a span, taller than the rest,took firm hold of the end of his staff with his long-fingered but almostthumbless hands, and lightly swung himself down over the precipice. Thenext scrambled down over his shoulders until he swung by his leader'sheels; the next followed, and so on. Three such Mulgar strings presentlyhung down from their staves over the abyss. And there being thirty Menof the Mountains in all, each string consisted of ten. [For this reasonsome call these Mountain-mulgars Caterpillar or Ladder Mulgars.]
When they were all thus quietly dangling, their leader bade Thumbadvance. Stepping warily over the little heaps of baskets, this thebrothers did. But as Nod passed each string in turn, and saw it swingingsoftly over the sheer precipice, and all the ten faces with pale eyesblinking sadly up at him out of their fluff of hair, he thought heshould certainly be toppled over and dashed to pieces. At last, however,all three were safely passed by. But the rocky ledge was here so narrowthat Thimble could not even turn himself about to thank theMountain-mulgars for their courtesy, nor to watch them climb back one byone to their mountain-path again.
On and on, up, ever up, c
limbed the ribbon-like path winding about thegranite flanks of Kush. Once Nod lifted up his face, and saw in oneswift glimpse the glittering peaks and crest of the mountains rising inbeauty, crowned with snow, out of the vast sun-shafted precipices. Hehastily shut his eyes, and his knees trembled. But there could be noturning back now. He followed on close behind his fat, panting brother,until suddenly Thumb leapt back to a standstill, shouting in a voice offear: "O ho, ho! Illa ulla, illa ulla! O ho, ho!"
"O Thumb, why do you call 'ho!' like that?" said Nod anxiously.
"Back, back!" Thumb cried; "du steepa datz."
Nod stooped low on the smooth rock, and under the tatters of Thumb'smetal-hooked coat stared out between his brother's bandy legs. He simplylooked out of that hairy window straight into the empty air. They stoodlike peering cormorants at the cliff's edge. The path had come to anend.
Thumb whined softly and coughed, and a faint steam rose up from hisbody. "We must go back," he barked huskily.
"Yes, brother," said Thimble softly; "but I cannot go back. If I turn,down I go. But if you two can turn, down go will I."
"Tishnar, O Tishnar," cried Nod in terror, "the hills are dancing."
"Softly, softly, child!" said Thumb. "It is only your giddy eyesrolling. What's more," he said, pretending to laugh, "those old hairyMen of the Mountains, even if only Meermuts, _must_ have come fromsomewhere. Where they came from we can go to. O and Ahoh!" he called.
"Why do you call 'Ahoh!' Thumb?" whispered Nod, with tight-shut eyes.
"Both together, Thimbulla," muttered Thumb. "Ahoh, ahoh, ahoh!" theybawled.
Their voices sounded small and far-away. Only a bird screamed in answerfrom the chasm beneath. The sun blazed shadowlessly over the peak ofKush upon the three Mulgars, standing motionless, pressed close againstthe steaming rock. To Nod the minutes crawled like hours, while hecrouched sick and trembling, clutching Thumb's rags to keep him fromfalling.
"Thimble, my brother," at last called Thumb softly, "could you, iflittle Nod twisted himself round, straddle your legs enough to let himcreep through? We old gluttonous fellows were never meant formountain-climbing. And standing here over the great misty pot----" Butjust then it seemed to Thumb he felt, light as the wind, somethingsoftly pluck at his wool hat. Very, very slowly, and without a word, helifted his head and looked up--looked straight up into the sorrowfulhairy face of a Man of the Mountains dangling, the last of a long chain,from a rocky parapet above.
"Why?" says Thumb, looking into his face. "What then?"
"Up, up!" said he, in a thin, lisping Munza-tongue, making a step orloop of his long fringed arms.
This, then, was the stairs or ladder on which the travellers must climbinto safety. But Thumb could barely touch him with the tips of hisfingers. He stood in doubt, staring up. And presently down that livingrope of Mulgars yet another Man of the Mountains softly descended, andhis arms just reached Thumb's elbows.
"Tread gently, Mulla-mulgar," said this last, with a doleful smile. "Youare fat, and our ladder is slender."
Thumb, with one white, doglike glance into the deeps, took firm hold,and slowly, heavily, he climbed on from trembling Mulgar to tremblingMulgar till at length he reached the top.
"Now, Nizza-neela," said the last Man of the Mountains, "it is yourturn." Up clambered Nod after Thumb, groping carefully with the palms ofhis feet from hairy loop to loop. But he was glad that the Men of theMountains, as their custom generally is, dangled with their faces to therock, and could not see into his eyes.
At last all three were safely up, and found themselves on a wide,smooth, shelving ledge of the mountain, about fifty Mulgar paces wide,with here and there a tree or tuft of grass, and to the right a cascadeof ice, roped with icicles, streaming from the heights above. But whatmost Nod blinked in wonder at were the small white mushroom houses ofthese Mountain-mulgars. More than a hundred of them were here, standinglike snow-white beehives in the glare of the sun, each with its lowround door, from which, here and there, a baby Mulgar, with short,fleecy, and cane-coloured whiskers, stood on its fours, peeping at thestrangers. When they were all three safely landed, one of the Men of theMountains led them between the beehive houses to a cool, shadowy cavernin the mountain-side. There he bade them sit down, while others broughtthem a kind of thin, sour cheese and a mess of crushed and mouldyUkka-nuts. For these Arakkaboan Mulgars will not so much as look at anut fresh and crisp; it must be green and furred to please their taste.And while the travellers sat nibbling a little meanly of the nuts andcheese, Thumb told the Men of the Mountains as best he could in theMunza tongue who they were, and why they were come wandering inArakkaboa.
When Thumb in his talk made mention of the name of Tishnar, theMountain-mulgars that sat round them in a circle bobbed low, till thehair of their faces touched the cavern floor.
"The Valleys of Assasimmon lie far from here," said the firstMountain-mulgar in a shrill, thin voice. "And the Men of the Mountainswalk no mountain-paths beyond the peak of Zut; nor have we ever dangledour ropes into the Ummuz-groves of Tishnar. I do not even know the waythither. It would have been go thin and come back fat, O Mulla-mulgars,if I did. Rest and sleep now, travellers. We will bring you to theMulla-moona-mulgar [that is, Lord, or Captain] of Kush when he awakesfrom his 'glare.'"
This "glare," or "shine," is the name of the Mountain-mulgars give tothe sleep they take in the middle of the day. Some little while before"no-shadow," as they call it, or noonday, they creep into their mushroomhouses and sleep till evening begins to settle. So weak have their eyesbecome (or are, by nature) that they rarely venture out by day to gonut-gathering in the valleys. And often then, even, many go bandaged,keeping touch merely with their tails. It was in the midst of thisnoonday sleep or glare that the travellers had roused them with theirhalloo. At evening they awake, and when the moon is clear their laddersmay be seen near and far drooping over the precipices. And they gowalking with soft, shambling steps from ledge to ledge. Even the leastof them have no fear of any height. Their children of an evening willsit and eat their suppers, their spindle legs dangling over a depth soextreme that no Munza-mulgar could see to the bottom.
Left alone, the Mulla-mulgars, who had been climbing many hours now, andfelt stiff in legs and back, were glad to roll themselves over in theflealess sand of the cavern, and soon were all three asleep.
The Three Mulla-mulgars Page 14
