The Three Mulla-mulgars Part 11

"My case all over," said Battle. "Andy unnerstand--no. But there, we'll off to England, my son, soon as ever this mortal frost breaks. Years and years have I been in this here dismal Munza. Man-eaters and Ephelantoes, Portingals and blackamoors, chased and hara.s.sed up and down, and never a spark of frost seen, unless on the Snowy Mountains. What wouldn't I give for a sight of Plymouth now!"

He rose and stretched himself. Facing him, across the unstirring darkness of the forest shone palely the great new-risen moon. "'Hi, hi, up she rises,'" said Battle, staring over. "'But what's to be done with a s.h.i.+pwrecked sailor?' n.o.body knows, but who can't tell us. Now, just one stave, Nod Mulgar, afore we both turns in. Give us 'Cherry-trees.'

No, maybe I'll pipe ye one of Andy's Own, and you shall jine in, same as t'other." Nod climbed up and stood on his log, his hands clasped behind his neck, and stamped softly with his feet in time, while Battle, after tuning up his great gourd--or Juddie, as he called it--plucked the sounding strings. And soon the Oomgar's voice burst out so loud and fearless that the prowling panthers paused with cowering head and twitching ears, and the Jaccatrays out of the shadows lifted their cringing eyes up to the moon, dolefully listening. And when the last two lines of each verse had been sung, Battle plucked more loudly at his strings, and Nod joined in.

"Once and there was a young sailor, yeo ho!

And he sailed out over the say For the isles where pink coral and palm-branches blow, And the fire-flies turn night into day, Yeo ho!

And the fire-flies turn night into day.

"But the _Dolphin_ went down in a tempest, yeo ho!

And with three forsook sailors ash.o.r.e, The Portingals took him where sugar-canes grow, Their slave for to be evermore, Yeo ho!

Their slave for to be evermore.

"With his musket for mother and brother, yeo ho!

He warred wi' the Cannibals drear, In forests where panthers pad soft to and fro, And the Pongo shakes noonday with fear Yeo ho!

And the Pongo shakes noonday with fear.

"Now lean with long travail, all wasted with woe, With a monkey for messmate and friend, He sits 'neath the Cross in the cankering snow, And waits for his sorrowful end, Yeo ho!

And waits for his sorrowful end."

[Ill.u.s.tration: NOD DANCED THE JAQQUAS' WAR-DANCE, ... STOOPING AND CROOKED "WRIGGLE AND STAMP."]

This song sung, Nod danced the Jaqquas' war-dance, which Battle had taught him, stooping and crooked, "wriggle and stamp," gnas.h.i.+ng his teeth, waving a club--which waving, indeed, always waved Nod sprawling off his log before long, and set Battle rolling with laughter, and ended the dance.

That dance danced, they sat quiet awhile, Battle softly, very softly, thrumming on his Juddie, gazing into the fire. And suddenly in the silence, out of the vast blackness of the moonlit leagues beneath them, broke a strange and dismal cry. It rose lone and hollow, and yet it seemed with its sound to fill the whole enormous bowl of star-bedazzling sky above the forest. Then down it lingeringly fell, note by note, wailing and menacing, an answering song of hatred against the solitary Oomgar and his gun.

Battle caught up his musket and stood erect, facing with scowling eyes the vast silence of the forest. And instantly from far and near, solitary and in hunting-bands, deep and shrill, every beast that slinks and lies in wait beneath the moon broke into its hunting-cry.

Battle stood listening with a savage grin on his face, until the last echo had died away. Then, throwing down his musket, he hitched up the cloth bandage on his shoulder, lifted his great Juddie, and strode out from the fire a few paces till he stood black and solitary in the moonlight of the snow. And he plucked the girding strings and roared out with all his lungs his mocking answer:

"Voice without a body, Panther of black Roses, Jack-Alls fat on icicles, Ephelanto, Aligatha, Zevvera and Jaccatray, Unicorn and River-horse; Ho, ho, ho!

Here's Andy Battle, Waiting for the enemy!

"Imbe Calandola, M'keesso and Quesanga, Dondo and Sharammba, Pongo and Enjekko, Millions of monkeys, Rattlesnake and scorpion, Swamp and death and shadow; Ho, ho, ho!

Come on, all of ye, Here's Andy Battle, Waiting and--alone!"

He swept his great scarred thumb over the strings with a resounding flourish, and burst into a laugh. Then he turned his back on the unanswering forest, and sat down by the fire again, wiping the sweat from his face and combing out his tangled beard. Nod drew a little away from the fire, and sat softly watching him. The Oomgar was muttering with wide-open lids. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up a lump of the cold Mulgar-bread that Nod had cooked for his supper, and gnawed it with twitching fingers. He glanced over it with bright blue glittering eyes at his little hunched-up friend.

"Don't you have no shadow of fear, my son. If they come, come they must.

Just you skip off into the forest with your courage where your tail ought to be. I care not a pinch of powder for them or'nery beasts. It's that there Shadowlegs that beats me with his mewling. I've heard it down on the coast; I've heard it with the Portingals; I've heard it with the Andalambandoes; I've heard it wake and sleep. But witch-beast or no witch-beast, and every skulk-by-night that creeps on claws, I'll win home yet!" He kicked a few loose smoking logs into the blaze. "More fire, my son! I like a light to fight by when fighting comes."

The darkness was clear as gla.s.s. The sky seemed shaken as if with fire-flies. Not a sound stirred now, not even a hovering wing. Nod heaped high the huge fire, and followed the Oomgar into his hut.

But not to sleep. He crouched on his snug dry bed of moss, and waited patiently till Battle's snores rose slow and mournful beneath the snow-piled roof. Then very quickly he put on his sheep's-coat over his Juzanda jacket and breeches. He crawled out, and lifted down with both hands the heavy bar of the door, and stole out into the moonlight again.

He thrust his puckered hand under his jacket, and touched his skinny breast-bone, beneath which, ever since the little Horse of Tishnar had toppled him into the snow, he had felt the slumbering Wonderstone strangely burning. And, as if even Oomgar magic, too, might help him, he hobbled back into the hut and put Battle's little dog's-eared book into his pocket. Then, before his heart could fail him, he ran out as fast as his fours could carry him to where he had heard rise up in the night the Hunting-Song of Imma.n.a.la.

On the extreme verge of the steep, opposite Battle's hut, stood a solitary flat-headed rock beside the frozen stream. Here the water burst in a blaze of moonlight into a cascade of icicles and foam. Nod stood there in the rock's shadow awhile, looking down into the forest. And as if a little cloud had come upon the glittering moon, he felt, as it were, a sudden darkness above his head, and a cold terror crept over his skin.

Then he stepped, trembling, out of the shadow of the rock into the moonlight, and gazed up into the shadowy countenance of Imma.n.a.la. She lay gaunt and spare, her long neck touching the snow, her eye-b.a.l.l.s beneath their wide lids fixed gla.s.sily on Nod. He gazed and gazed, until it seemed he was sinking down, down into those wide unstirring eyes.

His heart seemed to rise up into his mouth. He coughed, and something hard and round and tingling slid on to his tongue. He put up his hand to his thick lips, and, like courage that steals into the mind when all else is vain, fell into his hand, milk-pale and magical, the long-hidden Wonder-stone.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HE FELT A SUDDEN DARKNESS ABOVE HIS HEAD, AND A COLD TERROR CREPT OVER HIS SKIN.]

"I couch here, Ummanodda," said the Nameless, without stirring, "night after night, hungry and thirsty, waiting for the Oomgar's head. Why does the Mulla-mulgar keep me waiting so long for my supper?"

"Because, O Queen of Shadows," said Nod as calmly as he could--"because the head of the Oomgar refuses to come without his legs--and his gun."

"Nay," said she, "there must be many a shallow gourd in the Oomgar's hut. Cut off the head, and bring it hither yourself in that."

"Ohe," said Nod, "the Nameless has sharp teeth, if all that is said be true. She shall cut, and I will carry. Princes of Tishnar have no tongue for blood."

Imma.n.a.la crouched low, with jutting head. "Who is this Prince of Tishnar that, having no tongue for blood, roasts meat with fire for an Oomgar, the enemy of us all?"

"I, Nameless, am Nod," said he softly. "But meat dead is dead meat. What against _me_ is it if this blind Oomgar hungers for scorched bones? It is a riddle, Imma.n.a.la. Come with me now, then; let us palaver with him together."

"Yea, together!" snarled the Nameless--"I to ride and thou to carry."

She gathered herself as if to spring.

Nod whispered, "O Tishnar!" and he stood stock-still.

Imma.n.a.la drew back her flat grey head from the snow, and shook it, softly glancing at the moon.

"Why, O Prince of Tishnar, should we be at strife one with another? We hate the Oomgar. And if it were not for this magic that is yours, my servants would have slain him long since in his hunting."

"Ah, me!" said Nod, sighing it in Mulgar-royal, as if to himself alone, "I myself love this Oomgar none too much. Did he not catch me walking lonely in Munza in a wild pig snare? If he is to die, let him die, says Nod. But I like not your fas.h.i.+on of hunting, Beast of Shadows, skulking and creeping and scaring off his wandering supper-meat. Bring your hunting-dogs into the open snow here out of their dens and lairs and shadows. Then shall the Oomgar fight like an Oomgar, one against a hundred, and Nod can go free!"

Imma.n.a.la rose bristling against the clearness of the moon.

"Tell me, Prince of Tishnar, what is this story you seem to be whispering about my hunting-dogs?"

And Nod, with his Wonderstone clipped tight in his hot palm, bethought him of all Mishcha's counsel, and promised Imma.n.a.la he would come down the next night following. And if she would call her packs into the ravine, he would lead them, and open the door of the hut and lure out the Oomgar. "Then you, O fearless Queen of Shadows, shall watch the hunt in peace," he said. "One forsaken Oomgar without his gun against nine-and-ninety Jack-Alls and Jaccatrays, and perhaps a Roses or two, famished and parched with cold. Ay, but before I whistle them up," he muttered, as if to himself, "I must steal the Oomgar's M'Keesso's coat, which is drenched through with magic."

Imma.n.a.la peered gloatingly from her rock. "The little Mulla-mulgar has a cunning face," she said, "and a heart of many devices. I have heard of his comings and goings in Munza-mulgar. But if he deal falsely with me, though Tishnar came herself in all her brightness, I would wait and wait. Not an Utt nor a Nikka-nikka but should be his enemy, and as for those magicless Mulla-mulgars his brothers, who even now squat sullen and hungry in their leafy houses, they shall lie cold as stones before the morning light."

"Why," said Nod softly, "he must be frightened who begins to threaten. I have no fear of you, O Nameless, who are but a creeping candle-fly at twilight to the blaze of Tishnar's moon. Come hither to-morrow with your half-starved hunting-dogs, and I'll show you good hunting, will I."

Without another word, with every hair on end, he ran swiftly back to the hut by the way he had come. But even now his night's doings were not ended, for in a while, by which time the Imma.n.a.la should have returned from her watching-rock into the shadows of the forest, he ran out again, and, crouching beneath the old Exxswixxia-bush under the Sulemnagar, he called softly: "Mishcha, old hare! Mishcha!"

When he had called her many times, she came slowly and warily limping across the chequered snow. And Nod told her of all he had done that night, and of how he had met and abashed the Nameless face to face. The old hare watched dimly his flas.h.i.+ng eyes and the vainglory of the face of the young Mulgar Prince boasting in his finery, and she grimly smiled.

"Chakka, chakka," says she; "tchackka, tchackka: you bleed before you're wounded, Mulgar-royal."

But Nod in the heat of his glory cared nothing for what his old friend said to quench it. And he told her to bring his brothers to the great Ukka-tree that stood over against the shadow, where they talked, there to wait and watch till morning. "By that time," he said, "I shall have finished my supper with the Nameless, and the Oomgar will know me for the Prince I am."

Mishcha wagged slowly her old head. She hated the Oomgar, but she hated the Beast of Shadows more, and off she hopped again, stiff and cold, to seek out Thimble and Thumb.

[Ill.u.s.tration]