Part 15 (1/2)

”Geguslar nooma gulmeta muh!” replied a thick, half-brutal voice.

”What does he say?” said Nod, wondering to see him wave his spotted arms as 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 across to the solitary Moh-mulgar. Sorrowfully he waved his bony arms about his head, and stooped again. ”Geguslar, nooma gulmeta muh!” came back his dismal answer.

Thimble, with a sign to him, laid gravely down a little heap of nuts in the snow. And the three travellers left the old pilgrim still standing desolate and unquestionable in the snow, watching them till they were gone out of sight.

Coming presently after to some trees with tough, straight branches, the travellers made themselves fresh cudgels. After which, to raise their fallen spirits, they played hop-pole awhile in the suns.h.i.+ne, just as they used to in the first days of the snow before they set out on their travels. And about noon, when the sun stood radiant above them, they met three Men of the Mountains, with shallow baskets on their heads, coming down 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 toes in as they walk, one behind another, and sometimes in chains of a hundred together. Thumb stood in their path, and inquired of the first of 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 and weak Nod could scarcely hear his whisper. ”There is no way over,” he said.

”But over we must go,” said Thumb.

The other shook his head, and looked sadder than ever. And on they all three went again, lisping softly together, but without another word to Thumb.

”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 rocks below, Thumb and his brothers turned up the narrow track between great boulders of stone, by which they had come down. And glad they were of the new staves or cudgels they had broken off. Even with the help of these, so steep was the path that they had often to pull themselves up by roots and jutting rocks. And gradually, besides being steep, the way grew so narrow that they were simply walking on a ledge of rock not more than two Mulgar paces wide. And for giddiness Nod nearly fell flat when by chance he turned his eyes and looked down to where, far below, a frozen torrent gleamed faintly amid huge boulders that looked from this height no bigger than pebble-stones.

It made him giddy even to keep his eyes fixed on the narrowing path before him, and shuffle up, up, up.

Suddenly, Thumb, who was wheezing and panting a few paces in front, came to 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, on the same narrow ledge of rock against the deep blue sky, came slowly winding down thirty at least of these same meagre and hairy Men of the Mountains, a few with long staves in their hands, and every one with his long tufted tail over his shoulder and a round shallow basket on his head. These Men of the Mountains have very weak eyes; and it was not until they were come close that they perceived the three travellers standing on their mountain-path. The first stopped, then he that was next, and so on, until they looked like a long black-and-white caterpillar, clinging to the precipice, with tiny tufts waving in the air.

Thumb raised his hand as if in peace. ”We are, sirs, strangers to these rocks and hills. After the shade of Munza, our eyes dizzy with the heights. And we walk, journeying to the Courts of a.s.sasimmon, in great danger of falling. How, then, shall we pa.s.s by?”

They heard a faint, shrill whispering all along the hairy row. Then the first of the Men of the Mountains came quite close, and told the three brothers to lie down flat on their faces, and he and his thirty would all walk gently over them. ”But to go on has no end,” he said, ”and the travellers had better far turn back.”

At this Thumb grew angry. ”What does the old grey-beard mean?” he coughed out of the corner of his mouth. ”Mulla-mulgars stoop on their faces to no one. Do you lie down on yours.”

The old Mountain-mulgar blinked. ”We are thirty; you are three,” he said. Thumb laughed.

”We are strangers to Arakkaboa, O Man of the Mountains. And we fear to lie down, lest we never rise up again.” At this civil speech the old Mulgar went shuffling back to the others.

And, to Nod's astonishment, he presently saw him take his long staff of tough, 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 the precipice. Meanwhile, another of these Mountain-mulgars had in the same way thrust his staff into the rock a little farther down. The first Man of 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 almost thumbless hands, and lightly swung himself down over the precipice. The next scrambled down over his shoulders until he swung by his leader's heels; the next followed, and so on. Three such Mulgar strings presently hung down from their staves over the abyss. And there being thirty Men of the Mountains in all, each string consisted of ten. [For this reason some call these Mountain-mulgars Caterpillar or Ladder Mulgars.]