Part 20 (1/2)

”What is a gun, Nizza-neela?”

”What then--what then?” cried Nod impatiently.

”Two nights afterwards,” continued the old Mulgar, ”some of my people came up to the other end of the gorge of the Long-noses. There they found him, cold and bleeding, in his second sleep. The Long-noses had pelted him with stones till they were tired. But it was not their stones that had driven him back. He would not answer when the Men of the Mountains came whispering, but sat quite still, staring under his black arches, as if afraid. After two days more he rose up again, crying out in another voice, like a Moh-mulgar. So we came again with him, two 'ropes' of us, along the walks the traveller knows. And towards evening, with his bag of nuts and water-bottle, in his rags of Juzana, he left us once more. Next morning my father and my people came one or two together to where we sit, and--what did they see?”

”_What_ did they see?” Nod repeated, with frightened eyes.

”They did see only this,” said Ghibba: ”footsteps--one-two, one-two, just as the Mulla-mulgar walks--all across the snow beyond the thorn-trees. But they did see also other footsteps, slipping, sliding, and here and there a mark as if the traveller had fallen in the snow, and all these coming _back_ from the thorn-trees. And at the beginning of the ice-path was a broken bundle of nuts strewn abroad, but uneaten, and the shreds of a red jacket. Water-bottle there was none, and Mulgar there was none. We never saw or heard of that Mulgar again.”

”O Man of the Mountains,” cried Nod, ”where, then, is my father now?”

Ghibba stooped down and peered under his bandage close into Nod's small face. ”I believe, Eengenares, your father--if that Mulgar was your father--is happy and safe now in the Valleys of Tishnar.”

”But,” said Nod, ”he must have come back again out of his wits with fear of the Country of Shadows.”

”Why,” said Ghibba, ”a brave Mulgar might come back once, twice, ten times; but while one foot would swing after the other, he might still arise in the morning and try again. 'On, on,' he would say. 'It is better to die, going, than to live, come-back.'”

And Nod comforted himself a little with that. Perhaps he would yet meet his father again, riding on Tishnar's leopard-bridled Zevveras; perhaps--and he twisted his little head over his shoulder--perhaps even now his Meermut haunted near.

”But tell me--tell me _this_, Mountain-mulgar: What was the fear which drove him back? What feet so light ran after him that they left no imprint in the snow? Whose shadow-hands tore his jacket to pieces?”

Ghibba threw down his bundle of twigs, and rubbed his itching arms with snow.

”That, Mulla-mulgar,” he said, smiling crookedly, ”we shall soon find out for ourselves. If only I had the Wonderstone hung in my beard, I should go singing.”

Nod opened his mouth as if to speak, and shut it again. He stared hard at those bandaged eyes. He glanced across at the black, huddling thorn-trees; at the Mountain-mulgars, going and returning with their f.a.ggots; at Thimble lying dozing in his litter. All the while betwixt finger and thumb he squeezed and pinched his Wonderstone beneath the lappet of his pocket.

Should he tell Ghibba? Should he wait? And while he was fretting in doubt whether or no, there came a sharp, short yelp, and suddenly out of the thorn-trees skipped a Mountain-mulgar, and came scampering helter-skelter over the frozen snow, yelping and chattering as he ran.

Following close behind him lumbered Thumb, who hobbled a little way, then stopped and turned back, staring.

”Why do you dance in the snow, my poor child? What ails you?” mocked Ghibba, when the Mountain-mulgar had drawn near. ”Have you p.r.i.c.ked your little toe?”

The Mountain-mulgar cowered panting by the fire which Ghibba had kindled. And for a long while he made no answer. So Nod scrambled on his fours up the crusted slope of snow. He pa.s.sed, as he went, two or three of the Men of the Mountains whimpering and whispering. But none of them could tell him what they feared. At last he reached Thumb, who was still standing, stooping in the snow, staring silently towards the cl.u.s.tering thorn-trees.

”What is it, brother?” said Nod, as he came near. ”What is it, brother?

Why do you crouch and stare?”

”Come close, Ummanodda,” said Thumb. ”Tell me, is there anything I see?”

They hobbled a little nearer, and stood stooping together with eyes fixed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”WHAT IS IT, BROTHER? WHY DO YOU CROUCH AND STARE?”]

These thorn-trees, as dense as holly, but twisted and huddled, grew not close together, but some few paces apart, as if they feared each other's company. Between them only purest snow lay, on which evening shed its light. And now that the sun was setting, leaning his beams on them from behind Moot, their gnarled and spiny branches were all aflame with scarlet. It was utterly still. Nod stood with wide-open eyes. And softly and suddenly, he hardly knew how or when, he found himself gazing into a face, quiet and lovely, and as it were of the beauty of the air. He could not stir. He had no time to be afraid. They stood there, these clumsy Mulgars, so still that they might have been carved out of wood.

Yet, thought Nod afterwards, he was not afraid. He was only startled at seeing eyes so beautiful beneath hair faint as moonlight, between the thorn-trees, smiling out at him from the coloured light of sunset. Then, just as suddenly and as softly, the face was gone, vanished.

”Thumb, Thumb!” he whispered, ”surely I have seen the eyes of a wandering Midden of Tishnar?”

”Hst!” said Thumb harshly; ”there, there!” He pointed towards one of the thorn-trees. Every branch was quivering, every curved, speared leaf trembling, as if a flock of silvery Parrakeetoes perched in the upper branches, where there are no thorns, or as if scores of the tiny Spider-mulgars swung from twig to twig. The next moment it was still--still as all the others that stood around, afire with the last sunbeams. Yet nothing had come, nothing gone.