The Three Mulla-mulgars

by Walter De la Mare

  CHAPTER XVII

  When he awoke, bright day was on the mountains. The little snow-wolveshad slunk back to their holes and lairs. The fires burned low. AndThimble lay in a sleep so quiet and profound it seemed to Nod the heartbeneath the sharp-ribbed chest was scarcely stirring. It was bitter coldon these heights in the sunlessness of morning. And Nod was glad to sithimself down beside one of the wood-fires to eat his breakfast of nuts,and swallow a suppet or two of the thawed Mulgar-milk. But the Men ofthe Mountains had plucked and roasted the eagles, and were squatting,with not quite such doleful faces as usual, picking with pointed, rathercatlike teeth, the bones.

  Nod could not help watching them under his eyebrows, where they sat,with tail-tufts over their shoulders, in their fleecy hair, blinkingmildly from their pale pink eyes. For, though here and there may be seena Mountain-mulgar with eyes blue as the turquoise, by far the most ofthem have pink, and some (but these are what the Oomgar-nuggas wouldcall Witch-doctors, or Fulbies) have one of either. They looked timidand feeble enough, these Moona-mulgars, yet with what fearless fury hadthey fought with the eagles! How swiftly they shambled dim-sighted alongthese wrinkled precipices! Some even now were seated on the rocky vergeas easily as a Skeeto in its tree-top, their lean shanks dangling over.But they nibbled and tugged at their slender bird-bones, and peered andwaved their long arms in faint talk; though, as their watchman had toldNod in the firelight, they knew they were all within earshot of theHarp.

  Ghibba was sitting a little away from the others, eating with his eyesshut.

  "Are you so sleepy, Prince of the Mountains, that you keep your eyesshut in broad day?" said Nod.

  Ghibba wagged his head. "No, Mulla-mulgar, I am not sleepy; but one eyeis scorched with the fire and one a little angry with the eagles, sothat I can scarcely see at all."

  "Not blind?" said Nod.

  Ghibba opened his eyes, red and glittering. "Nay, twilight, not night,little Mulgar," he answered cheerfully. "I see no more of you than alittle brown cloud against black mountains."

  "But how will you walk on these narrow, icy shelves?" said Nod.

  "Why," says he, "I have a tail, Mulgar-royal; and my people must leadme.... What of the morning, Nizza-neela?"

  "It is bright as hoarfrost on the slopes and tops there," said Nod,pointing. "It dazzles Ummanodda's eyes to look. But the sun is behindthis huge black wall of ours, so here we sit cold in the shadow."

  "Then we will wait," said Ghibba, "till he come walking a little higherto melt the frost and drive away the last of the wolves."

  "Man of the Mountains," said Nod presently, "would you hold me if Icrept close and put my head over the edge? I would like to see how manyMulgars-deep we walk."

  Ghibba laughed. "This path is but as other Mulgar-paths, Mulla-mulgar;no traveller need stumble twice. But I will do as you ask me."

  So Nod lay down flat on his stomach, while two of the Mountain-mulgarsclutched each a leg. He wriggled forward till head and shoulders hungbeyond the margent of the rock. He shut his eyes a moment against thatterrific steep of air, and the huge shadow of the mountain upon the deepblue forest. All far beneath was still dark with night; only the frozenwaters of the swirling torrent palely reflected the daybreak sky. Butsuddenly he shot out a lean brown paw. "Ahoh, ahoh! I say!"

  The Men of the Mountains dragged him back so roughly that his broad snubnose was scraped on the stone. "Why do you do that?" he said angrily.

  "You called 'O, O!' Mulla-mulgar, and we thought you were afraid."

  "Afraid! Nod? No!" said Nod. "What is there to be afraid of?"

  Ghibba twitched his long grey eyebrow. "The little Mulgar asks usriddles," he said.

  "I called," said Nod, "because I spy something jutting there with afluff of hair in the wind that leaps the chasm, and with thin ends thatlook to me like the arms and legs of a Man of the Mountains lying caughtin a bush of Tummusc."

  At the sound of Nod's "Ahoh!" Thumb had come scrambling along from theother fire, and many of the Mountain-mulgars fell flat on their faces,and leaned peering over the precipice. But their eyes were too dim topierce far. They broke into shrill, eager whisperings.

  "It is, perhaps, a wisp of snow, an eagle's feather, or maybe a nosegayof frost-flowers."

  "What was the name of him who fell fighting?" said Nod eagerly.

  "His name was Ubbookeera," said Ghibba.

  "Then," said Nod, "there he hangs."

  "So be it, Eyes-of-an-Eagle," said Ghibba; "we will go down before hemelts and fetch him up." So they drove two of their long staves into acrevice of the rocks. And Ghibba, being one of the strongest of them,and also nearly blind, crept to the end and unwound himself down; thenone by one the rest of the Mountain-mulgars descended, till the last andleast was gone.

  "Hold my legs, Thumb, my brother, that I may see what they're at," saidNod. Thumb clutched him tight, and Nod edged on his stomach to the endof the bending pole. He saw far down the grey string of the Men of theMountains dangling, but even the last of them was still twenty or thirtyMulgars off the Tummusc-bush. He heard their shrill chirping. Andpresently the first sunbeam trembled over the wall of the mountain abovethem, and beamed clear into the valley. Nod wriggled back to Thumb."They cannot reach him," he said. "He lies there huddled up, Thumb, in aTummusc-bush, just as he fell."

  "Why, then," said Thumb, "he must have hung dead all night. The eagleswill have picked his eyes out."

  In a little while the last and least of the Mountain-mulgars crept backover Ghibba's shoulders and scrambled on to the path. He was a littleblinking fellow, and in colour patched like damask.

  "Is he dead? Is he dead? Is thy 'Messimut' dead?" said Nod, leaning hishead.

  "He is dead, Mulla-mulgar, or in his second sleep," he answered.

  Now, all the Mulgar beads on that strange string stood whispering andnodding together. Ghibba presently turned away from them, and beganraking back the last smoulderings of their watch-fire.

  "What will you do?" said Nod. "Why do you drag back the embers?"

  "The swiftest of us is going back to bring a longer 'rope' and strongerstaves and Samarak, and, alive or dead, they will drag him up. But we goon, Mulla-mulgar."

  "Ohe," said Nod softly; "but will he not be melted by then, Prince ofthe Mountains? Will not the eagle's feather be blown away? Will not thefrost flowers have melted from the bush?"

  Ghibba turned his grave, hairy face to Nod.

  "The Men of the Mountains will remember you in their drones,Mulla-mulgar, for saving the life of their kinsman; they will call youin their singing 'Mulla-mulgar Eengenares'"--that is, Royal-mulgar withthe Eyes of an Eagle.

  Nod laughed. "Already am I in my brothers' thoughts Prince of Bonfires,Noddle of Pork; if only I could see through Zut, they also might call meEengenares, too."

  All were in haste now, binding up what remained of faggots and torches,combing and beating themselves and quenching the fires. Soon the Mulgarwho had been chosen to return had rubbed noses and bidden them allfarewell, and had set out on his lonely journey home. Thimble still layin a deep sleep, and so cold after the heats of fever that they had tomuffle him twice or thrice in shadow-blankets to regain his warmth.

  When they had trudged on a league or so the day began to darken withcloud. And a thin smoke began to fume up from below. The travellerspressed on in all haste, so fast that the tongues of the bearers ofThimble's litter lolled between their teeth. Wind rose in scurries, andevery peak was shrouded. Unnatural gloom thickened around the lean,straggling troop of Mulgars. And almost before they had time to drive intheir long poles, as shepherds drive in posts for their wattles, and toswathe and bind themselves close into the sloping rock, the tempestbroke over them. A dense and tossing cloud of ice beat up on the wind,so that soon the huddled travellers looked like nothing else than a longlow mound on the Mulgar pass, heaped high with the drifting crystals. Onevery peak and crest the lightning played blue and crackling. In itsflash the air hung still, bewitched with snow-flakes. Thunder and wind
made such a clamour between them that Nod could scarcely hear himselfthink. But the travellers sat mute and glum, and moved never a finger.Such storms sweep like wild birds through these mountains of Arakkaboa,and, like birds, are as quickly flown away. For in a little while allwas peace again and silence. And the sun broke in flames out of the palesky, shining in peaceful beauty upon the mountains, as if, indeed, thesnow-white Zevveras of Tishnar had passed by.

  The travellers soon beat each other free of their snow, and danced andslapped themselves warm. And now they were rejoiced to see in thedistant clearness peeping above the shoulder of Makkri that league-longneedle Moot. The pass now began to widen, and a little before noondaythey broke out into a broad and steep declivity of snow. And, seeingthat they had but lately rested themselves, and soon would be journeyingin shelter from the sun, they did not tarry for their "glare," ormiddle-day sleep.

  Their breath hung like smoke on the icy air. They sank at every stepwellnigh up to their middles in snow, and were all but wearied out whenat last they climbed up into a gorge cut sheer between bare walls ofrock, and so lofty on either hand that daylight scarcely trembled downto them at the bottom.

  So steep and glazed with ice was this gorge or gully that they werecompelled to tie themselves together with strands of Cullum. They laidThimble's litter on three long pieces of wood strapped together. Then,Ghibba going foremost, one by one they followed the ascent after him,stumbling and staggering, and heaving at the Cullum-rope to drag up poorThimble on his slippery bed.

  The Men of the Mountains have bristly feet and long, hairy, hard-nailedtoes. But Thumb and Nod, with their naked soles and shorter toes, couldscarcely clutch the icy path at all, and fell so often they were soonstiff with bruises. Worse still, there frequents in the upper parts ofthese mountains a kind of witless or silly Mulgars, who are calledObobbomans, with very long noses. And just as men use a spyglass forsight, to magnify things and to bring things at a distance nearer, sothese Obobbomans use their prolonged noses for smell. Long before Thumband his company were come to their precipitous gully they had sniffedthem out. And, being as mischievous as they are dull-witted, they hadalready scampered about, gathering together great heaps of stones, andhad now set themselves in a row, sniffing and chattering, along the edgeof the rock on both sides, and waited there concealed in ambush.

  When the Men of the Mountains had climbed up some little way into thegorge, and were scrambling and stumbling on the ice, these Obobbomansbegan pelting them as fast as they could with their stones and snowballsand splinters of ice. These missiles, though not very large, fellheavily down the walls of the precipice. And soon the whole caravan ofMulgars was brought to a standstill, they were so battered andbewildered by the stones.

  As soon as the travellers stopped, these knavish Long-noses ceased topelt them. So cautious and furtive are they that not a sign of themcould be distinguished by the Mulgars staring up from below, though,indeed, a hundred or more of their thin snouts were actually protrudedover the sides of the chasm, sniffing and trembling.

  "Does it always rain pebble-stones and lumps of ice in these miserablehills?" said Thumb bitterly.

  And Ghibba told him that it was the Long-nose mulgars who were molestingthem. They squatted down to breathe themselves, hoping to tire out theObobbomans. But the instant they stirred, down showered snowball, ice,and stones once more. The travellers bound faggots and blankets overtheir heads, and struggled on, but the faggots kept slipping loose, anddid not cover their stooping backs and buttocks. They shouted,threatened, shook their hands towards the heights; one or two even flungpebbles up that only bounced down upon their own heads again. It was allin vain. They halted once more, and squatted down in despair. To add totheir misery, it was so cold in this gorge that the breath of theHill-mulgars froze in long icicles on their beards, and whensoever theyturned to speak to one another, or if they sneezed (as they often did inthe cold, and with the snuff-like ice-dust), their fringes tinkled likeglass. At last Ghibba, who had been sitting lost in thought of what tobe doing next, suddenly groped his way forward, and bade two of hispeople sit down to their firesticks to make fire.

  "What is this Whisker-face tinkering at now?" muttered Thumb. "What ishe after now? We had best have come alone."

  "I know not," said Nod; "but if he can fight Noses, Thumb, as well as hecan fight Beaks, we shall soon be getting on again."

  They crouched miserably in the snow, huddled up in shadow-blankets. TheObobbomans peeped further into the ravine, chattering together, at aloss to understand why the travellers were sitting there so still. Butat last fire came to the firesticks, and Ghibba then bade two or threeof his Mountaineers kindle torches. Whereupon he gave to each a bundleof the eagle feathers which they had plucked from the five carcasses onthe pass, and told them to burn them piecemeal in their torches.

  "Ghost of a Moh-man!" grunted Thumb sourly; "he has lost his cheesywits!"

  With feathers fizzling, away they went again, slipping, staggering, andstraining at the rope. Down at once hailed the stones again, theObobbomans gambolling and squealing with delight in their sillymischief. And now no longer little were the snowballs, for theLong-noses all this time had been busy making big ones. These four orfive of them, shoving together, with noses laid sidelong, rolled slowlyto the edge, and pushed over. Down they came, bounding and reboundinginto the abyss, and broke into fragments on the travellers' heads. Some,too, of the craftier of the Long-noses had mingled stones and ice inthese great balls.

  Thumb groaned and sweated in spite of the cold, for he, being by far thefattest and broadest of the travellers, received the most stones, andstumbled and fell far more often than the rest on his clumsy feet on theice. Now, however, the smoke of the burning bunches of eagles' featherswas mounting in pale blue clouds through the gorge. It was enough. Atthe first sniff and savour of this evil smoke the Long-noses paused intheir mischief, coughing and sneezing. At the next sniff they paused nolonger. Away they scampered headlong, higgledy-piggledy, toppling oneover another in their haste to be gone, squealing with disgust andhorror; and the travellers at last were left in peace.

  "I began to fear, O Man of the Mountains," grunted Thumb to Ghibba,"that your wits had got frostbitten. But I am not too old nor fat tolearn wisdom."

  Ghibba lifted his face and peered from under the bandage he had woundover his sore eyes into Thumb's bruised face. "Munza or Mountains,there's wisdom for all, brave traveller," he said. "They are very oldfriends of ours, these Long-noses; they could smell out a mouse'sMeermut in the moon."