The Three Mulla-mulgars

  CHAPTER XX

  They cast off their burdens into the flowery meadows and besprinkledthemselves with the pools of crystal water beneath the fountains. AndNod himself bathed Ghibba's eyes in the fountain-pool, so that he, too,could see, looking close, the wandering flames lighting the platters andgoblets and fruits and nuts and flowers.

  THEY FEASTED ON FRUITS THEY NEVER BEFORE HAD TASTED NOR KNEW TO GROW ON EARTH]

  The travellers sat down, all the nineteen of them, Nod at the head ofthe table--that is, looking towards Mulgarmeerez--and Thumb at the foot,with Thimble propped up on the one side and Ghibba on the other. Many ofthe Mountain-mulgars, however, who eat always sitting on the ground,soon found this perching on stools at a table irksome for theirpleasure, and squatted themselves down in the thick grasses forTishnar's supper. And they feasted on fruits they never before hadtasted nor knew to grow on earth: one, rosy and red and round and small,with a long, slender stalk and a little pale hard stone, of the colourof amber, in the middle; one very sweet and globular, jacketed in ayellow rind, the inside all divided into little juicy wedges as if for amouthful each; another rough like lichen, with a tuft of leaves in aspike, rusty without and pale within; yet another with a hard, smoothcoat like faded copper, but inside a houseful of hundreds of tiny fruitslike seeds of the colour of blood, and running over with pleasantjuices; also Manakin-figs, keeries, and love-apples, quinces, juleeps,xandimons, and grapes.

  There were nuts also--green, coral, and cinnamon, long and little,hairy, smooth, crinkled, rough, in pairs, dark and double, round-ribbedand nuggeted--every kind of nut the pouch of Mulgar knows. And theydrank from their goblets thin sweet wine, honey-coloured, and lilac. Andwhile they ate and drank and made merry, lifting their cups, crackingtheir nuts, hungrily supping, a distant and beautiful music clashed inthe air around the feasting travellers, like the music of cymbal anddulcimer. Nod sat silken-silvery, with every hair enlustred, hiswrinkles gone, his small right hand feeding him, while with hiswoman-hand he clasped his Wonderstone, his little face bright as achild's, with topaz eyes. Rejoiced were the sad-faced Mountain-mulgarsthat they had not forsaken the wandering Princes and gone home. Theyfeasted like men.

  And at last, when all were refreshed, they rose and raised their voicesto Tishnar, hoarse, and shrill, turning their faces towards the vast andsilent peak of Mulgarmeerez, that jutted to the stars above their heads.Then they laid themselves down in the sweet Immanoosa-scented meadow,and soon, lulled by the noise of the fountains and the faint, wanderingorchard music, they fell asleep. Nod, too, lay down, ruffled with fire,burning like touchwood, amid the enchanted flowers. But as deeper anddeeper he sank to sleep, his small brown fingers loosened and unclaspedabout his Wonderstone; it fell to the bottom of his sheep-skin pocket,and then, like a dream, vanished, gone, were fountain, feast, and music.And deep in snow, encircled by poison-thorns, slumbered the nineteentravellers in their rags and solitude, come out of magic, though theyknew it not.

  One by one they awoke, stiff and dazed from so deep a sleep. They madeno stay here, lest Tishnar should be angered with them. And to some thenight seemed a dream; some even whispered, "N[=o][=o]manossi." And all,turning their faces, with daybreak broadening on their cheeks, hastilytook up their workaday bundles again and hurried off.

  But when Nod lifted his eyes to Mulgarmeerez, it seemed as if manyphantom faces were looking down on them as they hastened, like somesmall company of hares or coneys, straggling across the whiteness. Beingrefreshed with sleep and Tishnar's phantom supper, the Mountain-mulgarsdid not stay to take their "glare," but just screened their feeble eyesagainst the sunbeams with eagle feathers, and, with Thimble swinging inhis litter, scurried on across these smoother slopes. By nightMulgarmeerez, last of the seven peaks of Arakkaboa, was left behindthem, and it seemed the wind blew not so sharply out of the haze on thisside of the haunted woods. The travellers towards evening slept in a drycavern. But it was a fidgety sleep, for this cave was the haunt of anodd and wily sand-flea that made the most of a Mulgar-supper, moretoothsome than anything it had feasted on for many a day.

  Near about the middle of the next morning the travellers came in theirdescent to a stream of water rushing swiftly but smoothly in the channelit had graven for its waters out of the rock. This torrent was green,icy, and deep. On its farther side the rock rose steep and smooth. Thetravellers kindled themselves a fire and warmed their cold bones. Then,having emptied their skin-bottles, they set off along the bank, or asnear to it as they could walk at ease. Thimble's shivering was now gone,and he marched along with his brothers, rather hobbledy, but in verygood spirits. He took good care, however, to keep well in front of theMountain-mulgars, for if he so much as faintly sniffed their cheese, hefell sick. Ever downward now they were marching. A warm wind was blowingout of the valley, the snows were melting, and rills tricklingeverywhere into the green and swirling water. And after a march allmorning, they came to a village of the Fishing-mulgars.

  These are a peaceable and ugly tribe of Mulgars, with extremely long andsinewy tails, which are tufted at the tip, like those of theMoona-mulgars, with a bunch of fine silky hair. They smear upon thistuft the pulp of a fruit that grows on a bush hanging over the water,called Soota, which the fish that swim in this torrent never weary ofnibbling. Then, sitting huddled up and motionless in some little inletor rocky hole in the bank, the Fishing-mulgar pays out his long tail andlets it drift with the stream. By-and-by, maybe, some hungry fish comesswimming by that way and smells the pounded Soota. He softly stays,nibbling and tasting. Very slowly the Fishing-mulgar, who instantlyperceives the least commotion in his tail-tuft, draws back his baitwithout so much as blinking an eyelid. And when he has enticed the fishquite close to the bank, still all intent on its feeding, he stoops in aflash, and, plunging his sharp-nailed hands in the water, hooks thestruggler out.

  They swarm about water, these Mulgars, and teach their tiny babies tofish, too, by scooping out a hole or basin in the rock, which they fillfrom the torrent. In this they set free two or three little half-grownfish. These, with their infant tails, the children catch again andagain, and are rewarded at evening, according to their skill, with aslice of roe or a backbone to pick. An old and crafty Fishing-mulgarwill sit happy all day in some smooth hollow, and, having snared perhapsfour or five, or even, maybe, as many as nine or twelve fat fishes, homehe goes to his leaf-thatched huddle or sand-hole, and eats and eats tillhe can eat no more. After which his wife and children squat round andfeed on what remains. Some eat raw, and those of less gluttony cooktheir catch at a large fire, which they keep burning night and day. Herethe whole village of them may be seen sitting of an evening toastingtheir silvery supper. But, although they are such greedy feeders, thereis something in the fish that keeps these Mulgars very lean. And themore they eat the leaner they get.

  Sometimes, Ghibba told Nod, Fishing-mulgars, who have given up allfruits and nuts to gluttonize, and live only on fish, have been known bymuch feeding to waste quite away. Moreover, a few years of this coldfishing paralyses their tails. And so many go misshapen. On beingquestioned as to where they had learned to make fire, theFishing-mulgars told Ghibba that a certain squinting Moh-mulgar had cometheir way once along the torrent, tongue-tied and trembling with palsy.By the fire he had made for himself the Fishing-mulgars, after he wasgone, had stacked wood, and this was the selfsame fire that had beenkept burning ever since. Did once this fire die out, not knowing of, norhaving any, first-sticks, it would be raw fish for the tribe forevermore. On hearing this, the travellers looked long at one anotherbetween gladness and dismay--gladness to hear that their father Seelem(if it was he) had come alive out of the Orchards, and dismay for hismany ills.

  They made their camp for two nights with these friendly people. They areas dull and stupid in most things as they are artful at fishing. Butthey are, beyond even the Munza-mulgars, mischievous mimics. Even thelittle ones would come mincing and peeping with wisps of moss and grassstuck on their faces for eyebrows and whiskers
, their long tails cockedover their shoulders, their eyes screwed up, in imitation of the Men ofthe Mountains. Lank old Thimble laughed himself hoarse at thesechildren. At night they beat little wood drums of different notes roundtheir fires, making a sort of wearisome harmony. They also play at manysports--"Fish in the Ring," "A tail, a tail, a tail!" and "Here supsSullilulli." But I will not describe them, for they are just such gamesas are played all the world over by Oomgar and Mulgar alike. They areall, however, young and old, hale and paralysed, incorrigible thievesand gluttons, and rarely comb themselves.

  All along the rocky banks of the torrent the travellers passed next daythe snug green houses of these Fishing-mulgars. Nod often stayed awhileto watch their fishing, and almost wished he had a tail, so that he,too, might smear and dangle and watch and plunge. But their language Nodcould not in the least understand. Only by the help of signs andgrimaces and long palaver could even Ghibba himself understand them. Buthe learned at least that, for some reason, the travellers would not longbe able to follow the river, for the Fishing-mulgar would first point tothe travellers, then to the water, and draw a great arch with theirfinger in the air, shaking their little heads with shut eyes.

  Ghibba tried in vain to catch exactly what they meant by these signs,for they had no word to describe their meaning to him. But after he hadpatiently watched and listened, he said: "I think, Mulla-mulgars, theymean that if we keep walking along these slippery high banks, one byone, we shall topple head over heels into the torrent, and bedrowned--over like that," he said, and traced with his finger an arch inthe air.

  But this was by no means what the Fishing-mulgars meant. For, aboutthree leagues beyond the last of their houses, the travellers began tohear a distant and steady roar, like a faint, continuous thunder, whichgrew as they advanced ever louder and louder. And when the first faintflowers began to peep blue and yellow along the margin where the sun hadmelted the snow, they came to where the waters of the torrent widenedand forked, some, with a great boiling of foam and prodigious clamour,whelming sheer down a precipice of rock, while the rest swept green andfull and smooth into a rounded cavern in the mountain-side.

  Here, as it was now drawing towards darkness, the travellers built theirfire and made their camp. Next morning Ghibba decided, after longpalaver, to take with him two or three of the Mountain-mulgars to see ifthey could clamber down beside the cataract, to discover what kind ofcountry lay beneath. Standing above, and peering down, they could seenothing, because, with the melting of the snow, a thick mist had risenout of the valley, and swam white as milk beneath them, into which greatdish of milk the cataract poured its foam. Ghibba took at last with himfive of the nimblest and youngest of the Moona-mulgars, not knowing whatdifficulties or dangers might not beset them. But he promised to returnto the Mulla-mulgars before nightfall.

  "But if," he said, "the first star comes, but no Ghibba, then do you, ORoyalties, if it please you, build up a big fire above the waters, sothat we may grope our way back to you before morning."

  So, with bundles of nuts and a little of the mountain cheese that wasleft, when the morning was high, Ghibba and his five set off. The restof the travellers sat basking in the sunshine all that day, dressingtheir sores and bruises, dusting themselves, and sleeking out theirmatted hair. Some even, so great was the neglect they had fallen into,took water to themselves to ease their labour. But for the most partMulgars use water for their insides only (and that not often, so juicyare their fruits), never for their out. But dusk began to fall, thestars to shine faintly, darkness to sally out of the forest upon themountain-side, and Ghibba had not returned. The travellers heaped onmore wood, of which there was abundance, and lit a fire so fiery brightthat to the Rock-folk looking down--wolf, and fox, and eagle, andmountain-leopard--it seemed like a great "palaver" of Oomgar-nuggas, whohad had their villages in this valley many years before theWitzaweelw[=u]lla.