Going across country, to be sure, it was a little sloppy. But Hurtali liked that, and ran splashing along with the greatest glee in the world. One day, when he got to the place where the ocean used to begin, all the water suddenly rolled up before him in a wave as high as he was, and cast itself back again with a roar and a rush that swept the land clear of trees for miles and miles. Hurtali laughed aloud, and plunged into the foam. He shouted, he dived, he turned somersaults. He swam and swam, and then, quite tired out, turned to start for home.
Then he looked about puzzled. There was no land in sight. Not an island, not a hill,—nothing but water as far as he could see. He swam harder. Finally a sharp point appeared on the horizon. He made for it, and as he drew nearer he saw it clearly. It was a single, jagged mountain-peak. He put one foot down and touched bottom. He could walk now, although the water was above his waist. Uprooted forests tripped his toes, and he slipped desperately over slimy hills onto scratchy cliffs.
All in all, it was not a pleasant walk, and when Hurtali finally settled himself on his rather uncomfortable mountain and began to pick the crags out of his feet, he was in anything but a happy frame of mind. He was tired and hungry and he had not seen a whale all day. Worse still, how was he going to sleep at night? There was not a plain in the whole world where he could lie down without drowning; and as for the mountain-top, it was much too small.
Hurtali bent down, picked a handful of trees and ate them moodily. Then an ingenious idea struck him. If he could not lie flat why not go to sleep reclining? He could stretch himself along the mountain, with his head at the top and his feet in the water below. He scrambled half way down to try it, and leaned carelessly back. In an instant he was up again, howling with pain. Hundreds of precipices had stuck into his back, and he had laid his head squarely on an ice-field.
Hurtali was infuriated. He was not so easily to be foiled. He plucked out cliff after cliff in his rage and hurled them splashing into the water. With one of them he pounded madly on the glacier, sending ice-splinters in a bright fountain skywards. By nightfall he had cleared the mountain. He lay back, propping himself with a cliff or two on either side to keep from rolling over into the water. Then wearily he opened his mouth and snored to high heaven.
There, stuck on the rocks, was a tremendous wooden box
All of a sudden, Hurtali awoke. Somewhere there was a noise that disturbed him. It was the queerest noise anyway. It seemed to be made up of a hundred small sounds. It was a twittering, a rustling, a chirping, and a tiny screaming all at once.
“Just my luck!” thought Hurtali sleepily. “I’ve gone and laid my head in a whole colony of eagles’ nests.”