Behind them the Man-Who-Dwells-In-The-Moon shouted vainly to them. There are no animals in the Moon-Country, and so the Dogs have no chance of hunting; but the sight of the scampering Little People woke their instincts, and they dashed after them wildly. They caught some, and swiftly slew them; others dodged, and leaped, and twisted, escaping into little rockholes, where the dogs could not follow them. The noise of the hunting and the deep baying of the Dogs echoed round the Moon and made thunder boom among the Stars.
But Miraga ran on, stumbling for weariness. She knew that the Dogs were no longer close upon her, but she dreaded to hear them again at any moment, for she did not see how such feeble Little People could keep them off for long. So she ran, and as she went, her tears fell for the little friends who had given their lives for her. At last, too tired to see where her stumbling feet had led her, she came to the brink of a great precipice, and fell down and down, until her senses left her.
But when she opened her eyes again, it was to meet those of Konawarr; and he was holding her in his arms and calling her name over and over, with his voice full of pity and love; and behind him were his friends—all the band who had been seeking her with him. They were all smiling to her, with welcome and joy on each friendly face. For in her fall she had come back to the dear Earth-World once more, and her sorrows were at an end.
So, when the tribes look up to the sky on moonlit nights and see the great shape that looms across the brightness, they say it is the mighty Man-Who-Dwells-In-The-Moon; who, like themselves, is black, but grown heavy and slothful with much idleness and sitting-down. The parents scare idle children with his name, saying that if they do not bestir themselves they, too, will become fat and useless like him. But Miraga used to tell her children another story, and when she told it her eyes would brim with tears. It was the story of the Little People she loved, who followed her to the Moon-Country, and there gave up their lives for her, saving her first from Yurong, and then from the teeth of the Dogs of the Moon. And the children would shiver a little, clustering more closely—all save little Konawarr, who would grasp his tiny boomerang and declare that he would kill anything that dared to hurt his mother.
The great dogs still crouch around the Man-Who-Dwells-In-The-Moon, waiting to do his bidding. You can see them, if you look closely—dark spots, near the huge figure in the midst of the brightness. They are the fierce Dogs that guard the lonely country in the sky: the Dogs that long ago hunted, howling, after Miraga the Beautiful, across the shining spaces of the Moon.
IX
MIRRAN AND WARREEN
Mirran, the Kangaroo, and Warreen, the Wombat, were once men. They did not belong to any tribe, but they lived together, and were quite happy. Nobody wanted them, and they did not want anybody. So that was quite satisfactory.
Warreen was the first. All his tribe had been drowned in a flood, leaving him quite alone. So he found a good camping-place, where there were both shelter and water, and he made himself a camp of bark, which he called, in the language of his tribe, a willum. He was not in a hurry when he was making it, so he did it well, and no rain could possibly come through it. One side of it was a big rock, which made it very strong, so that no wind was likely to blow it away. Overhead a beautiful clump of yellow rock-lilies drooped gracefully. Not that Warreen cared for lilies; and this particular clump annoyed him, for the rock was too steep for him to climb up and eat the lily-roots.
He had been living there for some time, very lazy and contented, when one day Mirran appeared. At first Warreen thought he meant to fight, and that also annoyed him, because he hated fighting. But Mirran soon showed him that he only wanted to be friends; and then Warreen discovered that he was very glad to have some one with whom he could talk. So after the manner of men, they sat down and yarned all day.