CHAPTER XX
They cast off their burdens into the flowery meadows and besprinkled themselves with the pools of crystal water beneath the fountains. And Nod himself bathed Ghibba's eyes in the fountain-pool, so that he, too, could see, looking close, the wandering flames lighting the platters and goblets 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 of the 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 of the Mountain-mulgars, however, who eat always sitting on the ground, soon found this perching on stools at a table irksome for their pleasure, and squatted themselves down in the thick grasses for Tishnar's supper. And they feasted on fruits they never before had tasted 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 colour of amber, in the middle; one very sweet and globular, jacketed in a yellow rind, the inside all divided into little juicy wedges as if for a mouthful each; another rough like lichen, with a tuft of leaves in a spike, rusty without and pale within; yet another with a hard, smooth coat like faded copper, but inside a houseful of hundreds of tiny fruits like seeds of the colour of blood, and running over with pleasant juices; 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-ribbed and nuggeted—every kind of nut the pouch of Mulgar knows. And they drank from their goblets thin sweet wine, honey-coloured, and lilac. And while they ate and drank and made merry, lifting their cups, cracking their nuts, hungrily supping, a distant and beautiful music clashed in the air around the feasting travellers, like the music of cymbal and dulcimer. Nod sat silken-silvery, with every hair enlustred, his wrinkles gone, his small right hand feeding him, while with his woman-hand he clasped his Wonderstone, his little face bright as a child's, with topaz eyes. Rejoiced were the sad-faced Mountain-mulgars that they had not forsaken the wandering Princes and gone home. They feasted like men.
And at last, when all were refreshed, they rose and raised their voices to Tishnar, hoarse, and shrill, turning their faces towards the vast and silent 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, wandering orchard music, they fell asleep. Nod, too, lay down, ruffled with fire, burning like touchwood, amid the enchanted flowers. But as deeper and deeper he sank to sleep, his small brown fingers loosened and unclasped about 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 nineteen travellers in their rags and solitude, come out of magic, though they knew it not.
One by one they awoke, stiff and dazed from so deep a sleep. They made no stay here, lest Tishnar should be angered with them. And to some the night seemed a dream; some even whispered, "Nōōmanossi." And all, turning their faces, with daybreak broadening on their cheeks, hastily took up their workaday bundles again and hurried off.