"But if," he said, "the first star comes, but no Ghibba, then do you, O Royalties, if it please you, build up a big fire above the waters, so that we may grope our way back to you before morning."
So, with bundles of nuts and a little of the mountain cheese that was left, when the morning was high, Ghibba and his five set off. The rest of the travellers sat basking in the sunshine all that day, dressing their sores and bruises, dusting themselves, and sleeking out their matted hair. Some even, so great was the neglect they had fallen into, took water to themselves to ease their labour. But for the most part Mulgars use water for their insides only (and that not often, so juicy are their fruits), never for their out. But dusk began to fall, the stars to shine faintly, darkness to sally out of the forest upon the mountain-side, and Ghibba had not returned. The travellers heaped on more wood, of which there was abundance, and lit a fire so fiery bright that to the Rock-folk looking down—wolf, and fox, and eagle, and mountain-leopard—it seemed like a great "palaver" of Oomgar-nuggas, who had had their villages in this valley many years before the Witzaweelwūlla.
CHAPTER XXI
When they could no longer see the hilltop for cloud and mist, Thumb lit a second fire on the isle of rock upon the verge of the cataract, where the water could not scatter on it. But no sign came of Ghibba and his five Moona-men, and Nod began to fret, and could eat no supper, for fear that some evil had overtaken them. But he said nothing, because he knew well enough by now that Thumb had much the same stomach for distrust as himself, though he kept a still tongue in his head, and that it only angered him to be pestered with questions no Mulgar-wit could answer. He sat by the watch-fire in his draggled sheep's-jacket, his hands on his knees, and wished he had lent Ghibba his Wonderstone. "But no," he thought, "Mutta-matutta bade me 'to no one.' Ghibba is cunning and brave; he will come back."
The Men of the Mountains coiled themselves up by the fire. They fear neither for themselves nor for one another. "We die because we must," they say. Yet none the less they raise, as I have said, long ululatory lamentations over their dead, and Nōōmanossi is their enemy as much as any Mulgar's. Thimble, still a little weak and hazy in his head after his sickness, fell quickly asleep; and soon even Thumb, with head wagging from side to side, though he sat bolt upright on his heels in front of the fire, was dozing.
Nod alone could not close his eyes. He watched his brother's great face; lower, lower would drop his chin, wheel round, and start up again with a jerk. "Good dreams, old Thumb," he whispered; "dreams of Salem that bring him near!"
And all the while that these thoughts were stirring in his head he heard the endless echoing and answering voices of the cataract. Now they seemed the voices of Mulgars quarrelling, shouting, and fighting near and far; and now it seemed as if a thousand thousand birds were singing sweet and shrill beneath the leaves of a great forest. The shadows of the fire danced high. But the night was clear. He could see a great blue star shining right over their thin column of smoke, winding into the air. And now from the ravine into which Ghibba had gone down with his five Moona-men the milk-pale mists began softly to overflow, as if from a pot filled to the brim. If only Ghibba would come back!