Nod scrambled up, and rather warily shuffled past the sleepers over to the other beacon-fire they had kindled. A few strange little night-beasts scuttled away as he drew near, attracted by the warmth of the fire, or even, perhaps, taking refuge in its shine from the night-hunting birds that wheeled and whirred in the air above them. "Urrckk, urck!" croaked one, swinging so close that Nod felt the fan of its wings on his cheek. "Starving Mulgars, urrckk, urck!" it croaked.
He heaped up the fire. But he could not see a hand's breadth into the ravine. Calm and still the mist lay, and softer than wool. Nod wandered restlessly back, passed again the camping Mulgars, and hobbled across till he came to the rocky bank of the torrent near to where it forked. Here a faint reflection of the flamelight fell, and Nod could see the drowsy fish floating coloured and round-eyed in the sliding water. And while he was standing there, he thought, like the sound of an ooboë singing amid thunder, he seemed to hear on the verge of the roar of the cataract a small wailing voice, not of birds, nor of Mulgars, nor like the phantom music of Tishnar. He crept softly down and along the water-side, under a black and enormous dragon-tree. And beneath the giant sedge he leaned forward his little hairy head, and as his flame-haunted eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he perceived in the dark-green dusk in which she sat a Water-midden sitting low among the rushes, singing, as if she herself were only music, an odd little water-clear song.
"Bubble, Bubble,
Swim to see
Oh, how beautiful
I be.
"Fishes, Fishes,
Finned and fine,
What's your gold
Compared with mine?
"Why, then, has
Wise Tishnar made
One so lovely,
Yet so sad?
"Lone am I,
And can but make
A little song,
For singing's sake."
Her slim hands, her stooping shoulders, were clear and pale as ivory, and Nod could see in the rosy glimmering of the flames her narrow, beautiful face reflected amid the gold of her hair upon the formless waters. Mutta-matutta once had told Nod a story about the Water-middens whom Tishnar had made beyond all things beautiful, and yet whose beauty had made beyond all things sad. But he could never in the least understand why this was so. When, by the sorcery of his Wonderstone, he had swept all glittering the night before across the jewelled snow, he had never before felt so happy. Why, then, was this Water-midden—by how much more beautiful than he was then!—why was she not happy, too? He peered in his curiosity, with head on one side and blinking eyes, at the Water-midden, and presently, without knowing it, breathed out a long, gruff sigh.
The still Water-midden instantly stayed her singing and looked up at him. Not in the least less fair than the clustering flowers of Tishnar's orchard was her pale startled face. Her eyes were dark as starry night's beneath her narrow brows. She drew her fingers very stealthily across the clear dark water.
"Are you, then, one of those wild wandering Mulgars that light great fires by night," she said, "and scare all my fishes from sleeping?"
"Yes, Midden; I and my brothers," said Nod. "We light fires because we are cold and hungry. We are wanderers; that is true. But 'wild'—I know not."