Nod crept forlornly to the fire, and sat there shivering. He could not eat. He crouched low on his heels, nor paid any heed to what was said or done around him. And presently he fell into a cold, uneasy sleep, full of dreadful dreams and voices. When he awoke, he peered sullenly out of his jacket, and saw Ghibba with three of the five Moona-mulgars that he had taken with him sitting hunched up round the fire. They had come back bruised and bedraggled, and torn with thorns. One of them, stumbling in the gloom on the green rocks, had fallen headlong into the cataract, and had not been seen again; and one had been pounced on and carried off by some unknown beast while they were hobbling back in the torchless darkness towards the beacon above the cataract. There was no way beyond the ravine. All was dense low forest, rocks and thorns, and pouring waterways. And the travellers knew not what to be doing.
Nod could not bear to look at them nor listen to their lisping, mournful voices. He covered up his face again, weary of the journey and of the dream of Tishnar's Valleys, weary of his brothers, of the very daylight, but weariest of himself.
After long palaver, Ghibba came shuffling over to him, and sat down beside him.
"Is the Mulla-mulgar ill, that he sits alone, hiding his eyes?" he said.
Nod shook his head. "I am in my second sleep, Mountain-mulgar. A little frost has cankered my bones. It is the Harp Nod hears, not Zevvera's zōōts."
Ghibba sat with a very solemn look on his grey scarred face. "The Mulla-mulgars say there can be no turning back, Nizza-neela. And, by the way I have come, it is certain that there is no going onward. Then, say they, being Mulgars-of-a-race, we must float with the mountain-water into the great cavern, and trust our hearts to the fishes. Maybe it will carry us to where every shadow comes at last; maybe these are the waters of the Fountains of Assasimmon."
"I see no boat," yapped Nod scornfully. "The only boat my brothers ever floated in was an old Gunga's Oomgar-nugga's bobberie that now is a nest in Obea-Munza for Coccadrilloes' eggs."
"Already my people are gathering branches," said Ghibba, "to make floating mats or rafts, such as I saw one of the Fishing-mulgars squatting on while he dangled his tail for fish-bait. Comfort your weary bones, then, Eengenares. Tishnar, who guards you, Tishnar, whose Prince you are, Tishnar, who feasted even Utts like me on fruits of sleeping-time, will not forsake us now."
Nod turned cold, and trembling, as if to tell this solemn Man of the Mountains that his Wonderstone was gone. But he swallowed his spittle, and was ashamed. So he rose up and listlessly hobbled after him to where the rest of the travellers were toiling to gather branches for their rafts.
The storm had snapped and stripped off many branches from the trees. These the travellers dragged down to the water. Others they hauled down with Cullum ropes, and some smaller saplings they charred through with fire at the root. When they had heaped together a big pile of boughs and Samarak, Cullum and all kinds of greenery, Ghibba and Thumb bound them clumsily one by one together, letting them float out on to the water, until the raft was large and buoyant enough to bear two or three Mulgars with their bags. For one great raft that would have carried them all in safety would have been too unwieldy to enter the mouth of the cavern, besides being harder for these ignorant sailors to navigate. The torrent flowed swiftly into the cavern. And if but two or three sailed in together, Fortune might drown or lose many in the dark windings of the mountain-water, but one or two at least might escape.