One after another the rest swept off, their rafts dancing light as corks on the emerald water, each with its flaming torch fast fixed, and its two struggling Mulgars tugging at their long water-poles. And as each raft drifted beneath the lowering arch of the cavern, the Mulgars aboard her raised aloft their poles for farewell to Mulgarmeerez. Last of all Thumb loosed his mooring-rope, and with the baggage-raft in tow cast off with Nod into the stream. Pale sunshine lay on the evening frost and gloom of the forests, and far in the distance wheeled Kippel, capped with snow, as the raft rocked round the curve and floated nearer and nearer to the cavern. Nod squatted low at the stern, his pole now idly drifting, while behind him bobbed the baggage-raft, tethered by its rope of Cullum. He stared into the flowing water, and it seemed out of its deeps, faintly echoing, rang the voice of the sorrowful Water-midden, bidding him farewell. And when Thumb's back was for a moment turned, he tore out of the tousled wool of his jacket another of his ivory buttons, and, lying flat in the leafy twigs, dropped it softly into the stream. "There, little brother," he whispered to the button, "tell the beautiful Midden I remembered her last of all things when the hoarse-voiced Mulgars sailed away!"
Green and dark and utterly still Arakkaboa's southern forests drew backward, with the westering sun beaming hazily behind their nameless peaks. Nod heard a sullen wash of water, the picture narrowed, faded, darkened, and in a moment they were floating in an inky darkness, lit only by the dim and wavering light of the torches.
The cavern widened as the rafts drew inward. But the Mulgars with their poles drove them into the middle of the stream, for here the current ran faster, and they feared their leafy craft might be caught by overhanging rocks near the cavern walls. A host of long-eared bats, startled from sleep by the echoing cries and splashings, and the smoke of the torches, unhooked their leathery hoods, and, mousily glancing, came flitting this way, that way, squeaking shrilly as if scolding the hairy sailors. They reminded Nod of the chattering troops of Skeetoes swinging on their frosty ropes in the gloom of Munza-mulgar. When with smoother water the raftsmen's shouts were hushed, a strange silence swept down upon the travellers. Nod glanced up uneasily at the faintly shimmering roof hung with pale spars. Only the sip and whisper of the water could be heard, and the faint crackle of the dry torch-wood. Thumb flapped the water impatiently with his long pole. "Ugh, Ummanodda, this hole of darkness chills my bones. Sing, child, sing!"
"What shall I sing, Thumb?"
"Sing that jingling lingo the blood-supping Oomgar-mulgar taught you. How goes it?—'Pore Benoleben.'"
So in the dismal water-caverns of Arakkaboa Nod sang out in his seesaw voice, to please his brother, Battle's old English song, "Poor Ben, old Ben."
"Widecks awas'
Widevry sea,
An' flyin' scud
For companee,
Ole Benporben
Keepz watcherlone:
Boatz, zails, helmaimust,
Compaz gone.
"Not twone ovall
'Is shippimuts can
Pipe pup ta prove
'Im livin' man:
One indescuppers
Flappziz 'and,
Fiss-like, as you
May yunnerstand.
"An' one bracedup
Azzif to weat,
'Az aldy deck
For watery zeat;
Andwidda zteep
Unwonnerin' eye
Ztares zon tossed sea
An' emputy zky.
Pore Benoleben,
Pore-Benn-ole-Ben!"
When Nod's last quavering drawl had died away, Thumb lifted up his own hoarse, grating voice in the silence that followed, and as if with one consent, the travellers broke into "Dubbuldideery."