But Nod refused to give up his bundle, and trudged on behind his brothers, until night came down in earnest. Then, when it was quite dark, after listening and muttering together, they thought that if they spent the night down here they would certainly sleep "in danger." So Thumb clambered into a great Ollaconda-tree, and let down a rope or twist of the thick creeper called Cullum, and drew up all three bundles. Then Thimble pushed and Thumb pulled, and up went Nod, too stiff and cold to climb up by himself, after the bundles, sheep's-jacket and all. Then Thimble climbed up too. They made their supper of Mulgar-bread and frost-cockled Mambel-berries, which are sour and quench the thirst, and drank or sucked splinters of ice, plenty of which hung glassy in the great, still, winter-troubled tree. And for fear of leopards (or "Roses," as their Munza name signifies), they agreed to keep watch in turn, Thumb first, then Thimble, then Nod. They tied their bundles to the boughs, chose smooth forks to squat in, and soon Thimble was fast asleep.
But when Nod found himself alone in the midst of the great icy tree in the black forest, he could not sleep for thinking of it. He stroked his face with his brown hand over and over to keep his eyes shut. He nuzzled down into his sheep's-jacket. He counted his fingers again and again. He repeated the lingo of the Seventy-seven Travellers from beginning to end. It was in vain. Far and near he heard the cries and wanderings of the forest beasts; the Ollaconda-tree was full of the nests of the weaver-birds; and, worse still, soon Thimble began to snore so loud and so sorrowfully that poor Nod trembled where he sat. He could bear himself no longer. He stooped forward and called softly: "Thumb, my brother, are you awake, Thumb?"
"Sleep on, little Ummanodda," said Thumb; "if I watch, I watch."
"But I cannot sleep," said Nod; "these weavers chatter so."
Thumb laughed. "Thimble sings in his dreams," he said. "Why shouldn't the little tailors sing, too?"
"Do you think any leopards will come?" said Nod.
"Think good things, my brother, not bad," Thumb answered. "But this we will do—wait a little while awake, and I will sleep, and as soon as sleep begins to come, call me and wake me; then, little brother, you shall sleep in peace till morning."
He put his head under his arm without waiting for an answer; and soon, even louder and more dismal than Thimble's, rose Thumb's snoring into the Ollaconda-tree.
Nod sat cold and stiff, his eyes stretched open, his ears twitching. And a thin moonlight began to tremble between the leaves. The light cheered his spirits, and he thought, "Nod will soon feel sleepy now," when suddenly out of the gloom of the forest burst a sounder or drove of wild pig, scuffling and chuggling beneath the tree. Peeping down, Nod could just see them in the faint moonshine, with their long, black, hairy ears and tufted tails.
And presently, while they were grubbing in the snow, one lifted up its snout and cried in a loud voice: "Co-older—and colder!"