"Leaner and leaner," answered another.
"All the Sudd hid, all the Ukkas gone, all the Bōōbab frozen!" squealed a third.
"The Queen of the Mountains is in the Forest," they grunted all together. But the pig that had looked up into the tree was still staring—staring and wrinkling his narrow snout, till at last all the pigs stopped feeding. "Pigs, my brothers; pigs, my brothers," he muttered. "Up in this tree are Mulgar three, which travellers be.... Ho, there!" But Nod thought it best to make no answer. And the pig turned round and beat with his hind-feet against the bole or trunk of the Ollaconda. "Ho, there, little Mulgar in the sheep-skin coat!"
"If you beat like that, horny-foot, you'll wake my brothers," said Nod.
"Brothers!" said the pig angrily. "What's brothers to Ukka-nuts? What's your names, and where are you going?"
"My brothers' names," said Nod, "are Thumma and Thimbulla, and I am Nod. We are going to the palace of ivory and Azmamogreel that is our Uncle Assasimmon's, Prince of the Valleys of Tishnar." At that all the pigs began muttering together.
"Come down and tell us!" said a lean yellow pig; and as he snapped his jaws Nod saw in the moonbeam the frost-light blinking on his bristles.
"Tell you what?" said Nod.
"About this Prince of Tishnar. Oh, these false-tongued Mulgars!" Nod made no answer.
Then a fat old she-pig began speaking in a soft, pleasant voice. "You must be very, very rich, Prince Nod, with those great bags of nuts; and, surely, it must be royal Sudd I smell! And Assasimmon his uncle! whose house is more than a thousand pigs'-tails long; and gardens so thick with trees of fruit and honey, one groans to have only one stomach. Come down a little way, Prince Nod, and tell us poor hungry pigs of the royal Assasimmon and the dainty food he eats."