The Three Mulla-mulgars

by Walter De la Mare

But scarcely were they more than fifteen fathoms from the bank when a shrill and piercing "Illa olla! illa olla!" broke out behind them. No need to look back. There on the bank in his glistening fish-skins, gnashing his teeth and beating with his crusted hands on the drum of his great chest, stood the terrible Gunga-mulgar, his Samarak-ropes all burst asunder. He stooped and tore up huge stones and lumps of ice as big as a sheep, and flung them high into the air after the tossing Bobberie. Splash, splash, splash, they fell, around the three poor sweating travellers, drenching them with water and melting snow. The faster they paddled the faster swirled the water, and the thicker came tumbling the Gunga's huge boulders of stone and ice. Let but one fall plump upon their Bobberie, down they would go to be Mumbo-meat for good and all. But ever farther the surging water was sweeping them on. Suddenly the hailstones ceased, and they spied their dreadful enemy swinging furiously back on his thick five-foot arms.

"Gone, gone!" cried Thimble in triumph, leaning breathless on his paddle.

"Crow when your egg's hatched, brother Thimble," muttered Thumb. "He's gone to fetch his bow."

True it was. Down swung the gibbering Gunga, his Oomgar-nugga's bow across his shoulder. Crouching by the water-side, he stretched its string with all his strength. And a thin, keen dart sung shrill as a parakeet over their heads. Again, again, and then it seemed to Nod a red-hot skewer had suddenly spitted him through the shoulder, and he knew the Fish-catcher had aimed true. He plucked the arrow out and waved it over his head, scrunching his teeth together, and saying nothing save "Paddle, Thimble! Paddle, O Thumb!"

Mightily they leaned on their broad, unwieldy paddles. But now, not looking where the water was sweeping them, of a sudden the Bobberie butted full tilt into a great hummock of ice, and water began welling up through a hole in the bottom. Nod knelt down, and, while his brothers paddled, he flung out the water as fast as he could with his big fish-skin cap. But fast though he baled, the water rilled in faster, and just as they floated under a long, snow-laden branch of an Ollaconda-tree, the Bobberie began to sink.

Then Thimble cried in a loud voice, "Guzza-guzza-nahoo!" and, with a great leap, sprang out of the boat and caught the drooping branch. Thumb clutched his legs and Nod Thumb's; and there they were, all three swinging over the water, while the branch creaked and trembled over their heads.

Down sank the staved-in Bobberie, and up—one, two, three, four, five—floated huge, sluggish Mumboes or Coccadrilloes, with dull, grass-green eyes fixed gluttonously on the dangling Mulgars. And a thick muskiness filled the air around them.

Inch by inch Thimble edged along the bough, until, because of the jutting twigs and shoots, he could edge no farther. Then, slowly and steadily at first, but gradually faster, the three travellers began to swing, sweeping to and fro through the air, above the enraged and snapping Coccadrilloes. The wind rushed past Nod's ears; his jacket flapped about him. "Go!" squealed Thumb; and away whisked Nod, like a flying squirrel across the water, and landed high and dry on the bank under the wide-spreading Ollaconda-tree. Thumb followed. Thimble, with only his own weight to lift, quickly scrambled up into the boughs above him. And soon all three Mulla-mulgars were sitting in safety, munching what remained of the Gunga's Sudd-bread, and between their mouthfuls shouting mockery at the musky Coccadrilloes.

While they were thus eating happily together Thumb suddenly threw up his hands and called: "Blood, blood, O Ummanodda—blood, red blood!" And then it seemed to Nod, trees, sky, and river swam mazily before his eyes. Darkness swept up. He rolled over against a jutting root of the Ollaconda, and knew no more.