CHAPTER VI
When Nod opened his eyes again, he found himself blinking right into the middle of a blazing fire, over which hung sputtering a huddled carcass on a long black spit. Nod's head ached; his shoulder burned and throbbed. He touched it gently, and found that it was swathed and bound up with leaves that smelt sleepily sweet and cool. He looked around him as best he could, but at first could see nothing, because of the brightness of the flames. Gradually he perceived small grey creatures, with big heads and white hands, that reached almost to the ground, hastening to and fro. His smooth brown poll stood up stiff with terror at sight of them, for he knew he must be lying in the earth-mounds of the flesh-eating Minimuls.
THE WONDERSTONE.
Memories one by one returned to him—the Bobberie, the river, the yapping Coccadrilloes, the burning dart. One thing he could not recall—how he came to be lying alone and helpless here in the root-houses of these cunning enemies of all Mulgars, great and small. He remembered the stories Mutta-matutta used to tell him of their snares and poisons and enticements; of their earth-galleries and their horrible flesh-feasts at the full moon. His one comfort was that he still lay in his sheep's jacket, and felt his little Wonderstone pressed close against his side.
When one of the Minimuls that stood basting the spit saw that Nod was awake he summoned others who were standing near, and many stooped softly over, staring at him, and whispering together. Nod put his finger to his tongue, and said, "Walla!" One of them instantly shuffled away and brought him a little gourd of a sweetish juice like Keeri, which greatly refreshed him.
Then he called out, "Mulgars, Mulla-mulgars?" This, too, they seemed at once to understand. For, indeed, Seelem had told Nod that these Minimuls are nothing but a kind of Munza-mulgar, though their faces more closely resemble the twilight or moonshine Mulgars, and for craft and greed the dwarf Oomgar-nuggas, that long ago had trooped away beyond Arakkaboa. Nod heard presently many faint voices, and then thick guttural cries of pain and anger. And by turning a little his head he could see a host of these mouse-faced mannikins tugging at a rope. At the end of this rope, all bound up with Cullum, with sticky leaves plastered over their eyes, and hung with dangling festoons of greenery and flowers, like jacks-in-the-green, Thumb and Thimble hobbled slowly in from under an earthen arch. Nod was weak with pain. He cried out hollowly to see his brothers blind and helpless.