A piece of silver for a paw-shake, and two for a good-e'en. Us 'll make a fortune, you and me, and go and live in a snug little cottage with six palm-trees and a blackamoor down Ippleby way. Andrew Battle, knight and squire, and Jack Sprat, Prince of Pongo-land. Ay, and the King shall come to sup wi' us, comfortable-like, 'twixt you and me, and drink hisself thirsty out of a golden mug."
And so it went on. Every day Battle taught Nod new words. And soon he could say a few simple things in his Mulgar-English, and begin to make himself understood. Battle taught him also to cook his meat for him, though Nod would never taste of it himself. And Nod, too, out of Sudd and Mambel-berries and Nanoes and whatever other dried and frosted fruits Battle brought home, made monkey-bread and a kind of porridge, which Battle at first tasted with caution, but at last came to eat with relish.
The sailor stitched his friend up a jacket of Juzanda cloth, with Bamba-shells for buttons, and breeches of buff-skin. These Nod dyed dark blue in patches, for his own pleasure, with leaves, as Battle directed him. Battle made him also a pair of shoes of rhinoceros-skin, nearly three inches thick, on which Nod would go sliding and tumbling on the ice, and a cap of needlework and peacocks' feathers, just as in his dream.
There were many things in Battle's hut gathered together for traffic and pleasure in his journey: a great necklace of Gunga's or Pongo's teeth; a bagful of Cassary beads, which change colour with the hour, a bolt-eyed Joojoo head, a bird-billed throwing-knife, also beads of Estridges' eggs, as large as a small melon. There was also, what Battle cherished very carefully, a little fat book of 566 pages and nine woodcuts that his mother had given him before setting out on his hapless voyagings, with a tongue or clasp of brass to keep it together. Moreover, Battle gave Nod a piece of looking-glass, the like of which he had never seen before. And the little Mulgar would often sit sorrowfully talking to his image in the glass, and bid the face that there answered his own be off and find his brothers. And Nod, in return, gave Battle for a keepsake the little Portingal's left-thumb knuckle-bone and half the faded Coccadrillo saffron which old Mishcha had given to him.
Of an evening these castaways had music for their company—a bell of copper that rang marvellously clear across the frosty air, and would bring multitudes of night-birds hovering and crying over the hut in perplexity at the sweet and hollow sound. And besides the bell, Battle had a cittern, or lute, made of a gourd, with a Jugga-wood neck like a fiddle. Stretched and pegged this was, with twangling strings made of a climbing root that grows in the denser forests, and bears a flower lovelier than any to be seen on earth beside. With Battle thrumming on this old crowd or lute, Nod danced many a staggering hornpipe and Mulgar-jig. Moreover, Battle had taught himself to pick out a melody or two. So, then, they would dance and sing songs together—"Never, tir'd Sailour," "The Three Cherrie-trees," "Who's seene my Deere with Cheekes so redde?" and many another.
Battle's voice was loud and great; Nod's was very changeable. For the upper notes of his singing were shrill and trembling, and so the best part of his songs would go; but when they dipped towards the bass, then his notes burst out so sudden and powerful, it might be supposed four men's voices had taken up the melody where a boy's had ceased. It pleased Battle mightily, this night-music—music of all the kinds they knew, white man's, Jaqqua-music, Nugga-music, and Mulla-mulgars'. Nod, too, often droned to the sailor, as time went on, the evening song to Tishnar that his father had taught him, until at last the sailor himself grew familiar with the sound, and learned the way the notes went. And sometimes Battle would sit and, singing solemnly, almost as if a little forlornly, through his nose, would join in too. And sometimes to see this small monkey perched up with head in air, he could scarce refrain his laughter, though he always kept a straight face as kindly as with a child.
But the leopards and other prowling beasts, when they heard the sound of their strings and music, went mewing and fretting; and many a great python and ash-scaled poison-snake would rear its head out of its long sleep and sway with flickering tongue in time to the noisy echoes from the rocky and firelit shelf above. Even the Jack-Alls and Jaccatrays squatted whimpering in their bands to listen, and would break when all was silent into such a doleful and dismal chorus that it seemed to shake the stars.
