But even between his slow-drawled, shakety notes of deep and shrill Nod listened for the least stir in the forest, and seemed to hear the low, hungry calls and scamperings of Immanâla's hunting-pack, which she had summoned from far and near to the tangled ravine beneath the rock.
He got Battle early to bed by telling him he would dress his wounded shoulder, which was angry and inflamed, with a poultice of leaves such as his mother, Mutta-matutta, had taught him to make. "Now," says he, "it be broad full-moontime, master, and all Munza-mulgar will be gone hunting. But wake not. Nod, Prince of Tishnar, will watch;" and even as he said it came remembrance of the Pigs to mind.
Battle laughed, thinking what wondrous good sense these two-legged monkeys seemed to have, concerning which King Angeca had yet himself often assured him that it is all nothing but a show and pretence, since man alone has wisdom and knowledge, and little remains over for the beasts to share.
The warmth and sleepiness of his big poultice soon set him snoring. And in a blaze of moonlight Nod warily opened the door, and stood in the squat black shadow of the hut, looking out over the forest. He had bound himself up tight. He had wound up his Wonderstone in a piece of lead that he had found in the hut to keep it from hopping in his pocket, and had stuck the sailor's sharp sheath-knife down the leg of his breeches.
Then, like but an Utt or a gnome in that great waste of whiteness, he sallied out to destroy the Nameless. He came to the rock, but no shadow couched there now in the sheen. He crept on all fours, and between two great frost-lit boulders peeped into the ravine. There, changing and stirring, shone the numberless small green lanterns of the eyes of Immanâla's hunting-pack. He heard their low whinings and the soft crunch of their clawed feet in the snow. Else all was still.
And Nod called in a low voice: "Why do you hide from me, Immanâla, Queen of Shadows?"
He waited, but no answer came. "Venture out, mistress," cried Nod louder, "and we will be off together to the Oomgar's hut. You shall sit on the roof and watch the hunting-dogs at their supper."
At that, up by a narrow path from the ravine stole Immanâla, and all the Jack-Alls and Jaccatrays fell silent, staring with blazing eyes out of the darkness.
"Call not so lustily, Prince of Tishnar!" she said, fawning; "we shall awake the Oomgar."
"Ohé," said Nod boldly; "he sleeps deep. He fears neither beast nor Meermut in all this frozen Munza. Bid your greedy slaves stand ready, Immanâla. When I whistle them, supper is up."