The Three Mulla-mulgars

by Walter De la Mare

"Why, then," said Thumb, muttering, "if he kills only for food, and relishes not his own flavour in the pot, let him hobble out here to us now and greet us, like with like—Oomgar-mulgar with Mulla-mulgar—and leave his spit-fire and his magic behind him. But into his hut, nor stumbling among his Munza bones, we will not go. And if he will not come, brother to brother, then it is 'Gar Mulgar dusangee' between us three, O youngest son of Seelem. Go back to your cooking-pots. I and Thimble will journey on alone. All day would the Harp-strings be twangling over Mulgars smelling of blood."

So Nod, cold with misery, went back to Battle, who sat yawning, gun on knee, beside his fire.

"Oomgar!" he said, leaning a little on one small hand, and standing a few paces distant from the sailor, "my brothers, the Mulla-mulgars, sons of Seelem, brother of Assasimmon, Prince of the Valleys of Tishnar, are here. They say Nod is not true, speaks lies, eater-of-flesh, no child of Tishnar." He stared forlornly into Battle's face. "Tired of his living is Nod now. Shoot straight with Oomgar Zbaffle's gun. Nod will be still."

The Englishman crinkled up his eyelids, opened his mouth, and burst out laughing.

"To tell ye sober truth, my son," he said, "bullets and powder Battle haven't much left to waste. And what's lark-pie to a hungry sailor! As for them hunched-up hobbagoblins over yonder, don't 'ee heed what envy has to say. Battle is hands down on your side, my son, and let 'em meddle if they dare! But mercy on us," he added under his breath, "what wouldn't my old mother have said to hear these Pongoes chatter? 'Shoot straight!' says he. 'Tired of his living!' says he. Button up your sheep's-jacket, my son. We'll home to England yet. And, what's more"—he waved his hand towards the lonely figures still standing motionless in the silvery dusk—"Andy Battle's best respects to the hairy gentlemen, and there's a warm welcome and fresh-picked bones for breakfast. But the night's creeping cold, and bed's bed, old friend, and Andy's eyes was never made for moth-hunting. So here goes." He went in with his gun, and Nod heard him shut and bar the door.

Nod listened awhile, with eyes fixed sorrowfully on the fast-shut door; then, having heaped more logs on to the fire, he went slowly back to his brothers.

Now that the moon was down, and night at its darkest, the frost hardened. And Thumb and Thimble, when they were sure the Oomgar was asleep in his hut, were glad enough to hobble across the ice and to sit and warm themselves before the fire. Their jackets hung in tatters. Thumb's left second toe was frost-bitten, and Thimble's eyes were so sore from the glaring whiteness of the snow he could only dimly see. Moreover, they were weary of living and sleeping in their tree-houses among the scatter-brained Forest-mulgars, and though at first they sat shaky and sniffing, and started if but a dry leaf snapped in the fire, they listened in silence to Nod's long story of his doings, and began to see at last that what he had done by Mishcha's counsel had been for the best, and not for his own sake only.

"But we cannot stay here, Ummanodda," said Thumb. "We could not rub noses with the Oomgar. His voice, his smell! He is not of our kind, little brother. And now that all the peoples of Munza-mulgar are our enemies, we must press on, with no more idling and fine eating and sitting shanks to fire, or we shall never reach the Valleys alive."

"I am ready, Thumb, my brother," Nod answered. "The Oomgar has been kind to me, his own kind's kind. It was my Tishnar's Wonderstone that saved him from the teeth of the Nine-and-ninety, and from Immanâla's magic, though why should I tell it is so? Now they will think it is his skin-bonneted Meermut that stalks to and fro with the ghost-gun of a ghost. They will forsake this place, every one—claw and talon, upright and fours, every one. How long shall a flesh-eater, hungry and gluttonous, live on dried berries and nuts? Me gone; unless the frost flies soon, or a great Bobberie, as he does say, comes up from that strange water, the Sea, over yonder, the Oomgar will die. O brothers, just as that Oomgar, the Portingal, died whose bones dangled over us when we stood by Mutta's knee and listened to them clicking. Do but let me stay to say good-bye, and we will go together at morning!"

So, when day began to break, Thumb and Thimble hastened away and hid themselves in the Ukka-trees till Nod should come out to them. Nod busied himself, and baked his last feast with his master. He broiled him some bones—they were little else—of the Jack-All the sailor had shot in the moonlight. And when Battle—strange and solitary as he seemed to Nod now, after talking with and looking on his brothers—when Battle opened the door and came out, Nod told him as best he could, in the few words of his English, of Immanâla and her hunting-dogs, and of his brothers. And he told him that he must leave him now, and go on his travels again. Battle listened, scratching his head, and with a patient, perplexed grin on his face, but he could understand only very little of what Nod meant. For even a Mulla-mulgar, though he can repeat like a child, or like a parrot, by rote, has small brains for really learning another language, so that it may be a telling picture of his thoughts. Indeed, Battle thought that poor Nod had fallen a little crazy with the cold. He fondled him and scratched his head—this Prince of Tishnar—as if he were at his hearth at home, and Nod his country cat. But at least he knew that the little Mulgar wished to leave him, and he made no hindrance except his own sadness to his going. He gave him out of his own pocket a silver groat with a hole in it, and a large piece of fine looking-glass, besides the necklet of clear blue Bamba-beads, and three rings of copper. He gave him, too, one leaf of his little fat book, and in this Nod wrapped his Wonderstone. Nor even in his kindness did Battle say the least word about his big coat and Ephelanto-belt and his Fulby's hairy hat—all which things he supposed (Mulgars being by nature thieves and robbers in his mind) Nod's brothers had stolen.