The Three Mulla-mulgars

by Walter De la Mare

And they saw advancing towards them a vast host and multitude of the painted Babbabōōma-mulgars, travelling, as is their custom, in company across these desolate wastes. On they came rapidly, the biggest males on the margins. But presently, while they were yet some little way off, at sound of a great shout all came to a standstill, the sun now being set, to take up their night-quarters. Even in the fading light their body-colours glowed, scarlet and purple, and bright Candar blue, where, squatting in their hundreds at supper (some meanwhile pacing sedately on the outskirts of the company like watchmen, to and fro on all fours, with long, doglike snouts and jutting teeth), they made their evening encampment.

All that night our Mulla-mulgars never ventured to kindle a fire. They huddled for warmth as best they could in a crevice of the rocks, warmed only by their own hairy bodies. For they had heard of old from Seelem how these Babbabōōma troops resent with ferocity the least meddling with them. They will speedily stone to death any intruder, and will tear a leopard in pieces with their teeth. But the travellers, all three, curiously, cautiously peeping out, watched their doings while there was the least light left, taking good care that not a spark of their jackets should be seen, for these Babbabōōmas fret more fiercely even than our bulls at the colour red.

They watched them sprinkling, scratching themselves, like the Mullabruks, with their feet, and dusting their great bodies with dry snow, rubbing it in with their hands, though for what purpose, seeing that snow had never whitened their pilgrimages before, who can say? The children, the Karakeena-Babbabōōmas, squealed and frisked and gambolled in the last sunshine together, quarrelling and at play. The old men sat silent, munching with half-closed eyes, and watching them. And it seemed that the big shes of the Babbabōōmas had brought some small tufty, goatlike animals with them, which they now sat milking into pots or gourds. And with this milk they presently fed the littlest of the young ones.

For many hours after the sun had gone down the three brothers sat wide awake, whispering together, listening to the talk and palaver of the chiefs of the Babbabōōmas. Sometimes they seemed to be clamouring, fifty together; and then presently a great still voice would be lifted over them, and all would fall silent; while of its calm authority the master-voice said, "So shall it be," or "Thus do we make it." Then once more the clamour of the rabble would break out again. But what its meaning was, and whether they were merely gossiping together, or quarrelling, or holding consultation, or whether it was that the loud voice gave law and justice to the rest, Nod tried in vain to discover. So at last, though much against his brothers' counsel, very curious to see what could occasion all this talk, he crept gradually, boulder by boulder, nearer to their great rocky bivouac. And there, by the silvery lustre of a dying moon, he peeped and peered. But though he plainly saw against the whiteness the pacing sentinels, and others of the Babbabōōmas, huddling by families close for warmth in sleep beneath the rocks, he could not discover where their parliament or talkers were assembled. But still he heard them gabbling, and still, ever and anon, the great harsh voice sounding above all until at last this, too, ceased, and save for the befrosted watchmen, the whole innumerable horde of them lay—with the peaks of Arakkaboa to north of them, and Sulemnāgar to south—in that still dying moonlight fast asleep. Then he, too, scuffled softly back by the way he had come.

By morning (for the Babbabōōmas are on the march before daybreak), when the brothers awoke, cold and cramped, in their rocky cavern, the whole concourse was gone, and not a sign left of them except their scattered shells and husks, their innumerable footprints, and the stones they had rooted up in search of whatever small creeping food might lurk beneath. Else they seemed a dream—Meermuts of the moonlight!

By noon of next day the travellers approached the mountain-slopes. They crossed down into a valley, and now the farther they went the steeper rose the bare, snow-flecked mountain-side, and beyond and around them loftier heights yet, while in the midst spired into the midday Kush, the first of the seven of the sacred peaks of Tishnar. Ever and again they were startled by the sudden crash of the snow sweeping in long-drawn avalanches from the steeps of the hills. And though it was desolate to see those towering and unfriendly mountains, their snowy precipices and dazzling peaks, yet their hearts came back to them, for a warm wind was blowing through the valley, and they knew the white and cold of the snow would soon be over, and the forest be green again, and once more would come the flowering of the fruit-trees, and the ripening of the nuts.

But here it was that a bitter quarrel began between the brothers that might have ended in not one of them ever seeing Tishnar's Valleys alive. It was like this: Not knowing in which direction to be going in order to seek for a path or pass whereby to scale Arakkaboa, they were at a loss what to be doing. Even the Munza-mulgars detest being more than the height of the loftiest forest-tree above their shadows on the ground; more especially, therefore, did these Mulla-mulgars, who never, or very rarely, as I have said many times already, climb trees at all. So they determined to stay awhile here and rest and eat until some Mulgar should come along of whom they could ask the way. It was a valley rich with the sweet ground-fruit I have already mentioned, whose spikes of a faint and thorny blue mount just above the snow, and whose berries, owing to their sugary coats or pods, resist all coldness. So that, without mention of Ukka-nuts, of which a grove grew not far beyond the bend of the valley, the travellers had plenty to eat. They had also an abundance of water, because of a little torrent that came roaring through its ice near by the trees they had chosen for their lodging. The wind that softly blew along this low land was warmer, or, at least, not so keen and fitful as the forest wind, and they were by now growing accustomed to the cold. For the night, however, they raised up for themselves a kind of leaning shelter, or huddle, of branches to be moved against the wind according as it blew up or down the valley.

But idleness leads to mischief. And not to press on is to be sliding backward. And to wait for help is to let help limp out of sight. And overcome, perhaps, by the luscious fruit, of which they ate far too much and far too often, and growing sluggardly with sleep, the travellers soon went on to bickering and scuffling together. With all this food, too, and long sleep and idleness, their courage began to droop. And if they heard any sound of living thing, even so much as a call or crackling branch, they would sneak off and hide in their night-shelter, not caring now for any kind of boldness nor to think of venturing over these homeless mountains.

So it came about that one night, as they were sleeping together under their huddle, as was their custom, Thumb, who had been nibbling fruit nearly all day long, cried out in a loud and terrible voice in his sleep, till Thimble, half awakened by his raving, picked up his thick cudgel and laid it soundly across his brother's shoulders where he lay. Thumb started up out of his sleep, and in an instant the two brothers were up and at each other, wrestling and kicking, gnashing their teeth, and guzzling through their throats and noses like mere Gungas, Mullabruks, or Manquabees. Poor Nod, not knowing what was the cause of all the trouble, got a much worse drubbing than either, till at last, in their furious struggling, all three brothers rolled from under the wattles into the pale glimmering of the stars and snow. For in this valley after the sun goes moves a phantom light or phosphorescence over the snow. Brought suddenly to their senses by the chill dark air, the travellers sat dimly glaring one at another, hunched, bruised, and breathless. And Nod, seeing his brothers so enraged, and preparing to fight again, and having had half his senses battered out by their rough usage, asked what was amiss.

"Ask him, ask him!" broke out Thimble, "the fat and stupid, who deafens the whole forest with his gluttonous screams."