CHAPTER XVIII
The pass grew ever steeper, but now that the travellers were no longer pestered by the Obobbomans they managed to struggle slowly on. And near about sunset they had tugged their way to the top, and came out again upon the mountain-side. They spread out their blankets and threw themselves down, panting, bruised, and outwearied. But they made no fire here yet, because their wood was running short, and all that they had would be needed against the small hours of the night. They nibbled at their blue cheese and a few cold eagle-bones, and, having cut one of their skin-bags to pieces, broke up the frozen milk and shared the lumps between them.
Thumb and Nod crouched down beside Thimble, who was now awake and in his own mind. And they told him all that had happened since his megrims had come on. He was still weak and fretful, and turned his eyes hastily from sight of the mouldy cheese the Mountain-mulgars were nibbling. But he sucked a few old Ukka-nuts. Then they lifted him gently, and with an arm round Thumb's neck and a hand on Nod's shoulder, they walked him awhile quietly in the snow.
While the brothers were thus walking friendly together, Ghibba groped his way up to them.
"I come, Royal Travellers," he said, "to tell you that here our country ends. Zut lies now behind us. Yonder stretches the Shadow Country, and my people know the way no farther."
The three brothers turned their heads to look, and on their cudgel-hand, about two leagues distant, stood Solmi; to the west, and a little in front of them, Mōōt and Makkri. Upon the topmost edge of the snow-slope at the foot of which they were now encamped ran a long, low border of a kind of thorn-bush, huddling among great rocks and boulders, resembling a little the valleys of the Babbabōōmas.
"You mean, O Man of the Mountains, whose friendship has been our very lives to us," said Thumb, "that now we must journey on alone?"
"No, Mulla-mulgar; I mean only that here the Moona country, my people's country, ends, and therefore that I cannot now be certain of the way to the Valleys of Tishnar. But this I do know: that beyond here is thick with the snares of Nōōmanossi. But if the Mulgar Princes and the Nizza-neela Eengenares, who saved my kinsman's life, would have it so, and are not weary of our company, then I and my people will journey on with them till they come to an end. We know from childhood these desolate mountains. They are our home. We eat little, drink little, and can starve as quietly as an icicle can freeze. If need be (and I do not boast, Mulla-mulgars), we Thin-shanks can march softly all day for many days, and not fall by the way. We are, I think, merely Leather-men, not meant for flesh and blood. But the Mulla-mulgars have fought with us, and we are friends. And I myself am friend to the last sleep of the small Prince, Nizza-neela, who has the colour of Tishnar in his eyes. Shall it be farewell, Travellers? Or shall we journey on together?"