Then the Midden floated out into the middle of the stream, and with one light hand kept herself in front of Nod, her narrow shoulders slowly twirling the while in the faintly-rosied starlight. She took with the other a long thick strand of her hair, and, unwinding it slowly, presently out of it let fall into her palm the angry-flaming Wonderstone. "See, Mulla-mulgar, here is your Wonderstone. Now in patience tell me how to make magic."

And Nod said softly: "Float but a span nearer to me, Midden--a span and just a half a span."

And the Water-midden drew in a little, still softly twirling.

"Oh, but just a thumb-nail nearer," said Nod.

Laughing, she floated in closer yet, till her beautiful eyes were looking up into his bony and wrinkled face. Then with a sudden spring he thrust his hand deep into the silken mesh of her hair and held tight.

She moved not a finger; she still looked laughing up. "Listen, listen, Midden," he said: "I will not harm you--I could not harm you, beautiful one, though you never gave me back my Wonderstone again, and I wandered forsaken till I died of hunger in the forest. What use is the stone to you now? Tishnar is angry. See how wildly it burns and sulks. Give it, then, into my hand, and I promise--not a promise, Midden, fading in one evening--I will give you any one thing else whatsoever it is you ask."

And the Water-midden looked up at him unfrightened, and saw the truth and kindness in his eyes. "Be not angry with me, little brother," she answered. "I did not pretend with you, sorrowful Nizza-neela!" And she dropped the Wonderstone into his outstretched hand.

Tears sprang up into Nod's tired, aching eyes. He smoothed softly with his hairy fingers the golden strands floating in the ice-cold water.

"Till I die, O beautiful one," he said, "I will not forget you. Tell me your wish!"

Then the Water-midden looked long and gravely at him out of darkling eyes. She put out her hand and touched his. "This shall be my sorrowful wish, little Mulgar: it is that when you and your brothers come at last to the Kingdom of a.s.sasimmon, and the Valleys of Tishnar, you will not forget me."

"O Midden," Nod answered, "it needed no asking--that. It may be we shall never reach the Valleys. For now we must plunge into the water-cavern on our floating rafts, and all is haste and danger. But I mind no danger now, Midden. That Mulla-mulgar, my father Seelem, chose to wander, and not to sit fat and idle with Princes. So, too, would I. Tell me a harder wish. Ask anything, Water-midden, and my Wonderstone shall give it you."

And the Water-midden gazed sorrowfully into his face. "That is all I ask, Mulla-mulgar," she repeated softly--"that you will not forget me. I fear the Wonderstone. All day it has been crickling and burning in my hair. All that I ask, I ask only of you." So Nod stooped once more over that gold and beauty, and he promised the Water-midden.

And she drew out a slender, fine strand of her hair, and cut it through with the sharp edge of a little sh.e.l.l, and she wound it seven times round Nod's left wrist. "There," she said; "that will bid you remember me when you come to the end. Have no fear of the waters, Nizza-neela; my people will watch over you."

And Nod could not think what in his turn to give the Water-midden for a remembrance and a keepsake. So he gave her Battle's silver groat with the hole in it, and hung it upon a slender shred of Cullum round her neck, and he tore off also one of the five out of his nine ivory b.u.t.tons that still clung to his coat, and gave her that, too.

"And if my brothers stay here one day more, come in the darkness, O Water-midden; I shall not sleep for thinking of you." And he said good-bye to her, kneeling above the dark water. But long after he had safely wrapped his Wonderstone in the blood-stained leaf from Battle's little book again, and had huddled himself down beside the slumbering travellers, he still seemed to hear the forlorn singing of the Water-midden, and in his eyes her small face haunted, amid the darkness of his dreams.

All the next morning the travellers slaved at their rafts. They made them narrow and buoyant and very strong, for they knew not what might lie beyond the mouth of the cavern. And now the sun shone down so fiercely that the Mulgars, climbing, hacking, dragging at the branches, and moiling to and fro betwixt forest and water, teased by flies and stinging ants, hardly knew what to do for the heat. Thumb and Thimble stripped off the few rags left of their red jackets, and worked in their skins with better comfort. And they laughed at Nod for sweating on in his wool.

"Look, Thumb," laughed Thimble, peering out from under a tower of greenery, "the little Prince is so vain of his tattered old sheep's-jacket that he won't walk in his bare an instant, yet he is so hot he can scarcely breathe."

Nod made no answer, but worked stolidly on, bunched up in his hot jacket, because he feared if he went bare his brothers would see the thin strand of bright hair about his wrist, and mock at the Midden.

When the sun was at noon the Mulgars had finished the building of their rafts. They lay merrily bobbing in a long string moored to an Ollaconda on the swift-running water. They tied up bundles of nuts, and old Nanoes, roots, and pepper-pods, and scores of torches, and bound these down securely to the smallest of the rafts. Then, wearied out, with sting-swollen chops and bleeding hands, they raised their shadow-blankets, and having bound up their heads with cool leaves, all lay down beside the embers of their last night's fire for the "glare."

There were now seventeen travellers, and they had built nine light rafts--two Mulgars for every raft, except two; one of which two was wide enough to float in comfort three of the lighter Moona-mulgars, who weigh scarce more than Meermuts at the best of times; the other and least was for their bundles and torches and all such stuff as they needed, over and above what each Mulgar carried for himself.

In the full and stillness of afternoon they ate their last meal this side of Arakkaboa, and beat out their fire. A sprinkle of hail fell, hopping on their heads as they stood in the sunshine making ready to put off. It seemed as if there would never come an end to their labour, and many a strange face stared down on them from the brooding galleries of the forest.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXIII

At last, after fixing a lighted torch between the logs of each raft, the Mulgars began to get aboard. On the first Ghibba and Thimble embarked, squatting the one in front and the other astern, to keep their craft steady. With big torches smoking in the sunshine, they pushed off.

Tugging on a long strand of Samarak which they had looped around the smooth branch of a b.o.o.bab, they warped themselves free. Soon well adrift, with water singing in their green twigs, they slid swiftly into the stream, shoving and pulling at their long poles, beating the green water to foam, as they neared the fork, to keep their dancing catamaran from drifting into the surge that would have toppled them over the cataract. The rest of the travellers stood stock-still by the water-side, gazing beneath their hands after the green ship and its two sailors, dark and light, brandishing their poles. They followed along the bank as far as they could, standing lean in the evening beams, wheezing shrilly, "Illaloothi, Illaloothi!" as Moona and Mulla-mulgar floated into the mouth of the cavern and vanished from sight.

One after another the rest swept off, their rafts dancing light as corks on the emerald water, each with its flaming torch fast fixed, and its two struggling Mulgars tugging at their long water-poles. And as each raft drifted beneath the lowering arch of the cavern, the Mulgars aboard her raised aloft their poles for farewell to Mulgarmeerez. Last of all Thumb loosed his mooring-rope, and with the baggage-raft in tow cast off with Nod into the stream. Pale sunshine lay on the evening frost and gloom of the forests, and far in the distance wheeled Kippel, capped with snow, as the raft rocked round the curve and floated nearer and nearer to the cavern. Nod squatted low at the stern, his pole now idly drifting, while behind him bobbed the baggage-raft, tethered by its rope of Cullum. He stared into the flowing water, and it seemed out of its deeps, faintly echoing, rang the voice of the sorrowful Water-midden, bidding him farewell. And when Thumb's back was for a moment turned, he tore out of the tousled wool of his jacket another of his ivory b.u.t.tons, and, lying flat in the leafy twigs, dropped it softly into the stream.

"There, little brother," he whispered to the b.u.t.ton, "tell the beautiful Midden I remembered her last of all things when the hoa.r.s.e-voiced Mulgars sailed away!"

Green and dark and utterly still Arakkaboa's southern forests drew backward, with the westering sun beaming hazily behind their nameless peaks. Nod heard a sullen wash of water, the picture narrowed, faded, darkened, and in a moment they were floating in an inky darkness, lit only by the dim and wavering light of the torches.

The cavern widened as the rafts drew inward. But the Mulgars with their poles drove them into the middle of the stream, for here the current ran faster, and they feared their leafy craft might be caught by overhanging rocks near the cavern walls. A host of long-eared bats, startled from sleep by the echoing cries and splashings, and the smoke of the torches, unhooked their leathery hoods, and, mousily glancing, came flitting this way, that way, squeaking shrilly as if scolding the hairy sailors. They reminded Nod of the chattering troops of Skeetoes swinging on their frosty ropes in the gloom of Munza-mulgar. When with smoother water the raftsmen's shouts were hushed, a strange silence swept down upon the travellers. Nod glanced up uneasily at the faintly shimmering roof hung with pale spars. Only the sip and whisper of the water could be heard, and the faint crackle of the dry torch-wood. Thumb flapped the water impatiently with his long pole. "Ugh, Ummanodda, this hole of darkness chills my bones. Sing, child, sing!"

"What shall I sing, Thumb?"

"Sing that jingling lingo the blood-supping Oomgar-mulgar taught you.

How goes it?--'Pore Benoleben.'"

So in the dismal water-caverns of Arakkaboa Nod sang out in his seesaw voice, to please his brother, Battle's old English song, "Poor Ben, old Ben."

"Widecks awas'

Widevry sea, An' flyin' scud For companee, Ole Benporben Keepz watcherlone: Boatz, zails, helmaimust, Compaz gone.

"Not twone ovall 'Is shippimuts can Pipe pup ta prove 'Im livin' man: One indescuppers Flappziz 'and, Fiss-like, as you May yunnerstand.

"An' one bracedup Azzif to weat, 'Az aldy deck For watery zeat; Andwidda zteep Unwonnerin' eye Ztares zon tossed sea An' emputy zky.

Pore Benoleben, Pore-Benn-ole-Ben!"

When Nod's last quavering drawl had died away, Thumb lifted up his own hoa.r.s.e, grating voice in the silence that followed, and as if with one consent, the travellers broke into "Dubbuldideery."

It seemed as if the walls would shatter and the roof come tumbling down at their prodigious hullabaloo. The bats raced to and fro. Scores of fishes pushed up their snouts round Nod's raft, and gazed with curious faces into the torchlight. The water was all astir with their disquietude. But in the midst of the song there sounded a shrill and hasty cry: "Down all!"

Only just in time had Ghibba seen their danger, and almost before the shrill echo had died away, and Thimble had cast himself flat, their raft was swirled under a huge rock, blossoming with quartz, that hung down almost to the surface of the water. Thimble's jacket was ripped collar to hem as he slid under, lying as close as he could. And the bobbing raft of baggage behind them was torn away in a twinkling, so that now all the food and torches the Mulgars had was what each carried for himself. They dared not stir nor lift their heads, for still the fretted roof arched close above the water. And so they drifted on and on, their torches luckily burnt low, until at length the cavern widened, the roof lifted, and they burst one by one into a great chamber of smooth water, its air filled strangely with a faint phosph.o.r.escence, so that every spar and jag of rock gleamed softly with coloured light as they paddled their course slowly through. In this great chamber they stayed awhile, for there was scarcely any current of water against its pillared sides.

With their rafts cl.u.s.tering and moored together, they shared out equally what nuts, dry fruit, and unutterably mouldy cheese remained, and divided the torches equally between them, except that Ghibba, who led the way, had two for every one of the others.

These thin grey waters swarmed with fish, but all, it seemed, nearly blind, with scarcely visible eyes above their snouts. Some of the bigger fish, with clapping jaws, cast themselves in range or hunger against the rafts. And the Mulgars, seeing their teeth, took good heed to couch themselves close in the midst of their rafts. The longer they stayed, the thicker grew the concourse of fish drawn together by the noise and smell of the travellers, until the cavern echoed with their restless fins and a kind of supping whisper, as if the fish had speech. So the Mulgars pushed off again, laying about them with their poles to scare the bolder monsters off as they gilded softly into the sluggish current, until the channel narrowed again, and their speed freshened.

On and on they drifted. On and on the shimmering walls floated past them, now near, now distant. They lost all time. Some said night must be gone; some said nay, night must have come again; and to some it seemed like an evil dream, this drifting, without beginning or end. When sleep began to hang heavily on Thumb's eyelids, he bade Nod lie down and take his fill of it first, while he himself kept watch. Nod very gladly lay down as comfortably as he could on the rough and narrow raft, and Thumb for safety tied him close with a strand of Cullum. He dreamed a hundred dreams, rocked softly on the sliding raft, all of burning sunshine, or wild white moonlight, or of icy and dazzling Witzaweelwulla; but the Water-midden's beauty haunted all.

He woke into almost pitch-black gloom, and, starting up, could count only four torches staining the unrippling water with their flare. And, being very thirsty, he stooped over with hollowed hand, as if to drink.

"No, no," said Thumb drowsily; "not drink, Nod. Sleepy water--sleepy water. Moona-mulgars there, drunk and drunk; thirstier and thirstier, torches out--all dead asleep--all dead asleep."

"But my tongue's crackling dry, Thumb. Drink I must, Thumb."

"Nutsh.e.l.ls," said Thumb--"suck nutsh.e.l.ls, suck them."

Nod took out the last few nuts he had. And in the faint glowing of the distant torches he could see Thumb's great broad-nosed face turned hungrily towards them.

"How many nuts left have you, my brother?" Nod said.

Thumb tapped his stomach. "Safe, safe all," he said. "Nod slept on and on."

"Why did you not wake me, Thumb? Lie down now. I am not hungry, only a little thirsty. Have these few crackle-sh.e.l.ls before you sleep, old Thumb." He gave Thumb nine out of his thirteen nuts, and partly because he was ravenously hungry, partly because their oiliness a little a.s.suaged his thirst, Thumb crunched them up hastily, sh.e.l.ls and all.

Then he lay down on the raft, and Nod tied his great body on as safely as he could.