. "Why, he's nowt but skin and bone, he is;
shivering in his breeches and all. Lookee here, now, Master Pongo, or
whatsomedever name you goes by, here's one more chance for ye." He took
out his knife and slit off the gag round Nod's mouth, and loosened the
cord a little. Nod did not stir.

"And who's to wonder?" said the Oomgar, watching him. He began warily
scratching the little Mulgar's head above the parting. "It was a cruel
hard rap, my son--a cruel hard rap, I don't gainsay ye; but, then, you
must take Andy's word for it, they was cruel sharp teeth."

Nod saw him looking curiously at his sheep's-jacket, and, thinking he
would show this strange being that Mulla-mulgars, too, can understand,
he sidled his hand gently and heedfully into his pocket and fetched out
one of the Ukka-nuts that old Mishcha had given him.

At that the Oomgar burst out laughing. "Brayvo!" he shouted; "that's
mother-English, that is! Now we's beginning to unnerstand one another."
He poured a little hot water out of his cooking-pot into a platter and
put it down in the snow. Nod sniffed it doubtfully. It smelt sweet and
earthy of the root simmering in it. But he raised the platter of water
slowly with his loosened hands, cooled it with blowing, and supped it up
greedily, for he was very thirsty.

The Oomgar watched him with an astonished countenance. "Saints save us!"
he muttered, "he drinks like a Christian!"

Nod wriggled his mouth, and imitated the sound as best he could.
"Krisshun, Krisshun," he grunted.

The stooping Oomgar stared across the fire at Nod in the shadow as a man
stares towards a strange and formidable shape in the dark. "Saints save
us!" he whispered again, crossing himself, and sat down on his log.

He scraped back the embers and stripped the burnt skin and frizzled
feathers off his roasted bird, stuck a wooden prong into a Kiddal, and,
with a mouthful of bird and a mouthful of Kiddal, set heartily to his
supper. When he had eaten his fill, he heaped up the fire with green
wood, tied Nod to a thick stake of his hut, so that he could lie in
comfort of the fire and to windward of its smoke; then, with a tossed-up
glance at the starry and cloudless vault of the sky, he went whistling
into the hut and noisily barred the door.

Softly crooning to himself in his sorrow and loneliness, Nod lay long
awake. Of a sudden he would sit up, trembling, to glance as if from a
dream about him, then in a little while would lie down qu