th
relish.

The sailor stitched his friend up a jacket of Juzanda cloth, with
Bamba-shells for buttons, and breeches of buff-skin. These Nod dyed dark
blue in patches, for his own pleasure, with leaves, as Battle directed
him. Battle made him also a pair of shoes of rhinoceros-skin, nearly
three inches thick, on which Nod would go sliding and tumbling on the
ice, and a cap of needlework and peacocks' feathers, just as in his
dream.

There were many things in Battle's hut gathered together for traffic and
pleasure in his journey: a great necklace of Gunga's or Pongo's teeth; a
bagful of Cassary beads, which change colour with the hour, a bolt-eyed
Joojoo head, a bird-billed throwing-knife, also beads of Estridges'
eggs, as large as a small melon. There was also, what Battle cherished
very carefully, a little fat book of 566 pages and nine woodcuts that
his mother had given him before setting out on his hapless voyagings,
with a tongue or clasp of brass to keep it together. Moreover, Battle
gave Nod a piece of looking-glass, the like of which he had never seen
before. And the little Mulgar would often sit sorrowfully talking to his
image in the glass, and bid the face that there answered his own be off
and find his brothers. And Nod, in return, gave Battle for a keepsake
the little Portingal's left-thumb knuckle-bone and half the faded
Coccadrillo saffron which old Mishcha had given to him.

Of an evening these castaways had music for their company--a bell of
copper that rang marvellously clear across the frosty air, and would
bring multitudes of night-birds hovering and crying over the hut in
perplexity at the sweet and hollow sound. And besides the bell, Battle
had a cittern, or lute, made of a gourd, with a Jugga-wood neck like a
fiddle. Stretched and pegged this was, with twangling strings made of a
climbing root that grows in the denser forests, and bears a flower
lovelier than any to be seen on earth beside. With Battle thrumming on
this old crowd or lute, Nod danced many a staggering hornpipe and
Mulgar-jig. Moreover, Battle had taught himself to pick out a melody or
two. So, then, they would dance and sing songs together--"Never, tir'd
Sailour," "The Three Cherrie-trees," "Who's seene my Deere with Cheekes
so redde?" and many another.

Battle's voice was loud and great; Nod's was very changeable. For the
upper notes of his singing were shrill and trembling, and so the best
part of his songs would go; but when