h their wide lids fixed glassily on Nod. He gazed and gazed, until
it seemed he was sinking down, down into those wide unstirring eyes.

His heart seemed to rise up into his mouth. He coughed, and something
hard and round and tingling slid on to his tongue. He put up his hand to
his thick lips, and, like courage that steals into the mind when all
else is vain, fell into his hand, milk-pale and magical, the long-hidden
Wonder-stone.

[Illustration: HE FELT A SUDDEN DARKNESS ABOVE HIS HEAD, AND A COLD
TERROR CREPT OVER HIS SKIN.]

"I couch here, Ummanodda," said the Nameless, without stirring, "night
after night, hungry and thirsty, waiting for the Oomgar's head. Why does
the Mulla-mulgar keep me waiting so long for my supper?"

"Because, O Queen of Shadows," said Nod as calmly as he could--"because
the head of the Oomgar refuses to come without his legs--and his gun."

"Nay," said she, "there must be many a shallow gourd in the Oomgar's
hut. Cut off the head, and bring it hither yourself in that."

"Ohe," said Nod, "the Nameless has sharp teeth, if all that is said be
true. She shall cut, and I will carry. Princes of Tishnar have no tongue
for blood."

Immanala crouched low, with jutting head. "Who is this Prince of Tishnar
that, having no tongue for blood, roasts meat with fire for an Oomgar,
the enemy of us all?"

"I, Nameless, am Nod," said he softly. "But meat dead is dead meat. What
against _me_ is it if this blind Oomgar hungers for scorched bones? It
is a riddle, Immanala. Come with me now, then; let us palaver with him
together."

"Yea, together!" snarled the Nameless--"I to ride and thou to carry."
She gathered herself as if to spring.

Nod whispered, "O Tishnar!" and he stood stock-still.

Immanala drew back her flat grey head from the snow, and shook it,
softly glancing at the moon.

"Why, O Prince of Tishnar, should we be at strife one with another? We
hate the Oomgar. And if it were not for this magic that is yours, my
servants would have slain him long since in his hunting."

"Ah, me!" said Nod, sighing it in Mulgar-royal, as if to himself alone,
"I myself love this Oomgar none too much. Did he not catch me walking
lonely in Munza in a wild pig snare? If he is to die, let him die, says
Nod. But I like not your fashion of hunting, Beast of Shadows, skulking
and creeping and scaring off his wandering supper-meat. Bring your
hunting-dogs into the open snow here out of their dens and lair