ly toppled Nod into the
snow, and Battle strode out of the hut with his smoking musket. But the
cowardly Jack-Alls, at sound of his gun and at sight of the ghost of the
Oomgar they had torn to pieces, lifted up their voices in a howl of
terror, and in an instant over the snow they swept off at a gallop, and
soon were lost in the moonless silence and shadowiness of Munza.

Nod turned towards the hut. Battle stood in his breeches, his gun in his
hand, his blue eyes wide open as if in fear.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XII

"What's these, what's these?" he muttered, for there, on the farther
bank of the stream, stood in the twilight of the sinking moon two
strange, solitary figures, motionless, staring. Nod ran to Battle, and
laid his long narrow hand on the glimmering gun-barrel. "Oh, not shoot,
not shoot!" he said, "black Oomgars--no; Mulla-mulgars, too, Nod's
friends, Nod's brothers!"

"What's he jabbering about?" said Battle, with eyes fixed brightly on
the two gaunt shapes.

"Nod's brothers, there," said Nod--"Thumb, Thimble, Thimble, Thumb. Nod
show Oomgar. Oh, wait softly!" He ran swiftly over the snow till he came
to the frozen bank of the stream. But still his brothers never stirred,
ragged and hollow-eyed with hunger and cold.

"Come," said Nod, lifting up his hands in salutation; "there is no fear,
no danger! Here is Nod, my brothers."

"What voice was that we heard?" said Thumb, trembling. "Can the mouth of
the Oomgar speak after it is shut in death?"

"The Oomgar is not dead, Thumb, my brother; the hunting-packs killed
only that Beast of Shadows, Immanala, who hoped to kill us all, and the
Oomgar, too. Come over, my brothers! Every day, every night, Nod has
talked in his quiet with you."

"We do not understand the little Oomgar," said Thimble angrily. "Who are
you, the youngest of us all, to lie and make cunning against the people
of the forest? Let your master, the blood-spilling Oomgar, shoot us,
too. What are we in such a heap of bones? We have no fear of him. On all
fours, back, parakeet; tell him where the Mulgars' hearts lie hid. Maybe
he'll fling his Nizza-neela a bone."

"O Thimble, Mulla-mulgar, why do you seek out all the black words for
me? Haven't I done all for the best? Did I play false with you when I
saved you from the spits of the Minimuls? The little Horse of Tishnar
smelt out my wounded shoulder. And the Oomgar's strangling trap caught
me. But he did not k