r,"
said Battle in his dream, "that's old Buzz-buzz; that's that old
garden-robber--that's 'B.'"

"'B,'" squealed Nod.

"And 'B'--he bit it," said Battle, clashing his small white teeth
together and laughing, as he turned the page.

Next in the dream-book came a curled black fish, sitting looped up on
its tail. And that, the Oomgar told him, leaning forward in the
firelight, was "C"; that was "C"--crying, clawing, clutching, and
croaking for it.

Nod thought in his dream that he loved learning, and loved Battle
teaching him, but that at the word "croaking" he looked up wondering
into the sailor's face, with a kind of waking stir in his mind. What was
this "IT"? What could this "_IT_" be--hidden in the puffed-out, smoking
pie that "B" bit, and "C" cried for, and swollen "D" dashed after? And
... over went another crackling page.... The Oomgar's face seemed
strangely hairy in Nod's dream; no, not hairy--tufty, feathery; and so
loud and shrill he screamed "E," Nod all but woke up.

"'E,'" squeaked Nod timidly after him.

"And what--what--what did 'E' do?" screamed the Oomgar.

But now even in his dream Nod knew it was not the beloved face of his
sailor Zbaffle, but an angry, keen-beaked, clamouring, swooping Eagle
that was asking him the question, "'E,' 'E,' 'E'--what did 'E' do?" And
clipped in the corner of its beak dangled a thread, a shred of his
sheep's-jacket. What ever, ever did "E" do? puzzled in vain poor Nod,
with that dreadful face glinting almost in touch with his.

"Dunce! Dunce!" squalled the bird. "'E' ate it...."

"E ... ate it," seemed to be still faintly echoing on his ear in the
darkness when Nod found himself wide awake and bolt upright, his face
cold and matted with sweat, yet with a heat and eagerness in his heart
he had never known before. He scrambled up and crept along in the rosy
firelight till he came to the five dead eagles. Their carcasses lay
there with frosty feathers and fast-sealed eyes. From one to another he
crept slowly, scarcely able to breathe, and turned the carcasses over.
Over the last he stooped, and--a flock, a thread of sheep's wool dangled
from its clenched black beak. Nod dragged it, stiff and frozen, nearer
the fire, and with his knife slit open the deep-black, shimmering neck,
and there, wrapped damp and dingily in its scrap of Oomgar-paper, his
fingers clutched the Wonderstone. He hastily wrapped it up, just as it
was, in the flock of wool, and thrust it deep into