n to
seem a strangeness in the air. After the great heat had flown up a
tempest of wind and lightning of such a brightness that Nod, peering out
of his little tangled window-hole, could see beneath the gleaming rods
of rain and the huge, bowed, groaning trees no less than three leopards
crouching for shelter beneath the Portingal's sturdy little hut. He
could hear them, too, in the pauses of the tempest, mewling, spitting,
and swearing, and the lash of their angry tails against the wall of the
hut. After the tempest, it fell cold and very still, with sometimes a
moaning in the air. Strange weather was in the sky at rise and set of
sun. And the three brothers, looking out, and seeing the numberless
flights of birds winging with cries all in one direction, and hearing
this moaning, hardly knew what to be doing. They went out every day to
gather great bundles of wood and as many nuts and fruits and roots as
they could carry. And they found everywhere wise creatures doing the
same--I mean, of course, collecting food--for none beside the Minimuls,
the Gungas, and the Mulla-mulgars have fire-sticks, and most of them
fear even the sight and smell of flames.

And Nod, having his mother's quick hand, made a great store of
Manaka-cake and Sudd-bread. He dried some fruits, pulped others. And
some he poured with honey or Ummuz-juice into the Portingal's little
earthen pots, many of which were still unbroken, while he who had first
used them was but a bony shadow-trap in the corner. And Nod and Thumb
made two great gourds of Subbub, very sweet and potent, so that, because
of the sweet smell of it, the four-clawed Weddervols came barking about
their hut all night. But the Manga-cheese their mother had made melted
in the heat of the great fires they burned, and most of it ran down out
of the cupboard. They filled the wood-hole with firewood, and stacked it
outside, above Nod's shoulder, all against the hut.

And it was about the nineteenth week after Mutta's death that Thumb, as
he came stooping to the door one night, saw fires of Tishnar on the
ground. Over the swamp stood a shaving of moon, clear as a bow of
silver. And all about, on every twig, on every thorn, and leaf, and
pebble; all along the nine-foot grasses, on every cushion and touch of
bark, even on the walls of their hut, lay this spangling fiery meal of
Tishnar--frost. He called his brothers. Their breath stood round them
like smoke. They stared and snuffed, they coughed