long, the
frost-parched flakes burned with the rainbow. But if the phantoms of
Mulgarmeerez were not blind, they were surely dumb. They made no sign
that they perceived this blazing pigmy advancing against them. Nod's
light heels fell so fast Thumb could scarcely keep pace with him. He
came on grunting and coughing, plying his thick cudgel, his great dark
eyes fixed stubbornly upon the snow. And lo and behold! when next Nod
lifted his face he saw only moonlight shining upon the smooth trunks of
trees, which in the higher branches were stooping with coloured fruit.
He laughed aloud. "See, Thumb," he said, "my magic burns. M'keeso
chatters. These Tishnar Meermuts are nought but trunks of trees!"

But Thumb stared in more dismal terror still, for he saw plainly now
their huge and shadowy clubs, their necklets of gold and ivory, and the
hideous, purple-capped faces of the ghouls gloating down on him. "Press
on, Ummanodda; your eyes burn magic, and trees to you are sudden death
to me." His hair stood out in a grisly mantle around him, for sheer fear
and horror of these gigantic faces as they passed. But Nod edged lightly
through, like mantling swan or peacock, seeing only Tishnar's lovely
orchards. No snow lay here in these enchanted glades, but the grass was
powdered with pure white flowers that caught the flame of him in their
beauty as he passed. The strange small voices the travellers had heard
on the hillside seemed haunting the laden boughs of the orchard. But to
Thumb all was darkness, and frozen snow, spiked thorn-trees, a-roost
with evil birds, and the horror of the motionless phantoms behind him.
He seemed ever and again to hear their stride between the twigs, and to
feel a terrific thumb and finger closing over his matted scalp.

In a little while the path the two Mulgars thridded led out from under
the boughs, and they found themselves at the foot of the great peak they
had all night been approaching. And Nod saw fountains springing in foam
amid the flowery grasses, and all about them were trees laden with
fruit, and the music of instruments and distant voices. But not on these
near things was his mind set, but on the secret paths of Mulgarmeerez,
winding down from the crested peak above.

"O brother, my brother! Tishnar is walking on the hills," he said. But
Thumb, though he rubbed his eyes, could see nothing but the towering and
desolate scaurs of ice and snow and a kind of snow-choked ridge girdling
the abru