sleep, his small brown fingers loosened and unclasped
about his Wonderstone; it fell to the bottom of his sheep-skin pocket,
and then, like a dream, vanished, gone, were fountain, feast, and music.
And deep in snow, encircled by poison-thorns, slumbered the nineteen
travellers in their rags and solitude, come out of magic, though they
knew it not.

One by one they awoke, stiff and dazed from so deep a sleep. They made
no stay here, lest Tishnar should be angered with them. And to some the
night seemed a dream; some even whispered, "N[=o][=o]manossi." And all,
turning their faces, with daybreak broadening on their cheeks, hastily
took up their workaday bundles again and hurried off.

But when Nod lifted his eyes to Mulgarmeerez, it seemed as if many
phantom faces were looking down on them as they hastened, like some
small company of hares or coneys, straggling across the whiteness. Being
refreshed with sleep and Tishnar's phantom supper, the Mountain-mulgars
did not stay to take their "glare," but just screened their feeble eyes
against the sunbeams with eagle feathers, and, with Thimble swinging in
his litter, scurried on across these smoother slopes. By night
Mulgarmeerez, last of the seven peaks of Arakkaboa, was left behind
them, and it seemed the wind blew not so sharply out of the haze on this
side of the haunted woods. The travellers towards evening slept in a dry
cavern. But it was a fidgety sleep, for this cave was the haunt of an
odd and wily sand-flea that made the most of a Mulgar-supper, more
toothsome than anything it had feasted on for many a day.

Near about the middle of the next morning the travellers came in their
descent to a stream of water rushing swiftly but smoothly in the channel
it had graven for its waters out of the rock. This torrent was green,
icy, and deep. On its farther side the rock rose steep and smooth. The
travellers kindled themselves a fire and warmed their cold bones. Then,
having emptied their skin-bottles, they set off along the bank, or as
near to it as they could walk at ease. Thimble's shivering was now gone,
and he marched along with his brothers, rather hobbledy, but in very
good spirits. He took good care, however, to keep well in front of the
Mountain-mulgars, for if he so much as faintly sniffed their cheese, he
fell sick. Ever downward now they were marching. A warm wind was blowing
out of the valley, the snows were melting, and rills trickling
everywhere into the gree