mantled lagoon amid the moving
light-wisps. He called with swollen tongue: "O ubjar moose soofree!
ubjar, ubjar, moose soofree!" But there came no answer, not the least
stir in the creatures; only the owl-eyes stared steadily on. He lifted
himself on trembling legs, and called: "Walla, walla!"

These Arakkaboans only gloated on him, and slowly turned their round
heads, still twitching their ears at one another, as if in some strange
talk.

And Nod fell into a Munza rage at sight of them. He danced and gibbered,
and at last caught up his long water-pole, as if to strike at them; but
it was too heavy for him after his long thirst; he over-balanced, threw
out the pole, and fell headlong on to the raft. Thumb muttered in his
sleep, wagging his head. And with parched lips, so close to that
faint-smelling water, Nod could bear his thirst no longer. He leaned
over, cupped his hands, and sucked in one, two, three delicious
mouthfuls. Water, cavern, staring Arakkaboans, seemed to float away into
the distance, as in a dream. And in a little while, with head lolling at
Thumb's feet, he lay faintly snoring beside his brother.

* * * * *

Out of the heaviness of that long sleep Nod opened his eyes, to find
Thumb's great body stooping over him with anxious face, shaking and
pommelling him, and muttering harshly: "Wake, wake, Nugget of clay!
Wake, Mulla-slugga! The Valleys! The Valleys, little Ummanodda! Taste,
taste! Ummuz, ummuz, UMMUZ!"

Something sweeter than honey, something that at one taste wakened in
memory Mutta, and Seelem, and the little Portingal's hut, and Glint's
towering Ukka-tree, and all his childhood, was pushed between his teeth.
Nod sneezed three times, struggled, and sat up.

For a moment the light blinded him. Then at last he saw all among a long
low stretch of rushes, in still, green water, between the rafts, a
picture of the sky. A crescent moon hung like a shell in the pale green
quiet of daybreak. He scrambled to his feet, still gnawing his
Ummuz-cane. He saw Thimble mumbling like a hungry dog over his food, and
the lean shapes of the Moona-mulgars shuffling to and fro. On one side
rose the forests of the northern slopes of Arakkaboa. A warm, sweet wind
was moving with daybreak, and only on the heights next the green of the
sky shone Tishnar's unchanging snows. Flowers bloomed everywhere around
him, not vanishing flowers of magic now. And as far as his round eyes
could se