stening and muttering together, they thought that if they
spent the night down here they would certainly sleep "in danger." So
Thumb clambered into a great Ollaconda-tree, and let down a rope or
twist of the thick creeper called Cullum, and drew up all three bundles.
Then Thimble pushed and Thumb pulled, and up went Nod, too stiff and
cold to climb up by himself, after the bundles, sheep's-jacket and all.
Then Thimble climbed up too. They made their supper of Mulgar-bread and
frost-cockled Mambel-berries, which are sour and quench the thirst, and
drank or sucked splinters of ice, plenty of which hung glassy in the
great, still, winter-troubled tree. And for fear of leopards (or
"Roses," as their Munza name signifies), they agreed to keep watch in
turn, Thumb first, then Thimble, then Nod. They tied their bundles to
the boughs, chose smooth forks to squat in, and soon Thimble was fast
asleep.

But when Nod found himself alone in the midst of the great icy tree in
the black forest, he could not sleep for thinking of it. He stroked his
face with his brown hand over and over to keep his eyes shut. He nuzzled
down into his sheep's-jacket. He counted his fingers again and again. He
repeated the lingo of the Seventy-seven Travellers from beginning to
end. It was in vain. Far and near he heard the cries and wanderings of
the forest beasts; the Ollaconda-tree was full of the nests of the
weaver-birds; and, worse still, soon Thimble began to snore so loud and
so sorrowfully that poor Nod trembled where he sat. He could bear
himself no longer. He stooped forward and called softly: "Thumb, my
brother, are you awake, Thumb?"

"Sleep on, little Ummanodda," said Thumb; "if I watch, I watch."

"But I cannot sleep," said Nod; "these weavers chatter so."

Thumb laughed. "Thimble sings in his dreams," he said. "Why shouldn't
the little tailors sing, too?"

"Do you think any leopards will come?" said Nod.

"Think good things, my brother, not bad," Thumb answered. "But this we
will do--wait a little while awake, and I will sleep, and as soon as
sleep begins to come, call me and wake me; then, little brother, you
shall sleep in peace till morning."

He put his head under his arm without waiting for an answer; and soon,
even louder and more dismal than Thimble's, rose Thumb's snoring into
the Ollaconda-tree.

Nod sat cold and stiff, his eyes stretched open, his ears twitching. And
a thin moonlight began to tremble between the leaves.