r." At the sound of the name of Tishnar all the
Ephelantoes lifted up their trunks, and with a great blast trumpeted in
unison. Whereupon the bull-Ephelanto that had, half in sport, tossed Nod
up into the air set him gently on the earth again. And the three
brothers, hastening their hobbling pace a little, journeyed on once
more.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV

A little before evening Thumb suddenly stopped, and stood listening.
They went on a little farther, and again he stood still, with lifted
head, snuffing the air. And soon they all heard plainly the sound of a
great river. In the last light of sunset the travellers broke out of the
forest and looked down on the waters of the deep and swollen Obea-munza.
Along its banks grew giant sedge, stiff and grey with frost like meal.
In this sedge little birds were disporting themselves, flitting and
twittering, with long plumes of every colour that changes in the
sunlight, brushing off with their tiny wings the gathered hoarfrost into
the still sunset air. The Mulgars stood like painted wooden images, with
their bundles and cudgels, staring down at the river, wide and
turbulent, its gloomy hummocks of ice and frozen snow nodding down upon
the pale green waters. They glanced at one another as if with the
question on their faces, "How now, O Mulla-mulgars?"

"'His country lies beyond and beyond,'" muttered Thimble. "'Forest and
river, forest, swamp, and river.' Could, then, our father Seelem walk on
water?"

Thumb coughed in his throat. "What matters it? He went: we follow," he
grunted stubbornly. "We must journey on till our wings grow, Mulla
Thimble, or till your long legs can straddle bank to bank." And they all
three stared in silence again at the swirling icy water.

Now, it was just beginning to be twilight, which is many times more
brief than England's in Munza, and the frozen forest was utterly still
in the fading rose and purple, the beasts not yet having come down to
drink. And while the travellers stood listening, there came, as it were
from afar off, the beating of a drum--seven hollow beats, and then
silence.

"What in Munza, Thumb, makes a noise like that?" Nod whispered. "Listen,
listen!"

They all three hearkened again, with heads bent and eyes fixed, and soon
once more they heard the hollow drumming. Thumb shook his head uneasily.

"It is wary walking, my brothers," he said; "maybe there are
Oomgar-nuggas [black men] by the