nshine Mulgars, and for craft and greed the
dwarf Oomgar-nuggas, that long ago had trooped away beyond Arakkaboa.
Nod heard presently many faint voices, and then thick guttural cries of
pain and anger. And by turning a little his head he could see a host of
these mouse-faced mannikins tugging at a rope. At the end of this rope,
all bound up with Cullum, with sticky leaves plastered over their eyes,
and hung with dangling festoons of greenery and flowers, like
jacks-in-the-green, Thumb and Thimble hobbled slowly in from under an
earthen arch. Nod was weak with pain. He cried out hollowly to see his
brothers blind and helpless.

Thumb heard the sound, and answered him boldly in Mulgar-royal. "Is
that the voice of my brother, the Mulla-mulgar, Nizza-neela Ummanodda?"

"O Thumb!" Nod groaned, "why am I here in comfort, while you and Thimble
are dragged in, bound with Cullum, and hung all over with dreadful
leaves and flowers?"

"Have no fear, Prince of Bonfires," said Thumb with a laugh. "The
Minimuls caught us smelling at their Gelica-nuts, and sleeping in the
warmth of their earth-mounds. We were too frozen and hungry to carry you
any farther. They are fattening us for their Moon-feast. But it will be
little more than a picking of bones, Ummanodda. And even if they do spit
up over their fire, we will taste as sweet as Mulla-mulgars can." And he
burst out into such a squeal of angry laughter the Minimuls began
chattering again and waving their hands.

"Talk not of meat and bones to me, Thumb. If you die, I die too. Tell
me, only so that they do not understand, what is Nod to do."

Then Thimble, who was standing in the shadow, hobbled a little nearer
into the light of the fire, and lifting up his leaf-smeared face as if
to see, said: "Have no fear for yourself, Nod. They have caught us, but
not for long. But you they dare not frizzle a hair of, little brother,
because of Tishnar's Wonderstone sewn up in your sheep's-coat. They have
smelt out its magic. Keep the stone safe, then, Ummanodda, and, when you
are alone, rub it S[=a]maweeza as Mutta told you before she died.
Tishnar, perhaps, will answer. See only that none of these miching
mouse-faces are near. Had we but been awake when they found us!..."

But the Minimuls began to grow restless at all this palaver, for, though
the Munza-mulgar tongue is known to them, they cannot understand, except
a word here and there, the secret language of Mulgar-royal. So they laid
h