old of the Cullum-ropes again, and lugged Thumb and Thimble back under
the sandy arch through which they had come. Thumb had only time enough
to cry in a loud voice, "Courage, Nizza-neela," before he was dragged
again out of sight and hearing.

And Nod remembered that when the Gunga-mulgar had led him down out of
his huddle to show him the Bobberie, the moon was shining then at
dwindling halves. So he knew that, unless many days had passed since
then, it would be some while yet before these Minimuls made their
cannibal Moon-feast. He lay still, with eyes half shut, thinking as best
he could, with an aching head and throbbing shoulder.

The firelight glanced on the earthy roof far above him. Here and there
the contorted root of some enormous forest-tree jutted out into the air.
There was a continued faint rustle around him, as of bees in a hive or
ants in a pine-wood. This was the shuffling of the Minimuls' shoes,
which are flat, like sandals, and made of silver grass plaited together,
that rustles on the sandy floor of their chambers and galleries. This
plaited grass they tie, too, round their middles for a belt or pouch,
beneath which, as they walk, their long lean tails descend. Their fur
shines faintly shot in moon or firelight, and is either pebble-grey or
sand-coloured. It never bristles into hair except about their polls and
chops, where it stands in a smooth, even wall, about one and a half to
two inches high, leaving the remnant of their faces light and bare.
They stand for the most part about three spans high in their grass
slippers. Their noses are even flatter than the noses of the Mullabruks.
Their teeth stand out somewhat, giving their small faces a cunning
mouse-look, which never changes. Their eyes are round and thin-lidded,
and almost as colourless as glass. Yet behind their glassiness seems to
be set a gleam, like a far and tiny taper shining, so that they are
perfectly visible in the dark, or even dusk. Thus may they be seen, a
horde of them together in the evening gloom of the forest when they go
Mulgar-hunting. When they are closely looked on, they can, as it were
within their eyes, shut out this gleam--it vanishes; but still they
continue to see, though dimly. By day their eyes are as empty as pure
glass marbles. Their smell is faintly rank, through eating so much
flesh. The she and young Minimuls feed in the deeper chambers of their
mounds, and never venture out.

Nod was falling into a nap from