e, flashing beneath the
whole arch of the sky, capped and mantled and festooned with snow. Near
by grew only thin grasses and bushes of thorn, except that at the
southern edge of the steep rose up a little company or grove of
Ukka-nuts and Ollacondas. Toward these strode off the Oomgar, with a
thick billet of wood in his hand. When he reached them, he stood
underneath, and flung up his billet into the tree, just as Nod himself
had often done, and soon fetched down two or three fine clusters of
Ukka-nuts. These he brought back with him, and held some out to the
quiet little Mulgar.

"There, my son," he said, "them's for pax, which means peace, you
unnerstand. I'm not afeerd of you, nor you isn't afeerd of me. All's
spliced and shipshape." So there they sat beneath the blazing sun, the
dazzling snow all round them, the Oomgar munching his broiled flesh, and
staring over the distant forest, Nod busily cracking his Ukka-nuts, and
peeling out the soft, milky, quincey kernel. Nod scarcely took his
bewitched eyes from the Oomgar's face, and the longer he looked at him,
the less he feared him. All creatures else he had ever seen seemed dark
and cloudy by comparison. The Oomgar's face was strange and fair, like
the shining of a flame.

"Now, see here, my son," said the Oomgar suddenly, when, after finishing
his breakfast, he had sat brooding for some time: "I go there--_there_,"
he repeated, pointing with his hand across the stream; "and Monkey
Pongo, he stay here--_here_," he repeated, pointing to the hut. "Now,
s'posin' Andy Battle, which is _me_"--he bent himself towards Nod and
grinned--"s'posin' Andy Battle looses off that rope's end a little more,
will Master Pongo keep out of mischief, eh?"

Nod tried hard to understand, and looked as wise as ever he could. "Ulla
Mulgar majubba; zinglee Oomgar," he said.

Battle burst out laughing. "Ugga, nugga, jugga, jingles! That's
it--that's the werry thing," he said.

Nod looked up softly without fear, and grinned.

"He knows, by gum!" said Battle. "There be more wits in that leetle
hairy cranny than in a shipload of commodores." He got up and loosened
the rope round Nod's neck. "It's only just this," he said. "Andy Battle
isn't turned cannibal yet--neither for white, black, nor monkey-meat. I
wouldn't eat you, my son, not if they made me King of England
to-morrow, which isn't likely to be, by the look of the weather, so
_don't ee have no meddlin' with the fire_!"

"Middlino