he old witch-hare. But very slowly and cautiously
she came, pretending that she was searching out what poor fare she could
find in the dismal snow.

When she was come close, she whispered: "Move not; stir not a finger,
Mulla-mulgar; speak to me as I am. I have a secret thing to say to you.
These seven long frozen evenings have I come fretting abroad in my
forest and watched and watched, and chikka'd and chikka'd, but you have
not come. Why, O Prince of Tishnar, do you linger here with this
flesh-eating Oomgar, whose gun barks N[=o][=o]manossi all day long? Why
do you think no more of your brothers and of the distant valleys?"

Nod crouched in silence a little while, twitching his small brows. "But
this Oomgar took me in a snare," he said at last. "And he has fed me,
and been like my own father Seelem come again to me, and we are
friends--'messimuts,' old hare. Besides, I wait only until I am healed
of my blains and thorns, and my shoulder is quite whole again. Then I
go. But even then, why has the old Queen duatta come louping through
Munza all these seven evenings past, only to tell me that?"

Mishcha eyed him silently with her whitening eyes. "Not so blind am I
yet, little Mulgar, as not to creep and creep a league for the sake of a
friend. Be off to-morrow, Nizza-neela! What knows an Oomgar of
friendship? _That_ brings only the last sleep."

"I mind not the last sleep, old hare," said Nod in his vanity. "Did I
fear it when half-frozen in the snow? Besides, my friend, the Oomgar,
whose name is Battle, he will guard me."

Mishcha crept nearer. "Has not the little Mulla-mulgar, then, heard
Immanala's hunting-cry?"

Now, Immanala in Munza means, as it were, unstoried, nameless, unknown,
darkness, secrecy. All these the word means. Night is Immanala to
Munza-mulgar. So is sorcery. So, too, is the dark journey to death or
the Third Sleep. And this _Beast_ they name Immanala because it comes of
no other beast that is known, has no likeness to any. Child of nothing,
wits of all things, ravenous yet hungerless, she lures, lures, and if
she die at all, dies alone. By some it is said that this Immanala is the
servant of N[=o][=o]manossi, and has as many lives as his white
resting-tree has branches. And so she is born again to haunt and raven
and poison Munza with cruelty and strife. All this Nod had heard from
his father Seelem, and his skin crept at sound of the name. But he
pretended he felt no fear.

"Who is this Imm