d break out again. But what its
meaning was, and whether they were merely gossiping together, or
quarrelling, or holding consultation, or whether it was that the loud
voice gave law and justice to the rest, Nod tried in vain to discover.
So at last, though much against his brothers' counsel, very curious to
see what could occasion all this talk, he crept gradually, boulder by
boulder, nearer to their great rocky bivouac. And there, by the silvery
lustre of a dying moon, he peeped and peered. But though he plainly saw
against the whiteness the pacing sentinels, and others of the
Babbab[=o][=o]mas, huddling by families close for warmth in sleep
beneath the rocks, he could not discover where their parliament or
talkers were assembled. But still he heard them gabbling, and still,
ever and anon, the great harsh voice sounding above all until at last
this, too, ceased, and save for the befrosted watchmen, the whole
innumerable horde of them lay--with the peaks of Arakkaboa to north of
them, and Sulemn[=a]gar to south--in that still dying moonlight fast
asleep. Then he, too, scuffled softly back by the way he had come.

By morning (for the Babbab[=o][=o]mas are on the march before daybreak),
when the brothers awoke, cold and cramped, in their rocky cavern, the
whole concourse was gone, and not a sign left of them except their
scattered shells and husks, their innumerable footprints, and the stones
they had rooted up in search of whatever small creeping food might lurk
beneath. Else they seemed a dream--Meermuts of the moonlight!

By noon of next day the travellers approached the mountain-slopes. They
crossed down into a valley, and now the farther they went the steeper
rose the bare, snow-flecked mountain-side, and beyond and around them
loftier heights yet, while in the midst spired into the midday Kush, the
first of the seven of the sacred peaks of Tishnar. Ever and again they
were startled by the sudden crash of the snow sweeping in long-drawn
avalanches from the steeps of the hills. And though it was desolate to
see those towering and unfriendly mountains, their snowy precipices and
dazzling peaks, yet their hearts came back to them, for a warm wind was
blowing through the valley, and they knew the white and cold of the snow
would soon be over, and the forest be green again, and once more would
come the flowering of the fruit-trees, and the ripening of the nuts.

But here it was that a bitter quarrel began between the bro