id Thumb. "Tell me, is there anything I see?"
They hobbled a little nearer, and stood stooping together with eyes
fixed.

[Illustration: "WHAT IS IT, BROTHER? WHY DO YOU CROUCH AND STARE?"]

These thorn-trees, as dense as holly, but twisted and huddled, grew not
close together, but some few paces apart, as if they feared each other's
company. Between them only purest snow lay, on which evening shed its
light. And now that the sun was setting, leaning his beams on them from
behind M[=o][=o]t, their gnarled and spiny branches were all aflame with
scarlet. It was utterly still. Nod stood with wide-open eyes. And softly
and suddenly, he hardly knew how or when, he found himself gazing into a
face, quiet and lovely, and as it were of the beauty of the air. He
could not stir. He had no time to be afraid. They stood there, these
clumsy Mulgars, so still that they might have been carved out of wood.
Yet, thought Nod afterwards, he was not afraid. He was only startled at
seeing eyes so beautiful beneath hair faint as moonlight, between the
thorn-trees, smiling out at him from the coloured light of sunset. Then,
just as suddenly and as softly, the face was gone, vanished.

"Thumb, Thumb!" he whispered, "surely I have seen the eyes of a
wandering Midden of Tishnar?"

"Hst!" said Thumb harshly; "there, there!" He pointed towards one of the
thorn-trees. Every branch was quivering, every curved, speared leaf
trembling, as if a flock of silvery Parrakeetoes perched in the upper
branches, where there are no thorns, or as if scores of the tiny
Spider-mulgars swung from twig to twig. The next moment it was
still--still as all the others that stood around, afire with the last
sunbeams. Yet nothing had come, nothing gone.

"Acch magloona nani, Nod," called Thumb, afraid, "lagoosla sul majeela!"

They scuttled back, without once turning their heads, to the fire, where
all the Hill-mulgars were sitting. Whispering together they were, too,
as they nibbled their cheese and sipped slowly from their gurgling,
narrow-mouthed bags or bottles. They had carried Thimble close to the
fire, and Ghibba was roasting nuts for him. Thumb and Nod came down and
seated themselves beside Ghibba, but they had agreed together to say
nothing of what they had seen, for fear of affrighting Thimble, who was
still weak in head and body, and continually shivering. And Nod told his
brothers all that Ghibba had told him concerning the solitary traveller.
And T