humb sat listening, heavy and still, with his great face towards
the huddling thorns that wooded the height.

So they talked and talked, sitting together, round about their fire. The
twigs of these thorns burn marvellous clear with colours, and at each
thorn-tip, as the flame licks near, wells out and gathers a milk-pale
globe of poison that, drying, bursts in the heat. So all the fire is
continually a-crackle, amidst a thin smoke of a smell like nard. Never
before had so bright a bonfire blazed upon these hills. For the Men of
the Mountains never camp beyond the pass, and the Long-noses have not
even the wits to keep a fire fed with fuel. But as the day wore on, and
when all the feather-smoke had dispersed, they assembled in hundreds
upon hundreds, sitting a long distance off, all their noses stuck out
towards the blaze, snuffing the cloudy fragrance of the nard. But they
were too much afraid of the travellers to venture near now that they
were free men and out of the pass.

The sun had set, but the moon was at full, and the travellers determined
to go forward at once. It was agreed that every one should carry a
bundle of sticks on his shoulders, also a stout cudgel or staff; that
they should march close in rows of four, with Thimble's litter in their
midst; and that the Mulgar at each corner should carry a burning torch.
They made what haste they could to tie up their bundles, bottles, and
faggots, so as to lose nothing of the moon's brilliance during the long
night. She rode unclouded above the snow-fields when the little band of
Mulgar-travellers set out. As soon as they were gone, down trooped the
long-nosed Obobbomans to the fire, sniffing and scuffling, to fall
asleep at last, higgledy-piggledy, in a great squirrel-coloured ring
around the glowing embers, their noses towards the fire.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIX

The travellers marched slowly, keeping sharp watch, their cudgels ready
in their hands. Behind them, paled by the moonlight, shook the fiery
silver of the Salemn[=a]gar. With this at their backs and that North
Pole, M[=o][=o]t, in huge congealment, a little to their left, they made
their way at an angle across the open snow, and approached the tangled
thickets. Here they walked more closely together, with heads aslant and
tails in air, like little old men, like pedlars, blinking and spying,
wishing beyond measure they were sitting in comfort around their
watch-fire. The fa