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  THE THREE MULLA-MULGARS

  "OH, BUT IF I MIGHT BUT HOLD IT IN MY HAND ONE MOMENT, ITHINK THAT I SHOULD NEVER EVEN SIGH AGAIN!"]

  THE THREE MULLA-MULGARS

  BY WALTER DE LA MARE

  ILLUSTRATED BY DOROTHY P LATHROP

 

  _New York_ ALFRED.A.KNOPF _Mcmxxv_

  COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.

  _Published, December, 1919 Second Printing, February, 1925_

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  TO F. AND D. AND L. AND C.

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  "Oh, but if I might but hold it in my hand one moment, I think I should never even sigh again!" _Frontispiece_

  "The Queen of the Mountains is in the Forest--with fingers of frost" 42

  The Wonderstone 75

  Nod was never left alone 80

  He jumped, he reared, he kicked, he plunged, he wriggled, he whinnied 90

  Nod danced the Jaqquas' war-dance, ... stooping and crooked, "wriggle and stamp" 129

  He felt a sudden darkness above his head, and a cold terror crept over his skin 132

  With sticks and staves and flaring torches they turned on the fierce birds that came sweeping and swirling out of the dark 189

  "What is it, brother? Why do you crouch and stare?" 218

  "For there stood as if frozen in the moonlight the monstrous silver-haired Meermuts of Mulgarmeerez, guarding the enchanted orchards of Tishnar" 224

  They feasted on fruits they never before had tasted nor knew to grow on earth 232

  A Mulgar of a presence and a strangeness, who was without doubt of the Kingdom of Assasimmon 274

  THE THREE MULLA-MULGARS

  CHAPTER I

  On the borders of the Forest of Munza-mulgar lived once an old greyfruit-monkey of the name of Mutt-matutta. She had three sons, the eldestThumma, the next Thimbulla, and the youngest, who was a Nizza-neela,Ummanodda. And they called each other for short, Thumb, Thimble, andNod. The rickety, tumble-down old wooden hut in which they lived hadbeen built 319 Munza years before by a traveller, a Portugall orPortingal, lost in the forest 22,997 leagues from home. After he wasdead, there came scrambling along on his fours one peaceful evening aMulgar (or, as we say in English, a monkey) named Zebbah. At first sightof the hut he held his head on one side awhile, and stood quite still,listening, his broad-nosed face lit up in the blaze of the setting sun.He then hobbled a little nearer, and peeped into the hut. Whereupon hehobbled away a little, but soon came back and peeped again. At last heventured near, and, pushing back the tangle of creepers and mattedgrasses, groped through the door and went in. And there, in a darkcorner, lay the Portingal's little heap of bones.

  The hut was dry as tinder. It had in it a broken fire-stone, a kind ofchest or cupboard, a table, and a stool, both rough and insect-bitten,but still strong. Zebbah sniffed and grunted, and pushed and peeredabout. And he found all manner of strange and precious stuff half buriedin the hut--pots for Subbub; pestles and basins for Manaka-cake, etc.;three bags of great beads, clear, blue, and emerald; an old rustymusket; nine ephelantoes' tusks; a bag of Margarita stones; and manyother things, besides cloth and spider-silk and dried-up fruits andfishes. He made his dwelling there, and died there. This Mulgar, Zebbah,was Mutta-matutta's great-great-great-grandfather. Dead and gone wereall.

  Now, one day when Mutta-matutta was young, and her father had gone intothe forest for Sudd-fruit, there came limping along a most singularMulgar towards the house. He was bent and shrunken, shivering andcoughing, but he walked as men walk, his nut-shaped head bending up outof a big red jacket. His shoulder and the top of his head were worn bareby the rubbing of the bundle he carried. And behind him came stumblingalong another Mulgar, his servant, with a few rags tied round his body,who could not at first speak, his tongue was so much swollen from hishaving bitten in the dark a poison-spider in his nuts. The name of hismaster was Seelem; his own name was Glint. This Seelem fell very sick.Mutta-matutta nursed him night and day, with the sourest monkey-physic.He was pulled crooked with pain and the shivers, or rain-fever. The tipsof the hairs on his head had in his wanderings turned snow-white. But hebore his pain and his sickness (and his physic) without one groan ofcomplaint.

  And Glint, who fetched water and gathered sticks and nuts, andhelped Mutta-matutta, told her that his master, Seelem, was aMulla-mulgar--that is, a Mulgar of the Blood Royal--and own brotherto Assasimmon, Prince of the Valleys of Tishnar.

  He told her, also, that his master had wearied of Assasimmon'svalley-palace, his fine food and dishes, his music of shells andstrings, his countless Mulgar-slaves, beasts, and groves and gardens;and that, having chosen three servants, Jacca, Glutt, and himself, hehad left his brother's valleys, to discover what lay beyond theArakkaboa Mountains. But Jacca had perished of frost-bite on thesouthern slopes of the Peak of Tishnar, and Glutt had been eaten by theMinimuls.

  He was very silent and gloomy, this Mulla-mulgar, Seelem, but glad torest his bruised and weary bones in the hut. And when Mutta-matutta'sfather died from sleeping in the moon-mist at Sudd-ripening, Seelemuntied his travelling bundle and made his home in the hut. Mutta-matuttawas a lonely and rather sad Mulgar, so at this she rejoiced, for she hadgrown from fearing to love the royal old wanderer. And she helped him toput away all that was in his bundles into the Portingal's chest--threeshirts of cotton; two red jackets, like his own, with metal hooks; asheep's-coat, with ivory buttons and pocket-flaps; three skin shoes (forone had been lost out of his bundle in the forest); a cap of Mamasulskin (very precious); besides knives, fire-strikers, a hollow cup ofivory, magic physic-powder, two combs of Impaleena-horn, a greenserpent-skin for sweetening water, etc., and, beyond and above all, themilk-white Wonderstone of Tishnar.

  Here they lived, Seelem and Mutta (as he called her), in the Portingal'sold hut, for thirteen years. And Mutta was happy with Seelem and herthree sons, Thumb, Thimble, and Nod. They had a water-spring,honey-boxes or baskets for the bees in the Ollaconda-trees, a shed orhuddle of green branches, for Glint, and a big patch of Ummuz-cane. Nodslept in a kind of hole or burrow in the roof, with a tiny peeping-hole,from which he used to scare the birds from his father's Ummuz.

  Mutta wished only that Seelem was not quite so grim and broody; that theMunza-mulgars (forest-monkeys) would not come stealing her Subbub andhoney; and that the Portingal's hut stood quite out of the silverymoon-mist that rose from the swamp; for she suffered (as do mostfruit-monkeys) from the bones-ache. Seelem was gentle and easy in hisown moody way with Mutta and his three sons, but, most of all, hecheered his heart with tiny Nod, the Nizza-neela. Sometimes all day longthis old travel-worn Mulla-mulgar never uttered a sound, save ate
vening, when he sang or droned his evening hymn to Tishnar.[1] He kepta thick stick, which he called his Guzza, to punish his three sons whenthey were idle and sullen, or gluttonous, or with Munza tricks pesteredtheir mother. And he never favoured Nod beyond the others more than allgood fathers favour the youngest, the littlest, and the gaysomest oftheir children.

  [1] Tishnar is a very ancient word in Munza, and means that which cannot be thought about in words, or told, or expressed. So all the wonderful, secret, and quiet world beyond the Mulgars' lives is Tishnar--wind and stars, too, the sea and the endless unknown. But here it is only the Beautiful One of the Mountains that is meant. So beautiful is she that a Mulgar who dreams even of one of her Maidens, and wakes still in the presence of his dream, can no longer be happy in the company of his kind. He hides himself away in some old hole or rocky fastness, lightless, matted, and uncombed, and so thins and pines, or becomes a Wanderer or Moh-mulgar. But it is rare for this to be, for very few Mulgars dream beyond the mere forest, as it were; and fewer still keep the memories of their dreams when the livelong vision of Munza returns to their waking eyes. The Valleys of Tishnar lie on either flank of the Mountains of Arakkaboa, though she herself wanders only in the stillness of the mountain snows. She is shown veiled on the rude pots of Assasimmon and in Mulgar scratch-work, with one slim-fingered hand clasping her robe of palest purple, her head bent a little, as if hearkening to her thoughts; and she is shod with sandals of silver. Of these things the wandering Oomgar-nuggas, or black men, tell. From Tishnar, too, comes the Last Sleep--the sleep of all the World. The last sleep just of their own life only is N[=o][=o]manossi--darkness, change, and the unreturning. And Immanala is she who preys across these shadows, in this valley. So, too, the Mulgars say, "N[=o][=o]ma, N[=o][=o]ma," when they mean shadow, as "In the sun paces a leopard's N[=o][=o]ma at her side." Meermut, which means in part also shadow, is the shadow, as it were, of lesser light lost in Tishnar's radiance, just as moonlight may cast a shadow of a pine-tree across a smouldering fire. There is, too, a faint wind that breathes in the first twilight and starshine of Munza called the Wind of Tishnar. It was, I think, the faint murmur of this wind that echoed in the ear of Mutta-matutta as she lay dying, for in dying one hears, it is said, what in life would carry no more tidings to the mind than light brings to the hand. Nod's bells that he heard, and thought were his father's, must have been the Zevveras' bells of Tishnar's Water-middens, all wandering Meermuts. These Water-middens, or Water-maidens, are like the beauty of the moonlight. The countless voices of fountain, torrent, and cataract are theirs. They, with other of Tishnar's Maidens, come riding on their belled Zevveras, and a strange silence falls where their little invisible horses are tethered; while, perhaps, the Maidens sit feasting in a dell, grey with moonbeams and ghostly flowers. Even the sullen Mullabruk learns somehow of their presence, and turns aside on his fours from the silvery mist of their glades and green alleys, just as in the same wise a cold air seems to curdle his skin when some haunting N[=o][=o]ma passes by. All the inward shadows of the creatures of Munza-mulgar are N[=o][=o]manossi's; all their phantoms, spirits, or Meermuts are Tishnar's. And so there is a never-ending changeableness and strife in their short lives. The leopard (or Roses, as they call her, for the beauty of her clear black spots) is Meermut to her cubs, N[=o][=o]ma to the dodging Skeetoes she lies in wait for, stretched along a bough. Her beauty is Tishnar's; the savagery of her claws is N[=o][=o]manossi's. So Munza's children are dark or bright, lovely or estranging, according as Meermut or N[=o][=o]ma prevails in their natures. And thus, too, they choose the habitation of their bodies. Yet because dark is but day gone, and cruelty unkindness, therefore even the heart-shattering N[=o][=o]manossi, even Immanala herself, is only absent Tishnar. But there, as everyone can see, I am only chattering about what I cannot understand.

  One of the first things that Nod remembered was Glint's tumbling fromthe great Ukka-tree, which he had climbed at ripening-time, bough up tobough from the bottom, cracking shells and eating all the way, until,forgetting how heavy he had become, he swung his fat body on to aslender and withered branch, and fell all a-topple from top to bottom onto the back of his thick skull. Beneath this same dark-leaved treeSeelem buried his servant, together with a pot of subbub, seven loavesor cakes, and a long stick of Ummuz-cane. But Mutta-matutta after hisdeath would never touch an Ukka-nut again.

  Seelem taught his sons how to make fire, what nuts and roots and fruitsand grasses were wholesome for eating; what herbs and bark and pith forphysic; what reeds and barks for cloth. He taught them how to take honeywithout being stung; how to count; how to find their way by the chiefand brightest among the stars; to cut cudgels, to build leaf-huts andhuddles against heat or rain. He taught them, too, the common tongue ofthe Forest-monkeys--that is the language of nearly all the Mulgars thatlive in the forests of Munza--Jacquet-mulgars, Mullabruks, purple-facedand saffron-headed Mulgars, Skeetoes, tuft-waving Manquabees,Fly-catchers and Squirrel-tails, and many more than I can mention.Seelem taught them also a little of the languages of the dreadedGunga-mulgars, of the Collobs, and the Babbab[=o][=o]mas. But theMinimul-mulgars' and the Oomgars' or man-monkeys' languages (white,black, or yellow) he could not teach, because he did not know them.When, however, they were alone together they spoke the secret languageof the Mulla-mulgars dwelling north of the Arakkaboas--that is,Mulgar-royal. This language in some ways resembles that of thePortugalls, in some that of the Oggewibbies, and, here and there--but invery little--Garniereze. Seelem, of course, taught his sons, andespecially Thumb, many other things besides--more, certainly, than wouldcontain itself in a little book like this. But, above all, he taughtthem to walk upright, never to taste blood, and never, unless in dangeror despair, to climb trees or to grow a tail.

  But now, after all these thirteen years of absence from Assasimmon'spalace in the beautiful Valleys of Tishnar, Seelem began to desire moreand more to see again his home and his brother, with whom as a child hehad walked in scarlet and Mamasul, and drunk his syrup from an ivorycup. He grew more gloomy and morose than ever, squatted alone, his eyesfixed mournfully in the air. And Mutta would whisper to Nod: "Sst, zunnizza-neela, tus-weeta zan nuome."

  The more cunning of the Forest-mulgars at first had come in troops toSeelem, laden with gifts of nuts and fruits, because they were afraid ofhim. But he would sit in his red jacket and merely stare at them as ifthey were no better than flies. And at last they began in revenge to dohim as much mischief as their wits could contrive, until he grewutterly weary of their scuffling and quarrelling, their thumbs andcolours, fleas and tails. At last he could hear himself no longer, andone morning, in the first haze of sunrise over the sleeping forest, hecalled Mutta and his three sons to where he sat in the shadow of Glint'sgreat budding Ukka-tree. And he told them he was going on a longjourney--"beyond and beyond, forest and river, forest swamp and river,the mountains of Arakkaboa, leagues, leagues away"--to seek again theValleys of Tishnar. "And I will come back," he said, leaning his handupon the ground and blinking at Nod, "with slaves and scarlet andfood-baskets and Zevveras, and bring you all there with me. But first Imust go alone and find the way through dangers thick as flies, OMulla-mulgars. Wait here and guard your old mother, Mutta-matutta, mysons, her Ummuz and ukkas. And grow strong, O tailless ones, till Ireturn. Zu zoube seese muglareen, een suang no nouano zupbf!" And thatwas all he said.

  But Mutta-matutta, though she could not hide her grief at his going,helped him in every way she could to be quickly gone. He seemed besidehimself, this white, old, crooked Mulla-mulgar. His eyes blazed; he wentmutteri
ng; he'd throw up his hands and snuff and snuff, as if the verywind bore Tishnar on its wings. And even at night he'd rise up in thedarkness and open the door and listen as if out of the immeasurable andsolitudinous forests he heard voices calling him from far away. Atlength, in his last shirt (which had been carefully kept these thirteenyears, with a dead kingfisher and a bag of civet, to keep off thecockroaches); in his finest red jacket and his cap of Mamasul-skin;with a great bundle of Manaka-cake and Ummuz-cane, knife andfire-striker and physic, and the old Portingal's rusty musket on hisshoulder, he was ready to be off. In the early morning he came stoopingunder the little hut-door. He looked at his hut and his water-spring, athis bees and canes; he looked at his three sons, and at oldMutta-matutta, with a great frown, and trembled. And Mutta could notbear to say good-bye; she lifted her crooked hands above her old head,the tears running down her cheeks, and she went and hid herself in thehut till he was gone. But his three sons went a little way with him.

  Thumb and Thimble hopped along with his heavy bundle on a stick betweenthem to the branching of the Mulgar-track, which here runs nearly twopaces wide into the gloom of Munza-mulgar; while Nod sat on Seelem'sshoulder, sucking a stick of Ummuz-cane, and clutching the long, cold,rusty barrel of his musket. The trees of the forest lifted theirbranches in a trembling haze of heat, hung with grey thorny ropes, andvines and trailing creepers of Cullum and Samarak, vivid with leaves,and with large cuplike waxen flowers, moon-white, amber, mauve, andscarlet. Butterflies like blots and splashes of flame, wee Tominiscoes,ruby and emerald and amethyst, shimmered and spangled and sipped andhovered. And a thin, twangling, immeasurable murmur like the strings ofN[=o][=o]manossi's harp rose from the tiny millions that made theirnests and mounds and burrows in the forest.

  Seelem took his sons one by one by the shoulders, and looked into theireyes, and touched noses. And they lifted their hands in salutation, andwatched him till he was gone from sight. But though his grey face wasall wizened up with trouble and wet with tears, he never so much as oncelooked behind him, lest his sons should cry after him, or he turn back.So, presently, after they all three lifted their hands once more, as ifhis Meermut[2] might still haunt near; and then they went home to theirmother.

  [2] "Meermut" is shadow, phantom, spectre, or even the pictured remembrance of anything in the mind.

  But the rains came; he did not return. The long days strode softly by,the chatter and screams of Munza at dawn, the long-drawn, moaning shoutof Mullabruk to Mullabruk as darkness deepened. Nod would sometimesventure a little way into the forest, hoping to hear the gongs that hisfather had told him the close-shorn slaves of Assasimmon tie withleopard-thongs about their Zevveras' necks. He would sit in the giganticshadows of evening, watching the fireflies, and saying to himself: "Sst,Nod, see what they say--to-morrow!" But the morrow never came thatbrought him back his father.

  Mutta-matutta cared and cooked for them. She made a great store ofManaka-cake, packed for coolness all neatly in plantain-leaves;Nano-cheese, and two or three big pots of Subbub. She kept them cleanand combed; plastered and physicked them; taught them to cook, and manythings else, until, as one by one they grew up, they knew all that she_could_ teach them, except the wisdom to use what they had learnt. Shewould often, too, in the first hush of night, tell them stories of theirfather, and of her own father, back even to Zebbah, and the Portingaldangling with his bunch of wild-cats' tails in the corner.

  But as the years wasted away, she grew thin and mournful, and fell illof pining and grief and age, and even had at last to keep to her bed ofmoss and cotton in the hut.

  Her sons worked hard for her, pushing into the forest and across thenarrow swamp in search of fruits to tempt her appetite. Nod heaped upfresh leaves for her bed, and sang in his shrill, quavering voice everyevening Tishnar's hymn to his poor old mother. He baked her sweetpotatoes and Nanoes wrapped in leaves, and would dance round, "wriggleand stamp--wriggle and stamp," as Seelem had told him dance theOomgar-nuggas, to try to make her cheerful. But by-and-by she began tolanguish, her teeth chattering, her eyes burning, unable to eat.... Andone still afternoon, when only Nod was near (his brothers, tired of theheat and buzzing in the green hut, having gone to gather nuts and sticksin the forest), as Mutta-matutta sat dozing and muttering in her corner,came the voice of Tishnar, calling in the hush of evening: and she knewshe must die.

  Nod crept close to her, thinking at first the strange voice singingwas the sound of Seelem's Zevveras' distant gongs, and he held thehard thin hand between his. When Thumb and Thimble returned with theirbags and faggots of smoulder-wood, she called them all three, and toldthem she too must go away now, perhaps even, if only in Meermut, tofind their father. And she besought them to be always true and faithfulone to another, and to be brave. "Five fingers serve one hand, my goodmen," she said. "And oh, remember this always: that you are all threeMulla-mulgars, sons of Seelem, whose home is far from here--Mulla-mulgarswho never do walk flambo--that is, on all fours--never taste blood, andnever, unless in danger and despair, climb trees or grow a tail."

  It was hot and gloomy in the tangled little hut, lit only by the violetof the dying afterglow. And when she had rested a little while torecover her breath, she told them that Seelem, the night before he leftthem, had said that, should he perish on his journey and not return, inseven Munza years they were, as best they could, bravely to follow afterhim. In time they would perhaps reach the Valleys of Tishnar, and theiruncle, Prince Assasimmon, would welcome them.

  "His country lies beyond and beyond," she said, "forest and river,forest, swamp and river, the Mountains of Arakkaboa--leagues, leaguesaway."

  And, as she paused, a feeble wind sighed through the open window,stirring the dangling bones of the Portingal, so that, with their faintclicking, they too, seemed to echo, "leagues, leagues away."

  "It will be a long and dreary journey, my sons. But the PrinceAssasimmon, Mulla-mulla of the Mulgars, is great and powerful, and hasfor hut a palace of ivory and Azmamogreel, with scarlet and Mamasul,slaves and peacocks, and beasts uncountable; and leagues of Ukka andBarbary-nuts; and boundless fields of Ummuz, and orchards of fruit, andbowers of flowers and pleasure. And his, too, is the Rose of all theMulgars." And as he listened Thimble shuffled from foot to foot, hisheart uneasy, to hear her cry so hollowly the beauty of that Rose. Andat her bidding, out of the cupboard they took the civeted bundles of allthe stuff and little Mulgar treasures she had been hoarding up allthese years for them against this last day.

  She gave Thumb and Thimble each a red Oomgar's jacket with curved metalhooks, and to Nod the little coat of mountain-sheep's wool, with itsnine ivory buttons. She divided and shared everything betweenthem--their father's knives and cudgels, the beads blue and emerald, theMargarita stones. The Portingal's rusty hatchet, burned with a cross onits stock, she gave to Thumb; a little fat black greasy book of sorcery,made of Exxswixxia leaves, to Thimble; and to Nod, last of all, pickingit out of the stitched serpent-skin lining of her great wool cap, shegave the Wonderstone.

  "I give this to Nod," she said to his brothers, "because he is aNizza-neela, and has magic in him. Come close, my sons, Thumb andThimble, and see. His winking [or left][3] eye has green within thehazel; his thumbs grow lean and long; he still keeps two milk-teeth; andbears the Nizza-neela tuft betwixt his ears." With her hot skinnyfingers she stroked softly back his hair, and showed his brothers thelittle velvety patch, or tuft, or badge, or crest, on the top of hishead, above the parting. "O Mulla-mulgars, how I begged your father totake this Wonderstone with him on his journey! but he would not. Hesaid, 'Keep it, and let my sons, if need be, carry it after me to thekingdom of my brother. He will know by this one thing that they areindeed my sons, Mulla-mulgars, Princes of Tishnar, sibbetha eena mangaMoh!'"

  [3] On the right or cudgel side, the Mulgars say, sits Bravery; on the winking, woman, or left side, Craft.

  "Never, little Nod," said his old dying mother--"never lose, nor giveaway, nor sport with, nor even lend this Wonde
rstone; and if in yourlong journey you are in danger of the Third Sleep,[4] or lost, or ingreat fear, spit with your spittle on the stone, and rub softly threetimes with your left thumb, Samaweeza: Tishnar will hear you; help willcome."

  [4] First Sleep is night-sleep; Second Sleep is swoon-sleep; Third Sleep is death, or N[=o][=o]manossi. So, too, the Mulgars say, the first is "Little-go," the second is "Great-go," and the third is "Come-no-more"; as if their bodies were a lodging, and sleep a kind of out-of-doors.

  Then, with her small, clumsy fingers, she tied up the sleepingmilk-white Wonderstone in the hem of his woolly sheep's coat, and layback in her bed, too feeble to speak again. Thumb, Thimble, and Nod satall three, each with his little heap of house-stuff before him, which itseemed hateful now to have, staring through the doorway. In the purplegloom the fireflies were mazily flickering. Night was still, like asimmering pot, with heat. And out of the swamp they heard the Ooboecalling to its mate, singing marvellous sweet and clear in the darknessabove its woven nest; while over their heads the tiny Nikka-nakkas, ormouse-owls, sat purring in the thatch. And Nod said: "Listen, Mutta,listen; how the Ooboe's telling secrets!" And she smiled with tight-shutlids, wagging her wizened head.

  And in the deepest dead of night, when Thimble sat sleeping, his longarms thrown out over the Portingal's rough table, and Thumb crouching atthe door, Nod heard in the silence a very faint sigh. He crept to hismother's bed. She softly raised her hand to him, and her eyes closed.

  So her three sons dug her a deep grave beside Glint's, under theUkka-tree, as she had bidden them. And many of the Forest-mulgars,specially those of her own kind and kindred, came down solemnly out ofthe forest towards evening of that day, and keened or droned forMutta-matutta, squatting together at some little distance from thePortingal's hut. Beyond their counting (though that is not a hardmatter) was the number of the years she and her father and her father'sfather, back even to Zebbah, had lived in the hut. But they did not comenear, because they feared the Portingal's yellow bones hung up in thecorner.