"Imbe Calandola, M'keesso and Quesanga, Dondo and Sharammba, Pongo and Enjekko, Millions of monkeys, Rattlesnake and scorpion, Swamp and death and shadow; Ho, ho, ho! Come on, all of ye, Here's Andy Battle, Waiting and--alone!"
He swept his great scarred thumb over the strings with a resounding flourish, and burst into a laugh. Then he turned his back on the unanswering forest, and sat down by the fire again, wiping the sweat from his face and combing out his tangled beard. Nod drew a little away from the fire, and sat softly watching him. The Oomgar was muttering with wide-open lids. He snatched up a lump of the cold Mulgar-bread that Nod had cooked for his supper, and gnawed it with twitching fingers. He glanced over it with bright blue glittering eyes at his little hunched-up friend.
"Don't you have no shadow of fear, my son. If they come, come they must. Just you skip off into the forest with your courage where your tail ought to be. I care not a pinch of powder for them or'nery beasts. It's that there Shadowlegs that beats me with his mewling. I've heard it down on the coast; I've heard it with the Portingals; I've heard it with the Andalambandoes; I've heard it wake and sleep. But witch-beast or no witch-beast, and every skulk-by-night that creeps on claws, I'll win home yet!" He kicked a few loose smoking logs into the blaze. "More fire, my son! I like a light to fight by when fighting comes."
The darkness was clear as glass. The sky seemed shaken as if with fire-flies. Not a sound stirred now, not even a hovering wing. Nod heaped high the huge fire, and followed the Oomgar into his hut.
But not to sleep. He crouched on his snug dry bed of moss, and waited patiently till Battle's snores rose slow and mournful beneath the snow-piled roof. Then very quickly he put on his sheep's-coat over his Juzanda jacket and breeches. He crawled out, and lifted down with both hands the heavy bar of the door, and stole out into the moonlight again. He thrust his puckered hand under his jacket, and touched his skinny breast-bone, beneath which, ever since the little Horse of Tishnar had toppled him into the snow, he had felt the slumbering Wonderstone strangely burning. And, as if even Oomgar magic, too, might help him, he hobbled back into the hut and put Battle's little dog's-eared book into his pocket. Then, before his heart could fail him, he ran out as fast as his fours could carry him to where he had heard rise up in the night the Hunting-Song of Immanâla.