









                   The Distressing Tale of
             Thangobrind the Jeweller and of the
                    Doom that Befell Him

                       by Lord Dunsany


When Thangobrind the jeweller heard the ominous cough, he
turned at once upon that narrow way.  A thief was he, of
very high repute, being patronized by the lofty and elect,
for he stole nothing smaller than the Moomoo's egg, and in
all his life stole only four kinds of stone -- the ruby, the
diamond, the emerald, and the sapphire; and, as jewellers
go, his honesty was great.  Now there was a Merchant Prince
who had come to Thangobrind and had offered his daughter's
soul for the diamond that is larger than the human head and
was to be found on the lap of the spider-idol, Hlo-hlo, in
his temple of Moung-ga-ling; for he had heard that
Thangobrind was a thief to be trusted.
   Thangobrind oiled his body and slipped out of his shop,
and went secretly through byways, and got as far as Snarp,
before anyone knew that he was out on business again or
missed his sword from its place under the counter.  Thence
he moved only by night, hiding by day and rubbing the edges
of his sword, which he called Mouse because it was swift and
nimble.  The jeweller had subtle methods of travelling;
nobody saw him cross the plains of Zid; nobody saw him come
to Mursk or Tlun.  O, but he loved shadows!  Once the moon
peeping out unexpectedly from a tempest had betrayed an
ordinary jeweller; not so did it undo Thangobrind: the
watchman only saw a crouching shape that snarled and
laughed: "'Tis but a hyena," they said.  Once in the city of
Ag one of the guardians seized him, but Thangobrind was
oiled and slipped from his hand; you scarcely heard his bare
feet patter away.  He knew that the Merchant Prince awaited
his return, his little eyes open all night and glittering
with greed; he knew how his daughter lay chained up and
screaming night and day.  Ah, Thangobrind knew.  And had he
not been out on business he had almost allowed himself one
or two little laughs.  But business was business, and the
diamond that he sought still lay on the lap of Hlo-hlo,
where it had been for the last two million years since
Hlo-hlo created the world and gave unto it all things except
that precious stone called Dead Man's Diamond.  The jewel
was often stolen, but it had a knack of coming back again to
the lap of Hlo-hlo.  Thangobrind knew this, but he was no
common jeweller and hoped to outwit Hlo-hlo, perceiving not
the trend of ambition and lust and that they are vanity.
   How nimbly he threaded his way through the pits of Snood!
-- now like a botanist, scrutinising the ground; now like a
dancer, leaping from crumbling edges.  It was quite dark
when he went by the towers of Tor, where archers shoot ivory
arrows at strangers lest any foreigner should alter their
laws, which are bad, but not to be altered by mere aliens. 
At night they shoot by the sound of the strangers' feet.  O,
Thangobrind, Thangobrind, was ever a jeweller like you!  He
dragged two stones behind him by long cords, and at these
the archers shot.  Tempting indeed was the snare that they
set in Woth, the emeralds loose-set in the city's gate; but
Thangobrind discerned the golden cord that climbed the wall
from each and the weights that would topple upon him if he
touched one, and so he left them, though he left them
weeping, and at last came to Theth.  There all men worship
Hlo-hlo; though they are willing to believe in other gods,
as missionaries attest, but only as creatures of the chase
for the hunting of Hlo-hlo, who wears Their halos, so these
people say, on golden hooks along his hunting-belt.  And
from Theth he came to the city of Moung and the temple of
Moung-ga-ling, and entered and saw the spider-idol, Hlo-hlo,
sitting there with Dead Man's Diamond glittering on his lap,
and looking for all the world like a full moon, but a full
moon seen by lunatic who had slept too long in its rays, for
there was in Dead Man's Diamond a certain sinister look and
a boding of things to happen that are better not mentioned
here.  The face of the spider-idol was lit by that fatal
gem; there was no other light.  In spite of his shocking
limbs and that demoniac body, his face was serene and
apparently unconscious.
   A little fear came into the mind of Thangobrind the
jeweller, a passing tremor -- no more; business was business
and he hoped for the best.  Thangobrind offered honey to
Hlo-hlo and prostrated himself before him.  Oh, he was
cunning!  When the priests stole out of the darkness to lap
up the honey they were stretched senseless on the temple
floor, for there was a drug in the honey that was offered to
Hlo-hlo.  And Thangobrind the jeweller picked Dead Man's
Diamond up and put it on his shoulder and trudged away from
the shrine; and Hlo-hlo the spider-idol said nothing at all,
but he laughed softly as the jeweller shut the door.  When
the priests awoke out of the grip of the drug that was
offered with the honey to Hlo-hlo, they rushed to a little
secret room with an outlet on the stars and cast a horoscope
of the thief.  Something that they saw in the horoscope
seemed to satisfy the priests.
   It was not like Thangobrind to go back by the road by
which he had come.  No, he went by another road, even though
it led to the narrow way, night-house and spider-forest.
   The city of Moung went towering by behind him, balcony
above balcony, eclipsing half the stars, as he trudged away
with his diamond.  He was not easy as he trudged away. 
Though when a soft pittering as of velvet feet arose behind
him he refused to acknowledge that it might be what he
feared, yet the instincts of his trade told him that it is
not well when any noise whatever follows a diamond by night,
and this was one of the largest that had ever come to him in
the way of business.  When he came to the narrow way that
leads to spider-forest, Dead Man's Diamond feeling cold and
heavy, and the velvety footfall seeming fearfully close, the
jeweller stopped and almost hesitated.  He looked behind
him; there was nothing there.  he listened attentively;
there was no sound now.  Then he thought of the screams of
the Merchant Prince's daughter, whose soul was the diamond's
price, and smiled and went stoutly on.  There watched him,
apathetically, over the narrow way, that grim and dubious
woman whose house is the Night.  Thangobrind, hearing no
longer the sound of suspicious feet, felt easier now.  He
was all but come to the end of the narrow way, when the
woman listlessly uttered that ominous cough.
   The cough was too full of meaning to be disregarded. 
Thangobrind turned round and saw at once what he feared. 
The spider-idol had not stayed at home.  The jeweller put
his diamond gently upon the ground and drew his sword called
Mouse.  And then began that famous fight upon the narrow way
in which the grim old woman whose house was Night seemed to
take so little interest.  To the spider-idol you saw at once
it was all a horrible joke.  To the jeweller it was grim
earnest.  He fought and panted and was pushed back slowly
along the narrow way, but he wounded Hlo-hlo all the while
with terrible long gashes all over his deep, soft body till
Mouse was slimy with blood.  But at last the persistent
laughter of Hlo-hlo was too much for the jeweller's nerves,
and, once more wounding his demoniac foe, he sank aghast and
exhausted by the door of the house called Night at the feet
of the grim old woman, who having uttered once that ominous
cough interfered no further with the course of events.  And
there carried Thangobrind the jeweller away those whose duty
it was, to the house where the two men hang, and taking down
from his hook the left-hand one of the two, they put that
venturous jeweller in his place; so that there fell on him
the doom that he feared, as all men know though it is so
long since, and there abated somewhat the ire of the envious
gods.
   And the only daughter of the Merchant Prince felt so
little gratitude for this great deliverance that she took to
respectability of a militant kind, and became aggressively
dull, and called her home the English Riviera, and had
platitudes worked in worsted upon her tea-cosy, and in the
end never died, but passed away at her residence.
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