Pointing to one of which, the foremost disputant thus spoke:--"Imaintain that these are three toes."
"And I, that it is one foot," said the other.
"And now decide between us," joined the twain.
Said Babbalanja, starting, "Is not this the very question concerningwhich they made such dire contention in Maramma, whose tertiary rocksare chisseled all over with these marks? Yes; this it is, concerningwhich they once shed blood. This it is, concerning which they stilldivide."
"Which of us is right?" again demanded the impatient twain.
"Unite, and both are right; divide, and both are wrong. Every unit ismade up of parts, as well as every plurality. Nine is three threes; aunit is as many thirds; or, if you please, a thousand thousandths; nospecial need to stop at thirds."
"Away, ye foolish disputants!" cried Media. "Full before you is thething disputed."
Strolling on, many marvels did we mark; and Media said:--"Babbalanja,you love all mysteries; here's a fitting theme. You have given us thehistory of the rock; can your sapience tell the origin of all theisles? how Mardi came to be?"
"Ah, that once mooted point is settled. Though hard at first, itproved a bagatelle. Start not my lord; there are those who havemeasured Mardi by perch and pole, and with their wonted lead soundedits utmost depths. Listen: it is a pleasant story. The coral wallwhich circumscribes the isles but continues upward the deep buriedcrater of the primal chaos. In the first times this crucible wascharged with vapors nebulous, boiling over fires volcanic. Age by age,the fluid thickened; dropping, at long intervals, heavy sediment tothe bottom; which layer on layer concreted, and at length, in crusts,rose toward the surface. Then, the vast volcano burst; rent the wholemass; upthrew the ancient rocks; which now in divers mountain topstell tales of what existed ere Mardi was completely fashioned. Hencemany fossils on the hills, whose kith and kin still lurk beneath thevales. Thus Nature works, at random warring, chaos a crater, and thisworld a shell."
Mohi stroked his beard.
Yoomy yawned.
Media cried, "Preposterous!"
"My lord, then take another theory--which you will--the celebratedsandwich System. Nature's first condition was a soup, wherein theagglomerating solids formed granitic dumplings, which, wearing down,deposited the primal stratum made up of series, sandwiching strangeshapes of mollusks, and zoophytes; then snails, and periwinkles:--marmalade to sip, and nuts to crack, ere the substantials came.
"And next, my lord, we have the fine old time of the Old Red Sandstonesandwich, clapped on the underlying layer, and among other dainties,imbedding the first course of fish,--all quite in rule,--sturgeon-forms, cephalaspis, glyptolepis, pterichthys; and other finny things,of flavor rare, but hard to mouth for bones. Served up with these,were sundry greens,--lichens, mosses, ferns, and fungi.
"Now comes the New Red Sandstone sandwich: marly and magnesious,spread over with old patriarchs of crocodiles and alligators,--hardcarving these,--and prodigious lizards, spine-skewered, tails tied inbows, and swimming in saffron saucers."
"What next?" cried Media.
"The Ool, or Oily sandwich:--rare gormandizing then; for oily it wascalled, because of fat old joints, and hams, and rounds, and barons ofsea-beeves and walrusses, which then crowned the stratum-board. Allpiled together, glorious profusion!--fillets and briskets, rumps, andsaddles, and haunches; shoulder to shoulder, loin 'gainst sirloin,ribs rapping knuckles, and quarter to none. And all these sandwichedright over all that went before. Course after course, and course oncourse, my lord; no time to clear the wreck; no stop nor let; lay onand slash; cut, thrust, and come.
"Next the Chalk, or Coral sandwich; but no dry fare for that; made upof rich side-courses,--eocene, miocene, and pliocene. The first waswild game for the delicate,--bantam larks, curlews, quails, and flyingweazels; with a slight sprinkling of pilaus,--capons, pullets,plovers, and garnished with petrels' eggs. Very savory, that, my lord.The second side-course--miocene--was out of course, flesh after fowl:marine mammalia,--seals, grampuses, and whales, served up with sea-weed on their flanks, hearts and kidneys deviled, and fins andflippers friccasied. All very thee, my lord. The third side-course,the pliocene, was goodliest of all:--whole-roasted elephants,rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses, stuffed with boiled ostriches,condors, cassowaries, turkeys. Also barbacued mastodons andmegatheriums, gallantly served up with fir-trees in their mouths, andtails cock-billed.
"Thus fared the old diluvians: arrant gormandizers and beef-bolters.We Mardians famish on the superficial strata of deposits; cracking ourjaws on walnuts, filberts, cocoa-nuts, and clams. My lord, I've done."
"And bravely done it is. Mohi tells us, that Mardi was made in sixdays; but you, Babbalanja, have built it up from the bottom in lessthan six minutes."
"Nothing for us geologists, my lord. At a word we turn you out wholesystems, suns, satellites, and asteroids included. Why, my good lord,my friend Annonimo is laying out a new Milky Way, to intersect withthe old one, and facilitate cross-cuts among the comets."
And so saying, Babbalanja turned aside.
CHAPTER XXIXThey Still Remain Upon The Rock
"Gogle-goggle, fugle-fi, fugle-fogle-orum," so hummed to himselfBabbalanja, slowly pacing over the fossils. "Is he crazy again?"whispered Yoomy.
"Are you crazy, Babbalanja?" asked Media.
"From my very birth have I been so, my lord; am I not possessed by adevil?"
"Then I'll e'en interrogate him," cried Media. "--Hark ye, sirrah;--why rave you thus in this poor mortal?"
"'Tis he, not I. I am the mildest devil that ever entered man; inpropria persona, no antlers do I wear; my tail has lost its barb, asat last your Mardian lions lose their caudal horns."
"A very sing-song devil this. But, prithee, who are you, sirrah?"
"The mildest devil that ever entered man; in propria persona, noantlers do I wear; my tail has lost its barb, as at last your Mardianlions lose their caudal horns."
"A very iterating devil this. Sirrah! mock me not. Know you aught yetunrevealed by Babbalanja?"
"Many things I know, not good to tell; whence they call me Azzageddi."
"A very confidential devil, this; that tells no secrets. Azzageddi,can I drive thee out?"
"Only with this mortal's ghost:--together we came in, together wedepart."
"A very terse, and ready devil, this. Whence come you, Azzageddi?"
"Whither my catechist must go--a torrid clime, cut by a hot equator."
"A very keen, and witty devil, this. Azzageddi, whom have you there?"
"A right down merry, jolly set, that at a roaring furnace sit andtoast their hoofs for aye; so used to flames, they poke the fire withtheir horns, and light their tails for torches."
"A very funny devil, this. Azzageddi, is not Mardi a place farpleasanter, than that from whence you came?"
"Ah, home! sweet, sweet, home! would, would that I were home again!"
"A very sentimental devil, this. Azzageddi, would you had a hand, I'dshake it."
"Not so with us; who, rear to rear, shake each other's tails, andcourteously inquire, 'Pray, worthy sir, how now stands the greatthermometer?'"
"The very prince of devils, this."
"How mad our Babbalanja is," cried Mohi. My lord, take heed; he'llbite."
"Alas! alas!" sighed Yoomy.
"Hark ye, Babbalanja," cried Media, "enough of this: doff your devil,and be a man."
"My lord, I can not doff him; but I'll down him for a time: Azzageddi!down, imp; down, down, down! so: now, my lord, I'm only Babbalanja."
"Shall I test his sanity, my lord?" cried Mohi.
"Do, old man."
"Philosopher, our great reef is surrounded by an ocean; what think youlies beyond?"
"Alas!" sighed Yoomy, "the very subject to renew his madness."
"Peace, minstrel!" said Media. "Answer, Babbalanja."
"I will, my lord. Fear not, sweet Yoomy; you see how calm I am. Braid-Beard, those strangers, that came to Mondoldo prove isles afar,
as aphilosopher of old surmised, but was hooted at for his surmisings. Noris it at all impossible, Braid-Beard, that beyond their land may existother regions, of which those strangers know not; peopled with racessomething like us Mardians; but perhaps with more exalted faculties,and organs that we lack. They may have some better seeing sense thanours; perhaps, have fins or wings for arms."
"This seems not like sanity," muttered Mohi.
"A most crazy hypothesis, truly," said Media.
"And are all inductions vain?" cried Babbalanja. "Have we mortalsnaught to rest on, but what we see with eyes? Is no faith to bereposed in that inner microcosm, wherein we see the charted universein little, as the whole horizon is mirrored in the iris of a gnat?Alas! alas! my lord, is there no blest Odonphi? no Astrazzi?"
"His devil's uppermost again, my lord," cried Braid-Beard.
"He's stark, stark mad!" sighed Yoomy.
"Ay, the moon's at full," said Media. "Ho, paddlers! we depart."
CHAPTER XXXBehind And Before
It was yet moonlight when we pushed from the islet. But soon, the skygrew dun; the moon went into a cavern among the clouds; and by thatsecret sympathy between our hearts and the elements, the thoughts ofall but Media became overcast.
Again discourse was had of that dark intelligence from Mondoldo,--thefell murder of Taji's follower.
Said Mohi, "Those specter sons of Aleema must have been the assassins."
"They harbored deadly malice," said Babbalanja.
"Which poor Jarl's death must now have sated," sighed Yoomy.
"Then all the happier for Taji," said Media. "But away with gloom!because the sky is clouded, why cloud your brows? Babbalanja, I grievethe moon is gone. Yet start some paradox, that we may laugh. Say awoman is a man, or you yourself a stork."
At this they smiled. When hurtling came an arrow, which struck ourstern, and quivered. Another! and another! Grazing the canopy, theydarted by, and hissing, dived like red-hot bars beneath the waves.
Starting, we beheld a corruscating wake, tracking the course of a lowcanoe, far flying for a neighboring mountain. The next moment it waslost within the mountain's shadow and pursuit was useless.
"Let us fly!" cried Yoomy
"Peace! What murderers these?" said Media, calmly; "whom can theyseek?--you, Taji?"
"The three avengers fly three bolts," said Babbalanja. "See if thearrow yet remain astern," cried Media.
They brought it to him.
"By Oro! Taji on the barb!"
"Then it missed its aim. But I will not mine. And whatever arrowsfollow, still will I hunt on. Nor does the ghost, that these palespecters would avenge, at all disquiet me. The priest I slew, but togain her, now lost; and I would slay again, to bring her back. Ah,Yillah! Yillah."
All started.
Then said Babbalanja, "Aleema's sons raved not; 'tis true, then, Taji,that an evil deed gained you your Yillah: no wonder she is lost."
Said Media, unconcernedly, "Perhaps better, Taji, to have kept yoursecret; but tell no more; I care not to be your foe."
"Ah, Taji! I had shrank from you," cried Yoomy, "but for the mark uponyour brow. That undoes the tenor of your words. But look, the starscome forth, and who are these? A waving Iris! ay, again they come:--Hautia's heralds!"
They brought a black thorn, buried in withered rose-balm blossoms, redand blue.
Said Yoomy, "For that which stings, there is no cure,"
"Who, who is Hautia, that she stabs me thus?"
"And this wild sardony mocks your misery."
"Away! ye fiends."
"Again a Venus car; and lo! a wreath of strawberries!--Yet fly to me,and be garlanded with joys."
"Let the wild witch laugh. She moves me not. Neither hurtling arrowsnor Circe flowers appall."
Said Yoomy, "They wait reply."
"Tell your Hautia, that I know her not; nor care to know. I defy herincantations; she lures in vain. Yillah! Yillah! still I hope!"
Slowly they departed; heeding not my cries no more to follow.
Silence, and darkness fell.
CHAPTER XXXIBabbalanja Discourses In The Dark
Next day came and went; and still we onward sailed. At last, by night,there fell a calm, becalming the water of the wide lagoon, andbecalming all the clouds in heaven, wailing the constellations. Butthough our sails were useless, our paddlers plied their broad stoutblades. Thus sweeping by a rent and hoar old rock, Vee-Vee, impatientof the calm, sprang to his crow's nest in the shark's mouth, andseizing his conch, sounded a blast which ran in and out among thehollows, reverberating with the echoes.
Be sure, it was startling. But more so with respect to one of ourpaddlers, upon whose shoulders, elevated Vee-Vee, his balance lost,all at once came down by the run. But the heedless little buglerhimself was most injured by the fall; his arm nearly being broken.
Some remedies applied, and the company grown composed, Babbalanjathus:--"My lord Media, was there any human necessity for thataccident?"
"None that I know, or care to tell, Babbalanja."
"Vee-Vee," said Babbalanja, "did you fall on purpose?"
"Not I," sobbed little Vee-Vee, slinging his ailing arm in its mate.
"Woe! woe to us all, then," cried Babbalanja; "for what direful eventsmay be in store for us which we can not avoid."
"How now, mortal?" cried Media; "what now?"
"My lord, think of it. Minus human inducement from without, and minusvolition from within, Vee-Vee has met with an accident, which hasalmost maimed him for life. Is it not terrifying to think of? Are notall mortals exposed to similar, nay, worse calamities, ineffablyunavoidable? Woe, woe, I say, to us Mardians! Here, take my lastbreath; let me give up this beggarly ghost!"
"Nay," said Media; "pause, Babbalanja. Turn it not adrift prematurely.Let it house till midnight; the proper time for you mortals todissolve. But, philosopher, if you harp upon Vee-Vee's mishap, knowthat it was owing to nothing but his carelessness."
"And what was that owing to, my lord?"
"To Vee-Vee himself."
"Then, my lord, what brought such a careless being into Mardi?"
"A long course of generations. He's some one's great-great-grandson,doubtless; who was great-great-grandson to some one else; who also hadgrandsires."
"Many thanks then to your highness; for you establish the doctrine ofPhilosophical Necessity."
"No. I establish nothing; I but answer your questions."
"All one, my lord: you are a Necessitarian; in other words, you holdthat every thing takes place through absolute necessity."
"Do you take me, then, for a fool, and a Fatalist? Pardie! a bad creedfor a monarch, the distributor of rewards and punishments."
"Right there, my lord. But, for all that, your highness is aNecessitarian, yet no Fatalist. Confound not the distinct. Fatalismpresumes express and irrevocable edicts of heaven concerningparticular events. Whereas, Necessity holds that all events arenaturally linked, and inevitably follow each other, withoutprovidential interposition, though by the eternal letting ofProvidence."
"Well, well, Babbalanja, I grant it all. Go on."
"On high authority, we are told that in times past the fall of certainnations in Mardi was prophesied of seers."
"Most true, my lord," said Mohi; "it is all down in the chronicles."
"Ha! ha!" cried Media. "Go on, philosopher."
Continued Babbalanja, "Previous to the time assigned to theirfulfillment, those prophecies were bruited through Mardi; hence,previous to the time assigned to their fulfillment, full knowledge ofthem may have come to the nations concerned. Now, my lord, was itpossible for those nations, thus forwarned, so to conduct theiraffairs, as at, the prophesied time, to prove false the eventsrevealed to be in store for them?"
"However that may be," said Mohi, "certain it is, those events didassuredly come to pass:--Compare the ruins of Babbelona with bookninth, chapter tenth, of the chronicles. Yea, yea, the owl inhabitswhere the seers predicted; the jackals yell in the tombs of the
kings."
"Go on, Babbalanja," said Media. "Of course those nations could nothave resisted their doom. Go on, then: vault over your premises."
"If it be, then, my lord, that--"
"My very worshipful lord," interposed Mohi, "is not our philosophergetting off soundings; and may it not be impious to meddle with thesethings?"
"Were it so, old man, he should have known it. The king of Odo issomething more than you mortals."
"But are we the great gods themselves," cried Yoomy, "that wediscourse of these things."
"No, minstrel," said Babbalanja; "and no need have the great gods todiscourse of things perfectly comprehended by them, and by themselvesordained. But you and I, Yoomy, are men, and not gods; hence is it forus, and not for them, to take these things for our themes. Nor isthere any impiety in the right use of our reason, whatever the issue.Smote with superstition, shall we let it wither and die out, a dead,limb to a live trunk, as the mad devotee's arm held up motionless foryears? Or shall we employ it but for a paw, to help us to our bodilyneeds, as the brutes use their instinct? Is not reason subtile asquicksilver--live as lightning--a neighing charger to advance, but asnail to recede? Can we starve that noble instinct in us, and hopethat it will survive? Better slay the body than the soul; and if it bethe direst of sins to be the murderers of our own bodies, how muchmore to be a soul-suicide. Yoomy, we are men, we are angels. And inhis faculties, high Oro is but what a man would be, infinitelymagnified. Let us aspire to all things. Are we babes in the woods, tobe scared by the shadows of the trees? What shall appall us? If eaglesgaze at the sun, may not men at the gods?"
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