Thus it tapered away.
"Ha, ha!" cried Piko, "how they prick their ears at that!"
"Hark ye, my invincibles!" cried Hello. "That pean is for the slain.So all ye who have lives left, spring to it! Die and be glorified!Now's the time!--Strike up again, my ducklings!"
Thus incited, the survivors staggered to their feet; and hammeringaway at each others' sconces, till they rung like a chime of bellsgoing off with a triple-bob-major, they finally succeeded inimmortalizing themselves by quenching their mortalities all round; thebards still singing.
"Never mind your music now," cried Piko.
"It's all over," said Hello.
"What valiant fellows we have for subjects," cried Piko.
"Ho! grave-diggers, clear the field," cried Hello.
"Who else is for glory?" cried Piko.
"There stand the bards!" cried Hello.
But now there rushed among the crowd a haggard figure, trickling withblood, and wearing a robe, whose edges were burned and blacked byfire. Wielding a club, it ran to and fro, with loud yells menacingall.
A noted warrior this; who, distracted at the death of five sons slainin recent games, wandered from valley to valley, wrestling andfighting.
With wild cries of "The Despairer! The Despairer!" the appalledmultitude fled; leaving the two kings frozen on their throne, quakingand quailing, their teeth rattling like dice.
The Despairer strode toward them; when, recovering their senses, theyran; for a time pursued through the woods by the phantom.
CHAPTER XXXVIITaji Still Hunted, And Beckoned
Previous to the kings' flight, we had plunged into the neighboringwoods; and from thence emerging, entered brakes of cane, sproutingfrom morasses. Soon we heard a whirring, as if three startledpartridges had taken wing; it proved three feathered arrows, fromthree unseen hands.
Gracing us, two buried in the ground, but from Taji's arm, the thirddrew blood.
On all sides round we turned; but none were seen. "Still the avengersfollow," said Babbalanja.
"Lo! the damsels three!" cried Yoomy. "Look where they come!"
We joined them by the sumach-wood's red skirts; and there, they wavedtheir cherry stalks, and heavy bloated cactus leaves, their crimsonblossoms armed with nettles; and before us flung shining, yellow,tiger-flowers spotted red.
"Blood!" cried Yoomy, starting, "and leopards on your track!"
And now the syrens blew through long reeds, tasseled with theirpanicles, and waving verdant scarfs of vines, came dancing toward us,proffering clustering grapes.
"For all now yours, Taji; and all that yet may come," cried Yoomy,"fly to me! I will dance away your gloom, and drown it in inebriation."
"Away! woe is its own wine. What may be mine, that will I endure, inits own essence to the quick. Let me feel the poniard if it stabs."
They vanished in the wood; and hurrying on, we soon gained sun-light,and the open glade.
CHAPTER XXXVIIIThey Embark From Diranda
Arrived at the Sign of the Skulls, we found the illustrious lordseigniors at rest from their flight, and once more, quaffing theirclaret, all thoughts of the specter departed. Instead of rattlingtheir own ivory iii the heads on their shoulders, they were rattlingtheir dice in the skulls in their hands. And still "Heads," was thecry, and "Heads," was the throw.
That evening they made known to my lord Media that an interval of twodays must elapse ere the games were renewed, in order to reward thevictors, bury their dead, and provide for the execution of anIslander, who under the provocation of a blow, had killed a stranger.
As this suspension of the festivities had been wholly unforeseen, ourhosts were induced to withdraw the embargo laid upon our canoes.Nevertheless, they pressed us to remain; saying, that what was to comewould far exceed in interest, what had already taken place. The gamesin prospect being of a naval description, embracing certain hand-to-hand contests in the water between shoals of web-footed warriors.
However, we decided to embark on the morrow.
It was in the cool of the early morning, at that hour when a man'sface can be known, that we set sail from Diranda; and in the ghostlytwilight, our thoughts reverted to the phantom that so suddenly hadcleared the plain. With interest we hearkened to the recitals of Mohi;who discoursing of the sad end of many brave chieftains in Mardi, madeallusion to the youthful Adondo, one of the most famous of the chiefsof the chronicles. In a canoe-fight, after performing prodigies ofvalor; he was wounded in the head, and sunk to the bottom of the lagoon.
"There is a noble monody upon the death of Adondo," said Yoomy. "ShallI sing it, my lord? It. is very beautiful; nor could I ever repeat itwithout a tear."
"We will dispense with your tears, minstrel," said Media, "but singit, if you will."
And Yoomy sang:--
Departed the pride and the glory of Mardi: The vaunt of her isles sleeps deep in the sea, That rolls o'er his corpse with a hush. His warriors bend over their spears, His sisters gaze upward and mourn. Weep, weep, for Adondo, is dead! The sun has gone down in a shower; Buried in clouds in the face of the moon; Tears stand in the eyes of the starry skies, And stand in the eyes of the flowers; And streams of tears are the trickling brooks, Coursing adown the mountains.-- Departed the pride, and the glory of Mardi: The vaunt of her isles sleeps deep in the sea. Fast falls the small rain on its bosom that sobs.-- Not showers of rain, but the tears of Oro.
"A dismal time it must have been," yawned Media, "not a dry brook thenin Mardi, not a lake that was not moist. Lachrymose rivulets, andinconsolable lagoons! Call you this poetry, minstrel?"
"Mohi has something like a tear in his eye," said Yoomy.
"False!" cried Mohi, brushing it aside.
"Who composed that monody?" said Babbalanja. "I have often heard itbefore."
"None know, Babbalanja but the poet must be still singing to himself;his songs bursting through the turf in the flowers over his grave."
"But gentle Yoomy, Adondo is a legendary hero, indefinitely datingback. May not his monody, then, be a spontaneous melody, that has beenwith us since Mardi began? What bard composed the soft verses that ourpalm boughs sing at even? Nay, Yoomy, that monody was not written byman."
"Ah! Would that I had been the poet, Babbalanja; for then had I beenfamous indeed; those lines are chanted through all the isles, byprince and peasant. Yes, Adondo's monody will pervade the ages, likethe low under-tone you hear, when many singers do sing."
"My lord, my lord," cried Babbalanja, "but this were to be trulyimmortal;--to be perpetuated in our works, and not in our names. Letme, oh Oro! be anonymously known!"
CHAPTER XXXIXWherein Babbalanja Discourses Of Himself
An interval of silence was at last broken by Babbalanja.
Pointing to the sun, just gaining the horizon, he exclaimed, "As oldBardianna says--shut your eyes, and believe."
"And what may Bardianna have to do with yonder orb?" said Media.
This much, my lord, the astronomers maintain that Mardi moves roundthe sun; which I, who never formally investigated the matter formyself, can by no means credit; unless, plainly seeing one thing, Iblindly believe another. Yet even thus blindly does all Mardisubscribe to an astronomical system, which not one in fifty thousandcan astronomically prove. And not many centuries back, my lord, allMardi did equally subscribe to an astronomical system, precisely thereverse of that which they now believe. But the mass of Mardians havenot as much reason to believe the first system, as the exploded one;for all who have eyes must assuredly see, that the sun seems to move,and that Mardi seems a fixture, eternally _here_. But doubtless thereare theories which may be true, though the face of things belie them.Hence, in such cases, to the ignorant, disbelief would seem morenatural than faith; though they too often reject the testimony oftheir own senses, for what to them, is a mere hypothesis. And thus, mylord, is it, that the mass of Mardians do not believe because theyknow, but because they know not. And
they are as ready to receive onething as another, if it comes from a canonical source. My lord, Mardiis as an ostrich, which will swallow augh you offer, even a bar ofiron, if placed endwise. And though the iron be indigestible, yet itserves to fill: in feeding, the end proposed. For Mardi must havesomething to exercise its digestion, though that something be foreverindigestible. And as fishermen for sport, throw two lumps of bait,united by a cord, to albatrosses floating on the sea; which aregreedily attempted to be swallowed, one lump by this fowl, the otherby that; but forever are kept reciprocally going up and down in them,by means of the cord; even so, my lord, do I sometimes fancy, that ourtheorists divert them-selves with the greediness of Mardians tobelieve."
"Ha, ha," cried Media, "methinks this must be Azzageddi who speaks."
"No, my lord; not long since, Azzageddi received a furlough to go homeand warm himself for a while. But this leaves me not alone."
"How?"
"My lord,--for the present putting Azzageddi entirely aside,--though Ihave now been upon terms of close companionship with myself for nighfive hundred moons, I have not yet been able to decide who or what Iam. To you, perhaps, I seem Babbalanja; but to myself, I seem notmyself. All I am sure of, is a sort of prickly sensation all over me,which they call life; and, occasionally, a headache or a queer conceitadmonishes me, that there is something astir in my attic. But how knowI, that these sensations are identical with myself? For aught I know,I may be somebody else. At any rate, I keep an eye on myself, as Iwould on a stranger. There is something going on in me, that isindependent of me. Many a time, have I willed to do one thing, andanother has been done. I will not say by myself, for I was notconsulted about it; it was done instinctively. My most virtuousthoughts are not born of my musings, but spring up in me, like brightfancies to the poet; unsought, spontaneous. Whence they come I knownot. I am a blind man pushed from behind; in vain, I turn about to seewhat propels me. As vanity, I regard the praises of my friends; forwhat they commend pertains not to me, Babbalanja; but to this unknownsomething that forces me to it. But why am I, a middle aged Mardian,less prone to excesses than when a youth? The same inducements andallurements are around me. But no; my more ardent passions are burnedout; those which are strongest when we are least able to resist them.Thus, then, my lord, it is not so much outer temptations that prevailover us mortals; but inward instincts."
"A very curious speculation," said Media. But Babbalanja, have youmortals no moral sense, as they call it?"
"We have. But the thing you speak of is but an after-birth; we eat anddrink many months before we are conscious of thoughts. And though someadults would seem to refer all their actions to this moral sense, yet,in reality, it is not so; for, dominant in them, their moral sensebridles their instinctive passions; wherefore, they do not governthemselves, but are governed by their very natures. Thus, some men inyouth are constitutionally as staid as I am now. But shall wepronounce them pious and worthy youths for this? Does he abstain, whois not incited? And on the other hand, if the instinctive passionsthrough life naturally have the supremacy over the moral sense, as inextreme cases we see it developed in irreclaimable malefactors,--shallwe pronounce such, criminal and detestable wretches? My lord, it iseasier for some men to be saints, than for others not to be sinners."
"That will do, Babbalanja; you are on the verge, take not the leap! Goback whence you set out, and tell us of that other, and still moremysterious Azzageddi; him whom you hinted to have palmed himself offon you for you yourself."
"Well, then, my lord,--Azzageddi still set aside,--upon that self-sameinscrutable stranger, I charge all those past actions of mine, whichin the retrospect appear to me such eminent folly, that I amconfident, it was not I, Babbalanja, now speaking, that committedthem. Nevertheless, my lord, this very day I may do some act, which ata future period may seem equally senseless; for in one lifetime welive a hundred lives. By the incomprehensible stranger in me, I say,this body of mine has been rented out scores of times, though alwaysone dark chamber in me is retained by the old mystery."
"Will you never come to the mark, Babbalanja? Tell me something directof the stranger. Who, what is he? Introduce him."
"My lord, I can not. He is locked up in me. In a mask, he dodges me.He prowls about in me, hither and thither; he peers, and I stare. Thisis he who talks in my sleep, revealing my secrets; and takes me tounheard of realms, beyond the skies of Mardi. So present is he always,that I seem not so much to live of myself, as to be a mereapprehension of the unaccountable being that is in me. Yet all thetime, this being is I, myself."
"Babbalanja," said Media, "you have fairly turned yourself inside out."
"Yes, my lord," said Mohi, "and he has so unsettled me, that I beginto think all Mardi a square circle."
"How is that, Babbalanja," said Media, "is a circle square?"
"No, my lord, but ever since Mardi began, we Mardians have beenessaying our best to square it."
"Cleverly retorted. Now, Babbalanja, do you not imagine, that you maydo harm by disseminating these sophisms of yours; which like yourdevil theory, would seem to relieve all Mardi from moralaccountability?"
"My lord, at bottom, men wear no bonds that other men can strike off;and have no immunities, of which other men can deprive them. Tell agood man that he is free to commit murder,--will he murder? Tell amurderer that at the peril of his soul he indulges in murderousthoughts,--will that make him a saint?"
"Again on the verge, Babbalanja? Take not the leap, I say."
"I can leap no more, my lord. Already I am down, down, down."
"Philosopher," said Media, "what with Azzageddi, and the mysteriousindweller you darkly hint of, I marvel not that you are puzzled todecide upon your identity. But when do you seem most yourself?"
"When I sleep, and dream not, my lord."
"Indeed?"
"Why then, a fool's cap might be put on you, and you would not know it."
"The very turban he ought to wear," muttered Mohi.
"Yet, my lord, I live while consciousness is not mine, while to allappearances I am a clod. And may not this same state of being, thoughbut alternate with me, be continually that of many dumb, passiveobjects we so carelessly regard? Trust me, there are more things alivethan those that crawl, or fly, or swim. Think you, my lord, there isno sensation in being a tree? feeling the sap in one's boughs, thebreeze in one's foliage? think you it is nothing to be a world? one ofa herd, bison-like, wending its way across boundless meadows of ether?In the sight of a fowl, that sees not our souls, what are our owntokens of animation? That we move, make a noise, have organs, pulses,and are compounded of fluids and solids. And all these are in thisMardi as a unit. Daily the slow, majestic throbbings of its heart areperceptible on the surface in the tides of the la-goon. Its rivers areits veins; when agonized, earthquakes are its throes; it shouts in thethunder, and weeps in the shower; and as the body of a bison iscovered with hair, so Mardi is covered with grasses and vegetation,among which, we parasitical things do but crawl, vexing and tormentingthe patient creature to which we cling. Nor yet, hath it recoveredfrom the pain of the first foundation that was laid. Mardi is alive toits axis. When you pour water, does it not gurgle? When you strike apearl shell, does it not ring? Think you there is no sensation inbeing a rock?--To exist, is to be; to be, is to be something: to besomething, is--"
"Go on," said Media.
"And what is it, to be something?" said Yoomy artlessly. "Bethinkyourself of what went before," said Media.
"Lose not the thread," said Mohi.
"It has snapped," said Babbalanja.
"I breathe again," said Mohi.
"But what a stepping-off place you came to then, philosopher," saidMedia. "By the way, is it not old Bardianna who says, that no Mardianshould undertake to walk, without keeping one foot foremost?"
"To return to the vagueness of the notion I have of myself," saidBabbalanja.
"An appropriate theme," said Media, "proceed."
"My lord," murmured Mohi, "Is not this p
hilosopher like a centipede?Cut off his head, and still he crawls."
"There are times when I fancy myself a lunatic," resumed Babbalanja.
"Ah, now he's beginning to talk sense," whispered Mohi.
"Surely you forget, Babbalanja," said Media. "How many more theorieshave you? First, you are possessed by a devil; then rent yourself outto the indweller; and now turn yourself into a mad-house. You areinconsistent."
"And for that very reason, my lord, not inconsistent; for the sum ofmy inconsistencies makes up my consistency. And to be consistent toone's self, is often to be inconsistent to Mardi. Common consistencyimplies unchangeableness; but much of the wisdom here below lives in astate of transition."
"Ah!" murmured Mold, "my head goes round again."
"Azzageddi aside, then, my lord, and also, for the nonce, themysterious indweller, I come now to treat of myself as a lunatic. Butthis last conceit is not so much based upon the madness of particularactions, as upon the whole drift of my ordinary and hourly ones;those, in which I most resemble all other Mardians. It seems likegoing through with some nonsensical whim-whams, destitute of fixedpurpose. For though many of my actions seem to have objects, and allof them somehow run into each other; yet, where is the grand result?To what final purpose, do I walk about, eat, think, dream? To whatgreat end, does Mohi there, now stroke his beard?"
"But I was doing it unconsciously," said Mohi, dropping his hand, andlifting his head.
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