Mardi And a Voyage Thither II
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MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER
The throne was void. But half-concealed by drapery, behind the goodliest lord, sideway leaned a figure diademed, a lifted poniard in its hand: – a monarch fossilized in very act of murdering his guest.
“Most high and sacred majesty!” cried Babbalanja, bowing to his feet.
While all stood gazing on this sight, there came two servitors of Media’s, who besought of Babbalanja to settle a dispute, concerning certain tracings upon the islet’s other side.
Thither we followed them.
Upon a long layer of the slaty stone were marks of ripplings of some now waveless sea; mid which were tri-toed footprints of some huge heron, or wading fowl.
Pointing to one of which, the foremost disputant thus spoke: – “I maintain 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 concerning which they made such dire contention in Maramma, whose tertiary rocks are chisseled all over with these marks? Yes; this it is, concerning which they once shed blood. This it is, concerning which they still divide.”
“Which of us is right?” again demanded the impatient twain.
“Unite, and both are right; divide, and both are wrong. Every unit is made up of parts, as well as every plurality. Nine is three threes; a unit is as many thirds; or, if you please, a thousand thousandths; no special need to stop at thirds.”
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“Away, ye foolish disputants!” cried Media. “Full before you is the thing 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 the history of the rock; can your sapience tell the origin of all the isles? how MardI came to be?”
“Ah, that once mooted point is settled. Though hard at first, it proved a bagatelle. Start not my lord; there are those who have measured MardI by perch and pole, and with their wonted lead sounded its utmost depths. Listen: it is a pleasant story. The coral wall which circumscribes the isles but continues upward the deep buried crater of the primal chaos. In the first times this crucible was charged with vapors nebulous, boiling over fires volcanic. Age by age, the fluid thickened; dropping, at long intervals, heavy sediment to the bottom; which layer on layer concreted, and at length, in crusts, rose toward the surface. Then, the vast volcano burst; rent the whole mass; upthrew the ancient rocks; which now in divers mountain tops tell tales of what existed ere MardI was completely fashioned. Hence many fossils on the hills, whose kith and kin still lurk beneath the vales. Thus Nature works, at random warring, chaos a crater, and this world a shell.”
MohI stroked his beard. Yoomy yawned.
Media cried, “Preposterous!”
“My lord, then take another theory – which you will – the celebrated sandwich System. Nature’s first condition was a soup, wherein the agglomerating solids formed granitic dumplings, which, wearing down, deposited the primal stra-
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tum made up of series, sandwiching strange shapes 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 Sandstone sandwich, 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 – hard carving these – and prodigious lizards, spineskewered, tails tied in bows, and swimming in saffron saucers.”
“What next?” cried Media.
“The Ool, or Oily sandwich: – rare gormandizing then; for oily it was called, because of fat old joints, and hams, and rounds, and barons of sea-beeves and walrusses, which then crowned the stratum-board. All piled together, glorious profusion! – fillets and briskets, rumps, and saddles, and haunches; shoulder to shoulder, loin ‘gainst sirloin, ribs rapping knuckles, and quarter to none. And all these sandwiched right over all that went before. Course after course, and course on course, my lord; no time to clear the wreck; no stop nor let; lay on and slash; cut, thrust, and come.
“Next the Chalk, or Coral sandwich; but no dry fare for that; made up of rich side-courses – eocene, miocene, and pliocene. The first was wild game for the delicate – bantam larks, curlews, quails, and flying weazels; with a slight sprinkling of
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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 and flippers 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 and megatheriums, gallantly served up with fir-trees in their mouths, and tails cock-billed.
“Thus fared the old diluvians: arrant gormandizers and beef-bolters. We Mardians famish on the superficial strata of deposits; cracking our jaws 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 six days; but you, Babbalanja, have built it up from the bottom in less than six minutes.”
“Nothing for us geologists, my lord. At a word we turn you out whole systems, suns, satellites, and asteroids included. Why, my good lord, my friend Annonimo is laying out a new Milky Way, to intersect with the old one, and facilitate crosscuts among the comets.”
And so saying, Babbalanja turned aside.
CHAPTER XXIX
THEY STILL REMAIN UPON
THE ROCK
“Gogle-goggle, fugle-fi, fugle-fogle-orum,” so hummed to himself Babbalanja, 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 a devil?”
“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; in propria persona, no antlers do I wear; my tail has lost its barb, as at 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, no antlers do I wear; my tail has lost its barb, as at last your Mardian lions lose their caudal horns.”
“A very iterating devil this. Sirrah! mock me not. Know you aught yet unrevealed by Babbalanja?”
“Many things I know, not good to tell; whence they call me Azzageddi.”
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“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 we depart.”
“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 and toast their hoofs for aye; so used to flames, they poke the fire with their horns, and light their tails for torches.”
“A very funny devil, this. Azzageddi, is not MardI a place far pleasanter, 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’d shake it.”
“Not so with us; who, rear to rear, shake each other’s tails, and courteously inquire, ‘Pray, worthy sir, how now stands the great thermometer?’”
“The very prince of devils, this.”
“How mad our Babbalanja is,” cried Mohi. My lord, take heed; he’ll bite.”
“Alas! alas!” sighed Yoomy.
“Hark ye, Babbalanja,” cried Media, “enough of this: doff your devil, and be a man.”
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“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 you lies 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 a philosopher of old surmised, but was hooted at for his surmisings. Nor is it at all impossible, Braid– Beard, that beyond their land may exist other regions, of which those strangers know not; peopled with races something like us Mardians; but perhaps with more exalted faculties, and organs that we lack. They may have some better seeing sense than ours; 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 mortals naught to rest on, but what we see with eyes? Is no faith to be reposed in that inner microcosm, wherein we see the charted universe in 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 XXX
BEHIND AND BEFORE
It was yet moonlight when we pushed from the islet. But soon, the sky grew dun; the moon went into a cavern among the clouds; and by that secret sympathy between our hearts and the elements, the thoughts of all but Media became overcast.
Again discourse was had of that dark intelligence from Mondoldo – the fell 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 grieve the moon is gone. Yet start some paradox, that we may laugh. Say a woman is a man, or you yourself a stork.”
At this they smiled. When hurtling came an arrow, which struck our stern, and quivered. Another! and another! Grazing the canopy, they darted by, and hissing, dived like red-hot bars beneath the waves.
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Starting, we beheld a corruscating wake, tracking the course of a low canoe, far flying for a neighboring mountain. The next moment it was lost within the mountain’s shadow and pursuit was useless.
“Let us fly!” cried Yoomy
“Peace! What murderers these?” said Media, calmly; “whom can they seek? – you, Taji?”
“The three avengers fly three bolts,” said Babbalanja. “See if the arrow 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 arrows follow, still will I hunt on. Nor does the ghost, that these pale specters would avenge, at all disquiet me. The priest I slew, but to gain 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 your secret; but tell no more; I care not to be your foe.”
“Ah, Taji! I had shrank from you,” cried Yoomy, “but for the mark upon your brow. That undoes the tenor of your words. But look, the stars come 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, red and blue.
Said Yoomy, “For that which stings, there is no cure,”
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“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 arrows nor Circe flowers appall.”
Said Yoomy, “They wait reply.”
“Tell your Hautia, that I know her not; nor care to know. I defy her incantations; she lures in vain. Yillah! Yillah! still I hope!”
Slowly they departed; heeding not my cries no more to follow.
Silence, and darkness fell.