With a toorooloo whack;
Hack away, merry men, hack away.
Who would not die brave,
His ear smote by a stave?
Thwack away, merry men, thwack away! 'Tis glory that calls, To each hero that falls, Hack away, merry men, hack away!
Quack! Quack! Quack!
Quack! Quack!
Quack!
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 hammering away at each others' sconces, till they rung like a chime of bells going off with a triple-bob-major, they finally succeeded in immortalizing themselves by quenching their mortalities all round; the bards 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 with blood, and wearing a robe, whose edges were burned and blacked by fire. Wielding a club, it ran to and fro, with loud yells menacing all.
A noted warrior this; who, distracted at the death of five sons slain in recent games, wandered from valley to valley, wrestling and fighting.
With wild cries of "The Despairer! The Despairer!" the appalled multitude fled; leaving the two kings frozen on their throne, quaking and quailing, their teeth rattling like dice.
The Despairer strode toward them; when, recovering their senses, they ran; for a time pursued through the woods by the phantom.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Taji Still Hunted, And Beckoned
Previous to the kings' flight, we had plunged into the neighboring woods; and from thence emerging, entered brakes of cane, sprouting from morasses. Soon we heard a whirring, as if three startled partridges had taken wing; it proved three feathered arrows, from three unseen hands.
Gracing us, two buried in the ground, but from Taji's arm, the third drew blood.
On all sides round we turned; but none were seen. "Still the avengers follow," 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 waved their cherry stalks, and heavy bloated cactus leaves, their crimson blossoms 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 their panicles, 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, in its 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 XXXVIII
They Embark From Diranda
Arrived at the Sign of the Skulls, we found the illustrious lord seigniors at rest from their flight, and once more, quaffing their claret, all thoughts of the specter departed. Instead of rattling their own ivory iii the heads on their shoulders, they were rattling their dice in the skulls in their hands. And still "Heads," was the cry, and "Heads," was the throw.
That evening they made known to my lord Media that an interval of two days must elapse ere the games were renewed, in order to reward the victors, bury their dead, and provide for the execution of an Islander, who under the pro-vocation of a blow, had killed a stranger.
As this suspension of the festivities had been wholly unforeseen, our hosts were induced to withdraw the embargo laid upon our canoes.
Nevertheless, they pressed us to remain; saying, that what was to come would far exceed in interest, what had already taken place. The games in prospect being of a naval description, embracing certain hand-tohand 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's face can be known, that we set sail from Diranda; and in the ghostly twilight, our thoughts reverted to the phantom that so suddenly had cleared the plain. With interest we hearkened to the recitals of Mohi; who discoursing of the sad end of many brave chieftains in Mardi, made allusion to the youthful Adondo, one of the most famous of the chiefs of the chronicles. In a canoe-fight, after performing prodigies of valor; 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. "Shall I sing it, my lord? It. is very beautiful; nor could I ever repeat it without a tear."
"We will dispense with your tears, minstrel," said Media, "but sing it, 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 then in Mardi, not a lake that was not moist. Lachrymose rivulets, and inconsolable 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 it before."
"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 dating back. May not his monody, then, be a spontaneous melody, that has been with us since Mardi began? What bard composed the soft verses that our palm boughs sing at even? Nay, Yoomy, that monody was not written by man."
"Ah! Would that I had been the poet, Babbalanja; for then had I been famous indeed; those lines are chanted through all the isles, by prince and peasant. Yes, Adondo's monody will pervade the ages, like the low under-tone you hear, when many singers do sing."
"My lord, my lord," cried Babbalanja, "but this were to be truly immortal;-to be perpetuated in our works, and not in our names. Let me, oh Oro! be anonymously known!"
CHAPTER XXXIX
Wherein 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 old Bardianna says-shut your eyes, and believe."