13. CHAPTER XIII.
BABBALANJA ENDEAVORS TO EXPLAIN THE MYSTERY.
This Great Mogul of a personage, then; this woundy
Ahasuerus; this man of men; this same Hivohitee, whose
name rumbled among the mountains like a peal of thunder,
had been seen face to face, and taken for naught, but a
bearded old hermit, or at best, some equivocal conjuror.
So great was his wonderment at the time, that Yoomy
could not avoid expressing it in words.
Whereupon thus discoursed Babbalanja:
“Gentle Yoomy, be not astounded, that Hivohitee is so
far behind your previous conceptions. The shadows of
things are greater than themselves; and the more exaggerated
the shadow, the more unlike to the substance.”
“But knowing now, what manner of person Hivohitee
is,” said Yoomy, “much do I long to behold him again.”
But Mohi assured him it was out of the question; that
the Pontiff always acted toward strangers as toward him
(Yoomy); and that but one dim blink at the eremite was
all that mortal could obtain.
Debarred thus from a second and more satisfactory interview
with one, concerning whom his curiosity had been
violently aroused, the minstrel again turned to Mohi for enlightenment;
especially touching that magnate's Egyptian
reception of him in his aerial den.
Whereto, the chronicler made answer, that the Pontiff
affected darkness because he liked it: that he was a ruler
of few words, but many deeds; and that, had Yoomy been
permitted to tarry longer with him in the pagoda, he would
have been privy to many strange attestations of the divinity
imputed to him. Voices would have been heard in the air,
gossiping with Hivohitee; noises inexplicable proceeding
from him; in brief, light would have flashed out of his
darkness.
“But who has seen these things, Mohi?” said Babbalanja,
“have you?”
“Nay.”
“Who then?—Media?—Any one you know?”
“Nay: but the whole Archipelago has.”
“Thus,” exclaimed Babbalanja, “does Mardi, blind
though it be in many things, collectively behold the marvels,
which one pair of eyes sees not.”
