36. CHAPTER XXXVI.
At last the third day dawned; and facing us upon entering
the plain, was a throne of red log-wood, canopied by the
foliage of a red-dyed Pandannus. Upon this throne, purple-robed,
reclined those very magnificent and illustrious lords
seigniors, the lord seigniors Hello and Piko. Before them,
were many gourds of wine; and crosswise, staked in the
sod, their own royal spears.
In the middle of the down, as if by a furrow, a long, oval
space was margined off, about which, a crowd of spectators
were seated. Opposite the throne, was reserved a clear
passage to the arena, defined by air-lines, indefinitely produced
from the leveled points of two spears, so poised by a
brace of warriors.
Drawing near, our party was courteously received, and
assigned a commodious lounge.
The first encounter was a club-fight between two warriors.
Nor casque of steel, nor skull of Congo could have
resisted their blows, had they fallen upon the mark; for
they seemed bent upon driving each other, as stakes, into
the earth. Presently, one of them faltered; but his adversary
rushing in to cleave him down, slipped against a guavarind;
when the falterer, with one lucky blow, high into the
air sent the stumbler's club, which descended upon the crown
of a spectator, who was borne from the plain.
“All one,” muttered Piko.
“As good dead as another,” muttered Hello.
The second encounter was a hugging-match; wherein
two warriors, masked in Grisly-bear skins, hugged each
other to death.
The third encounter was a bumping-match between a fat
warrior and a dwarf. Standing erect, his paunch like a
bass-drum before a drummer, the fat man was run at, heada-tilt
by the dwarf, and sent spinning round on his axis.
The fourth encounter was a tussle between two-score
warriors, who all in a mass, writhed like the limbs in Sebastioni's
painting of Hades. After obscuring themselves in a
cloud of dust, these combatants, uninjured, but hugely blowing,
drew off; and separately going among the spectators,
rehearsed their experience of the fray.
“Braggarts!” mumbled Piko.
“Poltroons!” growled Hello.
While the crowd were applauding, a sober-sided observer,
trying to rub the dust out of his eyes, inquired of an enthusiastic
neighbor, “Pray, what was all that about?”
“Fool! saw you not the dust?”
“That I did,” said Sober-Sides, again rubbing his eyes;
“But I can raise a dust myself.”
The fifth encounter was a fight of single sticks between
one hundred warriors, fifty on a side.
In a line, the first fifty emerged from the sumachs, their
weapons interlocked in a sort of wicker-work. In advance
marched a priest, bearing an idol with a cracked cocoanut
for a head,—Krako, the god of Trepans. Preceded by damsels
flinging flowers, now came on the second fifty, gayly
appareled, weapons poised, and their feet nimbly moving in
a martial measure.
Midway meeting, both parties touched poles, then retreated.
Very courteous, this; but tantamount to bowing each
other out of Mardi; for upon Piko's tossing a javelin, they
rushed in, and each striking his man, all fell to the ground.
“Well done!” cried Piko.
“Brave fellows!” cried Hello.
“But up and at it again, my heroes!” joined both. “Lo!
we kings look on, and there stand the bards!”
These bards were a row of lean, sallow, old men, in
thread-bare robes, and chaplets of dead leaves.
“Strike up!” cried Piko.
“A stave!” cried Hello.
Whereupon, the old croakers, each with a quinsy, sang
thus in cracked strains:—
Quack! Quack! Quack!
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.
