60. CHAPTER LX.
WHEREIN, THAT GALLANT GENTLEMAN AND DEMIGOD, KING
MEDIA, SCEPTER IN HAND, THROWS HIMSELF INTO THE
BREACH.
Sailing south from Vivenza, not far from its coast, we
passed a cluster of islets, green as new fledged grass; and
like the mouths of floating cornucopias, their margins brimmed
over upon the brine with flowers. On some, grew
stately roses; on others stood twin-pillars; across others,
tri-hued rainbows rested.
Cried Babbalanja, pointing to the last, “Franko's pledge
of peace! with that, she loudly vaunts she'll span the reef!
—Strike out all hues but red,—and the token's nearer
truth.”
All these isles were prolific gardens; where King Bello,
and the Princes of Porpheero grew their most delicious
fruits,—nectarines and grapes.
But, though hard by, Vivenza owned no garden here;
yet longed and lusted; and her hottest tribes oft roundly
swore, to root up all roses the half-reef over; pull down all
pillars; and dissolve all rainbows. “Mardi's half is ours;”
said they. Stand back invaders! Full of vanity; and
mirroring themselves in the future; they deemed all reflected
there, their own.
'Twas now high noon.
“Methinks the sun grows hot,” said Media, retreating
deeper under the canopy. “Ho! Vee-Vee; have you no
cooling beverage? none of that golden wine distilled from
torrid grapes, and then sent northward to be cellared in an
iceberg? That wine was placed among our stores. Search,
search the crypt, little Vee-Vee! Ha, I see it!—that yellow
gourd!—Come: drag it forth, my boy. Let's have
the amber cups: so: pass them round;—fill all! Taji!
my demi-god, up heart! Old Mohi, my babe, may you live
ten thousand centuries! Ah! this way you mortals have
of dying out at three score years and ten, is but a craven
habit. So, Babbalanja! may you never die. Yoomy! my
sweet poet, may you live to sing to me in Paradise. Ha,
ha! would that we floated in this glorious stuff, instead of
this pestilent brine.—Hark ye! were I to make a Mardi
now, I'd have every continent a huge haunch of venison;
every ocean a wine-vat! I'd stock every cavern with choice
old spirits, and make three surplus suns to ripen the grapes
all the year round. Let's drink to that!—Brimmers!
So: may the next Mardi that's made, be one entire grape;
and mine the squeezing!”
“Look, look! my lord,” cried Yoomy, “what a glorious
shore we pass.”
Sallying out into the high golden noon, with goldenbeaming
goblets suspended, we gazed.
“This must be Kolumbo of the south,” said Mohi.
It was a long, hazy reach of land; piled up in terraces,
traced here and there with rushing streams, that worked up
gold dust alluvian, and seemed to flash over pebbled diamonds.
Heliotropes, sun-flowers, marigolds gemmed, or starred the
violet meads, and vassal-like, still sunward bowed their
heads. The rocks were pierced with grottoes, blazing with
crystals, many-tinted.
It was a land of mints and mines; its east a ruby; west
a topaz. Inland, the woodlands stretched an ocean, bottomless
with foliage; its green surges bursting through cablevines;
like Xerxes' brittle chains which vainly sought to bind
the Hellespont. Hence flowed a tide of forest sounds; of
parrots, paroquets, macaws; blent with the howl of jaguars,
hissing of anacondas, chattering of apes, and herons screaming.
Out from those depths up rose a stream.
The land lay basking in the world's round torrid brisket,
hot with solar fire.
“ No need here to land,” cried Yoomy, “Yillah lurks
not here.”
“Heat breeds life, and sloth, and rage,” said Babbalanja.
“Here live bastard tribes and mongrel nations; wrangling
and murdering to prove their freedom.—Refill, my lord.”
“Methinks, Babbalanja, you savor of the mysterious
parchment, in Vivenza read:—Ha? Yes, philosopher,
these are the men, who toppled castles to make way for
hovels; these, they who fought for freedom, but find it
despotism to rule themselves. These, Babbalanja, are of
the race, to whom a tyrant would prove a blessing.” So
saying he drained his cup.
“My lord, that last sentiment decides the authorship of
the scroll. But, with deference, tyrants seldom can prove
blessings; inasmuch as evil seldom eventuates in good.
Yet will these people soon have a tyrant over them, if long
they cleave to war. Of many javelins, one must prove a
scepter; of many helmets, one a crown. It is but in the
wearing.—Refill, my lord.”
“Fools, fools!” cried Media, “these tribes hate us kings;
yet know not, that Peace is War against all kings. We
seldom are undone by spears, which are our ministers.—
This wine is strong.”
“Ha, now's the time! In his cups learn king-craft from
a king. Ay, ay, my lord, your royal order will endure, so
long as men will fight. Break the spears, and free the
nations. Kings reap the harvests that wave on battle-fields.
And oft you kings do snatch the aloe-flower, whose slow
blossoming mankind watches for a hundred years.—Say on,
my lord.”
“All this I know; and, therefore, rest content. My
children's children will be kings; though, haply, called by
other titles. Mardi grows fastidious in names: we royalties
will humor it. The steers would burst their yokes, but have
not hands. The whole herd rears and plunges, but soon
will bow again: the old, old way!”
“Yet, in Porpheero, strong scepters have been wrested
from anointed hands. Mankind seems in arms.”
“Let them arm on. They hate us:—good;—they always
have; yet still we've reigned, son after sire. Sometimes
they slay us, Babbalanja; pour out our marrow, as I
this wine; but they spill no kinless blood. 'Twas justly
held of old, that but to touch a monarch, was to strike at
Oro.—Truth. The palest vengeance is a royal ghost; and
regicides but father slaves. Thrones, not scepters, have been
broken. Mohi, what of the past? Has it not ever proved
so?”
“Pardon, my lord; the times seem changed. 'Tis held,
that demi-gods no more rule by right divine. In Vivenza's
land, they swear the last kings now reign in Mardi.”
“Is the last day at hand, old man? Mohi, your beard
is gray; but, Yoomy, listen. When you die, look around;
mark then if any mighty change be seen. Old kingdoms
may be on the wane; but new dynasties advance. Though
revolutions rise to high spring-tide, monarchs will still drown
hard;—monarchs survived the flood!”
“Are all our dreams, then, vain?” sighed Yoomy. “Is
this no dawn of day that streaks the crimson East! Naught
but the false and flickering lights which sometimes mock
Aurora in the north! Ah, man, my brother! have all
martyrs for thee bled in vain; in vain we poets sang, and
prophets spoken? Nay, nay; great Mardi, helmed and
mailed, strikes at Oppression's shield, and challenges to
battle! Oro will defend the right, and royal crests must
roll.”
“Thus, Yoomy, ages since, you mortal poets sang; but
the world may not be moved from out the orbit in which
first it rolled. On the map that charts the spheres, Mardi
is marked `the world of kings.' Round centuries on centuries
have wheeled by:—has all this been its nonage? Now,
when the rocks grow gray, does man first sprout his beard?
Or, is your golden time, your equinoctial year, at hand, that
your race fast presses toward perfection; and every hand
grasps at a scepter, that kings may be no more?"
"But free Vivenza! Is she not the star, that must, ere
long, lead up the constellations, though now unrisen? No
kings are in Vivenza ; yet, spite her thralls, in that land
seems more of good than elsewhere. Our hopes are not wild
dreams: Vivenza cheers our hearts. She is a rainbow to
the isles!"
"Ay, truth it is, that in Vivenza they have prospered.
But thence it comes not, that all men may be as they. Are
all men of one heart and brain; one bone and sinew? Are
all nations sprung of Dominora's loins? Or, has Vivenza
yet proved her creed? Yoomy! the years that prove a
man, prove not a nation. But two kings'-reigns have passed
since Vivenza was a monarch's. Her climacteric is not
come; hers is not yet a nation's manhood even ; though now
in childhood, she anticipates her youth, and lusts for empire
like any czar. Yoomy! judge not yet. Time hath tales
to tell. Many books, and many long, long chapters, are
wanting to Vivenza's history; and what history but is full
of blood?"
"There stop, my lord," said Babbalanja, "nor aught
predict. Fate laughs at prophets; and of all birds, the
raven is a liar!"
