64. CHAPTER LXIV.
CONCENTRIC, INWARD, WITH MARDI'S REEF, THEY LEAVE
THEIR WAKE AROUND THE WORLD.
West, West! West, West! Whitherward point Hope
and prophet-fingers; whitherward, at sun-set, kneel all
worshipers of fire; whitherward in mid-ocean, the great
whales turn to die; whitherward face all the Moslem dead
in Persia; whitherward lie Heaven and Hell!—West, West!
Whitherward mankind and empires—flocks, caravans, armies,
navies; worlds, suns, and stars all wend!—West,
West!—Oh boundless boundary! Eternal goal! Whitherward
rush, in thousand worlds, ten thousand thousand
keels! Beacon, by which the universe is steered!—Like
the north-star, attracting all needles! Unattainable forever;
but forever leading to great things this side thyself!—Hive
of all sunsets!—Gabriel's pinions may not overtake thee!
Over balmy waves, still westward sailing! From dawn
till eve, the bright, bright days sped on, chased by the gloomy
nights; and, in glory dying, lent their luster to the starry
skies. So, long the radiant dolphins fly before the sable
sharks; but seized, and torn in flames—die, burning:—
their last splendor left, in sparkling scales that float along
the sea.
Cymbals, drums and psalteries! the air beats like a pulse
with music!—High land! high land! and moving lights,
and painted lanterns!—What grand shore is this?
“Reverence we render thee, Old Orienda!” cried Media,
with bared brow, “Original of all empires and emperors!
—a crowned king salutes thee!”
“Mardi's father-land!” cried Mohi, “grandsire of the
nations,—hail!”
“All hail!” cried Yoomy. “Kings and sages hither
coming, should come like palmers,—scrip and staff! Oh
Orienda! thou wert our East, where first dawned song and
science, with Mardi's primal mornings! But now, how
changed! the dawn of light become a darkness, which we
kindle with the gleam of spears! On the world's ancestral
hearth, we spill our brothers' blood!”
“Herein,” said Babbalanja, “have many distant tribes
proved parricidal. In times gone by, Luzianna hither sent
her proas; Franko, her scores of captains; and the Dykemen,
their peddler hosts, with yard-stick spears! But thou, oh
Bello! lord of the empire lineage! Noah of the moderns.
Sire of the long line of nations yet in germ!—thou,
Bello, and thy locust armies, are the present curse of
Orienda. Down ancient streams, from holy plains, in rafts
thy murdered float! The pestilence that thins thy armies
here, is bred of corpses, made by thee. Maramma's
priests, thy pious heralds, loud proclaim that of all pagans,
Orienda's most resist the truth!—ay! vain all pious voices,
that speak from clouds of war! The march of conquest
through wild provinces, may be the march of Mind; but
not the march of Love.”
“Thou, Bello!” cried Yoomy, “would'st wrest the crook
from Alma's hand, and place in it a spear. But vain to
make a conqueror of him, who put off the purple when he
came to Mardi; and declining gilded miters, entered the
nations meekly on an ass.”
“Oh curse of commerce!” cried Babbalanja, “that it
barters souls for gold. Bello! with opium, thou wouldst
drug this land, and murder it in sleep!—And what boot
thy conquests here? Seed sown by spears but seldom
springs; and harvests reaped thereby, are poisoned by the
sickle's edge.”
Yet on, and on we coasted; counting not the days.
“Oh, folds and flocks of nations! dusky tribes innumerable!”
cried Yoomy, “camped on plains and steppes; on
thousand mountains, worshiping the stars; in thousand
valleys, offering up first-fruits, till all the forests seem in
flames;—where, in fire, the widow's spirit mounts to meet
her lord!—Oh, Orienda, in thee 'tis vain to seek our
Yillah!”
“How dark as death the night!” said Mohi, shaking the
dew from his braids, “the Heavens blaze not here with
stars, as over Dominora's land, and broad Vivenza.”
One only constellation was beheld; but every star was
brilliant as the one, that promises the morning. That
constellation was the Crux-Australis,—the badge, and type
of Alma.
And now, southwest we steered, till another island vast,
was reached;—Hamora! far trending toward the Antarctic
Pole.
Coasting on by barbarous beaches, where painted men,
with spears, charged on all attempts to land, at length we
rounded a mighty bluff,—lit by a beacon; and heard a bugle
call:—Bello's hurrying to their quarters, the World-End's
garrison.
Here, the sea rolled high, in mountain surges: mid which,
we toiled and strained, as if ascending cliffs of Caucasus.
But not long thus. As when from howling Rhœtian
heights, the traveler spies green Lombardy below, and downward
rushes toward that pleasant plain; so, sloping from
long rolling swells, at last we launched upon the calm
lagoon.
But as we northward sailed, once more the storm-trump
blew, and charger-like, the seas ran mustering to the call;
and in battalions crouched before a towering rock, far distant
from the main. No moon, eclipsed in Egypt's skies, looked
half so lone. But from out that darkness, on the loftiest
peak, Bello's standard waved.
“Oh rifled tomb!” cried Babbalanja. “Wherein lay the
Mars and Moloch of our times, whose constellated crown,
was gemmed with diadems. Thou god of war! who didst
seem the devouring Beast of the Apocalypse; casting so vast
a shadow over Mardi, that yet it lingers in old Franko's vale;
where still they start at thy tremendous ghost; and, late,
have hailed a phantom, King! Almighty hero-spell! that
after the lapse of half a century, can so bewitch all hearts!
But one drop of hero-blood will deify a fool.
“Franko! thou wouldst be free; yet thy free homage is to
the buried ashes of a King; thy first choice, the exaltation
of his race. In furious fires, thou burn'st Ludwig's
throne; and over thy new-made chieftain's portal, in golden
letters print'st—`The Palace of our Lord!' In thy New Dispensation,
thou cleavest to the exploded Law. And on Freedom's
altar—ah, I fear—still, may slay thy hecatombs. But
Freedom turns away; she is sick with burnt blood of offerings.
Other rituals she loves; and like Oro, unseen herself,
would be worshiped only by invisibles. Of long drawn
cavalcades, pompous processions, frenzied banners, mystic
music, marching nations, she will none. Oh, may thy peaceful
Future, Franko, sanctify thy bloody Past. Let not history
say; `To her old gods, she turned again.”'
This rocky islet passed, the sea went down; once more
we neared Hamora's western shore. In the deep darkness,
here and there, its margin was lit up by foam-white, breaking
billows rolled over from Vivenza's strand, and down
from northward Dominora; marking places where light was
breaking in, upon the interior's jungle-gloom.
In heavy sighs, the night-winds from shore came over us.
“Ah, vain to seek sweet Yillah here,” cried Yoomy.—
“Poor land! curst of man, not Oro! how thou faintest for
thy children, torn from thy soil, to till a stranger's. Vivenza!
did these winds not spend their plaints, ere reaching
thee, thy every vale would echo them. Oh, tribe of Hamo!
thy cup of woe so brims, that soon it must overflow upon
the land which holds ye thralls. No misery born of crime,
but spreads and poisons wide. Suffering hunteth sin, as the
gaunt hound the hare, and tears it in the greenest brakes.”
Still on we sailed: and after many tranquil days and
nights, a storm came down, and burst its thousand bombs.
The lightnings forked and flashed; the waters boiled; our
three prows lifted themselves in supplication; but the billows
smote them as they reared.
Said Babbalanja, bowing to the blast: “Thus, oh Vivenza!
retribution works! Though long delayed, it comes
at last—Judgment, with all her bolts.”
Now, a current seized us, and like three darts, our keels
sped eastward, through a narrow strait, far in, upon a
smooth expanse, an inland ocean, without a throb.
On our left, Porpheero's southwest point, a mighty rock,
long tiers of galleries within, deck on deck; and flag-staffs,
like an admiral's masts: a line-of-battle-ship, all purple stone,
and anchored in the sea. Here Bello's lion crouched; and,
through a thousand port-holes, eyed the world.
On our right, Hamora's northern shore gleamed thick with
crescents; numerous as the crosses along the opposing strand.
“How vain to say, that progress is the test of truth, my
lord,” said Babbalanja, “when, after many centuries, those
crescents yet unwaning shine, and count a devotee for every
worshiper of yonder crosses. Truth and Merit have other
symbols than success; and in this mortal race, all competitors
may enter; and the field is clear for all. Side by side, Lies
run with Truths, and fools with wise; but, like geometric
lines, though they pierce infinity, never may they join.”
Over that tideless sea we sailed; and landed right, and
landed left; but the maiden never found; till, at last, we
gained the water's limit; and inland saw great pointed
masses, crowned with halos.
“Granite continents,” cried Babbalanja, “that seem created
like the planets, not built with human hands. Lo,
Landmarks! upon whose flanks Time leaves its traces, like
old tide-rips of diluvian seas.”
As, after wandering round and round some purple dell,
deep in a boundless prairie's heart, the baffled hunter plunges
in; then, despairing, turns once more to gain the open plain;
even so we seekers now curved round our keels; and from
that inland sea emerged. The universe again before us; our
quest, as wide.
