They Have
It was afternoon when we emerged from the defile. And informed that
our host was receiving his guests in the House of the Afternoon, thither we directed our steps.
Soft in our face, blew the blessed breezes of Omi, stirring the
leaves overhead; while, here and there, through the trees, showed the
idol-bearers of the royal retreat, hand in hand, linked with festoons
of flowers. Still beyond, on a level, sparkled the nodding crowns of
the kings, like the constellation Corona-Borealis, the horizon just
gained.
Close by his noon-tide friend, the cascade at the mouth of the
grotto, reposed on his crimson mat, Donjalolo:—arrayed in a vestment
of the finest white tappa of Mardi, figured all over with bright
yellow lizards, so curiously stained in the gauze, that he seemed
overrun, as with golden mice.
Marjora's girdle girdled his loins, tasseled with the congregated
teeth of his sires. A jeweled turban-tiara, milk-white, surmounted
his brow, over which waved a copse of Pintado plumes.
But what sways in his hand? A scepter, similar to those likenesses of
scepters, imbedded among the corals at his feet. A polished thigh-bone; by Braid-Beard declared once Teei's the Murdered. For to emphasize his intention utterly to rule, Marjora himself had selected this emblem of dominion over mankind.
But even this last despite done to dead Teei had once been
transcended. In the usurper's time, prevailed the belief, that
the saliva of kings must never touch ground; and Mohi's Chronicles
made mention, that during the life time of Marjora, Teei's skull had
been devoted to the basest of purposes: Marjora's, the hate no turf
could bury.
Yet, traditions like these ever seem dubious. There be many who deny
the hump, moral and physical, of Gloster Richard.
Still advancing unperceived, in social hilarity we descried their
Highnesses, chatting together like the most plebeian of mortals; full
as merry as the monks of old. But marking our approach, all changed. A pair of potentates, who had been playfully trifling, hurriedly adjusted their diadems, threw themselves into attitudes, looking stately as statues. Phidias turned not out his Jupiter so soon.
In various-dyed robes the five-and-twenty kings were arrayed; and
various their features, as the rows of lips, eyes and ears in John
Caspar Lavater's physiognomical charts. Nevertheless, to a king, all
their noses were aquiline.
There were long fox-tail beards of silver gray, and enameled chins, like those of girls; bald pates and Merovingian locks; smooth brows and wrinkles: forms erect and stooping; an eye that squinted; one king was deaf; by his side, another that was halt; and not far off, a dotard. They were old and young, tall and short, handsome and ugly, fat and lean, cunning and simple.
With animated courtesy our host received us; assigning a neighboring
bower for Babbalanja and the rest; and among so many right-royal, demi-divine guests, how could the demi-gods Media and Taji be otherwise than at home?
The unwonted sprightliness of Donjalolo surprised us. But he was in
one of those relapses of desperate gayety in-variably following his
failures in efforts to amend his life. And the bootless issue of his
late mission to outer Mardi had thrown him into a mood for revelry. Nor had he lately shunned a wild wine, called Morando.
A slave now appearing with a bowl of this beverage, it circulated
freely.
Not to gainsay the truth, we fancied the Morando much. A nutty, pungent flavor it had; like some kinds of arrack distilled in the Philippine isles. And a marvelous effect did it have, in dissolving the crystalization of the brain; leaving nothing but precious little drops of good humor, beading round the bowl of the cranium.
Meanwhile, garlanded boys, climbing the limbs of the idol-pillars, and stirruping their feet in their most holy mouths, suspended hangings of crimson tappa all round the hall; so that sweeping the pavement they rustled in the breeze from the grot.
Presently, stalwart slaves advanced; bearing a mighty basin of a
porphyry hue, deep-hollowed out of a tree. Outside, were innumerable
grotesque conceits; conspicuous among which, for a border, was an
endless string of the royal lizards circumnavigating the basin in
inverted chase of their tails.