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next?” cried Media.
“The Ool, or Oily sandwich:— rare gormandizing then; for oily it was called, because of fat old joints, and hams, and rounds, and barons of sea-beeves and walrusses, which then crowned the stratum-board. All piled together, glorious profusion! — fillets and briskets, rumps, and saddles, and haunches; shoulder to shoulder, loin ‘gainst sirloin, ribs rapping knuckles, and quarter to none. And all these sandwiched right over all that went before. Course after course, and course on course, my lord; no time to clear the wreck; no stop nor let; lay on and slash; cut, thrust, and come.
“Next the Chalk, or Coral sandwich; but no dry fare for that; made up of rich side-courses — eocene, miocene, and pliocene. The first was wild game for the delicate — bantam larks, curlews, quails, and flying weazels; with a slight sprinkling of pilaus — capons, pullets, plovers, and garnished with petrels’ eggs. Very savory, that, my lord. The second side-course — miocene — was out of course, flesh after fowl: marine mammalia — seals, grampuses, and whales, served up with sea-weed on their flanks, hearts and kidneys deviled, and fins and flippers friccasied. All very thee, my lord. The third side-course, the pliocene, was goodliest of all:— whole-roasted elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses, stuffed with boiled ostriches, condors, cassowaries, turkeys. Also barbacued mastodons and megatheriums, gallantly served up with fir-trees in their mouths, and tails cock-billed.
“Thus fared the old diluvians: arrant gormandizers and beef-bolters. We Mardians famish on the superficial strata of deposits; cracking our jaws on walnuts, filberts, cocoa-nuts, and clams. My lord, I’ve done.”
“And bravely done it is. Mohi tells us, that Mardi was made in six days; but you, Babbalanja, have built it up from the bottom in less than six minutes.”
“Nothing for us geologists, my lord. At a word we turn you out whole systems, suns, satellites, and asteroids included. Why, my good lord, my friend Annonimo is laying out a new Milky Way, to intersect with the old one, and facilitate cross-cuts among the comets.”
And so saying, Babbalanja turned aside.
CHAPTER 29
THEY STILL REMAIN UPON THE ROCK
“Gogle-goggle, fugle-fi, fugle-fogle-orum,” so hummed to himself Babbalanja, slowly pacing over the fossils. “Is he crazy again?” whispered Yoomy.
“Are you crazy, Babbalanja?” asked Media.
“From my very birth have I been so, my lord; am I not possessed by a devil?”
“Then I’ll e’en interrogate him,” cried Media. “— Hark ye, sirrah; — why rave you thus in this poor mortal?”
“’Tis he, not I. I am the mildest devil that ever entered man; in propria persona, no antlers do I wear; my tail has lost its barb, as at last your Mardian lions lose their caudal horns.”
“A very sing-song devil this. But, prithee, who are you, sirrah?”
“The mildest devil that ever entered man; in propria persona, no antlers do I wear; my tail has lost its barb, as at last your Mardian lions lose their caudal horns.”
“A very iterating devil this. Sirrah! mock me not. Know you aught yet unrevealed by Babbalanja?”
“Many things I know, not good to tell; whence they call me Azzageddi.”
“A very confidential devil, this; that tells no secrets. Azzageddi, can I drive thee out?”
“Only with this mortal’s ghost:— together we came in, together we depart.”
“A very terse, and ready devil, this. Whence come you, Azzageddi?”
“Whither my catechist must go — a torrid clime, cut by a hot equator.”
“A very keen, and witty devil, this. Azzageddi, whom have you there?”
“A right down merry, jolly set, that at a roaring furnace sit and toast their hoofs for aye; so used to flames, they poke the fire with their horns, and light their tails for torches.”
“A very funny devil, this. Azzageddi, is not Mardi a place far pleasanter, than that from whence you came?”
“Ah, home! sweet, sweet, home! would, would that I were home again!”
“A very sentimental devil, this. Azzageddi, would you had a hand, I’d shake it.”
“Not so with us; who, rear to rear, shake each other’s tails, and courteously inquire, ‘Pray, worthy sir, how now stands the great thermometer?’”
“The very prince of devils, this.”
“How mad our Babbalanja is,” cried Mohi. My lord, take heed; he’ll bite.”
“Alas! alas!” sighed Yoomy.
“Hark ye, Babbalanja,” cried Media, “enough of this: doff your devil, and be a man.”
“My lord, I can not doff him; but I’ll down him for a time: Azzageddi! down, imp; down, down, down! so: now, my lord, I’m only Babbalanja.”
“Shall I test his sanity, my lord?” cried Mohi.
“Do, old man.”
“Philosopher, our great reef is surrounded by an ocean; what think you lies beyond?”
“Alas!” sighed Yoomy, “the very subject to renew his madness.”
“Peace, minstrel!” said Media. “Answer, Babbalanja.”
“I will, my lord. Fear not, sweet Yoomy; you see how calm I am. Braid–Beard, those strangers, that came to Mondoldo prove isles afar, as a philosopher of old surmised, but was hooted at for his surmisings. Nor is it at all impossible, Braid–Beard, that beyond their land may exist other regions, of which those strangers know not; peopled with races something like us Mardians; but perhaps with more exalted faculties, and organs that we lack. They may have some better seeing sense than ours; perhaps, have fins or wings for arms.”
“This seems not like sanity,” muttered Mohi.
“A most crazy hypothesis, truly,” said Media.
“And are all inductions vain?” cried Babbalanja. “Have we mortals naught to rest on, but what we see with eyes? Is no faith to be reposed in that inner microcosm, wherein we see the charted universe in little, as the whole horizon is mirrored in the iris of a gnat? Alas! alas! my lord, is there no blest Odonphi? no Astrazzi?”
“His devil’s uppermost again, my lord,” cried Braid–Beard.
“He’s stark, stark mad!” sighed Yoomy.
“Ay, the moon’s at full,” said Media. “Ho, paddlers! we depart.”
CHAPTER 30
BEHIND AND BEFORE
It was yet moonlight when we pushed from the islet. But soon, the sky grew dun; the moon went into a cavern among the clouds; and by that secret sympathy between our hearts and the elements, the thoughts of all but Media became overcast.
Again discourse was had of that dark intelligence from Mondoldo — the fell murder of Taji’s follower.
Said Mohi, “Those specter sons of Aleema must have been the assassins.”
“They harbored deadly malice,” said Babbalanja.
“Which poor Jarl’s death must now have sated,” sighed Yoomy.
“Then all the happier for Taji,” said Media. “But away with gloom! because the sky is clouded,