turtles, ant-eaters, armadilloes, guanos, serpents, tongueless
crocodiles:--a long procession, frosted and crystalized in stone, and
silvered by the moon.

"Strange sight!" cried Media. "Speak, antiquarian Mohi."

But the chronicler was twitching his antiquarian beard, nonplussed by
these wondrous records. The cowled old father, Piaggi, bending over
his calcined Herculanean manuscripts, looked not more at fault than
he.

Said Media, "Expound you, then, sage Babbalanja." Muffling his face in
his mantle, and his voice in sepulchral tones, Babbalanja thus:--

"These are the leaves of the book of Oro. Here we read how worlds are
made; here read the rise and fall of Nature's kingdoms. From where
this old man's furthest histories start, these unbeginning records
end. These are the secret memoirs of times past; whose evidence, at
last divulged, gives the grim lie to Mohi's gossipings, and makes a
rattling among the dry-bone relics of old Maramma."

Braid-Beard's old eyes flashed fire. With bristling beard, he cried,
"Take back the lie you send!"

"Peace! everlasting foes," cried Media, interposing, with both arms
outstretched. "Philosopher, probe not too deep. All you say is very
fine, but very dark. I would know something more precise. But,
prithee, ghost, unmuffle! chatter no more! wait till you're buried for
that."

"Ay, death's cold ague will set us all shivering, my lord. We'll swear
our teeth are icicles."

"Will you quit driving your sleet upon us? have done expound these
rocks."

"My lord, if you desire, I'll turn over these stone tablets till
they're dog-eared."

"Heaven and Mardi!--Go on, Babbalanja."

"'Twas thus. These were tombs burst open by volcanic throes; and
hither hurled from the lowermost vaults of the lagoon. All Mardi's
rocks are one wide resurrection. But look. Here, now, a pretty story's
told. Ah, little thought these grand old lords, that lived and roared
before the flood, that they would come to this. Here, King Media, look
and learn."

He looked; and saw a picture petrified, and plain as any on the
pediments of Petra.

It seemed a stately banquet of the dead, where lords in skeletons were
ranged around a board heaped up with fossil fruits, and flanked with
vitreous vases, grinning like empty skulls. There they sat, exchanging
rigid courtesies. One's hand was on his stony heart; his other pledged
a lord who held a hollow beaker. Another sat, with earnest face
beneath a mitred brow.