owling whales, prowling keels, and prowling sharks were
invaders. And with this fine conceit to inspire them, his poets-
laureat composed some glorious old saltwater odes, enough to make your
very soul sing to hear them.

But though the rest of Mardi much delighted to list to such noble
minstrelsy, they agreed not with Bello's poets in deeming the lagoon
their old monarch's hereditary domain.

Once upon a time, the paddlers of the hump-backed king, meeting upon
the broad lagoon certain canoes belonging to the before-mentioned
island of Vivenza; these paddlers seized upon several of their
occupants; and feeling their pulses, declared them born men of
Dominora; and therefore, not free to go whithersoever they would; for,
unless they could somehow get themselves born over again, they must
forever remain subject to Bello. Shed your hair; nay, your skin, if
you will, but shed your allegiance you can not; while you have bones,
they are Bello's. So, spite of all expostulations and attempts to
prove alibis, these luckless paddlers were dragged into the canoes of
Dominora, and commanded to paddle home their captors.

Whereof hearing, the men of Vivenza were thrown into a great ferment;
and after a mighty pow-wow over their council fire, fitting out
several double-keeled canoes, they sallied out to sea, in quest of
those, whom they styled the wholesale corsairs of Dominora.

But lucky perhaps it was, that at this juncture, in all parts of
Mardi, the fleets of the hump-backed king, were fighting, gunwale and
gunwale, alongside of numerous foes; else there had borne down upon
the canoes of the men of Vivenza so tremendous an armada, that the
very swell under its thousand prows might have flooded their scattered
proas forever out of sight.

As it was, Bello dispatched a few of his smaller craft to seek out,
and incidentally run down the enemy; and without returning home,
straightway proceed upon more important enterprises.

But it so chanced, that Bello's crafts, one by one meeting the foe, in
most cases found the canoes of Vivenza much larger than their own; and
manned by more men, with hearts bold as theirs; whence, in the ship-
duels that ensued, they were worsted; and the canoes of Vivenza,
locking their yard-arms into those of the vanquished, very courteously
gallanted them into their coral harbors.

Solely imputing these victories to their superior intrepidity and
skill, the people of Vivenza were exceedingly boisterou