d,
peculiar! Up! up! Let us not descend to the bathos, when we should
soar to the climax! Does not all Mardi wink and look on? Is the great
sun itself a frigid spectator? Then let us double up our mandibles to
the deadly encounter. Methinks I see it now. Old Bello is crafty, and
his oath is recorded to obliterate us! Across this wide lagoon he
casts his serpent eyes; whets his insatiate bill; mumbles his
barbarous tusks; licks his forked tongues; and who knows when we shall
have the shark in our midst? Yet be not deceived; for though as yet,
Bello has forborn molesting us openly, his emissaries are at work; his
infernal sappers, and miners, and wet-nurses, and midwives, and grave-
diggers are busy! His canoe-yards are all in commotion! In navies his
forests are being launched upon the wave; and ere long typhoons,
zephyrs, white-squalls, balmy breezes, hurricanes, and besoms will be
raging round us!"

His philippic concluded, Alanno was conducted from the place; and
being now quite exhausted, cold cobble-stones were applied to his
temples, and he was treated to a bath in a stream.

This chieftain, it seems, was from a distant western valley, called
Hio-Hio, one of the largest and most fertile in Vivenza, though but
recently settled. Its inhabitants, and those of the vales adjoining,--
a right sturdy set of fellows,--were accounted the most dogmatically
democratic and ultra of all the tribes in Vivenza; ever seeking to
push on their brethren to the uttermost; and especially were they
bitter against Bello. But they were a fine young tribe, nevertheless.
Like strong new wine they worked violently in becoming clear. Time,
perhaps, would make them all right.

An interval of greater uproar than ever now ensued; during which, with
his tomahawk, the white-headed old man repeatedly thumped and pounded
the seat where he sat, apparently to augment the din, though he looked
anxious to suppress it.

At last, tiring of his posture, he whispered in the ear of a chief,
his friend; who, approaching a portly warrior present, prevailed upon
him to rise and address the assembly. And no sooner did this one do
so, than the whole convocation dispersed, as if to their yams; and
with a grin, the little old man leaped from his seat, and stretched
his legs on a mat.

The fire was now extinguished, and the temple deserted.

CHAPTER LV
Wherein Babbalanja Comments Upon The Speech Of Alanno

As we lingered in the precincts of the templ