e had one of his ears chawed off (first blood for the
catawampuss), but this was a mere temporary advantage. When next we saw
clearly through the tempest of flying fur and scales, the head of the
catawampuss _had entirely disappeared_, and the animal was clearly
much distressed.

Then, all of a sudden, the end came.

_They had swallowed each other!_

Not a vestige of either was left!

This duel was a wonderful and shocking sight, and was therefore
withdrawn, by request, as the patrons of the Gardens are directly
interested in the morality of the establishment.

CHAPTER VII.

AMONG THE LO-GROLLAS.

How to escape from our perilous position on the banks of a pestilential
stream, haunted by catawampodes and other fell birds of prey, now
became a subject for consideration. Our object, of course, was to reach
the people of the Lo-grollas, through whose region, according to the
prophecy, we must pass before finding the Magician that should guide us
to the mummy. Our perplexity was only increased by the discovery that
we were surrounded on every side by the walls and houses of a gigantic
city. Stealing out by the canal as we had entered, we found to our
comfort that this must be the very city mentioned by Theodolite. As the
seeress had declared, a deep and noisome night always prevailed, only
broken here and there as a wanderer scratched one of Bryant & May's
matches and painfully endeavoured to decipher the number on the door of
his house. The streets, moreover, were strewn and interwoven with long
strings of iron fallen from the sky.

'_The people who wire themselves with wires_,' whispered Leonora; 'what
do you think of my interpretation _now_?'

'I shall inquire,' I answered, and I _did_ inquire for the land of the
Lo-grollas, but in vain.

Happily we chanced to meet an old man, clothed in a whitish robe of
some unknown substance, not unlike paper. This fluttering vesture was
marked with strange characters, in black and red, which Leonora was
able to interpret. She read them thus. They were but fragmentary.

[Illustration:

+-----------------------+
| SP" "AL |
| |
| VORCE C"SE. |
| |
| WAR "" "URKEY. |
| |
| P"L ""LL ""ZETTE. |
+-----------------------+
]

On the fragments the words, 'Tragedy,' 'Awful Revelations,' 'Purity,'
and other apparently inconsistent