The Complete Works of Herman Melville: Novels, Short Stories, Poems & Essays. Herman Melville
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eyes, hair and beard, and a horrible necklace of jaw-bones.
Now, issuing from the pagoda, Mohi turned about to gain a view of the ghost he had raised; and no sooner did he behold it, than with King Media and the rest, he made a marked salutation.
Presently, the eremite pointed to where Yoomy was standing; and waved his hand upward; when Mohi informed the minstrel, that it was St. Stylites’ pleasure, that he should pay him a visit.
Wondering what was to come, Yoomy proceeded to mount; and at last arriving toward the top of the pagoda, was met by an opening, from which an encouraging arm assisted him to gain the ultimate landing.
Here, all was murky enough; for the aperture from which the head of the apparition had been thrust, was now closed; and what little twilight there was, came up through the opening in the floor.
In this dismal seclusion, silently the hermit confronted the minstrel; his gray hair, eyes, and beard all gleaming, as if streaked with phosphorus; while his ghastly gorget grinned hideously, with all its jaws.
Mutely Yoomy waited to be addressed; but hearing no sound, and becoming alive to the strangeness of his situation, he meditated whether it would not be well to subside out of sight, even as he had come — through the floor. An intention which the eremite must have anticipated; for of a sudden, something was slid over the opening; and the apparition seating itself thereupon, the twain were in darkness complete.
Shut up thus, with an inscrutable stranger posted at the only aperture of escape, poor Yoomy fell into something like a panic; hardly knowing what step to take next. As for endeavoring to force his way out, it was alarming to think of; for aught he knew, the eremite, availing himself of the gloom, might be bristling all over with javelin points.
At last, the silence was broken.
“What see you, mortal?”
“Chiefly darkness,” said Yoomy, wondering at the audacity of the question.
“I dwell in it. But what else see you, mortal?”
“The dim gleaming of thy gorget.”
“But that is not me. What else dost thou see?”
“Nothing.”
“Then thou hast found me out, and seen all! Descend.”
And with that, the passage-way opened, and groping through the twilight, Yoomy obeyed the mandate, and retreated; full of vexation at his enigmatical reception.
On his alighting, Mohi inquired whether the hermit was not a wonderful personage.
But thinking some sage waggery lurked in the question; and at present too indignant to enter into details, the minstrel made some impatient reply; and winding through a defile, the party resumed its journey.
Straggling behind, to survey the strange plants and flowers in his path, Yoomy became so absorbed, as almost to forget the scene in the pagoda; yet every moment expected to be nearing the stately abode of the Pontiff.
But suddenly, the scene around grew familiar; the path seemed that which had been followed just after leaving the canoes; and at length, the place of debarkation was in sight.
Surprised that the object of our visit should have been thus abandoned, the minstrel ran forward, and sought an explanation.
Whereupon, Mohi lifted his hands in amazement; exclaiming at the blindness of the eyes, which had beheld the supreme Pontiff of Maramma, without knowing it.
The old hermit was no other than the dread Hivohitee; the pagoda, the inmost oracle of the isle.
CHAPTER 13
BABBALANJA ENDEAVORS TO EXPLAIN THE MYSTERY
This Great Mogul of a personage, then; this woundy Aliasuerus; this man of men; this same Hivohitee, whose name rumbled among the mountains like a peal of thunder, had been seen face to face, and taken for naught, but a bearded old hermit, or at best, some equivocal conjuror.
So great was his wonderment at the time, that Yoomy could not avoid expressing it in words.
Whereupon thus discoursed Babbalanja:
“Gentle Yoomy, be not astounded, that Hivohitee is so far behind your previous conceptions. The shadows of things are greater than themselves; and the more exaggerated the shadow, the more unlike to the substance.”
“But knowing now, what manner of person Hivohitee is,” said Yoomy, “much do I long to behold him again.”
But Mohi assured him it was out of the question; that the Pontiff always acted toward strangers as toward him (Yoomy); and that but one dim blink at the eremite was all that mortal could obtain.
Debarred thus from a second and more satisfactory interview with one, concerning whom his curiosity had been violently aroused, the minstrel again turned to Mohi for enlightenment; especially touching that magnate’s Egyptian reception of him in his aerial den.
Whereto, the chronicler made answer, that the Pontiff affected darkness because he liked it: that he was a ruler of few words, but many deeds; and that, had Yoomy been permitted to tarry longer with him in the pagoda, he would have been privy to many strange attestations of the divinity imputed to him. Voices would have been heard in the air, gossiping with Hivohitee; noises inexplicable proceeding from him; in brief, light would have flashed out of his darkness.
“But who has seen these things, Mohi?” said Babbalanja, “have you?”
“Nay.”
“Who then? — Media? — Any one you know?”
“Nay: but the whole Archipelago has.”
“Thus,” exclaimed Babbalanja, “does Mardi, blind though it be in many things, collectively behold the marvels, which one pair of eyes sees not.”
CHAPTER 14
TAJI RECEIVES TIDINGS AND OMENS
Slowly sailing on, we were overtaken by a shallop; whose inmates grappling to the side of Media’s, said they came from Borabolla.
Dismal tidings! — My faithful follower’s death.
Absent over night, that morning early, he had been discovered lifeless in the woods, three arrows in his heart. And the three pale strangers were nowhere to be found. But a fleet canoe was missing from the beach.
Slain for me! my soul sobbed out. Nor yet appeased Aleema’s manes; nor yet seemed sated the avengers’ malice; who, doubtless, were on my track.
But I turned; and instantly the three canoes had been reversed; and full soon, Jarl’s dead hand in mine, had not Media interposed.
“To death, your presence will not bring life back.”
“And we must on,” said Babbalanja. “We seek the living, not the dead.”
Thus they overruled me; and Borabolla’s messengers departed.
Soon evening came, and in its shades, three shadows — Hautia’s heralds.
Their shallop glided near.
A leaf tri-foiled was first presented; then another, arrow-shaped.
Said Yoomy, “Still I swiftly follow, behind revenge.”
Then were showered faded, pallid daffodils.
Said Yoomy, “Thy hopes are blighted all.”
“Not dead, but living with the life of life. Sirens! I heed ye not.”
They would have showered more flowers; but crowding sail we left them.