Chapter 36 - Page 2

a sort of wicker-work. In advance marched a priest,
bearing an idol with a cracked cocoanut for a head,--Krako, the god of
Trepans. Preceded by damsels flinging flowers, now came on the second
fifty, gayly appareled, weapons poised, and their feet nimbly moving
in a martial measure.

Midway meeting, both parties touched poles, then retreated. Very
courteous, this; but tantamount to bowing each other out of Mardi; for
upon Pike's tossing a javelin, they rushed in, and each striking his
man, all fell to the ground.

"Well done!" cried Piko.

"Brave fellows!" cried Hello.

"But up and at it again, my heroes!" joined both. "Lo! we kings look
on, and there stand the bards!"

These bards were a row of lean, sallow, old men, in thread-bare robes,
and chaplets of dead leaves.

"Strike up!" cried Piko.

"A stave!" cried Hello.

Whereupon, the old croakers, each with a quinsy, sang thus in cracked
strains:--

Quack! Quack! Quack!
With a toorooloo whack;
Hack away, merry men, hack away.
Who would not die brave,
His ear smote by a stave?
Thwack away, merry men, thwack away!
'Tis glory that calls,
To each hero that falls,
Hack away, merry men, hack away!
Quack! Quack! Quack!
Quack! Quack!
Quack!

Thus it tapered away.

"Ha, ha!" cried Piko, "how they prick their ears at that!"

"Hark ye, my invincibles!" cried Hello. "That pean is for the slain.
So all ye who have lives left, spring to it! Die and be glorified!
Now's the time!--Strike up again, my ducklings!"

Thus incited, the survivors staggered to their feet; and hammering
away at each others' sconces, till they rung like a chime of bells
going off with a triple-bob-major, they finally succeeded in
immortalizing themselves by quenching their mortalities all round; the
bards still singing.

"Never mind your music now," cried Piko.

"It's all over," said Hello.

"What valiant fellows we have for subjects," cried Piko.

"Ho! grave-diggers, clear the field," cried Hello.

"Who else is for glory?" cried Piko.

"There stand the bards!" cried Hello.

But now there rushed among the crowd a haggard figure, trickling with
blood, and wearing a robe, whose edges were burned and blacked by
fire. Wielding a club, it ran to and fro, with loud yells menacing
all.

A noted warrior this; who, distracted at the death of five sons slain
in recent games, wandered from valley to valley, wrestling and
fighting.

With wild cries of "The Despairer! The