Chapter 44 - Page 2

mutely wait on the
Sultan.

"Since we are born, we will live!" so we read on a crimson banner,
flouting the crimson clouds, in the van of a riotous red-bonneted mob,
racing by us as we came from the glen. Many more followed: black, or
blood-stained:--.

"Mardi is man's!"

"Down with landholders!"

"Our turn now!"

"Up rights! Down wrongs!"

"Bread! Bread!"

"Take the tide, ere it turns!"

Waving their banners, and flourishing aloft clubs, hammers, and
sickles, with fierce yells the crowd ran on toward the palace of
Bello. Foremost, and inciting the rest by mad outcries and gestures,
were six masks; "This way! This way!" they cried,--"by the wood; by
the dark wood!" Whereupon all darted into the groves; when of a
sudden, the masks leaped forward, clearing a long covered trench, into
which fell many of those they led. But on raced the masks; and gaining
Bello's palace, and raising the alarm, there sallied from thence a
woodland of spears, which charged upon the disordered ranks in the
grove. A crash as of icicles against icebergs round Zembla, and down
went the hammers and sickles. The host fled, hotly pursued. Meanwhile
brave heralds from Bello advanced, and with chaplets crowned the six
masks.--"Welcome, heroes! worthy and valiant!" they cried. "Thus our
lord Bello rewards all those, who to do him a service, for hire betray
their kith and their kin."

Still pursuing our quest, wide we wandered through all the sun and
shade of Dominora; but nowhere was Yillah found.