THE ESSENTIAL MELVILLE - 160+ Titles in One Edition. Герман Мелвилл

easy turning digits into toes; I’ll walk, by gad! which is my other option.’ So he went straight forward, and did King Normo’s bidding in the natural way.”

      “A curious story that,” said Media; “whence came it?”

      “My lord, where every thing, but one, is to be had:— within.”

      “You are charged to the muzzle, then,” said Braid–Beard. “Yes, Mohi; and my talk is my overflowing, not my fullness.”

      “And what may you be so full of?”

      “Of myself.”

      “So it seems,” said Mohi, whisking away a fly with his beard.

      “Babbalanja,” said Media, “you did right in selecting this ebon night for discussing the theme you did; and truly, you mortals are but too apt to talk in the dark.”

      “Ay, my lord, and we mortals may prate still more in the dark, when we are dead; for methinks, that if we then prate at all, ’twill be in our sleep. Ah! my lord, think not that in aught I’ve said this night, I would assert any wisdom of my own. I but fight against the armed and crested Lies of Mardi, that like a host, assail me. I am stuck full of darts; but, tearing them from out me, gasping, I discharge them whence they come.”

      So saying, Babbalanja slowly drooped, and fell reclining; then lay motionless as the marble Gladiator, that for centuries has been dying.