Wherein Babbalanja Bows Thrice


The next morning's twilight found us once more afloat; and yielding to
that almost sullen feeling, but too apt to prevail with some mortals
at that hour, all but Media long remained silent.

But now, a bright mustering is seen among the myriad white Tartar
tents in the Orient; like lines of spears defiling upon some upland
plain, the sunbeams thwart the sky. And see! amid the blaze of
banners, and the pawings of ten thousand thousand golden hoofs, day's
mounted Sultan, Xerxes-like, moves on: the Dawn his standard, East and
West his cymbals.

"Oh, morning life!" cried Yoomy, with a Persian air; "would that all
time were a sunrise, and all life a youth."

"Ah! but these striplings whimper of youth," said Mohi, caressing his
braids, "as if they wore this beard."

"But natural, old man," said Babbalanja. "We Mardians never seem young
to ourselves; childhood is to youth what manhood is to age:--something
to be looked back upon, with sorrow that it is past. But childhood
reeks of no future, and knows no past; hence, its present passes in a
vapor."

"Mohi, how's your appetite this morning?" said Media.

"Thus, thus, ye gods," sighed Yoomy, "is feeling ever scouted. Yet,
what might seem feeling in me, I can not express."