Vouchsafing no reply, Yoomy went on.

“At a certain age, but while yet the maidens were very young, their vines bore blossoms.  Ah! fatal symptoms.  For soon as they burst, the maidens died in their arbors; and were buried in the valleys; and their vines spread forth; and the flowers bloomed; but the maidens themselves were no more.  And now disdaining the earth, the vines shot upward:  climbing to the topmost boughs of the trees; and flowering in the sunshine forever and aye.”

Yoomy here paused for a space; but presently continued: 

“The little eyes of the people of Tupia were very strange to behold:  full of stars, that shone from within, like the Pleiades, deep-bosomed in blue.  And like the stars, they were intolerant of sunlight; and slumbering through the day, the people of Tupia only went abroad by night.  But it was chiefly when the moon was at full, that they were mostly in spirits.

“Then the little manikins would dive down into the sea, and rove about in the coral groves, making love to the mermaids.  Or, racing round, make a mad merry night of it with the sea-urchins:—­plucking the reverend mullets by the beard; serenading the turtles in their cells; worrying the sea-nettles; or tormenting with their antics the touchy torpedos.  Sometimes they went prying about with the starfish, that have an eye at the end of each ray; and often with coral files in their hands stole upon slumbering swordfish, slyly blunting their weapons.  In short, these stout little manikins were passionately fond of the sea, and swore by wave and billow, that sooner or later they would embark thereon in nautilus shells, and spend the rest of their roving days thousands of inches from Tupia.  Too true, they were shameless little rakes.  Oft would they return to their sweethearts, sporting musky girdles of sea-kelp, tasseled with green little pouches of grass, brimful of seed-pearls; and jingling their coin in the ears of the damsels, throw out inuendoes about the beautiful and bountiful mermaids:  how wealthy and amorous they were, and how they delighted in the company of the brave gallants of Tupia.  Ah! at such heartless bravadoes, how mourned the poor little nymphs.  Deep into their arbors they went; and their little hearts burst like rose-buds, and filled the whole air with an odorous grief.  But when their lovers were gentle and true, no happier maidens haunted the lilies than they.  By some mystical process they wrought minute balls of light:  touchy, mercurial globules, very hard to handle; and with these, at pitch and toss, they played in the groves.  Or mischievously inclined, they toiled all night long at braiding the moon-beams together, and entangling the plaited end to a bough; so that at night, the poor planet had much ado to set.”

Here Yoomy once more was mute.

“Pause you to invent as you go on?” said old Mohi, elevating his chin, till his beard was horizontal.

Yoomy resumed.