“What mob is this?” cried Media.

“’Tis the grand council of Vivenza,” cried a bystander.  “Hear ye not Alanno?” and he pointed to the lunatic.

Now coming close to Alanno, we found, that with incredible volubility, he was addressing the assembly upon some all-absorbing subject connected with King Bello, and his presumed encroachments toward the northwest of Vivenza.

One hand smiting his hip, and the other his head, the lunatic thus proceeded; roaring like a wild beast, and beating the air like a windmill:—­

“I have said it! the thunder is flashing, the lightning is crashing! already there’s an earthquake in Dominora!  Full soon will old Bello discover that his diabolical machinations against this ineffable land must soon come to naught.  Who dare not declare, that we are not invincible?  I repeat it, we are.  Ha! ha!  Audacious Bello must bite the dust!  Hair by hair, we will trail his gory gray beard at the end of our spears!  Ha, ha!  I grow hoarse; but would mine were a voice like the wild bulls of Bullorom, that I might be heard from one end of this great and gorgeous land to its farthest zenith; ay, to the uttermost diameter of its circumference.  Awake! oh Vivenza.  The signs of the times are portentous; nay, extraordinary; I hesitate not to add, peculiar!  Up! up!  Let us not descend to the bathos, when we should soar to the climax!  Does not all Mardi wink and look on?  Is the great sun itself a frigid spectator?  Then let us double up our mandibles to the deadly encounter.  Methinks I see it now.  Old Bello is crafty, and his oath is recorded to obliterate us!  Across this wide lagoon he casts his serpent eyes; whets his insatiate bill; mumbles his barbarous tusks; licks his forked tongues; and who knows when we shall have the shark in our midst?  Yet be not deceived; for though as yet, Bello has forborn molesting us openly, his emissaries are at work; his infernal sappers, and miners, and wet-nurses, and midwives, and grave-diggers are busy!  His canoe-yards are all in commotion!  In navies his forests are being launched upon the wave; and ere long typhoons, zephyrs, white-squalls, balmy breezes, hurricanes, and besoms will be raging round us!”

His philippic concluded, Alanno was conducted from the place; and being now quite exhausted, cold cobble-stones were applied to his temples, and he was treated to a bath in a stream.

This chieftain, it seems, was from a distant western valley, called Hio-Hio, one of the largest and most fertile in Vivenza, though but recently settled.  Its inhabitants, and those of the vales adjoining,—­ a right sturdy set of fellows,—­were accounted the most dogmatically democratic and ultra of all the tribes in Vivenza; ever seeking to push on their brethren to the uttermost; and especially were they bitter against Bello.  But they were a fine young tribe, nevertheless.  Like strong new wine they worked violently in becoming clear.  Time, perhaps, would make them all right.