“Well, well, Babbalanja, I grant it all.  Go on.”

“On high authority, we are told that in times past the fall of certain nations in Mardi was prophesied of seers.”

“Most true, my lord,” said Mohi; “it is all down in the chronicles.”

“Ha! ha!” cried Media.  “Go on, philosopher.”

Continued Babbalanja, “Previous to the time assigned to their fulfillment, those prophecies were bruited through Mardi; hence, previous to the time assigned to their fulfillment, full knowledge of them may have come to the nations concerned.  Now, my lord, was it possible for those nations, thus forwarned, so to conduct their affairs, as at, the prophesied time, to prove false the events revealed to be in store for them?”

“However that may be,” said Mohi, “certain it is, those events did assuredly come to pass:—­Compare the ruins of Babbelona with book ninth, chapter tenth, of the chronicles.  Yea, yea, the owl inhabits where the seers predicted; the jackals yell in the tombs of the kings.”

“Go on, Babbalanja,” said Media.  “Of course those nations could not have resisted their doom.  Go on, then:  vault over your premises.”

“If it be, then, my lord, that—­”

“My very worshipful lord,” interposed Mohi, “is not our philosopher getting off soundings; and may it not be impious to meddle with these things?”

“Were it so, old man, he should have known it.  The king of Odo is something more than you mortals.”

“But are we the great gods themselves,” cried Yoomy, “that we discourse of these things.”

“No, minstrel,” said Babbalanja; “and no need have the great gods to discourse of things perfectly comprehended by them, and by themselves ordained.  But you and I, Yoomy, are men, and not gods; hence is it for us, and not for them, to take these things for our themes.  Nor is there any impiety in the right use of our reason, whatever the issue.  Smote with superstition, shall we let it wither and die out, a dead, limb to a live trunk, as the mad devotee’s arm held up motionless for years?  Or shall we employ it but for a paw, to help us to our bodily needs, as the brutes use their instinct?  Is not reason subtile as quicksilver—­live as lightning—­a neighing charger to advance, but a snail to recede?  Can we starve that noble instinct in us, and hope that it will survive?  Better slay the body than the soul; and if it be the direst of sins to be the murderers of our own bodies, how much more to be a soul-suicide.  Yoomy, we are men, we are angels.  And in his faculties, high Oro is but what a man would be, infinitely magnified.  Let us aspire to all things.  Are we babes in the woods, to be scared by the shadows of the trees?  What shall appall us?  If eagles gaze at the sun, may not men at the gods?”

“For one,” said Media, “you may gaze at me freely.  Gaze on.  But talk not of my kinsmen so fluently, Babbalanja.  Return to your argument.”