But so it was, that King Piko, at peace with King Hello, and well content with, the tranquillity of the times, little relished the idea of picking a quarrel with his neighbor, and running its risks, in order to phlebotomize his redundant population.

“Patience, most illustrious seignior,” said another of his sagacious Ahithophels, “and haply a pestilence may decimate the people.”

But no pestilence came.  And in every direction the young men and maidens were recklessly rushing into wedlock; and so salubrious the climate, that the old men stuck to the outside of the turf, and refused to go under.

At last some Machiavel of a philosopher suggested, that peradventure the object of war might be answered without going to war; that peradventure King Hello might be brought to acquiesce in an arrangement, whereby the men of Diranda might be induced to kill off one another voluntarily, in a peaceable manner, without troubling their rulers.  And to this end, the games before mentioned were proposed.

“Egad! my wise ones, you have hit it,” cried Piko; “but will Hello say ay?”

“Try him, most illustrious seignior,” said Machiavel.

So to Hello went embassadors ordinary and extraordinary, and ministers plenipotentiary and peculiar; and anxiously King Piko awaited their return.

The mission was crowned with success.

Said King Hello to the ministers, in confidence:—­“The very thing, Dons, the very thing I have wanted.  My people are increasing too fast.  They keep up the succession too well.  Tell your illustrious master it’s a bargain.  The games! the games! by all means.”

So, throughout the island, by proclamation, they were forthwith established; succeeding to a charm.

And the lord seigniors, Hello and Piko, finding their interests the same, came together like bride and bridegroom; lived in the same palace; dined off the same cloth; cut from the same bread-fruit; drank from the same calabash; wore each other’s crowns; and often locking arms with a charming frankness, paced up and down in their dominions, discussing the prospect of the next harvest of heads.

In his old-fashioned way, having related all this, with many other particulars, Mohi was interrupted by Babbalanja, who inquired how the people of Diranda relished the games, and how they fancied being coolly thinned out in that manner.

To which in substance the chronicler replied, that of the true object of the games, they had not the faintest conception; but hammered away at each other, and fought and died together, like jolly good fellows.

“Right again, immortal old Bardianna!” cried Babbalanja.

“And what has the sage to the point this time?” asked Media.

“Why, my lord, in his chapter on “Cracked Crowns,” Bardianna, after many profound ponderings, thus concludes:  In this cracked sphere we live in, then, cracked skulls would seem the inevitable allotments of many.  Nor will the splintering thereof cease, till this pugnacious animal we treat of be deprived of his natural maces:  videlicet, his arms.  And right well doth man love to bruise and batter all occiputs in his vicinity.”