Midway meeting, both parties touched poles, then retreated.  Very courteous, this; but tantamount to bowing each other out of Mardi; for upon Pike’s tossing a javelin, they rushed in, and each striking his man, all fell to the ground.

“Well done!” cried Piko.

“Brave fellows!” cried Hello.

“But up and at it again, my heroes!” joined both.  “Lo! we kings look on, and there stand the bards!”

These bards were a row of lean, sallow, old men, in thread-bare robes, and chaplets of dead leaves.

“Strike up!” cried Piko.

“A stave!” cried Hello.

Whereupon, the old croakers, each with a quinsy, sang thus in cracked strains:—­

    Quack!  Quack!  Quack! 
    With a toorooloo whack;
    Hack away, merry men, hack away. 
    Who would not die brave,
    His ear smote by a stave? 
    Thwack away, merry men, thwack away! 
    ’Tis glory that calls,
    To each hero that falls,
    Hack away, merry men, hack away! 
    Quack!  Quack!  Quack! 
    Quack!  Quack! 
    Quack!

Thus it tapered away.

“Ha, ha!” cried Piko, “how they prick their ears at that!”

“Hark ye, my invincibles!” cried Hello.  “That pean is for the slain.  So all ye who have lives left, spring to it!  Die and be glorified!  Now’s the time!—­Strike up again, my ducklings!”

Thus incited, the survivors staggered to their feet; and hammering away at each others’ sconces, till they rung like a chime of bells going off with a triple-bob-major, they finally succeeded in immortalizing themselves by quenching their mortalities all round; the bards still singing.

“Never mind your music now,” cried Piko.

“It’s all over,” said Hello.

“What valiant fellows we have for subjects,” cried Piko.

“Ho! grave-diggers, clear the field,” cried Hello.

“Who else is for glory?” cried Piko.

“There stand the bards!” cried Hello.

But now there rushed among the crowd a haggard figure, trickling with blood, and wearing a robe, whose edges were burned and blacked by fire.  Wielding a club, it ran to and fro, with loud yells menacing all.

A noted warrior this; who, distracted at the death of five sons slain in recent games, wandered from valley to valley, wrestling and fighting.

With wild cries of “The Despairer!  The Despairer!” the appalled multitude fled; leaving the two kings frozen on their throne, quaking and quailing, their teeth rattling like dice.

The Despairer strode toward them; when, recovering their senses, they ran; for a time pursued through the woods by the phantom.

CHAPTER XXXVII Taji Still Hunted, And Beckoned

Previous to the kings’ flight, we had plunged into the neighboring woods; and from thence emerging, entered brakes of cane, sprouting from morasses.  Soon we heard a whirring, as if three startled partridges had taken wing; it proved three feathered arrows, from three unseen hands.