So over their red cups, the two kings forgot their differences, and concerning the disputed islet nothing more was ever heard; especially, as it so turned out, that while they Were most hot about it, it had suddenly gone out of sight, being of volcanic origin.

CHAPTER XLIV Through Dominora, They Wander After Yillah

At last, withdrawing from the presence of King Bello, we went forth, still intent on our search.

Many brave sights we saw.  Fair fields; the whole island a garden; green hedges all round; neat lodges, thick as white mice in the landscape; old oak woods, hale and hearty as ever; old temples buried in ivy; old shrines of old heroes, deep buried in broad groves of bay trees; old rivers laden down with heavy-freighted canoes; humped hills, like droves of camels, piled up with harvests; every sign and token of a glorious abundance, every sign and token of generations of renown.  Rare sight! fine sight! none rarer, none finer in Mardi.

But roving on through this ravishing region, we passed through a corn-field in full beard, where a haggard old reaper laid down his hook, beseeching charity for the sake of the gods.—­“Bread, bread! or I die mid these sheaves!”

“Thrash out your grain, and want not.”

“Alas, masters, this grain is not mine; I plough, I sow, I reap, I bind, I stack,—­Lord Primo garners.”

Rambling on, we came to a hamlet, hidden in a hollow; and beneath weeping willows saw many mournful maidens seated on a bank; beside each, a wheel that was broken.  “Lo, we starve,” they cried, “our distaffs are snapped; no more may we weave and spin!”

Then forth issued from vaults clamorous crowds of men, hands tied to their backs.—­“Bread!  Bread!” they cried.  “The magician hath turned us out from our glen, where we labored of yore in the days of the merry Green Queen.  He has pinioned us hip and arm that we starve.  Like sheep we die off with the rot.—­Curse on the magician.  A curse on his spell.”

Bending our steps toward the glen, roaring down the rocks we descried a stream from the mountains.  But ere those waters gained the sea, vassal tribute they rendered.  Conducted through culverts and moats, they turned great wheels, giving life to ten thousand fangs and fingers, whose gripe no power could withstand, yet whose touch was soft as the velvet paw of a kitten.  With brute force, they heaved down great weights, then daintily wove and spun; like the trunk of the elephant, which lays lifeless a river-horse, and counts the pulses of a moth.  On all sides, the place seemed alive with its spindles.  Round and round, round and round; throwing off wondrous births at every revolving; ceaseless as the cycles that circle in heaven.  Loud hummed the loom, flew the shuttle like lightning, red roared the grim forge, rung anvil and sledge; yet no mortal was seen.

“What ho, magician!  Come forth from thy cave!”