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This Great Mogul of a personage, then; this woundy
Ahasuerus; this man of men; this same Hivohitee, whose
name rumbled among the mountains like a peal of thunder,
had been seen face to face, and taken for naught, but a
bearded old hermit, or at best, some equivocal conjuror.

So great was his wonderment at the time, that Yoomy
could not avoid expressing it in words.

Whereupon thus discoursed Babbalanja:

“Gentle Yoomy, be not astounded, that Hivohitee is so
far behind your previous conceptions. The shadows of
things are greater than themselves; and the more exaggerated
the shadow, the more unlike to the substance.”

“But knowing now, what manner of person Hivohitee
is,” said Yoomy, “much do I long to behold him again.”

But Mohi assured him it was out of the question; that
the Pontiff always acted toward strangers as toward him
(Yoomy); and that but one dim blink at the eremite was
all that mortal could obtain.

Debarred thus from a second and more satisfactory interview
with one, concerning whom his curiosity had been
violently aroused, the minstrel again turned to Mohi for enlightenment;
especially touching that magnate's Egyptian
reception of him in his aerial den.

Whereto, the chronicler made answer, that the Pontiff
affected darkness because he liked it: that he was a ruler
of few words, but many deeds; and that, had Yoomy been
permitted to tarry longer with him in the pagoda, he would

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have been privy to many strange attestations of the divinity
imputed to him. Voices would have been heard in the air,
gossiping with Hivohitee; noises inexplicable proceeding
from him; in brief, light would have flashed out of his
darkness.

“But who has seen these things, Mohi?” said Babbalanja,
“have you?”

“Nay.”

“Who then?—Media?—Any one you know?”

“Nay: but the whole Archipelago has.”

“Thus,” exclaimed Babbalanja, “does Mardi, blind
though it be in many things, collectively behold the marvels,
which one pair of eyes sees not.”