awhile, to feel in the red rushing blood, and then be
ashes,--can this be so? But peace, peace, thou liar in me, telling me
I am immortal--shall I not be as these bones? To come to this! But
the balsam-dropping palms, whose boles run milk, whose plumes wave
boastful in the air, they perish in their prime, and bow their
blasted trunks. Nothing abideth; the river of yesterday floweth not
to-day; the sun's rising is a setting; living is dying; the very
mountains melt; and all revolve:--systems and asteroids; the sun
wheels through the zodiac, and the zodiac is a revolution. Ah gods!
in all this universal stir, am _I_ to prove one stable thing?

"Grim chiefs in skeletons, avaunt! Ye are but dust; belike the dust
of beggars; for on this bed, paupers may lie down with kings, and
filch their skulls. _This_, great Marjora's arm? No, some old
paralytic's. _Ye_, kings? _ye_, men? Where are your vouchers? I do
reject your brother-hood, ye libelous remains. But no, no; despise
them not, oh Babbalanja! Thy own skeleton, thou thyself dost carry
with thee, through this mortal life; and aye would view it, but for
kind nature's screen; thou art death alive; and e'en to what's before
thee wilt thou come. Ay, thy children's children will walk over thee:
thou, voiceless as a calm."

And over the Coral Kings, Babbalanja paced in profound meditation.

CHAPTER LXXIX
The Center Of Many Circumferences

Like Donjalolo himself, we hie to and fro; for back now must we pace
to the House of the Morning.

In its rear, there diverged three separate arbors, leading to less
public apartments.

Traversing the central arbor, and fancying it will soon lead you to
open ground, you suddenly come upon the most private retreat of the
prince: a square structure; plain as a pyramid; and without, as
inscrutable. Down to the very ground, its walls are thatched; but on
the farther side a passage-way opens, which you enter. But not yet
are you within. Scarce a yard distant, stands an inner thatched wall,
blank as the first. Passing along the intervening corridor, lighted
by narrow apertures, you reach the opposite side, and a second
opening is revealed. This entering, another corridor; lighted as the
first, but more dim, and a third blank wall. And thus, three times
three, you worm round and round, the twilight lessening as you
proceed; until at last, you enter the citadel itself: the innermost
arbor of a nest; whereof, each has its roof, distinct fro