"The belief in Rono is about to be seriously compromised," remarked Fritz; "I should advise the priestess to retire into private life."
"Impossible."
"Why?"
"Because she is too fat to live in an ordinary house, she could only breathe in a temple. But, O human vicissitudes!" added Jack, rolling himself up in a sail after the manner of the Roman senators; "behold Rono the Great banished from his country, and compelled to go and pillow his head on a foreign sail, like Marius at Minturnus—like Coriolanus amongst the Volcians—like Hannibal at the house of Antiochus—like Alcibiades at the castle of Grunium in Phrygia, given to him out of charity by the benevolent Pharnabazus, and in which he was burnt alive by his countrymen—like Cimon, voted into exile by ballot and universal suffrage—like Aristides, whom the people got tired of hearing called the Just, and many others."
"Who are all these personages?" inquired Willis.
"They were worthies of another age," replied Fritz; "very excellent men in their way, and you are in no way dishonored by being numbered amongst them."
"Yesterday," continued Jack, "an entire people were upon their knees before you; they offered up sacrifices, and poured out incense on their altars for you; fruit and pigs were scattered in heaps, like flowers, upon your path; the crowd were prostrated by the fumes of your pipe. To-day—alas, the change!—a cloud of arrows, and not a single glass of cold water!"
"That gives you an opportunity of quenching your thirst with the nectar offered to you yesterday," said Fritz; "as for myself, I have no such resource."
"Yes, that was a posset to quench one's thirst withal; I only wish I had a cupful to give you. I do not regret having had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the people though. They have enabled me to rectify some erroneous notions I formerly entertained. If, for example, I were to ask you what air consists of? you would, no doubt, reply that is a compound body made of oxygen and hydrogen or azote, in the proportion of twenty-one of the one to seventy-nine of the other."
"Yes, most undoubtedly."