With the volantaph’s announcement that he was about to bring the falcon to a poise which would afford the occupants of the howdah an equidistant view of the peninsulas of Spain and Italy, a retrospective glance was cast backward. The keen Manatitlan sight, intensified with ardent admiration for the glowing beauties of the Iberian landscape, soon became absorbed in tracing the rare combinations of mountain and valley verdure, merging and varying in blending tints from the sun’s declining cast of light and shadow, until startled with Uffea’s sudden call, Alew! (look!) Recalled by her startled cry, our attention was attracted by her steadfast look, to the Valentian shore, and there beheld the victorious Christians in pursuit of the vanquished Moslems, vindicating the cry of their priests, “Kill and spare not.” “Alas,” tearfully sighed Uffea, “is it not enough that they yield the victory? of what avail the bodies of the flying, living or dead, that the victors still ruthlessly pursue and slay?”
Anxious to escape from even a distant view of the carnage, the volantaph brought the falcon to a poise and in descent opened to view the peninsula of Italy. In anxious search for the abiding place of their colonistic correlatives, their attention was soon attracted to the largest collection of buildings, and as the falcon’s circuits narrowed in near approach, their eyes sought for signals of recognition. These, from a “bird’s eye” view chart of the prominent buildings in the vicinage of Rome, soon became visible, not only from the coliseum, the chief settlement of their colonies, but from every town and hamlet within the reach of vision. With a near approach to the arcades every available place in the Ionic range was filled to overflowing with beaming faces and outstretched arms in token of joyful welcome. But a few moments elapsed before the falcons were safely moored in the old “New Port,” and the howdahs thronged with forms and faces that required no introduction by speech for the test of nationality. Without words, joyful tears, sighs, kisses, and embraces were not alone conceded as the special privilege of womanly affection, but the interchange of these instinctive tokens under the kindly promptings of gladness became general. If there was hesitation indicating speech, those on the outside pressed forward to interrupt the useless waste of words. For at least a full half hour this voiceless scene continued unabated, then the prætor of Coliseo parleyed. “Citizens of Romelia, forbear? What have these, of our kin, done in the lapse of ages, that you suffocate them with kisses and embraces? Are they, in the fullness of our joy, to be denied the viaticum of welcome words? or do you intend to despatch them with the silent interdiction of tidings we have waited and longed for while yet unborn to the world of mortality? Make way for your prætor! Fie upon you, Oluissandra! that you, the wife of the chief magister of Coliseo, should fail to use your tongue in speech, when its words would be welcome!”
With this laughing admonition a tall active giantesco sprang into the howdah, and seizing a sprightly medium woman by the shoulders, as she was about to embrace Uffea, turned her briskly round, with the exclamation, “Now for some system? I am ashamed of you, Olui! Where is your boasted presence of mind and pity? and voice, so easily aroused in gratuitous sympathy for your Giga auramentees? Do you suppose that this little handful of women can withstand the battery of Coliseo’s thousands, softly placable as they are, without having their lips and faces flayed? Now Signorina Manatitliana, this is my wife Oluissandra Peasiffea, of the twelfth generation in descent from the Peasiffeas of Maniculæ,—that is, I am, and she shares my loving pedigree, with a worthy merit that exceeds my own.”
Before the last clause, Uffea had embraced the wife of the Coliseo prætor with cousinly warmth. The husband laughingly thanked her for honoring his spouse with such affectionate returns upon the strength of relationship, but hoped that the slight deviation from the “giga lineal” would not prove a bar to the full expression of loving confidence. This diversion set the women’s tongues in motion, with trills and fugues, which were followed by the men’s deeper tones, in more measured accents of curious inquiry. With the sun’s decline all united in a hymn of thanksgiving. As the gathering shades of twilight deepened, Oluissandra reminded her husband that the Manatitlan howdahs were poorly adapted for the reception of the prætor of Coliseo’s guests upon an occasion so extraordinary? “If the public records are to be trusted,” she said, “they will bear testimony that it has been customary for the chief magisters to offer their guests the hospitality of their houses. It will hardly consort with precedent, if the scribe should in record addenda state that the prætor Peasiffea entertained his Manatitlan relatives in their own howdahs, at the reunion of their peoples, after centuries of separation. I am sorry,” she continued, “that courtesy obliges me to give you this public reproof, but your ‘head and heart’ should have been on the alert to give a suitable welcome, as the long delay might conjure sensitive doubts questioning the sincerity of your joy.”
The prætor gave his wife a look of quizzical gratitude at this rejoinder couched in Giga style, reminding the chief and his wife of the Dosch’s humorous sallies. In like manner they were constantly reminded of home faces and scenes by revived similitude in impression. Among the Manatitlans, and their Corcovadian correlatives, the questioning query would pass, “Who does this or that person remind you of?” or “How familiar that voice sounds.” When the resemblance was mentioned, the likeness was found to have been transmitted by collateral branches. The prætor, acting upon his wife’s suggestion, our falcons received the attention they required from Coliseo volantaphs, the mews having been kept in readiness for their reception from generation to generation, in constant expectation of their reappearance. Our own apartments, which adjoined those of the prætor, were in the foliated cyma of the capital surmounting the second arch of the Corinthian Arcade. On our way the prætor pointed out the improvements devised and executed by his predecessors, regretting that their comparatively indestructible works should be ingrafted upon one of the perishable follies of the Roman empire for its more extended time durability.
At dawn, on the morning succeeding our arrival, anxious throngs were awaiting to greet us with salutations of joyful welcome. Many of these had come from distant districts to participate in the rejoicings of an occasion so auspicious for the united welfare of the colonies. Among the visitors, there came from the St. Angelo department the Dosch of Romalia. He had started with the first announcement of the falcons, and traversed the city of the gigas during the height of one of their saturnalian feasts of flesh, which precedes the lighter indulgences of fasting upon a fish and lentil diet. After the morning salutations, the falcons were employed in excursions for the practical instruction of the native volantaphs. On the third day after our arrival, the Dosch and prætor consulted the chief of the Manatitlans upon a subject that had been a source of disquietude to the colonists.
“We have deferred the unpleasant subject we are about to introduce, to the latest possible moment consistent with the responsibility of our charge,” said the prætor of Coliseo, “that the impression of our welcome might remain cheerful until you had fully compared the extent of our worthiness with your expectations. The sooner anxiety is dispelled with a knowledge of impending evil the better. The Mouthpat seed our mutual ancestors sowed, just before the close of the first falcon era, in taking root assimilated with the native Animalculan races, and in process imparted their own deleterious habits and prejudices to their entertainers. With a wider scope for the gratification of their sensual instincts, they soon united with the democratic rabble of Rome in opposing what they termed our pedantic puritanism. With their coadjutive stimulation our allies in the exampled practice of purity and goodness were subjected to annoyances and persecutions and were denied the right of local option, as natives, in selecting for themselves a choice of education for their children. As we could not extend our protection to the good throughout the broad expanse of Rome, we established self-supporting colonies in the country as asylums of resort for the oppressed, so that in consolidated association they might receive our more effective support and aid. Still, in defiance of intimidation and actual injuries, we had more applications for the admission of Roman children to our schools than we could accommodate. The deported Mouthpats, from the first, became adherent imitators of Giga habits and customs, and fanatically zealous in support of the Catholic dogmas. Before their advent, the Animalculans of Rome had been content that the Giga priests should enact their parts in ceremonial worship. But the Mouthpats urged that the practice of vicarious worship through a race barred from direct communication by mouth interlocution was a subterfuge of the most damnable tendency. Their labors for the reconstruction of the ritualistic tenets, and regeneration of the Animalculans from proxied dependency upon Giga religious administration, was finally rewarded with the election of a pope of Mouthpat descent. This pope, Innocent the First, in Mouthpat designation, now occupies the silicoth residences relinquished to the first cargo of his ancestors, by ours on their removal to the Coliseum. In imitation of Giga example, although he claims higher merit from his strict administration of the ordinances of the church, he has established a court of inquisition for the trial and punishment of heretics.
“One of the first acts of the court was the proclamation of an interdict prohibiting the Romans from holding communication with the Coliseos under the penalty of excommunication from the only true and holy church. We well understood the term excommunication in context, although the court was wary in using threats of torture and death, against the parents who had entrusted their children to our care, until they had tested our disposition by overt acts of intimidation. For this purpose they have arrested the parents of our pupils on their return to Rome after paying their monthly visits to their children. To-morrow they celebrate a saint’s day, in the calendar of the Mouthpat Church, and are erecting in the gutter-leads of the church of San Lorenzo, lists with barriers and the usual requisites necessary for the accommodation of spectators, and actors that engage in the barbarous follies of a tournament. But the real object is the inauguration of an inquisitorial chapter. The pomp and ceremonials only serving as an introductory blind, that will hold pity in check by arousing the passions with chivalric show in brutal enactment as a placebo for the final catastrophe. In order that the pomp might equal that of their Giga exemplars, who are engaged in preparing for a like celebration, they in anticipation sent challenges to the most celebrated and valorous representatives of Animalculan knighthood throughout the courts of Europe, subject to a like defiance from their Giga contemporaries; whose heralds acted as the locomotive beasts of burden for the transportation of their parasitic knights errant. To prevent imposition, the field kings of all the countries in Christendom, subject to Animalculan sway, were requested to add their attest to the order and standing of the knight applicants, also to the service reputation of esquires emulous of achieving the honorable distinction of wearing golden spurs. The requirements of those desirous of contending for love and honor in the lists, on roachback with spear and sword, were—to be of pure lineage, of not less than three generations, in affirmed descent, free from the attaint of mesalliance. The squires were to be second sons of a parentage alike eligible for the distinctions of knighthood. That the trains of each knight should be well satisfied with their allotment, the third day was set apart for their contention with arms suited to their stations in life; ample means were to be furnished for the eating and drinking entertainment of all comers. The knights summoned had already arrived in train with the Gigas who had been cited for the tournament in preparation for the first crusade designed for the redemption of the holy sepulchre from the possession of the infidel Saracens, in which the Animalculans will also engage. The first course, in this tournament of human instinct, will be inaugurated after a grand high mass, to be held in conjunction with the Gigas, the priests of both races joining in the ceremonial administration of the rites. After the grand ‘entre’ the first course will be run between Count Marceroni, the Roman champion, and any knight bold enough to accept his challenge. The first encounters are to be on roachback with spears, in support of the affirmed superiority, in beauty, of the contestant’s countrywomen, or “ladies,” in the style of the challenge. The proclamation sets forth that the encounter will be conducted in freedom from the slights of incantation, or other surreptitious advantages, in fair and open battle, The first unroached will be declared vanquished, yielding to the victor the right of heralding the supremacy of his countrywomen’s beauty, with the privilege of selecting from them a queen to reign during the continuance of the jousts, as the empress paramount of love, honor, and beauty. The second day’s joust will be a contention with axes, maces, and thorn sticks; the victor will be awarded the privilege of selecting a lady to preside over the distribution of prizes to the successful in the melée, or herd encounters of third day’s strife.
“This sketch of the announced proceedings, will give you an idea of the amusements patronized by the Gigas under the ‘angelic’ supervision of women, with the sounding style of chivalric. But with both races, the preliminary amusements are devised as placebos to invite in transition awe, rather than indignation and horror for the final tragedy of human sacrifice. Your opportune arrival will, with falcon aid, render our service effectual in baffling their intended murderous enactment, if our emprise meets with your approval.”
The chief and his associates warmly approved of the course proposed, offering to undertake alone the hazard of its successful issue, that the reproof might be in effect more significant of intention in the event of future transgressions. The scenes enacted at the tournament, the Dosch said he would relate in quotation from the chronicler Titview’s letter to Giganteo.