Although fearfully repugnant to our feelings, we turned our attention to the democratic amusements in the northern sectional arena, within the vestibule of the barriers; as you cautioned us of the necessity of seeing for ourselves all the enactments that we recorded for advisorial judgment. The “pit,” as it was aptly termed, was a miniature imitation of the large arena of the lists; but the contestants for the honors of mutilation were ants of the white, red, and black species, and their antagonists were tarantulas distinguished by the same order and variation of colors. But with naturally a higher object in view than their human Animalculan and Giga exemplars, and controllers of the lists, they fought without the artificial weapons that man’s superior intelligence has devised for kindred destruction, in direct controversion of the manifest designs of Creative intention. The instinctive impressions of a blind man could have detected without the aid of thought, the tangible distinctions that had furnished the motive attractions for the northern and southern divisions of divertisement predilections. The ants and the spiders engaged in mutilating encounter, were to us, in reality, more attractive objects to contemplate in their active ferocity, than their human spectator instigators, who combined with controlling intelligence the visual evidences of the most abject passions within sphere of animal and its reptile grade of expression. The patrons of the southern pavilion had been held in dalliance with the soft pleasures of amorous sensuality, which unopposed called forth the highest expression of instinctive refinement; but the current tendencies from multifarious indulgence were to the fall and deep whirlpool abyss of passion, hate, and deadly revenge.
The colored specie distinctions of the ants and spiders appeared to be as great a source of inveterate hatred between its caste representatives, as the antagonisms of race in form. This necessitated the separation of the white from the red, and the red from the black ants, with a like disposal of the tarantulas from specie representatives of opposing colors. The first encounter that we witnessed was between white and red ants; the former being universally successful with the odds of nine to one against them, and with the blacks twenty to one. The cause of this concentration of multiplied ability in the white, to cope with red and black antagonism, became soon apparent from their studied aforethought for the serried separation and disposal of their foes before they could effect united opposition. The deadly devices of the whites to lure their foes, with the stupid blindness of the red and black ants in accepting the proffered baits without consideration, afforded a relative study for detecting the cause of the instinctive superiority that rules with white humanity. When the whites in an encounter against overwhelming odds had gained decisive advantage, the cathedral bells of Saint Peter sounded from the chief dovecot beneath our place of concealment; its funeral peals announced a new phase in the strange enactments of the day, which had appeared to us so perverse as sources of amusement that we were at no loss to discover the Giga creed origin of hell. Fearful that the long-waited-for crisis was approaching, our eyes were upon the alert.
As the yellow tints from the sun’s fading rays grew hazy with the twilight heraldings of darkness, the folding doors of a large building of ominous appearance opened, and from its portals issued a procession of Dominican friars. In the midst of these inquisitorial representatives of the human sacrificial order, were the unfortunate tits supported by familiars of the Holy Office, with their limbs dragging helplessly upon the pavement, and their heads half revolving on their shoulders without the power of muscular control. The sight aroused the indignation of the tribune and his companions, who with difficulty restrained us from extending to them our immediate aid and sympathy. This was no slight undertaking on their part, for we were unused to a knowledge of the existence of such heartlessness, and would have adventured their deliverance if the odds had been an hundred fold greater; but we finally yielded to the wisdom of their discretion.
On the arrival of the sad cortege at the knight’s encampment they joined the procession escort of the doomed, among which were Sir O’Ham Ill Tong, and his squire, Kan Avan, who had been evidently condemned to the stake. As the gates of the northern barrier were obstructed by the occupation of the vestibule arena, in which the ants and spiders were engaged in an instinctive joust, the inquisitors in deference to the multitude awaited the decision of the contest; the latter, with reverence, giving place for them to witness the result of the sportive entertainment, as a prelude to their premeditated enactments. At the conclusion of the melée fight of the ants, in which the white champions had proved victorious, a large, whitish gray tarantula spider had been “pitted” against five mottled white ants, both parties having been subjected to a training abstinence from food to increase their ferocity. For a time the battle had been equally sustained, but a bold venture cost two of the ants their lives; in the feat the tarantula was maimed with the partial rupture of a carapace and the loss of the distal joints of two legs. Two of the remaining ants having a firm mandibular hold on the round carapace leg, the greatest excitement prevailed among the spectators, wagers being bantered between high and low; all distinctions of caste, for the time being, were banished by the talismanic greed for gold and silver. It soon became evident the auto-da-fe rites would be deferred until the result of the ant-fight was determined, for the order of procession was broken, the familiars with their human burdens crowding to gain a favorable position to witness the closing struggle. While the ants gnawed and swayed in hold upon the tarantula’s leg, he struggled to bring them within reach of his mandibles. The partial success of the assailants and assailed was greeted with vociferous shouts by the wager partisans, unabashed by the presence of the inquisitorial brotherhood and archiepiscopal dignitaries of the church. The tribune sadly reminded us, that the brutality of the scene was the tested ægis of democratic equality based upon individual or associate physical strength adroitly used,—chance advantages, or in massed subjection to the rule of selfish partisanship, as with ants in attacking the spider whose habits and interests in life interfered in no way with their own. But as you perceive, the hinds are so stupid in the dullness of their perceptions, that with the clear analogy of the cause and result of their own condition, in demonstration from the arbitrary power of physical strength that captured and forced the ants and spider into antagonistic collision, they fail to detect in the caste orders of priestcraft and knighthood the same motor influence in mental combination.
With our attention called so directly to the resemblance,—from the pitiable condition of the poor tit victims, who had been tortured into the vestibule of death, and were awaiting the ordeal of fire to recall from their bodies the vital spark,—we could not fail to admire the comprehensive quickness of our Coliseo cousins’ detective acumen for analyzing the relations and gradations of instinctive responsibility. Indeed, it would be impossible for you to imagine a more discordant or disgusting scene, or a baser use of language than these bloodthirsty humans used at every disjuncture effected by the combatants. That you may obtain an inkling of this pandemonic scene of instinctive madness, I will adventure a sketch.
Prominent among the representatives of foreign nations was a Scotch abbot of the abbey of Saint Maythedielscratch-me on the Tweed. In person and language he was tall and lank. Although engaged in “amusement” with an English prior, the incumbent of Goddamnmee on the Tyne, just over the border, they “staked” fearful invectives with their metallic coin. But the English canon was evidently no favorite, and required all the bluffness he had attained by a long course of dominant rule over a submissive brotherhood, as well as a full purse of tithes, for he was bantered with wagers on every side. But with bellowing disdain in the short and curt Durham dialect, he was ready with horned alternatives to oppose all comers. Chief among his secondary challengers, with coined words, was the abbe of Mortdieu, who mingled frothy gibes with his wager temptations. The ants were at length vanquished, to the great chagrin of the English abbot’s debtors, who tried all sorts of evasions to escape payment. Oncleslydenbet, the German prior of the priory of Shufflehausen, repudiated the payment of his forfeited wager in the concise terms, “Not a bit of it!” The Irish abbot of Fivewounds said, “To be sure I have bet and lost, but it was the understanding that I should never pay unless I won!” The Dutch incumbent of Dunderandblixen, the Welsh of Sweatmyleeks, and French paid theirs; the first with fearful imprecations and sputterings, the second with an abundant flow of perspiration, and the last with strings of sacres.
But for your injunction, I should have withheld the incidents of a scene so horribly repulsive in its ferocious combinations of speaking inhumanity. Especially as it implies distracted attention from the wretched condition of the dislocated tits; but in direction we submitted to the ulterior intention of the Coliseos. The tribune, whose aid you will recognize, said, that you required an exact index of the real condition of the Giga and Animalculan races under the instinctive rule of the stomach and senses, that you might compare the evidences with those of the first falcon era, to judge of the cycle changes. The task, with his assistance, is by no means pleasant, as with increasing familiarity the scenes of brutality become more repulsive, so that you need have no fears that they will affect us otherwise than as a ferment to clarify the instincts of our bodies from corrupt humors and indwelling passions. Much time was exhausted in wrangling before the ant circus was removed to admit the papal and inquisitorial trains into the lists. The arrival of the former, while the battle of the ants and spider was pending, was exceedingly fortunate for Cardinal Buenaventura, as by wagering with the pope an equivalent, with the spider for his champion, he was exorcised of his perjury, and by remitting to his holiness certain pecuniary obligations, received absolution to date. Our sympathy for the tarantula’s loss of his carapace legs, with the extreme division of the fourth, was not strongly excited, as in excess of his pope contemporary’s alleged stigmatic attributes of infliction and redemption, from instinctive woes, he in reality possesses the “miraculous” power of material reproduction of lost limbs.
The arena of the lists had been rearranged for the final enactment, and furnished with stakes and faggots for the sacrificial ordeal of fire, as a purgatorial agent for the purification of the body from heretical sins. These altars were raised between the two pavilions; and the ladies’, I am obliged with sadness to relate, was filled with representatives of the sex, yet they were of a class whose gratifications were solely dependent upon the organs of sense. During the converting labors of the confessors with the San Benitos the inquisitorial monks, dignitaries of the church, and knights, chanted a grand high mass to ritualistic ceremonial accompaniments. This was pronounced to be more affecting, by the occupants of the ladies pavilion, from the sobbing wails and lamentations of the doomed Irish knight, Sir O’Ham Ill Tong, and his squire, Kan Avan, who unceasingly proclaimed their innocence from perjury after they were tied to the stakes, thus adding contumacy to the ordeal and decisions of the judges. As their winnings disgraced the order of knighthood they were gagged with clouts.
When these preliminary preparations were nearly completed, the tribune gave the longed for signal of rescue. In a twinkling our Manatitlans were in the midst of the inquisitors and ecclesiastics, upsetting them in a confused pile with the knights. We liberated the tits by the time the Coliseo aids arrived, who placed the rescued in the arms of their relatives. The panic we created could not have been greater if we had been gigas instead of giantescoes. The women, who had looked calmly on the preparations for human sacrifice by the tortures of a slow fire, screamed and fainted at our appearance, their attendant knights surrendering without opposition. The pope and cardinals were in as much fear as the unsanctified until the tribune made known the source from whence we came. Then relieved from his apprehensions of bodily danger, he commenced crossing himself furiously, muttering the while anathemas against the Coliseos and their followers for the sacrilegious invasion, and interference with the sacred offices of the church. Counting upon our intimidation through the enactment of prestigious mummeries, he would have left with his satellites; but the tribune detained him by laying his hand upon his shoulder with an inflection that made the burly little head of the church understand that it had forced a crisis, from which mumbling ritual cant could not extricate it without the assurance of a strict regard for the personal independence of all Animalculans from religious restrictions. We will give you the terms of the tribune’s injunction:—
“Now Canonicus, that there may be no more acts of treachery on your part, or through the instigations of those subject to your direction, I shall dictate to you terms in behalf of our Manatitlan colonies that you must keep inviolate, for if they are infringed upon in the least degree we shall hold you and your associates personally responsible. We have heretofore offered you good will, but you have taken advantage of it to impose upon our communities and inflict personal injuries upon our adherents; showing that you are alike destitute of gratitude, and the disposition that inclines to honorable and just reciprocation. In the first place, you are to respect the privileges of all claiming a desire for our protection, whether an Animalculan of Mouthpat birth, or of other nationality. In the second place we shall hold you personally responsible for any acts of cruelty perpetrated by Animalculans under your control upon animal or insect; and for the honor of instinctive humanity we especially interdict all barbarous amusements between man and man. Fortunately, communication has again been opened with our motherland, and by the timely arrival of our cousins, we have been able to avail ourselves of their counsel when most needed. From the enactments of to-day, which have borne witness to the steadfast goodness of your daughter, Idolisima, in her adherence to the inculcations of her Coliseo education, we shall hereafter require that all the Animalculan children of Rome shall from henceforth be submitted to our censorial and educational charge. We are aware that in assuming the charge we undertake an immense and arduous responsibility from the fecundity of your animal propensities. But in time our inauguration will effect the substitution of improved quality for quantity with an affectionate compensation that with cultivation and reciprocation you have the means of realizing in fatherly association with your daughter.”