The time of starting was fixed for the sixth morning, from off the rock on the back-side of the palace, upon my firing a pistol.
This unusual diversion occasioned a prodigious confluence of spectators; for scarce a person in Brandleguarp, except those who were either too young or too old for flight, but were upon one or other of the rocks; even the king himself and all his court were there, with infinite numbers from all distant parts.
I had despatched a letter by one of my old bearers to Lasmeel some days before, to inform him of it, that he might get two letters ready wrote, one to deliver to the first, and another to the second messenger, but not to take farther notice of the rest. Now, my flight-race being for the equal benefit of both the kingdoms, it happened, as I was in hopes it would, that so many of the Mount Alkoans coming over to me to be entered, and staying with me till the flight began, and such vast numbers of persons meeting of both nations upon the Black Mountain, to see them go and return, and several of the Swangeantines going, out of bravado, quite through with the flyers; the intercourse of the two nations was that day so great, and the discourse they had with the natives and miners so stripped the Swangeantines of their old apprehensions of danger from Mount Alkoe, that in three days after the whole dread of the place was vanished, and he would then have been thought mad who had attempted to revive it.
The time being come, I set my flyers in a row on the outer edge of the rock; and having given notice that no one should presume to rise till the flyers were on the graundee, and at such a distance, I then let the flyers know I should soon give fire; which I had no sooner done but down they all dropped as one man, as it were, headlong from the edge of the mountain, and presently the whole field were after them. They skimmed with incredible swiftness across the face of the plain, between the rock and the mountain; the force of which descent swung them as it were up the mountain's side in an almost upright posture, till seeming to sweep the edge of the mountain with their bellies, they slid over its surface till they were lost in the body of the Swangean, our rocks echoing the shouts of the mountaineers. I fired my pistol, by my watch, at nine o'clock in the morning, but had no occasion to inquire when it was thought they would return, for every one was passing his opinion upon it. Some said it could not be till midnight, or very near it; and others, that it would be almost next morning. However, we went to dinner, and coming again about six o'clock by my watch, I was told by the people on the rock, as the general opinion (for it was then topfull), that they could not yet be expected for a long time; and the major part concluded they could not be half-way home yet; when, on a sudden, we heard a prodigious shout from the mountain, which growing nearer and nearer to us, and louder and louder, in a few moments came a slim young fellow, and nimbly alighting on the rock, tripped briskly forward, as not being able to stop himself at once from the violence of the force he came with, and delivered me a letter from Lasmeel as I was sitting in my chair. I gave him joy of the prize, and ordered him to come to my apartment so soon as I got home, and he should have it. I then asked him where he had left the other flyers; he told me he knew nothing of them since he came past the forges in his return; for there he met them going to Lasmeel.—"Why that," says I, "must be a great way on this side the governor's." He told me about an hour's flight. I then told him, as he must be strained with so hard a flight, it would be better if he lay down, and called on me in the morning. He thanked me, and after he had told me his name was Walsi, he said he would take my advice, and springing up as light as air, went off, the rock being quite thronged with those who had followed from the mountain to see the victor.
When Walsi came in, it was just seven o'clock by my watch; so that, according to the best computation by miles I could make from their descriptions of things, I judged he had flown at little more or less than at the rate of a mile a minute.
I stayed till near nine o'clock upon the rock, where it being cold and the time tedious, I was taking Quilly home with me, and designed that Maleck should wait for the coming of the second; but hearing again a shout from the mountain I resolved to see the second come in myself. The noise increasing, I presently saw the whole air full of people very near me, for I had retired near two hundred paces from the edge of the rock to give room to the flyers to alight, and expected nothing less than to be borne down by them; when I spied two competitors, one just over the back of the other, the uppermost bearing down upon the other's graundee, their heads being just equal; so that the under man perceiving it impossible to sink lower for the rock, or to mount higher for the man above him, and as darting side-ways would lose time, and fearing to brush his belly against the rock, he slackened, just to job up his head in his antagonist's stomach; which giving the upper man a smart check with the pain, and the under one striking at that instant one bold stroke with his graundee, he fell just with his head at my feet, and the other man upon him, with his head in the under man's neck.
Thus they lay for a considerable time, breathless and motionless, save the working of their lungs, and heaving of their breasts; when each asked me if he was not the first, and the under man giving me a letter, I told them "No, Walsi had been in almost two hours ago." They both said it was impossible; they were sure no glumm in the Doorpt could outfly either of them. I ordered them both to call on me in the morning, and I would see they should have right done to their pretensions. The under man had but just told me his name was Naggitt, when another arrived, who, seeing Naggitt before him, told me he was sure he was second; but on seeing the other also he gave it up.
I would stay no longer, it being now so late; but the next morning I was informed that all the rest had stopped at the mountain but two, who were obliged to give out before, being overstrained, and unable to hold it.
The next morning Walsi was the first at my apartment, when I happened to be with the king; and speaking of his business to Quilly, he ordered him to stay in my gallery till I came back; and Quilly presently after seeing Youwarkee, told her the victor at the flight-race was waiting for me in the gallery. Youwarkee, who had great curiosity to see him, having heard how long he came in before the rest, stepped into the gallery, and taking a turn or two there, fell into discourse with him about his flight. And as women are very inquisitive, she distinguished, by the flyer's answers, speech, shape, and manner of address, that it was certainly a gawry she was talking with; though she had endeavoured to disguise herself by rolling in her hair, and tying it round her head with a broad chaplet, like a man; and by the thinness of her body, and flatness of her breasts, might fairly enough have passed for one, to a less penetrating eye than Youwarkee's. But Youwarkee putting some questions to her, and saying she was more like a gawry than a glumm, she put the poor girl—for so it was—to the blush, and at last she confessed the deceit; but upon her knees begged Youwarkee not to mention it, for it would be her undoing.
This confession gave Youwarkee a fair opportunity of asking how she came to be an adventurer for this sort of prize. The girl, finding there was no remedy, frankly confessed she had a strong affection for a glumboss, who was a very stout glumm, she said, but somewhat too corpulent for speedy flight; who ever since the prize had been proposed, could rest neither night nor day, to think he was not so well qualified to put in for it as others, especially one Naggitt, who he well knew made his addresses to her, and also was an adventurer. "Had it been a matter of strength, valour, or manhood," says he, "I had had the best of chances for it; but to be under a natural incapacity of obtaining so glorious a prize, as even the king himself is not master of such another, I cannot bear it." She then said he had told her he was resolved to give in his name and do his utmost, though he died in the flight. "What!" said he, "shall I see Naggitt run away with it, and perhaps with you too, when he has that to lay at your feet which no glumm else can boast of? No; I'll overcome, or never come home without it!"—"I must confess, madam," says Walsi, "as I knew his high spirit could never bear to be vanquished, I was afraid he would be as good as his word, and come to some unlucky end; and told him that though he need not have feared being conqueror in anything else, had it been proposed, yet in flight there were so many, half glumms as they were, who from their effeminate make and size, and little value for anything else, would certainly be in before him; that it was unworthy of a thorough glumm to contend with them for what could be obtained only by those who had no right to or share in anything more excellent; and that he must therefore not think of more than his fatigue for his pains. But as he had set his heart so much upon it, I would enter, and try to get it for him, as from my size and make, I believed few would have a better chance for it than myself. And, thanks to Collwar, madam," says she, "I hope to make him easy in it, if you will but please to conceal your knowledge of who and what I am."