Immediately upon this defeat Nasgig again took his place behind me, our army shouting to the skies; but no sooner had the general dropped, but on came Harlokin, with majesty and terror mixed in his looks, and seeming to disdain the air he rode on, waved his men to the attack with his hand. When he came near enough to hear me, I called him vile traitor, to oppose the army of his lawful sovereign, telling him, if he would submit, he should be received to mercy. "Base creeping insect," says Harlokin, "if thou hast aught to say to me worth hearing, meet me in the air! This hand shall show thee soon who'll most want mercy; and though I scorn to stoop to thee myself, this messenger shall satisfy the world thou art an impostor, and send thee back lifeless to the fond king that sent thee hither." With that he hurled a javelin pointed with flint, sharp as a needle, at me; but I avoiding it, "This, then," says I, "if words will not do, shall justify the truth of our prediction." And then levelling a musket at him, I shot him through the very heart, that he fell dead within twenty paces of me. But perceiving another to take his room, notwithstanding the confusion my musket made amongst them, I ran to my match, and giving fire to two more pieces of ordnance at the same time, they fell so thick about me, that I had enough to do to escape being crushed to death by them; and the living remainder separating, fled quite away, and put an end to the war. I waited in the field three days, to see if they would make head again; but they were so far from it, that before I could return, as I found afterwards, most of the revolting provinces had sent their deputies, who themselves carried the first news of the defeat, to beg to be received into mercy; all of whom were detained there till my return with Harlokin's head.
At my return to Brandleguarp I was met by the king, the colambs, and almost the whole body of the people; every man, woman, and child, with two sweecoe lights in their hands, which unusual sight in the air gave me great alarm, till I inquired of Nasgig what it meant, who told me it must certainly be a sweecoan, or he knew not what it was. I asking again what he meant by that, he told me it was a particular method of rejoicing he had heard of, but never seen; wherein, if the king goes in triumph, all the people of Brandleguarp, from fifteen to sixty, are obliged to attend him with sweecoes. He said it was reported amongst them that in Begsurbeck's time there were two of them, but there had been none since.
When we met them, I perceived they had opened into two lines or ranks of a prodigious length; at the farther end of which was the king, with innumerable lights about him, the whole looking like a prodigious avenue or vista of lights, bounded at the farther end, where the king was, with a pyramid light. This had the most solemn and magnificent effect on the eye that anything of light could possibly have; but as we passed through the ranks, each of the spectators having two lights, one was given to each soldier of the whole army. And then to look backward, as well as forward, the beauty of the scene was inexpressible. We marched all the way amidst the shouts of people, and the sounds of the gripsacks, going very slowly between the ranks; and at length arriving at the pyramid where the king was, I heard abundance of sweet voices, chanting my actions in triumphal songs; but I could take little notice of these, or of my son with his flageolet amongst them, for the extravagant appearance of the pyramid, which seemed to reach the very sky. For, first, there was a long line of a full half-mile, which hovered at even height with the two side ranks; in the centre of that, and over it, was the king single; over him another line, shorter than the first, and again over that, shorter and shorter lines; till, at a prodigious height, it ended in one single light *These all hovering, kept their stations; while the king darted a little space forward to meet me, and congratulate my success; then turning and preceding me, the whole pyramid turned, and marched before us, singing all the way to the city, the pyramid changing several times into divers forms, as into squares, half-moons, with the horns sometimes erect and again reversed, and various other figures. And yet amongst this infinite number of globes there was not the least glaring or offensive light, but only what was agreeable to the people themselves. As the rear of the army entered the lines, they closed upon it, and followed us into Brandleguarp. While we passed the city to the palace, the whole body of people kept hovering till the king and myself were alighted, and then every one alighted where he best could. All the streets and avenues to the palace were blocked up with people, crowding to receive the king's beneficence; for he had proclaimed a feast and open housekeeping to the people for six days. The king, the colambs, ragans, and great officers of state, with myself, had a magnificent entertainment prepared us in Begsurbeck's great room; and his majesty, after supper, being very impatient to know how the battle went, I told him the only valorous exploit was performed by my friend Nasgig, who opened the way to victory by the slaughter of Harlokin's general. Nasgig then rose, desiring only that so much might be attributed to him as fortune had accidentally thrown into his scale; for it might have been equally his fate as the general's to have fallen. "But except that skirmish," says he, "and some flying cuts at the van, we have had no engagement at all, nor have we lost a single man; Peter only sitting in his chair, and commanding victory. He spake aloud but thrice, and whispered once to them, but so powerfully that, having at the two first words laid above three hundred of the enemy at their lengths, and brought Harlokin to his feet, with a whisper, at the third word he concluded the war. The whole time, from the first sight of the enemy to their total defeat, took not up more space than one might fairly spend in traversing his majesty's garden. In short, sir," says Nasgig, "your majesty needs no other defence against public or private enemies, as I can see, than Peter; and my profession, whilst he is with us, can be of little use to the State."
After these compliments from Nasgig, and separate ones from the king and the rest, I told them it was the highest felicity to me to be made an instrument by the great Collwar in freeing so mighty a kingdom and considerable a people from the misery of a tyrannical power. "You live," says I, "so happily under the mild government of Georigetti, that it is shocking but to think into what a distressed state you must have fallen under the power of a usurper, who, claiming all as his own by way of conquest, would have reduced you to a miserable servitude. But," says I, "there is, and I am sorry to see it, still amongst you an evil that you great ones feel not, and yet it cries for redress. Are we not all, from the king to the meanest wretch amongst us, formed with the same members? Do we not all breathe the same air? inhabit the same earth? Are we not all subject to the same disorders? and do we not all feel pain and oppression alike? Have we not all the same senses, the same faculties? and, in short, are we not all equally creatures of, and servants to, the same master, the great Collwar? Would not the king have been a slave but for the accident of being begotten by one who was a king? and would not the poorest creature amongst us have been the king had he been so begotten? Did you great men, by any superior merit before your births, procure a title to the high stations in which you are placed? No, you did not. Therefore give me leave to tell you what I would have done. As every man has equal right to the protection of Collwar, why, when you have no enemy to distress you, will you distress one another? Consider, you great ones, and act upon this disinterested principle; do to another, what you, in his place, would have him do to you; dismiss your slaves, let all men be what Collwar made them, free. But if this unequal distinction amongst you, of man and man, is still retained, though you are at present free from the late disaster, it shall be succeeded with more, and heavier. And now, that you may know I would not have every man a lord, nor every one a beggar, remember I would only have every serving-man at liberty to choose his own master, and every master his own man; for he that has property and benefits to bestow will never want dependants, for the sake of those benefits to serve him, as he that has them not must serve for the sake of obtaining them. But then let it be done with free-will; he that then serves you will have an interest in it, and do it, for his own sake, with a willing mind; and you, who are served, will be tenderer and kinder to a good servant, as knowing by a contrary usage you shall lose him. I desire this may now be declared to be so, or your reasons, if any there are, against it."
One of the ragans said he thought I spoke what was very just, and would be highly acceptable to Collwar.
Then two of the colambs rose to speak together, and after a short compliment who should begin, they both declared they only arose to testify their consents.
The king referring it to me, and the colambs consenting, I ordered freedom to be proclaimed through the city; so that every one appeared at their usual duties, to serve their own masters for a month, and then to be at liberty to come to a fresh agreement with them, or who else they pleased.