that."

"Ay, death's cold ague will set us all shivering, my lord. We'll swear
our teeth are icicles."

"Will you quit driving your sleet upon us? have done expound these
rocks."

"My lord, if you desire, I'll turn over these stone tablets till
they're dog-eared."

"Heaven and Mardi!--Go on, Babbalanja."

"'Twas thus. These were tombs burst open by volcanic throes; and
hither hurled from the lowermost vaults of the lagoon. All Mardi's
rocks are one wide resurrection. But look. Here, now, a pretty story's
told. Ah, little thought these grand old lords, that lived and roared
before the flood, that they would come to this. Here, King Media, look
and learn."

He looked; and saw a picture petrified, and plain as any on the
pediments of Petra.

It seemed a stately banquet of the dead, where lords in skeletons were
ranged around a board heaped up with fossil fruits, and flanked with
vitreous vases, grinning like empty skulls. There they sat, exchanging
rigid courtesies. One's hand was on his stony heart; his other pledged
a lord who held a hollow beaker. Another sat, with earnest face
beneath a mitred brow. He seemed to whisper in the ear of one who
listened trustingly. But on the chest of him who wore the miter, an