This Great Mogul of a personage, then; this woundy Aliasuerus; this
man of men; this same Hivohitee, whose name rumbled among the
mountains like a peal of thunder, had been seen face to face, and
taken for naught, but a bearded old hermit, or at best, some equivocal
conjuror.

So great was his wonderment at the time, that Yoomy could not avoid
expressing it in words.

Whereupon thus discoursed Babbalanja:

"Gentle Yoomy, be not astounded, that Hivohitee is so far behind your
previous conceptions. The shadows of things are greater than
themselves; and the more exaggerated the shadow, the more unlike to
the substance."

"But knowing now, what manner of person Hivohitee is," said Yoomy,
"much do I long to behold him again."

But Mohi assured him it was out of the question; that the Pontiff
always acted toward strangers as toward him (Yoomy); and that but one
dim blink at the eremite was all that mortal could obtain.

Debarred thus from a second and more satisfactory interview with one,
concerning whom his curiosity had been violently aroused, the minstrel
again turned to Mohi for enlightenment; especially touching that
magnate's Egyptian reception of him in his aerial den.

Whereto, the chronicler made answer, that the Pontiff affected