“Then thou hast found me out, and seen all! Descend.” And with that, the passage-way opened, and groping through the twilight, Yoomy obeyed the mandate, and retreated; full of vexation at his enigmatical reception. On his alighting, Mohi inquired whether the hermit was not a wonderful personage. But thinking some sage waggery lurked in the question; and at present too indignant to enter into details, the minstrel made some impatient reply; and winding through a defile, the party resumed its journey. Straggling behind, to survey the strange plants and flowers in his path, Yoomy became so absorbed, as almost to forget the scene in the pagoda; yet every moment expected to be nearing the stately abode of the Pontiff. But suddenly, the scene around grew familiar; the path seemed that which had been followed just after leaving the canoes; and at length, the place of debarkation was in sight. Surprised that the object of our visit should have been thus abandoned, the minstrel ran forward, and sought an explanation. Whereupon, Mohi lifted his hands in amazement; exclaiming at the blindness of the eyes, which had beheld the supreme Pontiff of Maramma, without knowing it. The old hermit was no other than the dread Hivohitee; the pagoda, the inmost oracle of the isle. CHAPTER XIII. Babbalanja Endeavors To Explain The Mystery 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.