Here they lolled, blinking
their hideous eyes, and doubtless conversing with one another in
their sixth-sense-fourth-dimension language.
For the first time I beheld their queen. She differed from the
others in no feature that was appreciable to my earthly eyes, in
fact all Mahars look alike to me: but when she crossed the arena
after the balance of her female subjects had found their bowlders,
she was preceded by a score of huge Sagoths, the largest I ever
had seen, and on either side of her waddled a huge thipdar, while
behind came another score of Sagoth guardsmen.
At the barrier the Sagoths clambered up the steep side with truly
apelike agility, while behind them the haughty queen rose upon her
wings with her two frightful dragons close beside her, and settled
down upon the largest bowlder of them all in the exact center of
that side of the amphitheater which is reserved for the dominant
race. Here she squatted, a most repulsive and uninteresting queen;
though doubtless quite as well assured of her beauty and divine
right to rule as the proudest monarch of the outer world.
And then the music started--music without sound! The Mahars cannot
hear, so the drums and fifes and horns of earthly bands are unknown
among them. The "band" consists of a score or more Mahars. It
filed out in the center of the arena where the creatures upon the
rocks might see it, and there it performed for fifteen or twenty
minutes.
Their technic consisted in waving their tails and moving their
heads in a regular succession of measured movements resulting in a
cadence which evidently pleased the eye of the Mahar as the cadence
of our own instrumental music pleases our ears.
Pages:
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84