The time of starting was fixed for the sixth morning, from off the rock on the back-side of the palace, upon my firing a pistol.
This unusual diversion occasioned a prodigious confluence of spectators; for scarce a person in Brandleguarp, except those who were either too young or too old for flight, but were upon one or other of the rocks; even the king himself and all his court were there, with infinite numbers from all distant parts.
I had despatched a letter by one of my old bearers to Lasmeel some days before, to inform him of it, that he might get two letters ready wrote, one to deliver to the first, and another to the second messenger, but not to take farther notice of the rest. Now, my flight-race being for the equal benefit of both the kingdoms, it happened, as I was in hopes it would, that so many of the Mount Alkoans coming over to me to be entered, and staying with me till the flight began, and such vast numbers of persons meeting of both nations upon the Black Mountain, to see them go and return, and several of the Swangeantines going, out of bravado, quite through with the flyers; the intercourse of the two nations was that day so great, and the discourse they had with the natives and miners so stripped the Swangeantines of their old apprehensions of danger from Mount Alkoe, that in three days after the whole dread of the place was vanished, and he would then have been thought mad who had attempted to revive it.
The time being come, I set my flyers in a row on the outer edge of the rock; and having given notice that no one should presume to rise till the flyers were on the graundee, and at such a distance, I then let the flyers know I should soon give fire; which I had no sooner done but down they all dropped as one man, as it were, headlong from the edge of the mountain, and presently the whole field were after them. They skimmed with incredible swiftness across the face of the plain, between the rock and the mountain; the force of which descent swung them as it were up the mountain's side in an almost upright posture, till seeming to sweep the edge of the mountain with their bellies, they slid over its surface till they were lost in the body of the Swangean, our rocks echoing the shouts of the mountaineers. I fired my pistol, by my watch, at nine o'clock in the morning, but had no occasion to inquire when it was thought they would return, for every one was passing his opinion upon it. Some said it could not be till midnight, or very near it; and others, that it would be almost next morning. However, we went to dinner, and coming again about six o'clock by my watch, I was told by the people on the rock, as the general opinion (for it was then topfull), that they could not yet be expected for a long time; and the major part concluded they could not be half-way home yet; when, on a sudden, we heard a prodigious shout from the mountain, which growing nearer and nearer to us, and louder and louder, in a few moments came a slim young fellow, and nimbly alighting on the rock, tripped briskly forward, as not being able to stop himself at once from the violence of the force he came with, and delivered me a letter from Lasmeel as I was sitting in my chair. I gave him joy of the prize, and ordered him to come to my apartment so soon as I got home, and he should have it. I then asked him where he had left the other flyers; he told me he knew nothing of them since he came past the forges in his return; for there he met them going to Lasmeel.--"Why that," says I, "must be a great way on this side the governor's." He told me about an hour's flight. I then told him, as he must be strained with so hard a flight, it would be better if he lay down, and called on me in the morning. He thanked me, and after he had told me his name was Walsi, he said he would take my advice, and springing up as light as air, went off, the rock being quite thronged with those who had followed from the mountain to see the victor.