"You see," she said, "that I know all about your troubles; and you cannot doubt that I desire to make you happy for as long a time as you may remain with me.For this purpose, my honored guests, I have ordered a banquet to be prepared.Fish, fowl, and flesh, roasted, and in luscious stews, and seasoned, Itrust, to all your tastes, are ready to be served up.If your appetites tell you it is dinner time, then come with me to the festal saloon."At this kind invitation, the hungry mariners were quite overjoyed; and one of them, taking upon himself to be spokesman, assured their hospitable hostess that any hour of the day was dinner time with them, whenever they could get flesh to put in the pot, and fire to boil it with.So the beautiful woman led the way; and the four maidens (one of them had sea-green hair, another a bodice of oak bark, a third sprinkled a shower of water drops from her fingers' ends, and the fourth had some other oddity, which I have forgotten), all these followed behind, and hurried the guests along, until they entered a magnificent saloon.It was built in a perfect oval, and lighted from a crystal dome above.Around the walls were ranged two and twenty thrones, overhung by canopies of crimson and gold, and provided with the softest of cushions, which were tasselled and fringed with gold cord.Each of the strangers was invited to sit down; and there they were, two and twenty storm-beaten mariners, in worn and tattered garb, sitting on two and twenty cushioned and canopied thrones, so rich and gorgeous that the proudest monarch had nothing more splendid in his stateliest hall.
Then you might have seen the guests nodding, winking with one eye, and leaning from one throne to another, to communicate their satisfaction in hoarse whispers.
"Our good hostess has made kings of us all," said one."Ha! do you smell the feast? I'll engage it will be fit to set before two and twenty kings.""I hope," said another, "it will be, mainly, good substantial joints, sirloins, spareribs, and hinder quarters, without too many kickshaws.If I thought the good lady would not take it amiss, I should call for a fat slice of fried bacon to begin with."Ah, the gluttons and gormandizers! You see how it was with them.In the loftiest seats of dignity, on royal thrones, they could think of nothing but their greedy appetite, which was the portion of their nature that they shared with wolves and swine;so that they resembled those vilest of animals far more than they did kings--if, indeed, kings were what they ought to be.
But the beautiful woman now clapped her hands; and immediately there entered a train of two and twenty serving man, bringing dishes of the richest food, all hot from the kitchen fire, and sending up such a steam that it hung like a cloud below the crystal dome of the saloon.An equal number of attendants brought great flagons of wine, of various kinds, some of which sparkled as it was poured out, and went bubbling down the throat; while, of other sorts, the purple liquor was so clear that you could see the wrought figures at the bottom of the goblet.While the servants supplied the two and twenty guests with food and drink, the hostess and her four maidens went from one throne to another, exhorting them to eat their fill, and to quaff wine abundantly, and thus to recompense them- selves, at this one banquet, for the many days when they had gone without a dinner.But whenever the mariners were not looking at them (which was pretty often, as they looked chiefly into the basins and platters), the beautiful woman and her damsels turned aside, and laughed.Even the servants, as they knelt down to present the dishes, might be seen to grin and sneer, while the guests were helping themselves to the offered dainties.
And, once in a while, the strangers seemed to taste something that they did not like.
"Here is an odd kind of spice in this dish," said one."I can't say it quite suits my palate.Down it goes, however.""Send a good draught of wine down your throat," said his comrade on the next throne."That is the stuff to make this sort of cookery relish well.Though I must needs say, the wine has a queer taste too.But the more I drink of it, the better Ilike the flavor."
Whatever little fault they might find with the dishes, they sat at dinner a prodigiously long while; and it would really have made you ashamed to see how they swilled down the liquor and gobbled up the food.They sat on golden thrones, to be sure;but they behaved like pigs in a sty; and, if they had had their wits about them, they might have guessed that this was the opinion of their beautiful hostess and her maidens.It brings a blush into my face to reckon up, in my own mind, what mountains of meat and pudding, and what gallons of wine, these two and twenty guzzlers and gormandizers ate and drank.They forgot all about their homes, and their wives and children, and all about Ulysses, and everything else, except this banquet, at which they wanted to keep feasting forever.But at length they began to give over, from mere incapacity to hold any more.
"That last bit of fat is too much for me," said one.
