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It was a clear, calm day when we emerged from the Ribi country, and the pilot pointed out to me the distant hills, almost purple in a twilight haze, which encircled the Valley of the City of Scandor.
Thereupon, without tarrying longer to look upon him, he left him with whom he went seeking and beginning a new quest, presently found two comrades of his, called one Ribi and the other Matteuzzo, men much of the same mad humour as himself, and said to them, 'As you tender me, come with me to the law courts, for I wish to show you the rarest scarecrow you ever saw.
"The sterile, sinister and yet marvellous region of lava beds, dikes and conic craters suddenly was passed, and the canal moved into the huge forest lands of the Ribi wood. "This is a beautiful land.
The furniture of the room was of a sort of pale, red wood obtained in the great Martian forests where the trees known as the Ribi grow, whose leaves and flowers have a pink tint, which in seasons of fruitage is more intense, and present enormous areas of extraordinary beauty. "This room was at the top of one of the many branching wings of this composite astronomical laboratory.
However, Matteuzzo, after he had held them awhile, let them go and coming forth from under the platform, made off out of the court and went his way without being seen; whereupon quoth Ribi, himseeming he had done enough, 'I vow to God I will appeal to the syndicate! Whilst Maso, on his part, let go the mantle and said, 'Nay, I will e'en come hither again and again until such time as I find you not hindered as you seem to be this morning. So saying, they both made off as quickliest they might, each on his own side, whilst my lord judge pulled up his breeches in every one's presence, as if he were arisen from sleep; then, perceiving how the case stood, he enquired whither they were gone who were at difference anent the boothose and the saddle-bags; but they were not to be found, whereupon he began to swear by Cock's bowels that need must he know and learn if it were the wont at Florence to pull down the judges' breeches, whenas they sat on the judicial bench.
Meanwhile, Maso came up to my lord judge on one side and taking him by the skirt of his gown, whilst Ribi did the like on the other side, began to say, 'My lord, my lord, I pray you for God's sake, ere yonder scurvy thief on the other side of you go elsewhere, make him restore me a pair of saddle-bags whereof he hath saith indeed he did it not; but I saw him, not a month ago, in act to have them resoled. Ribi on his side cried out with all his might, 'Believe him not, my lord; he is an arrant knave, and for that he knoweth I am come to lay a complaint against him for a pair of saddle-bags whereof he hath robbed me, he cometh now with his story of the boothose, which I have had in my house this many a day.
The trunk line I followed was carried up and down by systems of locks of astounding magnitude and perfection. Great lakes were made convenient feeders, and rivers were also tapped to keep the water levels constant in the canals. The weather was that of a semi-tropical paradise, and the late flowers of the Ribi filled the air with fragrance. "Quickly we approached Scandor.
Its crest is a low swell, that beyond the city falls away in broken, irregular slopes to the country of the Ribi on one side, and to far outstretched plains on almost every other side. This dome was covered with the people of Scandor, fleeing from the doomed city. The long lines of moving figures were issuing from the city through its numerous boulevards, and crowding the spaces on the hilltops.
An you believe me not, I can bring you to witness my next-door neighbor Trecca and Grassa the tripewoman and one who goeth gathering the sweepings from Santa Masia at Verjaza, who saw him when he came back from the country. Maso on the other hand suffered not Ribi to speak, but bawled his loudest, whereupon the other but shouted the more.
"As my message ends, the dawn ascends from the wide margins of the Ribi country. I am stunned with drowsiness. The Sun's rays have extinguished the scintillant peril in the skies. But the order has gone forth to leave the City, to camp upon the hills, the City of Scandor is doomed, and the area of destruction it embraces is the diametral measure of the " I heard no more.
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