thy Yillah is behind thee, not before. Deep she dwells in blue Serenia"s groves; which thou would"st not search. Hautia mocks thee; away! The reef is rounded; but a strait flows between this isle and Odo, and thither its ruler must return. Every hour I tarry here, some wretched serf is dying there, for whom, from blest Serenia, _I carry life and joy. Away!_"
"Art still bent on finding evil for thy good?" cried Mohi.--"How can Yillah harbor here?--Beware!--Let not Hautia so enthrall thee."
"Come away, come away," cried Yoomy. "Far hence is Yillah! and he who tarries among these flowers, must needs burn juniper."
"Look on me, Media, Mohi, Yoomy. Here I stand, my own monument, till Hautia breaks the spell."
In grief they left me.
Vee-Vee"s conch I heard no more.
CHAPTER XC Taji With Hautia
As their last echoes died away down the valley, Hautia glided near;-- zone unbound, the amaryllis in her hand. Her bosom ebbed and flowed; the motes danced in the beams that darted from her eyes.
"Come! let us sin, and be merry. Ho! wine, wine, wine! and lapfuls of flowers! let all the cane-brakes pipe their flutes. Damsels! dance; reel, swim, around me:--I, the vortex that draws all in. Taji! Taji!-- as a berry, that name is juicy in my mouth!--Taji, Taji!" and in choruses, she warbled forth the sound, till it seemed issuing from her syren eyes.
My heart flew forth from out its bars, and soared in air; but as my hand touched Hautia"s, down dropped a dead bird from the clouds.
"Ha! how he sinks!--but did"st ever dive in deep waters, Taji? Did"st ever see where pearls grow?--To the cave!--damsels, lead on!"
Then wending through constellations of flowers, we entered deep groves. And thus, thrice from sun-light to shade, it seemed three brief nights and days, ere we paused before the mouth of the cavern.
A bow-shot from the sea, it pierced the hill-side like a vaulted way; and glancing in, we saw far gleams of water; crossed, here and there, by long-flung distant shadows of domes and columns. All Venice seemed within.
From a stack of golden palm-stalks, the damsels now made torches; then stood grouped; a sheaf of sirens in a sheaf of frame.
Illuminated, the cavern shone like a Queen of Kandy"s casket: full of dawns and sunsets.
From rocky roof to bubbling floor, it was columned with stalact.i.tes; and galleried all round, in spiral tiers, with sparkling, coral ledges.
And now, their torches held aloft, into the water the maidens softly glided; and each a lotus floated; while, from far above, into the air Hautia flung her flambeau; then bounding after, in the lake, two meteors were quenched.
Where she dived, the flambeaux cl.u.s.tered; and up among them, Hautia rose; hands, full of pearls.
"Lo! Taji; all these may be had for the diving; and Beauty, Health, Wealth, Long Life, and the Last Lost Hope of man. But through me alone, may these be had. Dive thou, and bring up one pearl if thou canst."
Down, down! down, down, in the clear, sparkling water, till I seemed crystalized in the flashing heart of a diamond; but from those bottomless depths, I uprose empty handed.
"Pearls, pearls! thy pearls! thou art fresh from the mines. Ah, Taji!
for thee, bootless deep diving. Yet to Hautia, one shallow plunge reveals many Golcondas. But come; dive with me:--join hands--let me show thee strange things."
"Show me that which I seek, and I will dive with thee, straight through the world, till we come up in oceans unknown."
"Nay, nay; but join hands, and I will take thee, where thy Past shall be forgotten; where thou wilt soon learn to love the living, not the dead."
"Better to me, oh Hautia! all the bitterness of my buried dead, than all the sweets of the life thou canst bestow; even, were it eternal."
CHAPTER XCI Mardi Behind: An Ocean Before
Returned from the cave, Hautia reclined in her clematis bower, invisible hands flinging fennel around her. And nearer, and nearer, stole dulcet sounds dissolving my woes, as warm beams, snow. Strange languors made me droop; once more within my inmost vault, side by side, the Past and Yillah lay:--two bodies tranced;--while like a rounding sun, before me Hautia magnified magnificence; and through her fixed eyes, slowly drank up my soul.
Thus we stood:--snake and victim: life ebbing out from me, to her.
But from that spell, I burst again, as all the Past smote all the Present in me.
"Oh Hautia! thou knowest the mystery I die to fathom. I see it crouching in thine eye:--Reveal!"
"Weal or woe?"
"Life or death!"
"See, see!" and Yillah"s rose-pearl danced before me.
I s.n.a.t.c.hed it from her hand:--"Yillah! Yillah!"
"Rave on: she lies too deep to answer; stranger voices than thine she hears:--bubbles are bursting round her."
"Drowned! drowned then, even as she dreamed:--I come, I come!--Ha, what form is this?--hast mosses? sea-thyme? pearls?--Help, help! I sink!--Back, shining monster!---What, Hautia,--is it thou?--Oh vipress, I could slay thee!"
"Go, go,--and slay thyself: I may not make thee mine;--go,--dead to dead!--There is another cavern in the hill." Swift I fled along the valley-side; pa.s.sed Hautia"s cave of pearls; and gained a twilight arch; within, a lake transparent shone. Conflicting currents met, and wrestled; and one dark arch led to channels, seaward tending.
Round and round, a gleaming form slow circled in the deepest eddies:-- white, and vaguely Yillah.
Straight I plunged; but the currents were as fierce headwinds off capes, that beat back ships.
Then, as I frenzied gazed; gaining the one dark arch, the revolving shade darted out of sight, and the eddies whirled as before.
"Stay, stay! let me go with thee, though thou glidest to gulfs of blackness;--naught can exceed the h.e.l.l of this despair!--Why beat longer in this corpse oh, my heart!"
As somnambulists fast-frozen in some horrid dream, ghost-like glide abroad, and fright the wakeful world; so that night, with death-glazed eyes, to and fro I flitted on the damp and weedy beach.
"Is this specter, Taji?"--and Mohi and the minstrel stood before me.
"Taji lives no more. So dead, he has no ghost. I am his spirit"s phantom"s phantom."
"Nay, then, phantom! the time has come to flee."
They dragged me to the water"s brink, where a prow was beached. Soon-- Mohi at the helm--we shot beneath the far-flung shadow of a cliff; when, as in a dream, I hearkened to a voice.
Arrived at Odo, Media had been met with yells. Sedition was in arms, and to his beard defied him. Vain all concessions then. Foremost stood the three pale sons of him, whom I had slain, to gain the maiden lost.
Avengers, from the first hour we had parted on the sea, they had drifted on my track survived starvation; and lived to hunt me round all Mardi"s reef; and now at Odo, that last threshold, waited to destroy; or there, missing the revenge they sought, still swore to hunt me round Eternity.