ill-o-Wisps from
neighboring shores. Dusky leopards, stealing on by crouches, those
vapors seemed.

Hours silently passed. When startled by a cry, Taji sprang to his
feet; against which something rattled; then, a quick splash! and a
dark form bounded into the lagoon.

The dozing watcher had called aloud; and, about to stab, the assassin,
dropping his stiletto, plunged.

Peering hard through those treacherous mists, two figures in a
shallop, were espied; dragging another, dripping, from the brine.

"Foiled again, and foiled forever. No foe's corpse was I."

As we gazed, in the gloom quickly vanished the shallop; ere ours could
be reversed to pursue.

Then, from the opposite mists, glided a second canoe; and beneath the
Iris round the moon, shone now another:--Hautia's flowery flag!

Vain to wave the sirens off; so still they came.

One waved a plant of sickly silver-green.

"The Midnight Tremmella!" cried Yoomy; "the falling-star of flowers!--
Still I come, when least foreseen; then flee."

The second waved a hemlock top, the spike just tapering its final
point. The third, a convolvulus, half closed. "The end draws nigh, and
all thy hopes are waning." Then they proffered grapes.

But once more waved off, silently they vanished.

Again the buried barb tore, at my soul; again Yillah was invoked, but
Hautia made reply.

Slowly wore out the night. But when uprose the sun, fled clouds, and
fled sadness.

CHAPTER LXX
They Land At Hooloomooloo

"Keep all three prows, for yonder rock." cried Media; "No sadness on
this merry morn! And now for the Isle of Cripples,--even
Hooloomooloo."

"The Isle of Cripples?"

"Ay; why not? Mohi, tell how they came to club." In substance, this
was the narration.

Averse to the barbarous custom of destroying at birth all infants not
symmetrically formed; but equally desirous of removing from their
sight those unfortunate beings; the islanders of a neighboring group
had long ago established an asylum for cripples; where they lived,
subject to their own regulations; ruled by a king of their own
election; in short, forming a distinct class of beings by themselves.

One only restriction was placed upon them: on no account must they
quit the isle assigned them. And to the surrounding islanders, so
unpleasant the sight of a distorted mortal, that a stranger landing at
Hooloomooloo, was deemed a prodigy. Wherefore, respecting any
knowledge of aught beyond them, the crippl