ts
here embowered. Haunt of the hopeless! In those inland woods brood
Mardians who have tasted Mardi, and found it bitter--the draught so
sweet to others!--maidens whose unimparted bloom has cankered in the
bud; and children, with eyes averted from life's dawn--like those new-
oped morning blossoms which, foreseeing storms, turn and close."

"Yoomy's rendering of the truth," said Mohi.

"Why land, then?" said Media. "No merry man of sense--no demi-god like
me, will do it. Let's away; let's see all that's pleasant, or that
seems so, in our circuit, and, if possible, shun the sad."

"Then we have circled not the round reef wholly," said Babbalanja,
"but made of it a segment. For this is far from being the first sad
land, my lord, that we have slighted at your instance."

"No more. I will have no gloom. A chorus! there, ye paddlers! spread
all your sails; ply paddles; breeze up, merry winds!"

And so, in the saffron sunset, we neared another shore.

A gloomy-looking land! black, beetling crags, rent by volcanic clefts;
ploughed up with water-courses, and dusky with charred woods. The
beach was strewn with scoria and cinders; in dolorous soughs, a chill
wind blew; wails issued from the caves; and yellow, spooming surges,
lashed the moaning strand.

"Shall we land?" said Babbalanja.

"Not here," cried Yoomy; "no Yillah here."

"No," said Media. "This is another of those lands far better to
avoid."

"Know ye not," said Mohi, "that here are the mines of King Klanko,
whose scourged slaves, toiling in their pits, so nigh approach the
volcano's bowels, they hear its rumblings? 'Yet they must work on,'
cries Klanko, 'the mines still yield!' And daily his slaves' bones are
brought above ground, mixed with the metal masses."

"Set all sail there, men! away!"

"My lord," said Babbalanja; "still must we shim the unmitigated evil;
and only view the good; or evil so mixed therewith, the mixture's
both?"

Half vailed in misty clouds, the harvest-moon now rose; and in that
pale and haggard light, all sat silent; each man in his own secret
mood: best knowing his own thoughts.

CHAPTER LXXIX
Babbalanja At The Full Of The Moon

"Ho, mortals! Go we to a funeral, that our paddles seem thus muffled?
Up heart, Taji! or does that witch Hautia haunt thee? Be a demi-god
once more, and laugh. Her flowers are not barbs; and the avengers'
arrows are too blunt to slay. Babbalanja! Mohi! Yoomy! up heart! up
heart!--By Oro! I w