e rush of the waves by our keels.

"Save him! Put back!"

From his elevated seat, the merry bowsman, too gleefully reaching
forward, had fallen into the lagoon.

With all haste, our speeding canoes were reversed; but not till we had
darted in upon another darkness than that in which the bowsman fell.

As, blindly, we groped back, deep Night dived deeper down in the sea.

"Drop paddles all, and list."

Holding their breath, over the six gunwales all now leaned; but the
only moans were the wind's.

Long time we lay thus; then slowly crossed and recrossed our track,
almost hopeless; but yet loth to leave him who, with a song in his
mouth, died and was buried in a breath.

"Let us away," said Media--"why seek more? He is gone."

"Ay, gone," said Babbalanja, "and whither? But a moment since, he was
among us: now, the fixed stars are not more remote than he. So far
off, can he live? Oh, Oro! this death thou ordainest, unmans the
manliest. Say not nay, my lord. Let us not speak behind Death's back.
Hard and horrible is it to die: blindfold to leap from life's verge!
But thus, in clouds of dust, and with a trampling as of hoofs, the
generations disappear; death driving them all into his treacherous
fold, as wild Indians the bison herds. Nay, nay, Death is
Life's last despair. Hard and horrible is it to die. Oro himself, in
Alma, died not without a groan. Yet why, why live? Life is wearisome
to all: the same dull round. Day and night, summer and winter, round
about us revolving for aye. One moment lived, is a life. No new stars
appear in the sky; no new lights in the soul. Yet, of changes there
are many. For though, with rapt sight, in childhood, we behold many
strange things beneath the moon, and all Mardi looks a tented fair--
how soon every thing fades. All of us, in our very bodies, outlive our
own selves. I think of green youth as of a merry playmate departed;
and to shake hands, and be pleasant with my old age, seems in prospect
even harder, than to draw a cold stranger to my bosom. But old age is
not for me. I am not of the stuff that grows old. This Mardi is not
our home. Up and down we wander, like exiles transported to a planet
afar:--'tis not the world _we_ were born in; not the world once so
lightsome and gay; not the world where we once merrily danced, dined,
and supped; and wooed, and wedded our long-buried wives. Then let us
depart. But whither? We push ourselves forward then, start back in
affright. Es