happy, or
all miserable,--more tolerable then, than as it is. But happiness and
misery are so broadly marked, that this Mardi may be the
retributive future of some forgotten past.--Yet vain our surmises.
Still vainer to say, that all Mardi is but a means to an end; that
this life is a state of probation: that evil is but permitted for a
term; that for specified ages a rebel angel is viceroy.--Nay, nay. Oro
delegates his scepter to none; in his everlasting reign there are no
interregnums; and Time is Eternity; and we live in Eternity now. Yet,
some tell of a hereafter, where all the mysteries of life will be
over; and the sufferings of the virtuous recompensed. Oro is just,
they say.--Then always,--now, and evermore. But to make restitution
implies a wrong; and Oro can do no wrong. Yet what seems evil to us,
may be good to him. If he fears not, nor hopes,--he has no other
passion; no ends, no purposes. He lives content; all ends are
compassed in Him; He has no past, no future; He is the everlasting
now; which is an everlasting calm; and things that are, have been,--
will be. This gloom's enough. But hoot! hoot! the night-owl ranges
through the woodlands of Maramma; its dismal notes pervade our lives;
and when we would fain depart in peace, that bird flies on before:--
cloud-like, eclipsing our setting suns, and filling the air with
dolor."

"Too true!" cried Yoomy. "Our calms must come by storms. Like helmless
vessels, tempest-tossed, our only anchorage is when we founder."

"Our beginnings," murmured Mohi, "are lost in clouds; we live in
darkness all our days, and perish without an end."

"Croak on, cowards!" cried Media, "and fly before the hideous phantoms
that pursue ye."

"No coward he, who hunted, turns and finds no foe to fight," said
Babbalanja. "Like the stag, whose brow is beat with wings of hawks,
perched in his heavenward antlers; so I, blinded, goaded, headlong,
rush! this way and that; nor knowing whither; one forest wide around!"

CHAPTER LXXXII
They Sail From Night To Day

Ere long the three canoes lurched heavily in a violent swell. Like
palls, the clouds swept to and fro, hooding the gibbering winds. At
every head-beat wave, our arching prows reared up, and shuddered; the
night ran out in rain.

Whither to turn we knew not; nor what haven to gain; so dense the
darkness.

But at last, the storm was over. Our shattered prows seemed gilded.
Day dawned; and from his golden vases poured red