essage! Taji, that Iris points to you."

It was then, I first divined, that some meaning must have lurked in
those flowers they had twice brought me before.

The second damsel now flung over to me Circe flowers; then, a faded
jonquil, buried in a tuft of wormwood leaves.

The third sat in the shallop's stern, and as it glided from us,
thrice waved oleanders.

"What dumb show is this?" cried Media. "But it looks like poetry:
minstrel, you should know."

"Interpret then," said I.

"Shall I, then, be your Flora's flute, and Hautia's dragoman? Held
aloft, the Iris signified a message. These purple-woven Circe flowers
mean that some spell is weaving. That golden, pining jonquil, which
you hold, buried in those wormwood leaves, says plainly to you--
Bitter love in absence."

Said Media, "Well done, Taji, you have killed a queen." "Yet no Queen
Hautia have these eyes beheld."

Said Babbalanja, "The thrice waved oleanders, Yoomy; what meant
they?"

"Beware--beware--beware."

"Then that, at least, seems kindly meant," said Babbalanja; "Taji,
beware of Hautia."

CHAPTER LXXI
They Land Upon The Island Of Juam

Crossing the lagoon, our course now lay along the reel to Juam; a
name bestowed upon one of the largest islands hereabout; and also,
collectively, upon several wooded isles engulfing it, which together
were known as the dominions of one monarch. That monarch was
Donjalolo. Just turned of twenty-five, he was accounted not only the
handsomest man in his dominions, but throughout the lagoon. His
comeliness, however, was so feminine, that he was sometimes called
"Fonoo," or the Girl.

Our first view of Juam was imposing. A dark green pile of cliffs,
towering some one hundred toises; at top, presenting a range of
steep, gable-pointed projections; as if some Titanic hammer and
chisel had shaped the mass.

Sailing nearer, we perceived an extraordinary rolling of the sea;
which bursting into the lagoon through an adjoining breach in the
reef, surged toward Juam in enormous billows. At last, dashing
against the wall of the cliff; they played there in unceasing
fountains. But under the brow of a beetling crag, the spray came and
went unequally. There, the blue billows seemed swallowed up, and
lost.

Right regally was Juam guarded. For, at this point, the rock was
pierced by a cave, into which the great waves chased each other like
lions; after a hollow, subterraneous roaring issuing forth with manes
dishe