e Upoluan was not the first man, who
had turned back, after beginning a voyage like our own.

To this, after musing, Yoomy assented. Indeed, I had noticed, that
already the Warbler had abated those sanguine assurances of success,
with which he had departed from Odo. The futility of our search thus
far, seemed ominous to him, of the end.

On the eve of embarking, we were accompanied to the beach by
Borabolla; who, with his own hand, suspended from the shark's mouth
of Media's canoe, three red-ripe bunches of plantains, a farewell
gift to his guests.

Though he spoke not a word, Jarl was long in taking leave. His eyes
seemed to say, I will see you no more.

At length we pushed from the strand; Borabolla waving his adieus with
a green leaf of banana; our comrade ruefully eyeing the receding
canoes; and the multitude loudly invoking for us a prosperous voyage.

But to my horror, there suddenly dashed through the crowd, the three
specter sons of Aleema, escaped from their prison. With clenched
hands, they stood in the water, and cursed me anew. And with that
curse in our sails, we swept off.

CHAPTER CIII
As They Sail

As the canoes now glided across the lagoon, I gave myself up to
reverie; and revolving over all that the men of Amma had rehearsed of
the history of Yillah, I one by one unriddled the mysteries, before
so baffling. Now, all was made plain: no secret remaining, but the
subsequent event of her disappearance. Yes, Hautia! enlightened I had
been but where was Yillah?

Then I recalled that last interview with Hautia's messengers, so full
of enigmas; and wondered, whether Yoomy had interpreted aright.
Unseen, and unsolicited; still pursuing me with omens, with taunts,
and with wooings, mysterious Hautia appalled me. Vaguely I began to
fear her. And the thought, that perhaps again and again, her heralds
would haunt me, filled me with a nameless dread, which I almost
shrank from acknowledging. Inwardly I prayed, that never more they
might appear.

While full of these thoughts, Media interrupted them by saying, that
the minstrel was about to begin one of his chants, a thing of his own
composing; and therefore, as he himself said, all critics must be
lenient; for Yoomy, at times, not always, was a timid youth,
distrustful of his own sweet genius for poesy.

The words were about a curious hereafter, believed in by some people
in Mardi: a sort of nocturnal Paradise, where the sun and its heat
are excl