our words. But look, the stars
come forth, and who are these? A waving Iris! ay, again they come:--
Hautia's heralds!"

They brought a black thorn, buried in withered rose-balm blossoms, red
and blue.

Said Yoomy, "For that which stings, there is no cure,"

"Who, who is Hautia, that she stabs me thus?"

"And this wild sardony mocks your misery."

"Away! ye fiends."

"Again a Venus car; and lo! a wreath of strawberries!--Yet fly to me,
and be garlanded with joys."

"Let the wild witch laugh. She moves me not. Neither hurtling arrows
nor Circe flowers appall."

Said Yoomy, "They wait reply."

"Tell your Hautia, that I know her not; nor care to know. I defy her
incantations; she lures in vain. Yillah! Yillah! still I hope!"

Slowly they departed; heeding not my cries no more to follow.

Silence, and darkness fell.

CHAPTER XXXI
Babbalanja Discourses In The Dark

Next day came and went; and still we onward sailed. At last, by night,
there fell a calm, becalming the water of the wide lagoon, and
becalming all the clouds in heaven, wailing the constellations. But
though our sails were useless, our paddlers plied their broad stout
blades. Thus sweeping by a rent and hoar old rock, Vee-Vee, impatient
of the calm, sprang to his crow's nest in the shark's mouth, and
seizing his conch, sounded a blast which ran in and out among the
hollows, reverberating with the echoes.

Be sure, it was startling. But more so with respect to one of our
paddlers, upon whose shoulders, elevated Vee-Vee, his balance lost,
all at once came down by the run. But the heedless little bugler
himself was most injured by the fall; his arm nearly being broken.

Some remedies applied, and the company grown composed, Babbalanja
thus:--"My lord Media, was there any human necessity for that
accident?"

"None that I know, or care to tell, Babbalanja."

"Vee-Vee," said Babbalanja, "did you fall on purpose?"

"Not I," sobbed little Vee-Vee, slinging his ailing arm in its mate.

"Woe! woe to us all, then," cried Babbalanja; "for what direful events
may be in store for us which we can not avoid."

"How now, mortal?" cried Media; "what now?"

"My lord, think of it. Minus human inducement from without, and minus
volition from within, Vee-Vee has met with an accident, which has
almost maimed him for life. Is it not terrifying to think of? Are not
all mortals exposed to similar, nay, worse calamities, ineffably
unavoidable? Woe, woe, I