mong the
flowers, with roses and lilies for cheeks. Still forgetful? Know you
not my voice? Those little spirits in your eyes have seen me before.
They mimic me now as they sport in their lakes. All the past a dim
blank? Think of the time when we ran up and down in our arbor, where
the green vines grew over the great ribs of the stranded whale. Oh
Yillah, little Yillah, has it all come to this? am I forever
forgotten? Yet over the wide watery world have I sought thee: from
isle to isle, from sea to sea. And now we part not. Aleema is gone.
My prow shall keep kissing the waves, till it kisses the beach at
Oroolia. Yillah, look up."

Sunk the ghost of Aleema: Sweet Yillah was mine!

CHAPTER XLVI
The Chamois With A Roving Commission

Through the assiduity of my Viking, ere nightfall our Chamois was
again in good order. And with many subtle and seamanlike splices the
light tent was lashed in its place; the sail taken up by a reef.

My comrades now questioned me, as to my purposes; whether they had
been modified by the events of the day. I replied that our
destination was still the islands to the westward.

But from these we had steadily been drifting all the morning long; so
that now no loom of the land was visible. But our prow was kept
pointing as before.

As evening came on, my comrades fell fast asleep, leaving me at the
helm.

How soft and how dreamy the light of the hour. The rays of the sun,
setting behind golden-barred clouds, came to me like the gleaming of
a shaded light behind a lattice. And the low breeze, pervaded with
the peculiar balm of the mid-Pacific near land, was fragrant as the
breath of a bride.

Such was the scene; so still and witching that the hand of Yillah in
mine seemed no hand, but a touch. Visions flitted before me and in
me; something hummed in my ear; all the air was a lay.

And now entered a thought into my heart. I reflected how serenely we
might thus glide along, far removed from all care and anxiety. And
then, what different scenes might await us upon any of the shores
roundabout. But there seemed no danger in the balmy sea; the assured
vicinity of land imparting a sense of security. We had ample
supplies for several days more, and thanks to the Pagan canoe, an
abundance of fruit.

Besides, what cared I now for the green groves and bright shore? Was
not Yillah my shore and my grove? my meadow, my mead, my soft shady
vine, and my arbor? Of all things desirable and deli