Long after, dark tidings came, that at early dawn he had been found dead in the canoe:  three arrows in his side.

Yoomy was at a loss to account for the departure of Samoa; who, while ashore, had expressed much desire to roam.

Media, however, declared that he must be returning to some inamorata.

But Babbalanja averred, that the 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 excluded:  one long, lunar day, with twinkling stars to keep company.