once so lightsome and gay; not the world where we once merrily danced, dined, and supped; and wooed, and wedded our long-buried wives.  Then let us depart.  But whither?  We push ourselves forward then, start back in affright.  Essay it again, and flee.  Hard to live; hard to die; intolerable suspense!  But the grim despot at last interposes; and with a viper in our winding-sheets, we are dropped in the sea.”

“To me,” said Mohi, his gray locks damp with night-dews, “death’s dark defile at times seems at hand, with no voice to cheer.  That all have died, makes it not easier for me to depart.  And that many have been quenched in infancy seems a mercy to the slow perishing of my old age, limb by limb and sense by sense.  I have long been the tomb of my youth.  And more has died out of me, already, than remains for the last death to finish.  Babbalanja says truth.  In childhood, death stirred me not; in middle age, it pursued me like a prowling bandit on the road; now, grown an old man, it boldly leads the way; and ushers me on; and turns round upon me its skeleton gaze:  poisoning the last solaces of life.  Maramma but adds to my gloom.”

“Death! death!” cried Yoomy, “must I be not, and millions be?  Must I go, and the flowers still bloom?  Oh, I have marked what it is to be dead;—­how shouting boys, of holidays, hide-and-seek among the tombs, which must hide all seekers at last.”

“Clouds on clouds!” cried Media, “but away with them all!  Why not leap your graves, while ye may?  Time to die, when death comes, without dying by inches.  ’Tis no death, to die; the only death is the fear of it.  I, a demi-god, fear death not.”

“But when the jackals howl round you?” said Babbalanja.

“Drive them off!  Die the demi-god’s death!  On his last couch of crossed spears, my brave old sire cried, ’Wine, wine; strike up, conch and cymbal; let the king die to martial melodies!’”

“More valiant dying, than dead,” said Babbalanja.  “Our end of the winding procession resounds with music and flaunts with banners with brave devices:  ‘Cheer up!’ ‘Fear not!’ ’Millions have died before!’—­ but in the endless van, not a pennon streams; all there, is silent and solemn.  The last wisdom is dumb.”

Silence ensued; during which, each dip of the paddles in the now calm water, fell full and long upon the ear.

Anon, lifting his head, Babbalanja thus:—­“Yillah still eludes us.  And in all this tour of Mardi, how little have we found to fill the heart with peace:  how much to slaughter all our yearnings.”

“Croak no more, raven!” cried Media.  “Mardi is full of spring-time sights, and jubilee sounds.  I never was sad in my life.”