CHAPTER LXXXVI They Meet The Phantoms

That starless midnight, there stole from out the darkness, the Iris flag of Hautia.

Again the sirens came.  They bore a large and stately urn-like flower, white as alabaster, and glowing, as if lit up within.  From its calyx, flame-like, trembled forked and crimson stamens, burning with intensest odors.

The phantoms nearer came; their flower, as an urn of burning niter.  Then it changed, and glowed like Persian dawns; or passive, was shot over by palest lightnings;—­so variable its tints.

“The night-blowing Cereus!” said Yoomy, shuddering, “that never blows in sun-light; that blows but once; and blows but for an hour.—­For the last time I come; now, in your midnight of despair, and promise you this glory.  Take heed! short time hast thou to pause; through me, perhaps, thy Yillah may be found.”

“Away! away! tempt me not by that, enchantress!  Hautia!  I know thee not; I fear thee not; but instinct makes me hate thee.  Away! my eyes are frozen shut; I will not be tempted more.”

“How glorious it burns!” cried Media.  I reel with incense:—­can such sweets be evil?”

“Look! look!” cried Yoomy, “its petals wane, and creep; one moment more, and the night-flower shuts up forever the last, last hope of Yillah!”

“Yillah!  Yillah!  Yillah!” bayed three vengeful voices far behind.

“Yillah!  Yillah!—­dash the urn!  I follow, Hautia! though thy lure be death.”

The Cereus closed; and in a mist the siren prow went on before; we, following.

When day dawned, three radiant pilot-fish swam in advance:  three ravenous sharks astern.

And, full before us, rose the isle of Hautia.

CHAPTER LXXXVII They Draw Nigh To Flozella

As if Mardi were a poem, and every island a canto, the shore now in sight was called Flozella-a-Nina, or The-Last-Verse-of-the-Song.

According to Mohi, the origin of this term was traceable to the remotest antiquity.

In the beginning, there were other beings in Mardi besides Mardians; winged beings, of purer minds, and cast in gentler molds, who would fain have dwelt forever with mankind.  But the hearts of the Mardians were bitter against them, because of their superior goodness.  Yet those beings returned love for malice, and long entreated to virtue and charity.  But in the end, all Mardi rose up against them, and hunted them from isle to isle; till, at last, they rose from the woodlands like a flight of birds, and disappeared in the skies.  Thereafter, abandoned of such sweet influences, the Mardians fell into all manner of sins and sufferings, becoming the erring things their descendants were now.  Yet they knew not, that their calamities were of their own bringing down.  For deemed a victory, the expulsion of the winged beings was celebrated in choruses, throughout Mardi.  And among other jubilations, so ran the legend, a pean was composed, corresponding in the number of its stanzas, to the number of islands.  And a band of youths, gayly appareled, voyaged in gala canoes all round the lagoon, singing upon each isle, one verse of their song.  And Flozella being the last isle in their circuit, its queen commemorated the circumstance, by new naming her realm.