“Lo!  Taji; all these may be had for the diving; and Beauty, Health, Wealth, Long Life, and the Last Lost Hope of man.  But through me alone, may these be had.  Dive thou, and bring up one pearl if thou canst.”

Down, down! down, down, in the clear, sparkling water, till I seemed crystalized in the flashing heart of a diamond; but from those bottomless depths, I uprose empty handed.

“Pearls, pearls! thy pearls! thou art fresh from the mines.  Ah, Taji! for thee, bootless deep diving.  Yet to Hautia, one shallow plunge reveals many Golcondas.  But come; dive with me:—­join hands—­let me show thee strange things.”

“Show me that which I seek, and I will dive with thee, straight through the world, till we come up in oceans unknown.”

“Nay, nay; but join hands, and I will take thee, where thy Past shall be forgotten; where thou wilt soon learn to love the living, not the dead.”

“Better to me, oh Hautia! all the bitterness of my buried dead, than all the sweets of the life thou canst bestow; even, were it eternal.”

CHAPTER XCI Mardi Behind:  An Ocean Before

Returned from the cave, Hautia reclined in her clematis bower, invisible hands flinging fennel around her.  And nearer, and nearer, stole dulcet sounds dissolving my woes, as warm beams, snow.  Strange languors made me droop; once more within my inmost vault, side by side, the Past and Yillah lay:—­two bodies tranced;—­while like a rounding sun, before me Hautia magnified magnificence; and through her fixed eyes, slowly drank up my soul.

Thus we stood:—­snake and victim:  life ebbing out from me, to her.

But from that spell, I burst again, as all the Past smote all the Present in me.

“Oh Hautia! thou knowest the mystery I die to fathom.  I see it crouching in thine eye:—­Reveal!”

“Weal or woe?”

“Life or death!”

“See, see!” and Yillah’s rose-pearl danced before me.

I snatched it from her hand:—­“Yillah!  Yillah!”

“Rave on:  she lies too deep to answer; stranger voices than thine she hears:—­bubbles are bursting round her.”

“Drowned! drowned then, even as she dreamed:—­I come, I come!—­Ha, what form is this?—­hast mosses? sea-thyme? pearls?—­Help, help!  I sink!—­Back, shining monster!—–­What, Hautia,—­is it thou?—­Oh vipress, I could slay thee!”

“Go, go,—­and slay thyself:  I may not make thee mine;—­go,—­dead to dead!—­There is another cavern in the hill.”  Swift I fled along the valley-side; passed Hautia’s cave of pearls; and gained a twilight arch; within, a lake transparent shone.  Conflicting currents met, and wrestled; and one dark arch led to channels, seaward tending.

Round and round, a gleaming form slow circled in the deepest eddies:—­ white, and vaguely Yillah.

Straight I plunged; but the currents were as fierce headwinds off capes, that beat back ships.