“Nay, madman!  Serenia is our haven.  Through yonder strait, for thee, perdition lies.  And from the deep beyond, no voyager e’er puts back.”

“And why put back? is a life of dying worth living o’er again?—­Let me, then, be the unreturning wanderer.  The helm!  By Oro, I will steer my own fate, old man.—­Mardi, farewell!”

“Nay, Taji:  commit not the last, last crime!” cried Yoomy.

“He’s seized the helm! eternity is in his eye!  Yoomy:  for our lives we must now swim.”

And plunging, they struck out for land:  Yoomy buoying Mohi up, and the salt waves dashing the tears from his pallid face, as through the scud, he turned it on me mournfully.

“Now, I am my own soul’s emperor; and my first act is abdication!  Hail! realm of shades!”—­and turning my prow into the racing tide, which seized me like a hand omnipotent, I darted through.

Churned in foam, that outer ocean lashed the clouds; and straight in my white wake, headlong dashed a shallop, three fixed specters leaning o’er its prow:  three arrows poising.

And thus, pursuers and pursued flew on, over an endless sea.

THE END.