But I turned; and instantly the three canoes had been reversed; and full soon, Jarl’s dead hand in mine, had not Media interposed.

“To death, your presence will not bring life back.”

“And we must on,” said Babbalanja.  “We seek the living, not the dead.”

Thus they overruled me; and Borabolla’s messengers departed.

Soon evening came, and in its shades, three shadows,—­Hautia’s heralds.

Their shallop glided near.

A leaf tri-foiled was first presented; then another, arrow-shaped.

Said Yoomy, “Still I swiftly follow, behind revenge.”

Then were showered faded, pallid daffodils.

Said Yoomy, “Thy hopes are blighted all.”

“Not dead, but living with the life of life.  Sirens!  I heed ye not.”

They would have showered more flowers; but crowding sail we left them.

Much converse followed.  Then, beneath the canopy all sought repose.  And ere long slouched sleep drew nigh, tending dreams innumerable; silent dotting all the downs a shepherd with his flock.

CHAPTER XV Dreams

Dreams! dreams! golden dreams:  endless, and golden, as the flowery prairies, that stretch away from the Rio Sacramento, in whose waters Danae’s shower was woven;—­prairies like rounded eternities:  jonquil leaves beaten out; and my dreams herd like buffaloes, browsing on to the horizon, and browsing on round the world; and among them, I dash with my lance, to spear one, ere they all flee.

Dreams! dreams! passing and repassing, like Oriental empires in history; and scepters wave thick, as Bruce’s pikes at Bannockburn; and crowns are plenty as marigolds in June.  And far in the background, hazy and blue, their steeps let down from the sky, loom Andes on Andes, rooted on Alps; and all round me, long rushing oceans, roll Amazons and Oronocos; waves, mounted Parthians; and, to and fro, toss the wide woodlands:  all the world an elk, and the forests its antlers.

But far to the South, past my Sicily suns and my vineyards, stretches the Antarctic barrier of ice:  a China wall, built up from the sea, and nodding its frosted towers in the dun, clouded sky.  Do Tartary and Siberia lie beyond?  Deathful, desolate dominions those; bleak and wild the ocean, beating at that barrier’s base, hovering ’twixt freezing and foaming; and freighted with navies of ice-bergs,—­warring worlds crossing orbits; their long icicles, projecting like spears to the charge.  Wide away stream the floes of drift ice, frozen cemeteries of skeletons and bones.  White bears howl as they drift from their cubs; and the grinding islands crush the skulls of the peering seals.

But beneath me, at the Equator, the earth pulses and beats like a warrior’s heart; till I know not, whether it be not myself.  And my soul sinks down to the depths, and soars to the skies; and comet-like reels on through such boundless expanses, that methinks all the worlds are my kin, and I invoke them to stay in their course.  Yet, like a mighty three-decker, towing argosies by scores, I tremble, gasp, and strain in my flight, and fain would cast off the cables that hamper.