Mardi: and A Voyage Thither Volume II Part 60

Behind the avengers, raged a stormy mob, invoking Media to renounce his rule. But one hand waving like a pennant above the smoke of some sea-fight, straight through that tumult Media sailed serene: the rioters parting from before him, as wild waves before a prow inflexible.

A haven gained, he turned to Mohi and the minstrel:--"Oh, friends!

after our long companions.h.i.+p, hard to part! But henceforth, for many moons, Odo will prove no home for old age, or youth. In Serenia only, will ye find the peace ye seek; and thither ye must carry Taji, who else must soon be slain, or lost. Go: release him from the thrall of Hautia. Outfly the avengers, and gain Serenia. Reek not of me. The state is tossed in storms; and where I stand, the combing billows must break over. But among all n.o.ble souls, in tempest-time, the headmost man last flies the wreck. So, here in Odo will I abide, though every plank breaks up beneath me. And then,--great Oro! let the king die clinging to the keel! Farewell!"

Such Mohi's tale.

In trumpet-blasts, the hoa.r.s.e night-winds now blew; the Lagoon, black with the still shadows of the mountains, and the driving shadows of the clouds. Of all the stars, only red Arcturus shone. But through the gloom, and on the circ.u.mvallating reef, the breakers dashed ghost-white.

An outlet in that outer barrier was nigh.

"Ah! Yillah! Yillah!--the currents sweep thee ocean-ward; nor will I tarry behind.--Mardi, farewell!--Give me the helm, old man!"

"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 das.h.i.+ng 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.