88. CHAPTER LXXXVIII.
A jeweled tiara, nodding in spray, looks flowery Flozella,
approached from the sea. For, lo you! the glittering foam
all round its white marge; where, forcing themselves underneath
the coral ledge, and up through its crevices, in fountains,
the blue billows gush. While, within, zone above zone,
thrice zoned in belts of bloom, all the isle, as a hanging-garden
soars; its tapering cone blending aloft, with heaven's
own blue.
“What flies through the spray! what incense is this?”
cried Media.
“Ha! you wild breeze! you have been plundering the
gardens of Hautia,” cried Yoomy.
“No sweets can be sweeter,” said Braid-Beard, “but no
Upas more deadly.”
Anon we came nearer; sails idly flapping, and paddles
suspended; sleek currents our coursers. And round about
the isle, like winged rainbows, shoals of dolphins were leaping
over floating fragments of wrecks:—dark-green, long-haired
ribs, and keels of canoes. For many shallops, inveigled
by the eddies, were oft dashed to pieces against that
flowery strand. But what cared the dolphins? Mardian
wrecks were their homes. Over and over they sprang:
from east to west: rising and setting: many suns in a
moment; while all the sea, like a harvest plain, was stacked
with their glittering sheaves of spray.
And far down, fathoms on fathoms, flitted rainbow hues:—
as seines-full of mermaids; half-screening the bones of the
drowned.
Swifter and swifter the currents now ran; till with a
shock, our prows were beached.
There, beneath an arch of spray, three dark-eyed maidens
stood; garlanded with columbines, their nectaries nodding
like jesters' bells; and robed in vestments blue.
“The pilot-fish transformed!” cried Yoomy.
“The night-eyed heralds three!” said Mohi.
Following the maidens, we now took our way along a
winding vale; where, by sweet-scented hedges, flowed bluebraided
brooks; their tributaries, rivulets of violets, meandering
through the meads.
On one hand, forever glowed the rosy mountains with a
tropic dawn; and on the other, lay an Arctic eve;—the
white daisies drifted in long banks of snow, and snowed the
blossoms from the orange boughs. There, summer breathed
her bridal bloom; her hill-top temples crowned with bridal
wreaths.
We wandered on, through orchards arched in long arcades,
that seemed baronial halls, hung o'er with trophies:—so
spread the boughs in antlers. This orchard was the frontlet
of the isle.
The fruit hung high in air, that only beaks, not hands,
might pluck.
Here, the peach tree showed her thousand cheeks of down,
kissed often by the wooing winds; here, in swarms, the yellow
apples hived, like golden bees upon the boughs; here,
from the kneeling, fainting trees, thick fell the cherries, in
great drops of blood; and here, the pomegranate, with cold
rind and sere, deep pierced by bills of birds revealed the
mellow of its ruddy core. So, oft the heart, that cold and
withered seems, within yet hides its juices.
This orchard passed, the vale became a lengthening plain,
that seemed the Straits of Ormus bared; so thick it lay with
flowery gems:—torquoise-hyacinths, ruby-roses, lily-pearls.
Here roved the vagrant vines; their flaxen ringlets curling
over arbors, which laughed and shook their golden locks.
From bower to bower, flew the wee bird, that ever hovering,
seldom lights; and flights of gay canaries passed, like
jonquils, winged.
But now, from out half-hidden bowers of clematis, there
issued swarms of wasps, which flying wide, settled on all the
buds.
And, fifty nymphs preceding, who now follows from those
bowers, with gliding, artful steps:—the very snares of love!—
Hautia. A gorgeous amaryllis in her hand; Circe-flowers
in her ears; her girdle tied with vervain.
She came by privet hedges, drooping; downcast honeysuckles;
she trod on pinks and pansies, blue-bells, heath,
and lilies. She glided on: her crescent brow calm as the
moon, when most it works its evil influences.
Her eye was fathomless.
But the same mysterious, evil-boding gaze was there, which
long before had haunted me in Odo, ere Yillah fled.—Queen
Hautia the incognito! Then two wild currents met, and
dashed me into foam.
“Yillah! Yillah!—tell me, queen!” But she stood motionless;
radiant, and scentless: a dahlia on its stalk.
“Where? Where?”
“Is not thy voyage now ended?—Take flowers! Damsels,
give him wine to drink. After his weary hunt, be the
wanderer happy.”
I dashed aside their cups, and flowers; still rang the vale
with Yillah!
“Taji! did I know her fate, naught would I now disclose;
my heralds pledged their queen to naught. Thou
but comest here to supplant thy mourner's night-shade, with
marriage roses. Damsels! give him wreaths; crowd round
him; press him with your cups!”
Once more I spilled their wine, and tore their garlands.
“Is not that, the evil eye that long ago did haunt me?
and thou, the Hautia who hast followed me, and wooed, and
mocked, and tempted me, through all this long, long voyage?
I swear! thou knowest all.”
“I am Hautia. Thou hast come at last. Crown him
with your flowers! Drown him in your wine! To all
questions, Taji! I am mute.—Away!—damsels dance; reel
round him; round and round!”
Then, their feet made music on the rippling grass, like
thousand leaves of lilies on a lake. And, gliding nearer,
Hautia welcomed Media; and said, “Your comrade here is
sad:—be ye gay. Ho, wine!—I pledge ye, guests!”
Then, marking all, I thought to seem what I was not,
that I might learn at last the thing I sought.
So, three cups in hand I held; drank wine, and laughed;
and half-way met Queen Hautia's blandishments.
