“Lo! the damsels three!” cried Yoomy. “Look where they come!”
We joined them by the sumach-wood’s red skirts; and there, they waved their cherry stalks, and heavy bloated cactus leaves, their crimson blossoms armed with nettles; and before us flung shining, yellow, tiger-flowers spotted red.
“Blood!” cried Yoomy, starting, “and leopards on your track!”
And now the syrens blew through long reeds, tasseled with their panicles, and waving verdant scarfs of vines, came dancing toward us, proffering clustering grapes.
“For all now yours, Taji; and all that yet may come,” cried Yoomy, “fly to me! I will dance away your gloom, and drown it in inebriation.”
“Away! woe is its own wine. What may be mine, that will I endure, in its own essence to the quick. Let me feel the poniard if it stabs.”
They vanished in the wood; and hurrying on, we soon gained sun-light, and the open glade.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
They Embark From Diranda
Arrived at the Sign of the Skulls, we found the illustrious lord seigniors at rest from their flight, and once more, quaffing their claret, all thoughts of the specter departed. Instead of rattling their own ivory iii the heads on their shoulders, they were rattling their dice in the skulls in their hands. And still “Heads,” was the cry, and “Heads,” was the throw.
That evening they made known to my lord Media that an interval of two days must elapse ere the games were renewed, in order to reward the victors, bury their dead, and provide for the execution of an Islander, who under the provocation of a blow, had killed a stranger.