But nearer and nearer, low-creeping along, came mists and vapors, a thousand; spotted with twinklings of Will-o-Wisps from neighboring shores.

Dusky leopards, stealing on by crouches, those vapors seemed.
Hours silently passed.

When startled by a cry, Taji sprang to his feet; against which something rattled; then, a quick splash! and a dark form bounded into the lagoon.
The dozing watcher had called aloud; and, about to stab, the assassin, dropping his stiletto, plunged.
Peering hard through those treacherous mists, two figures in a shallop, were espied; dragging another, dripping, from the brine.
"Foiled again, and foiled forever.

No foe's corpse was I." As we gazed, in the gloom quickly vanished the shallop; ere ours could be reversed to pursue.
Then, from the opposite mists, glided a second canoe; and beneath the Iris round the moon, shone now another:--Hautia's flowery flag! Vain to wave the sirens off; so still they came.
One waved a plant of sickly silver-green.
"The Midnight Tremmella!" cried Yoomy; "the falling-star of flowers!-- Still I come, when least foreseen; then flee." The second waved a hemlock top, the spike just tapering its final point.

The third, a convolvulus, half closed.