CHAPTER LXXIV.
A Death-Cloud Sweeps By Them, As They Sail Next day, a fearful sight! As in Sooloo's seas, one vast water-spout will, sudden, form: and whirling, chase the flying Malay keels; so, before a swift-winged cloud, a thousand prows sped by, leaving braided, foaming wakes; their crowded inmates' arms, in frenzied supplications wreathed; like tangled forest-boughs.
"See, see," cried Yoomy, "how the Death-cloud flies! Let us dive down in the sea." "Nay," said Babbalanja.

"All things come of Oro; if we must drown, let Oro drown us." "Down sails: drop paddles," said Media: "here we float." Like a rushing bison, sweeping by, the Death-cloud grazed us with its foam; and whirling in upon the thousand prows beyond, sudden burst in deluges; and scooping out a maelstrom, dragged down every plank and soul.
Long we rocked upon the circling billows, which expanding from that center, dashed every isle, till, moons after-ward, faint, they laved all Mardi's reef.
"Thanks unto Oro," murmured Mohi, "this heart still beats." That sun-flushed eve, we sailed by many tranquil harbors, whence fled those thousand prows.

Serene, the waves ran up their strands; and chimed around the unharmed stakes of palm, to which the thousand prows that morning had been fastened.
"Flying death, they ran to meet it," said Babbalanja.

"But 'tie not that they fled, they died; for maelstroms, of these harbors, the Death-cloud might have made.

But they died, because they might not longer live.