{"id":"01KG8AKT5R4NGE2HNJQ67XWWS9","cid":"bafkreicoljk6x22ozc4uaufgowfyrwwnxcikhrypap3krhvyxkhutvpmtm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":11760,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:09.931Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","start_line":11691,"text":"As, blindly, we groped back, deep Night dived deeper down in the sea.\r\n\r\n“Drop paddles all, and list.”\r\n\r\nHolding their breath, over the six gunwales all now leaned; but the\r\nonly moans were the wind’s.\r\n\r\nLong time we lay thus; then slowly crossed and recrossed our track,\r\nalmost hopeless; but yet loth to leave him who, with a song in his\r\nmouth, died and was buried in a breath.\r\n\r\n“Let us away,” said Media—“why seek more? He is gone.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, gone,” said Babbalanja, “and whither? But a moment since, he was\r\namong us: now, the fixed stars are not more remote than he. So far off,\r\ncan he live? Oh, Oro! this death thou ordainest, unmans the manliest.\r\nSay not nay, my lord. Let us not speak behind Death’s back. Hard and\r\nhorrible is it to die: blindfold to leap from life’s verge! But thus,\r\nin clouds of dust, and with a trampling as of hoofs, the generations\r\ndisappear; death driving them all into his treacherous fold, as wild\r\nIndians the bison herds. Nay, nay, Death is Life’s last despair. Hard\r\nand horrible is it to die. Oro himself, in Alma, died not without a\r\ngroan. Yet why, why live? Life is wearisome to all: the same dull\r\nround. Day and night, summer and winter, round about us revolving for\r\naye. One moment lived, is a life. No new stars appear in the sky; no\r\nnew lights in the soul. Yet, of changes there are many. For though,\r\nwith rapt sight, in childhood, we behold many strange things beneath\r\nthe moon, and all Mardi looks a tented fair— how soon every thing\r\nfades. All of us, in our very bodies, outlive our own selves. I think\r\nof green youth as of a merry playmate departed; and to shake hands, and\r\nbe pleasant with my old age, seems in prospect even harder, than to\r\ndraw a cold stranger to my bosom. But old age is not for me. I am not\r\nof the stuff that grows old. This Mardi is not our home. Up and down we\r\nwander, like exiles transported to a planet afar:—’tis not the world\r\n_we_ were born in; not the world once so lightsome and gay; not the\r\nworld where we once merrily danced, dined, and supped; and wooed, and\r\nwedded our long-buried wives. Then let us depart. But whither? We push\r\nourselves forward then, start back in affright. Essay it again, and\r\nflee. Hard to live; hard to die; intolerable suspense! But the grim\r\ndespot at last interposes; and with a viper in our winding-sheets, we\r\nare dropped in the sea.”\r\n\r\n“To me,” said Mohi, his gray locks damp with night-dews, “death’s dark\r\ndefile at times seems at hand, with no voice to cheer. That all have\r\ndied, makes it not easier for me to depart. And that many have been\r\nquenched in infancy seems a mercy to the slow perishing of my old age,\r\nlimb by limb and sense by sense. I have long been the tomb of my youth.\r\nAnd more has died out of me, already, than remains for the last death\r\nto finish. Babbalanja says truth. In childhood, death stirred me not;\r\nin middle age, it pursued me like a prowling bandit on the road; now,\r\ngrown an old man, it boldly leads the way; and ushers me on; and turns\r\nround upon me its skeleton gaze: poisoning the last solaces of life.\r\nMaramma but adds to my gloom.”\r\n\r\n“Death! death!” cried Yoomy, “must I be not, and millions be? Must I\r\ngo, and the flowers still bloom? Oh, I have marked what it is to be\r\ndead;—how shouting boys, of holidays, hide-and-seek among the tombs,\r\nwhich must hide all seekers at last.”\r\n\r\n“Clouds on clouds!” cried Media, “but away with them all! Why not leap\r\nyour graves, while ye may? Time to die, when death comes, without dying\r\nby inches. ’Tis no death, to die; the only death is the fear of it. I,\r\na demi-god, fear death not.”\r\n\r\n“But when the jackals howl round you?” said Babbalanja.\r\n\r\n“Drive them off! Die the demi-god’s death! On his last couch of crossed\r\nspears, my brave old sire cried, ‘Wine, wine; strike up, conch and\r\ncymbal; let the king die to martial melodies!’”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJWK41W0P7JYW27FK0XVM","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKT5RW5WPH8826PK54A7K","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKTV1VKSE0309YNR38670","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:16.568Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:28.888Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}