Now, when Noorna bin Noorka had made an end of her narration, she folded
her hands and was mute awhile; and to the ear of Shibli Bagarag it seemed
as if a sweet instrument had on a sudden ceased luting. So, as he leaned,
listening for her voice to recommence, she said quickly, 'See yonder fire
on the mountain's height!'
He looked and saw a great light on the summit of a lofty mountain before
them.
Then said she, 'That is Aklis! and it is ablaze, knowing a visitant near.
Tighten now the hairs of Garraveen about thy wrist; touch thy lips with
the waters of Paravid; hold before thee the Lily, and make ready to enter
the mountain. Lo, my betrothed, thou art in possession of the three means
that melt opposition, and the fault is thine if thou fail.'
He did as she directed; and they were taken on a tide and advanced
rapidly to the mountain, so that the waters smacked and crackled beneath
the shell, covering it with silver showering arches of glittering spray.
Then the fair beams of the moon became obscured, and the twain reddened
with the reflection of the fire, and the billows waxed like riotous
flames; and presently the shell rose upon the peak of many waves swollen
to one, and looking below, they saw in the scarlet abyss of waters at
their feet a monstrous fish, with open jaws and one baleful eye; and the
fish was lengthy as a caravan winding through the desert, and covered
with fiery scales. Shibli Bagarag heard the voice of Noorna shriek
affrightedly, 'Karaz!' and as they were sliding on the down slope, she
stood upright in the shell, pronouncing rapidly some words in magic; and
the shell closed upon them both, pressing them together, and writing
darkness on their very eyeballs. So, while they were thus, they felt
themselves gulped in, and borne forward with terrible swiftness, they
knew not where, like one that hath a dream of sinking; and outside the
shell a rushing, gurgling noise, and a noise as of shouting multitudes,
and muffled multitudes muttering complaints and yells and querulous
cries, told them they were yet speeding through the body of the depths in
the belly of the fish. Then there came a shock, and the shell was struck
with light, and they were sensible of stillness without motion. Then a
blow on the shell shivered it to fragments, and they were blinded with
seas of brilliancy on all sides from lamps and tapers and crystals,
cornelians and gems of fiery lustre, liquid lights and flashing mirrors,
and eyes of crowding damsels, bright ones. So, when they had risen, and
could bear to gaze on the insufferable splendour, they saw sitting on a
throne of coral and surrounded by slaves with scimitars, a fair Queen,
with black eyes, kindlers of storms, torches in the tempest, and with
floating tresses, crowned with a circlet of green-spiked precious stones
and masses of crimson weed with flaps of pearl; and she was robed with a
robe of amber, and had saffron sandals, loose silvery-silken trousers
tied in at the ankle, the ankle white as silver; wonderful was the
quivering of rays from the jewels upon her when she but moved a finger!
Now, as they stood with their hands across their brows, she cried out, 'O
ye traversers of my sea! how is this, that I am made to thank Karaz for a
sight of ye?'
And Noorna bin Noorka answered, 'Surely, O Queen Rabesqurat, the haven of
our voyage was Aklis, and we feared delay, seeing the fire of the
mountain ablaze with expectations of us.'
Then the Queen cried angrily, ''Tis well thou hadst wit to close the
shell, O Noorna, or there would have been delay indeed. Say, is not the
road to Aklis through my palace? And it is the road thousands travel.'
So Noorna bin Noorka said, 'O Queen, this do they; but are they of them
that reach Aklis?'
And the Queen cried violently, purpling with passion, 'This to me! when I
helped ye to the plucking of the Lily?'
Now, the Queen muttered an imprecation, and called the name 'Abarak!' and
lo, a door opened in one of the pillars of jasper leading from the
throne, and there came forth a little man, humped, with legs like bows,
and arms reaching to his feet; in his hand a net weighted with leaden
weights. So the Queen levelled her finger at Noorna, and he spun the net
above her head, and dropped it on her shoulder, and dragged her with him
to the pillar. When Shibli Bagarag saw that, the world darkened to him,
and he rushed upon Abarak; but Noorna called swiftly in his ear, 'Wait!
wait! Thou by thy spells art stronger than all here save Abarak. Be true!
Remember the seventh pillar!' Then, with a spurn from the hand of Abarak,
the youth fell back senseless at the feet of the Queen.
Now, with the return of consciousness his hearing was bewitched with
strange delicious melodies, the touch of stringed instruments, and others
breathed into softly as by the breath of love, delicate, tender, alive
with enamoured bashfulness. Surely, the soul that heard them dissolved
like a sweet in the goblet, mingling with so much ecstasy of sound; and
those melodies filling the white cave of the ear were even at once to
drown the soul in delightfulness and buoy it with bliss, as a
heavy-leaved flower is withered and refreshed by sun and dews. Surely,
the youth ceased not to listen, and oblivion of cares and aught other in
this life, save that hidden luting and piping, pillowed his drowsy head.
At last there was a pause, and it seemed every maze of music had been
wandered through. Opening his eyes hurriedly, as with the loss of the
music his own breath had gone likewise, he beheld a garden golden with
the light of lamps hung profusely from branches and twigs of trees by the
glowing cheeks of fruits, apple and grape, pomegranate and quince; and he
was reclining on a bank piled with purple cushions, his limbs clad in the
richest figured silks, fringed like the ends of clouds round the sun,
with amber fringes. He started up, striving to recall the confused memory
of his adventures and what evil had befallen him, and he would have
struggled with the vision of these glories, but it mastered him with the
strength of a potent drug, so that the very name of his betrothed was
forgotten by him, and he knew not whither he would, or the thing he
wished for. Now, when he had risen from the soft green bank that was his
couch, lo, at his feet a damsel weeping! So he lifted her by the hand,
and she arose and looked at him, and began plaining of love and its
tyrannies, softening him, already softened. Then said she, 'What I suffer
there is another, lovelier than I, suffering; thou the cause of it, O
cruel youth!'
He said, 'How, O damsel? what of my cruelty? Surely, I know nothing of
it.'