Now, when they had made the passage of many halls, built of different
woods, filled with divers wonders, they descended a sloping vault, and
came to a narrow way in the earth, hung with black, at the end of it a
stedfast blaze like a sun, that grew larger as they advanced, and they
heard the sea above them. The noise of it, and its plunging and weltering
and its pitilessness, struck on the heart of Shibli Bagarag as with a
blow, and he cried, 'Haste, haste, O Princess! perchance she is even now
calling to me with her tongue, and I not aiding her; delayed by the
temptation of this crown and the guile of the Brides.'
She checked him, and said, 'In Aklis no haste!' Then she said, 'Look!'
And lo, fronting them the single blaze became two fires; and drawing
nigh, Shibli Bagarag beheld them what they were, angry eyes in the head
of a great lion, a model of majesty, and passion was in his mane and
power was in his forepaws; so while he lashed his tail as a tempest
whippeth the tawny billows at night, and was lifting himself for a roar,
she said, 'A hair of Garraveen, and touch him with it!'
Shibli Bagarag pushed up his sleeve and broke one of the three sapphire
hairs and stepped forward to the lion, holding in his right hand the hair
of vivid light. The lion crouched, and was in the vigour of the spring
when that hair touched him, and he trembled, tumbling on his knees and
letting the twain pass. So they advanced beyond him, and lo! the Cave of
Chrysolites irradiate with beams, breaks of brilliance, confluences of
lively hues, restless rays, meeting, vanishing, flooding splendours, now
scattered in dazzling joints and spars, now uniting in momentary disks of
radiance. In the centre of the cave glowed a furnace, and round it he
distinguished the seven youths, swarthier and sterner than before, dark
sweat standing on the brows of each. Their words were brief, and they
wore each a terrible frown, saying to him, without further salutation,
'Thrust in the flame of this furnace thy right wrist.'
At the same moment, the Antelope said in his ear, 'Do thou their bidding,
and be not backward! In Aklis fear is ruin, and hesitation a destroyer.'
He fixed his mind on the devotedness of Noorna, and held his nether lip
tightly between his teeth, and thrust his right wrist in the flame of the
furnace. The wrist reddened, and became transparent with heat, but he
felt no pain, only that his whole arm was thrice its natural weight. Then
the flame of the furnace fell, and the seven youths made him kneel by a
brook of golden waters and dip his forehead up to his eyes in the waters.
Then they took him to the other side of the cave, and his sight was
strengthened to mark the glory of the Sword, where it hung in slings, a
little way from the wall, outshining the lights of the cave, and throwing
them back with its superior force and stedfastness of lustre. Lo! the
length of it was as the length of crimson across the sea when the sun is
sideways on the wave, and it seemed full a mile long, the whole blade
sheening like an arrested lightning from the end to the hilt; the hilt
two large live serpents twined together, with eyes like sombre jewels,
and sparkling spotted skins, points of fire in their folds, and
reflections of the emerald and topaz and ruby stones, studded in the
blood-stained haft. Then the seven young men, sons of Aklis, said to
Shibli Bagarag, 'Surrender the Lily!' And when he had given into their
hands the Lily, they said, 'Grasp the handle of the Sword!'
Now, he beheld the Sword and the ripples of violet heat that were
breathing down it, and those two venomous serpents twined together, and
the size of it, its ponderousness; and to essay lifting it appeared to
him a madness, but he concealed his thought, and, setting his soul on the
safety of Noorna, went forward to it boldly, and piercing his right arm
between the twists of the serpents, grasped the jewelled haft. Surely,
the Sword moved from the slings as if a giant had swayed it! But what
amazed him was the marvel of the blade, for its sharpness was such that
nothing stood in its way, and it slipped through everything as we pass
through still water, the stone columns, blocks of granite by the walls,
the walls of earth, and the thick solidity of the ground beneath his
feet. They bade him say to the Sword, 'Sleep!' and it was no longer than
a knife in the girdle. Likewise, they bade him hiss on the heads of the
serpents, and say, 'Wake!' and while he held it lengthwise it shot
lengthening out. Then they bade him hold in one hand the sapphire hair
that conquered the lion, and with the edge of the Sword touch one point
of it. So he did that, and it split in half, and the two halves he also
split; and he split those four, and those eight, till the hairs were thin
as light and not distinguishable from it. When Shibli Bagarag saw the
power of the Sword, he exulted and cried, 'Praise be to the science of
them that forecast events and the haps of life!' Now, in the meantime he
marked the youths take those hairs of Garraveen that he had split, and
tie them round the neck of the Antelope, and empty the contents of the
phial down her throat; and they put the bulb of the Lily, that was a
heart, in her mouth, and she swallowed it till the flower covered her
face. Then they took each a handful of the golden waters of the brook
flowing through the cave, and flung the waters over her, exclaiming, 'By
the three spells that have power in Aklis, and by which these waters are
a blessing!'
In the passing of a flash she took her shape, and was a damsel taller
than the tallest of them that descend from the mountains, a vision of
loveliness, with queenly brows, closed red lips, and large full black
eyes; her hair black, and on it a net of amber strung with pearls. To
look upon her was to feel the tyranny of love, love's pangs of alarm and
hope and anguish; and she was dressed in a dress of white silk, threaded
with gold and sapphire, showing in shadowy beams her rounded figure and
the stateliness that was hers. So she ran to her brothers and embraced
them, calling them by their names, catching their hands, caressing them
as one that had been long parted from them. Then, seeing Shibli Bagarag
as he stood transfixed with the javelins of loveliness that flew from her
on all sides, she cried: 'What, O Master of the Event! halt thou nought
for the Sword but to gaze before thee in silliness?'
Then he said, 'O rare in beauty! marvel of Aklis and the world! surely
the paradise of eyes is thy figure and the glory of thy face!'
But she shouted, 'To work with the Sword! Shame on thee! is there not
one, a bright one, a miracle in faithfulness, that awaiteth thy rescue on
the pillar?'
And she repeated the praises he had spoken of Noorna bin Noorka, his
betrothed. Then he grasped the Sword firmly, remembering the love of
Noorna, and crying, 'Lead me from this, O ye sons of Aklis, and thou,
Princess Gulrevaz, lead me, that I may come to her.'
So they said, 'Follow us!' and he sheathed the Sword in his girdle with
the word 'Sleep!' and followed them, his heart beating violently.