ground, and commenced singing afresh. When I had marked this to happen
many times, I thought, 'How like is this bird to an innocent soul
possessed of magic and using its powers! Lo, it seeketh still to sing as
one of the careless, and cannot relinquish the ring and be as the
careless, and between the two there is neither peace for it nor
pleasure.' Now, while my eyes were on the pretty bird, dwelling on it, I
saw it struck suddenly by an arrow beneath the left wing, and the bird
fluttered to my bosom and dropped in it the ring from its beak. Then it
sprang weakly, and sought to fly and soar, and fluttered; but a blue film
lodged over its eyes, and its panting was quickly ended. So I looked at
the ring and knew it for that one I had noted on the finger of Goorelka.
Red blushed my bliss, and 'twas revealed to me that the bird was of the
birds of the Princess that had escaped from her with the ring. I buried
the bird, weeping for it, and flew to my books, and as I read a glow
stole over me. O my betrothed, eyes of my soul! I read that the
possessor of that ring was mistress of the marvellous hair which is a
magnet to the homage of men, so that they crowd and crush and hunger to
adore it, even the Identical! This was the power that peopled the aviary
of Goorelka, and had well-nigh conquered all the resistance of my craft.

Now, while I read there arose a hubbub and noise in the outer court, and
shrieks of slaves. The noise approached with rapid strides, and before I
could close my books Goorelka burst in upon me, crying, 'Noorna! Noorna!'
Wild and haggard was her head, and she rushed to my books and saw them
open at the sign of the ring: then began our combat. She menaced me as
never mortal was menaced. Rapid lightning-flashes were her
transformations, and she was a serpent, a scorpion, a lizard, a lioness
in succession, but I leapt perpetually into fresh rings of fire and of
witched water; and at the fiftieth transformation, she fell on the floor
exhausted, a shuddering heap. Seeing that, I ran from her to the aviary