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