Seventh Pillar.' Thereat, he lifted his eyes to his brows and frowned
back memory to his aid, and the scene of Karaz, Rabesqurat, Abarak, and
his betrothed was present to him. So perceiving that, the Queen delayed
not while he grasped the phial to take in her hands some water from a
basin near, and flung it over him, crying, 'Oblivion!' And while his
mind was straining to bring back images of what had happened, he fell
forward once more at the feet of Rabesqurat, senseless as a stone falls;
such was the force of her enchantments.

Now, when he awoke the second time he was in the bosom of darkness, and
the Lily gone from his hand; so he lifted the phial to make certain of
that, and groped about till he came to what seemed an urn to the touch,
and into this he dropped a drop, and asked for the Lily; and a voice
said, 'I caught a light from it in passing.' And he came in the darkness
to a tree, and a bejewelled bank, and other urns, and swinging lamps
without light, and a running water, and a grassy bank, and flowers, and a
silver seat, sprinkling each; and they said all in answer to his question
of the Lily, 'I caught a light from it in passing.' At the last he
stumbled upon the steps of a palace, and ascended them, endowing the
steps with speech as he went, and they said, 'The light of it went over
us.' He groped at the porch of the palace, and gave the door a voice,
and it opened on jasper hinges, shrieking, 'The light of it went through
me.' Then he entered a spacious hall, scattering drops, and voices
exclaimed, 'We glow with the light of it.' He passed, groping his way
through other halls and dusk chambers, scattering drops, and as he
advanced the voices increased in the fervour of their replies, saying
sequently: 'We blush with the light of it; We beam with the light of it;
We burn with the light of it.' So, presently he found himself in a long
low room, sombrely lit, roofed with crystals; and in a corner of the
room, lo! a damsel on a couch of purple, she white as silver, spreading