radiance. Of such lustrous beauty was she that beside her, the Princess
Goorelka as Shibli Bagarag first beheld her, would have paled like a
morning moon; even Noorna had waned as Both a flower in fierce heat; and
the Queen of Enchantments was but the sun behind a sand-storm, in
comparison with that effulgent damsel on the length of the purple couch.
Well for him he wilt of the magic which floated through that palace; as
is said,

Tempted by extremes,
The soul is most secure;
Too vivid loveliness blinds with its beams,
And eyes turned inward perceive the lure.

Pulling down his turban hastily, he stepped on tiptoe to within arm's
reach of her, and, looking another way, inclined over her soft vermeil
mouth the phial slowly till it brimmed the neck, and dropped a drop of
Paravid between the bow of those sweet lips. Still not daring to gaze on
her, he said then, 'My question is of the Lily, the Lily of the Sea, and
where is it, O marvel?'

And he heard a voice answer in the tones of a silver bell, clear as a
wind in strung wires, 'Where I lie, lies the Lily, the Lily of the Sea; I
with it, it with me.'

Said he, 'O breather of music, tell me how I may lay hand on the flower
of beauty to bear it forth.'

And he heard the voice, 'An equal space betwixt my right side and my
left, and from the shoulder one span and half a span downward.'