delaying in this place now, O youth! Say, halt thou spells for the
entering of Aklis?'

He answered, 'Three!'

Then said Abarak, ''Tis well! Surely now, if thou takest me in thy
service, I'll help thee to master the Event, and serve thee faithfully,
requiring nought from thee save a sight of the Event, and 'tis I that
myself missed one, wiled by Rabesqurat.'

Quoth Shibli Bagarag, 'Thou?'

He answered, 'No word of it now. Is't agreed?'

So Shibli Bagarag cried, 'Even so.'

Thereupon, the twain entered the pillar, leaving Rabesqurat prone, and
the waves of the sea bounding toward her where she lay. Now, they
descended and ascended flights of slippery steps, and sped together along
murky passages, in which light never was, and under arches of caves with
hanging crystals, groping and tumbling on hurriedly, till they came to an
obstruction, and felt an iron door, frosty to the touch. Then Abarak
said to Shibli Bagarag, 'Smite!' And the youth lifted the bar to his
right shoulder, and smote; and the door obeyed the blow, and discovered
an opening into a strange dusky land, as it seemed a valley, on one side
of which was a ragged copper sun setting low, large as a warrior's
battered shield, giving deep red lights to a brook that fell, and over a
flat stream a red reflection, and to the sides of the hills a dark red
glow. The sky was a brown colour; the earth a deeper brown, like the
skins of tawny lions. Trees with reddened stems stood about the valley,