THE SWORD OF AKLIS

Now, when they had made the passage of many halls, built of different
woods, filled with divers wonders, they descended a sloping vault, and
came to a narrow way in the earth, hung with black, at the end of it a
stedfast blaze like a sun, that grew larger as they advanced, and they
heard the sea above them. The noise of it, and its plunging and
weltering and its pitilessness, struck on the heart of Shibli Bagarag as
with a blow, and he cried, 'Haste, haste, O Princess! perchance she is
even now calling to me with her tongue, and I not aiding her; delayed by
the temptation of this crown and the guile of the Brides.'

She checked him, and said, 'In Aklis no haste!' Then she said, 'Look!'
And lo, fronting them the single blaze became two fires; and drawing
nigh, Shibli Bagarag beheld them what they were, angry eyes in the head
of a great lion, a model of majesty, and passion was in his mane and
power was in his forepaws; so while he lashed his tail as a tempest
whippeth the tawny billows at night, and was lifting himself for a roar,
she said, 'A hair of Garraveen, and touch him with it!'

Shibli Bagarag pushed up his sleeve and broke one of the three sapphire
hairs and stepped forward to the lion, holding in his right hand the hair
of vivid light. The lion crouched, and was in the vigour of the spring
when that hair touched him, and he trembled, tumbling on his knees and
letting the twain pass. So they advanced beyond him, and lo! the Cave of
Chrysolites irradiate with beams, breaks of brilliance, confluences of
lively hues, restless rays, meeting, vanishing, flooding splendours, now