Now, he beheld the Sword and the ripples of violet heat that were
breathing down it, and those two venomous serpents twined together, and
the size of it, its ponderousness; and to essay lifting it appeared to
him a madness, but he concealed his thought, and, setting his soul on the
safety of Noorna, went forward to it boldly, and piercing his right arm
between the twists of the serpents, grasped the jewelled haft. Surely,
the Sword moved from the slings as if a giant had swayed it! But what
amazed him was the marvel of the blade, for its sharpness was such that
nothing stood in its way, and it slipped through everything as we pass
through still water, the stone columns, blocks of granite by the walls,
the walls of earth, and the thick solidity of the ground beneath his
feet. They bade him say to the Sword, 'Sleep!' and it was no longer than
a knife in the girdle. Likewise, they bade him hiss on the heads of the
serpents, and say, 'Wake!' and while he held it lengthwise it shot
lengthening out. Then they bade him hold in one hand the sapphire hair
that conquered the lion, and with the edge of the Sword touch one point
of it. So he did that, and it split in half, and the two halves he also
split; and he split those four, and those eight, till the hairs were thin
as light and not distinguishable from it. When Shibli Bagarag saw the
power of the Sword, he exulted and cried, 'Praise be to the science of
them that forecast events and the haps of life!' Now, in the meantime he
marked the youths take those hairs of Garraveen that he had split, and
tie them round the neck of the Antelope, and empty the contents of the
phial down her throat; and they put the bulb of the Lily, that was a
heart, in her mouth, and she swallowed it till the flower covered her
face. Then they took each a handful of the golden waters of the brook
flowing through the cave, and flung the waters over her, exclaiming, 'By
the three spells that have power in Aklis, and by which these waters are
a blessing!'