downward one after the other, like bolts, and they splashed in the
current and were carried off by the violence of its full sweep, shooting
by her where she stood, rapidly; but she, knotting her garments round the
waist to give her limbs freedom and swiftness, ran a space, and then bent
and plunged, catching, as she rose, the foremost to her bosom, and
whirled away under the flashing crystals like a fish scaled with
splendours that hath darted and seized upon a prey, and is bearing it
greedily to some secure corner of the deeps to swallow the quivering
repast at leisure. Surely, the heart of Noorna was wise of what she bore
against her bosom; and it beat exulting strokes in the midst of the rush
and roar and gurgle of the torrent, and the gulping sounds and
multitudinous outcries of the headlong water. That verse of the poet
would apply to her where he says:

Lead me to the precipice,
And bid me leap the dark abyss:
I care not what the danger be,
So my beloved, my beauteous vision,
Be but the prize I bear with me,
For she to Paradise can turn Perdition.

Praise be to him that planteth love, the worker of this marvel, within
us! Now, she sped in the manner narrated through the mazes of the
cavern, coming suddenly to the point at the entrance where perched
Koorookh gravely upon one leg, like a bird with an angling beak: he
caught at her as she was hurling toward the sea, and drew her to the bank
of rock, that burden on her bosom; and it was Shibli Bagarag, her
betrothed, his eyes closed, his whole countenance colourless. Behind him
like a shadow streamed Abarak, and Noorna kneeled by the waterside and
fetched the little man from it likewise; he was without a change, as if