ly thine outwitting.'

She jeered him as they journeyed, and made the soul of Shibli Bagarag
merry, so that he jerked in his seat upon the Ass. Now, as they ascended
the mountain they came to the opening of a cavern, and Noorna bin Noorka
halted the Ass, and said to Shibli Bagarag, 'We part here, and I wait for
thee in this place. Take this phial, and fill it with the waters of the
well, after thy bath. The way is before thee--speed on it.'

He climbed the sides of the mountain, and was soon hidden in the clefts
and beyond the perches of the vulture. She kept her eyes on the rocky
point when he disappeared, awaiting his return; and the sun went over her
head and sank on the yon-side of the mountain, and it was by the beams of
the moon that she beheld Shibli Bagarag dropping from the crags and
ledges of rock, sliding and steadying himself downward till he reached
her with the phial in his hand, filled; and he was radiant, as it were
divine with freshness, so that Noorna, before she spoke welcome to him,
was lost in contemplating the warm shine of his visage, calling to mind
the poet's words:

The wealth of light in sun and moon,
All nature's wealth,
Hath mortal beauty for a boon
When match'd with health.

Then said she, 'O Shibli Bagarag, 'tis achieved, this first of thy tasks;
for mutely on the fresh red of thy mouth, my betrothed, speaketh the
honey of persuasiveness, and the children of Aklis will not resist thee.'
So she took the phial from him and led forth the Ass, and the twain
mounted the Ass and descended the slopes of the mountain in moonlight;
and Shibli Bagarag said, 'Lo! I have marked wonders, and lived a life
since our parting; and this well, 'tis a miracle to dip in it, and by it
sit many maidens weeping and old men babbling, and youths that were idle
youths striking bubbles from the surface of the water. The well is
rounded with marble, and the sky is clear in it, cool in it, the whole
earth imaged therein.'

Then Noorna said, 'Hadst thou a difficulty in obtaining the waters of the
well?'

He answered, 'Surely all was made smooth for me by thy aid. Now when I
came to the well I marked not them by it, but plunged, and the depth of
that well seemed to me the very depth of the earth itself, so went I ever
downward; and when I was near the bottom of the well I had forgotten life
above, and lo! no sooner had I touched the bottom of the well when my
head emerged from the surface: '