re him fleetly across the fair length of
the golden meadows to where Noorna bin Noorka sat awaiting him. She
uttered a cry of welcome, saying, 'This is achieved with diligence and
skill, O my betrothed! and on thy right wrist I mark strength like a
sleeping leopard, and the children of Aklis will not resist thee.'

So she bade him alight from the Horse, but he said, 'Nay.' And she called
to him again to alight, but he cried, 'I will not alight from him! By
Allah! such a bounding wave of bliss have I never yet had beneath me, and
I will give him rein once again; as the poet says:

"Divinely rings the rushing air
When I am on my mettled mare:
When fast along the plains we fly,
A creature of the heavens am I."

Then she levelled her brows at him, and said gravely, 'This is the
temptation thou art falling into, as have thousands before thy time. Give
him the rein a second time, and he will bear thee to the red pit, and
halt upon the brink, and pitch thee into it among bleeding masses and
skeletons of thy kind, where they lie who were men like to thee, and were
borne away by the Horse Garraveen.'

He gave no heed to her words, taunting her, and making the animal prance
up and prove its spirit.

And she cried reproachfully, 'O fool! is it thus our great aim will be
defeated by thy silly conceit? Lo, now, the greatness and the happiness
thou art losing for this idle vanity is to be as a dunghill cock matched
with an ostrich; and think not to escape the calamities thou bringest on
thyself, for as is said,

No runner can outstrip his fate;

and it will overtake thee, though thou part like an arrow from the bow.'

He still made a jest of her remonstrance, trying the temper of the
animal, and rejoicing in its dark flushes of ireful vigour.

And she cried out furiously, 'How! art thou past counsel? then will we
match strength with strength ere 'tis too late, though it weaken both.'

Upon that, she turned quickly to the Ass and stroked it from one
extremity to the other, crying, 'Karaz! Karaz!' shouting, 'Come forth in
thy power!' And the Ass vanished, and the Genie stood in his place, tall,
dark, terrible as a pillar of storm to travellers ranging the desert. He
exclaimed, 'What is it, O woman? Charge me with thy command!'

And she said, 'Wrestle with him thou seest on the Horse Garraveen, and
fling him from his seat.'

Then he yelled a glad yell, and stooped to Shibli Bagarag on