confuse her. She waxed
unsteady and swayed this way and that, balancing with one arm and
defending herself from the attacks of the kite with another. It seemed to
Shibli Bagarag she must fall and be lost; and the sweat started on his
forehead in great drops big as nuts. Seeing that and the agitation of his
limbs, Gulrevaz cried, 'O Master of the Event, let us hear it!'

But he shrieked, 'The kite! the kite! she is running up the blade, and
the kite is at her eyes! and she swaying, swaying! falling, falling!'

So the Princess exclaimed, 'A kite! Koorookh is match for a kite!'

Then she smoothed the throat of Koorookh, and clasped round it a collar
of bright steel, roughened with secret characters; and she took a hoop of
gold, and passed the bird through it, urging it all the while with one
strange syllable; and the bird went up with a strong whirr of the wing
till he was over the sea, and caught sight of Noorna tottering beneath
him on the blade, and the kite pecking fiercely at her. Thereat he
fluttered eagerly a twinkle of time, and the next was down with his beak
in the neck of the kite, crimsoned in it. Now, by the shouts and
exclamations of Shibli Bagarag, the Princess and the seven youths, her
brothers, knew that the bird had performed well his task, and that the
fight was between Koorookh and the kite. Then he cried gladly to them,
'Joy for us, and Allah be praised! The kite is dropping, and she leaneth
on one wing of Koorookh!'

And he cried in anguish, 'What see I? The kite is become a white ball,
rolling down the blade toward her; and it will of a surety destroy her.'
And he called to her, thinking vainly his voice might reach her. So the
Princess said, 'A white ball? 'tis I that am match for a white ball!'

Now, she seized from the corner of the palace-roof a bow and an arrow,
and her brothers lifted her to a level with the hilt of the Sword,
leaning on the eye of glass. Then she planted one foot on the shoulder of
Shibli Bagarag as he bent peering through the eye, and fitted the arrow
to a level of the Sword, slanting its slant, and let it fly, doubling the
bow. Shibli Bagarag saw the ball roll to within a foot of Noorna, when it
was as if stricken by a gleam of light, and burst, and was a black cloud
veined with fire, swathing her in folds. He lost all sight of Noorna; and
where she had been were vivid flashes, and then a great flame, and in the
midst a red serpent and a green serpent twisted as in the de