people Aklis, and grazed in a strange shape.'

Now, the seven waxed in impatience, and he laid their hands upon his head
and moved from them with Abarak, to where in the dusk the elephant that
had brought them stood. Then the elephant kneeled and took the twain upon
his back, and bore them across the dark land to that reach of the river
where the boat was moored in readiness. They entered the boat silently
among its drapery of lotuses, and the Veiled Figure ferried them over the
stream that rippled not with their motion. As they were crossing, desire
to know that Veiled Figure counselled Shibli Bagarag evilly to draw the
Sword again, and flash it, so that the veil became transparent. Then,
when Abarak turned to him for the reason of the flashing of the Sword, he
beheld the eyes of the youth fixed in horror, glaring as at sights beyond
the tomb. He said nought, but as the boat's-head whispered among the
reeds and long flowers of the opposite marge, he took Shibli Bagarag by
the shoulders and pushed him out of the boat, and leaped out likewise,
leading him from the marge forcibly, hurrying him forward from it, he at
the heels of the youth propelling him; and crying in out-of-breath voice
at intervals, 'What sight? what sight?' But the youth was powerless of
speech, and when at last he opened his lips, the little man shrank from
him, for he laughed as do the insane, a peal of laughter ended by gasps;
then a louder peal, presently softer; then a peal that started all the
echoes in Aklis. After awhile, as Abarak still cried in his ear, 'What
sight?' he looked at him with a large eye, saying querulously, 'Is it
written I shall be pushed by the shoulder through life? And is it in the
pursuit of further thwackings?'

Abarak heeded him not, crying still, 'What sight?' and Shibli Bagarag
lowered his tone, and jerked his body, pronouncing the name 'Rabesqurat!'
Then Abarak exclaimed, ''Tis as I weened. Oh, fool! to flash the Sword
and peer through the veil! Truly, there be few wits will bear that
sight!' On a sudden he cried, 'No cure but one, and that a sleep in the
bosom of the betrothed!'

Thereupon he hurried the youth yet faster across the dark lawns of Aklis
toward the passage of the Seventh Pillar, by which the twain had entered
that kingdom. And Shibli Bagarag saw as in a dream the shattered door,
shattered by the bar, remembering dimly as a thing distant in years the
netting of the Queen, and Noorna chained upon the pi