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 drawn from a
familiar element; and when he had prostrated himself thrice and called on
the Prophet's name in the form of thanksgiving, he wrung his beard of the
wet, and had wit to bless the action of Noorna, that saved him. Then the
two raised Shibli Bagarag from the rock, and reclined him lengthwise
under the wings of Koorookh, and Noorna stretched herself there beside
him with one arm about his neck, the fair head of the youth on her bosom.
And she said to Abarak, 'He hath dreamed many dreams, my betrothed, but
never one so sweet as that I give him. Already, see, the hue returneth to
his cheek and the dimples of pleasure.' So was it; and she said, 'Mount,
O thou of the net and the bar! and stride Koorookh across the neck, for
it is nigh the setting of the moon, and by dawn we must be in our middle
flight, seen of men, a cloud over them.'

Said Abarak, 'To hear is to obey!'

He bestrode the neck of Koorookh and sat with dangling feet, till she
cried, 'Rise!' and the bird spread its wings and flapped them wide,
rising high in the silver rays, and flying rapidly forward with the three
on him from the mountain i