ii rose
up with Noorna, and she, waving her hand to him, was soon distant and as
the white breast of a bird turned to the sun. Then went he to where
Abarak was leaning, and summoned Koorookh, and the twain mounted him, and
rose up high over the City of Shagpat to watch the ripening of the Event,
as a vulture watcheth over the desert.

THE DISH OF POMEGRANATE GRAIN

Now, in the City of Shagpat, Kadza, spouse of Shagpat, she that had
belaboured Shibli Bagarag, had a dream while these things were doing; and
it was a dream of danger and portent to the glory of her eyes, Shagpat.
So, at the hour when he was revealed to Shibli Bagarag, made luminous by
the beams of Aklis, Kadza went to an inner chamber, and greased her hands
and her eyelids, and drank of a phial, and commenced tugging at a brass
ring fixed in the floor, and it yielded and displayed an opening, over
which she stooped the upper half of her leanness, and pitching her note
high, called 'Karaz!' After that, she rose and retreated from the hole
hastily, and in the winking of an eye it was filled, as 'twere a pillar
of black smoke, by the body of the Genie, he breathing hard with mighty
travel. So he cried to her between his pantings and puffings, 'Speak!
where am I wanted, and for what?'

Now, Kadza was affrighted at the terribleness of his manner, and the
great smell of the Genie was an intoxication in her nostril, so that she
reeled and could just falter out, 'Danger to the Identical!'

Then he, in a voice like claps of thunder, 'Out with it!'

She answered beseechingly, ''Tis a dream I had, O Genie; a dream of
danger to him.'

While she spake, the Genie clenched his fists and stamped so that the
palace shook and the earth under it, exclaiming, 'O abominable Kadza! a
dream is it? another dream? Wilt thou cease dreaming awhile, thou silly
woman? Know I not he that's powerful against us is in Aklis, crowned ape,
and that his spells are gone? And I was distilling drops to defy the
Sword and strengthen Shagpat from assault, yet bringest thou me from my
labour by the Putrid Sea with thy accursed dream!' Thereat, he frowned
and shot fire at her from his eyes, so that she singed, and the room
thickened with a horrible smell of burning. She feared greatly and
trembled, but he cooled himself against the air, crying presently in a
diminished voice, 'Let's hear this dream, thou foolish Kadza! 'Tis as
well to hear it. Probably Rabesqurat hath sent thee some sign