of a China jar brimmed
with wine that was lifted to their lips, but him that lifted it they saw
not: surely, they drank deep of the draught of astonishment.

Then the hawk flew before him, and he followed it to a chamber lit with
golden lamps, gorgeously hung, and full of a dusky splendour and the
faint sparkle of gems, ruby, amethyst, topaz, and beryl; in it there was
the hush of sleep, and the heart of Shibli Bagarag told him that one
beautiful was near. So he approached on tiptoe a couch of blue silk,
bordered with gold-wire, and inwoven with stars of blue turquoise stones,
as it had been the heavens of midnight. On the couch lay one, a woman,
pure in loveliness; the dark fringes of her closed lids like living
flashes of darkness, her mouth like an unstrung bow and as a double
rosebud, even as two isles of coral between which in the clear
transparent watery beds the pearls shine freshly.

And the hawk said to Shibli Bagarag, 'This is the Princess Goorelka, the
daughter of the King of Oolb, a sorceress, the Guardian of the Lily of
the Enchanted Sea. Beneath her pillow is the cockle-shell; grasp it, but
gaze not upon her.'

He approached and slid his arm beneath the pillow of the Princess, and
grasped the cockle-shell; but ere he drew it forth he gazed upon her, and
the lustre of her countenance transfixed him as with a javelin, so that
he could not stir, nor move his eyes from the contemplation of her
sweetness of feature. The hawk darted at him fiercely, and pecked at him
to draw his attention from her, and he stepped back, yet he continued
taking fatal draughts from the magic cup of her beauty. Then the hawk
screamed a loud scream of anguish, and the Princess awoke, and started
half-way from the couch, and stared about her, and saw the bird in
agitation. As she looked at the bird a shudder passed over her, and she
snatched a veil and drew it over her face, murmuring, 'I dream, or I am
under the eye of a man.' Then she felt beneath the pillow, and knew that
the cockle-shell had been touched; and in a moment she leapt from her
couch, and ran to a mirror and saw herself as she was, a full-moon made
to snare the wariest and sit singly high on a throne in the hearts of
men. At the sight of her beauty she smiled and seemed at peace, murmuring
still, 'I am under the eye of a man, or I dream.' Now, while she so
murmured she arrayed herself, and took the cockle-shell, and passed
through the ante-room among her women sleep