beauty was she that beside her, the Princess Goorelka as Shibli
Bagarag first beheld her, would have paled like a morning moon; even
Noorna had waned as Both a flower in fierce heat; and the Queen of
Enchantments was but the sun behind a sand-storm, in comparison with that
effulgent damsel on the length of the purple couch. Well for him he wilt
of the magic which floated through that palace; as is said,

Tempted by extremes,
The soul is most secure;
Too vivid loveliness blinds with its beams,
And eyes turned inward perceive the lure.

Pulling down his turban hastily, he stepped on tiptoe to within arm's
reach of her, and, looking another way, inclined over her soft vermeil
mouth the phial slowly till it brimmed the neck, and dropped a drop of
Paravid between the bow of those sweet lips. Still not daring to gaze on
her, he said then, 'My question is of the Lily, the Lily of the Sea, and
where is it, O marvel?'

And he heard a voice answer in the tones of a silver bell, clear as a
wind in strung wires, 'Where I lie, lies the Lily, the Lily of the Sea; I
with it, it with me.'

Said he, 'O breather of music, tell me how I may lay hand on the flower
of beauty to bear it forth.'

And he heard the voice, 'An equal space betwixt my right side and my
left, and from the shoulder one span and half a span downward.'

Still without power to eye her, he measured the space and the spans, his
hand beneath the coverlids of the couch, and at a spot of the bosom his
hand sank in, and he felt a fluttering thing, fluttering like a frighted
bird in the midst of the fire. And the voice said, 'Quick, seize it, and
draw it out, and tie it to my feet by the twines of red silk about it.'

He seized it and drew it out, and it was a heart--a heart of
blood-streaming with crimson, palpitating. Tears flashed on his sight
beholding it, and pity took the seat of fear, and he turned his eyes full
on her, crying, 'O sad fair thing! O creature of anguish! O painful
beauty! Oh, what have I done to thee?'

But she panted, and gasped short and shorter gasps, pointing with one
finger to her feet. Then he took the warm living heart while it yet leapt
and quivered and sobbed; and he held it with a trembling hand, and tied
it by the red twines of silk about it to her feet, staining their
whiteness. When that was done, his whole soul melted with pity and
swelled with sorrow, and ere he could meet her eyes a swoon overcame him.
Surely, wh