to taunt
backwardness!' Then he thought, ''Tis an enchantress! I will yet try her.'
So he made a motion of flourishing the Lily once or twice, but forbore,
fascinated, for she had on her fair face the softness of sleep, her lips
closed in dimples, and the wicked fire shut from beneath her lids.
Mastering his mind, the youth at last held the Lily to her, and saw a
sight to blacken the world and all bright things with its hideousness.
Scarce had he time to thrust the Lily in his robes, when the Queen
started up and clapped her hands, crying hurriedly, 'Abarak! Abarak!' and
the little man appeared in a moment at the door by which Shibli Bagarag
had entered the orchard. So, she cried still, 'Abarak!' and he moved
toward her. Then she said, 'How came this youth here, prying in my
private walks, my bowers? Speak!'

He answered, 'By the aid of Garraveen only, O Queen! and there is no
force resisteth the bar so wielded.'

Rabesqurat looked under her brows at Shibli Bagarag and saw the horror on
his face, and she cried out to Abarak in an agony, 'Fetch me the mirror!'
Then Abarak ran, and returned ere the Queen had drawn seven impatient
breaths, and in one hand he bore a sack, in the other a tray: so he
emptied the contents of the sack on the surface of the tray; surely they
were human eyes! and the Queen flung aside her tresses, and stood over
them. The youth saw her smile at them, and assume tender and taunting
manners before them, and imperious manners, killing glances, till in each
of the eyes there was a sparkle. Then she flung back her head as one that
feedeth on a mighty triumph, exclaiming, 'Yet am I Rabesqurat! wide is my
sovereignty.' Sideways then she regarded Shibli Bagarag, and it seemed
she was urging Abarak to do a deed beyond his powers, he frowning and
pointing to the right wrist of the youth. So she clenched her hands an
instant with that feeling which knocketh a nail in the coffin of a desire
not dead, and controlled herself, and went to the youth, breaking into
beams of beauty; and an enchanting sumptuousness breathed round her, so
that in spite of himself he suffered her to take him by the hand and lead
him from that orchard through the shivered door and into the palace and
the hall of the jasper pillars. Strange thrills went up his arm from the
touch of that Queen, and they were as little snakes twisting and darting
up, biting poison-bites of irritating blissfulness.

Now, the hall was spread for a feast,