he blade was checked in its rapid
sweep, and blunted by a stumpy twine of hair that waxed in size and
became the head of Karaz that gulped at him a wide devouring gulp, and
took him in, and flew up with him, leaving Shagpat half sheared. Then he
thought himself struggling halfway down the throat of the monstrous Roc,
and that, when he was wholly inside the Roc, he was in a wide-arched
passage crowded with lamps, and at the end of the passage Noorna in the
clutch of Karaz, she shouting, 'The Sword, the Sword!'

Now, while he felt for the Sword wherewith to release her from the Genie,
his eyes opened, and he saw day through a casement, and that he had
reposed on an embroidered couch in the corner of a stately room
ornamented with carvings of blue and gold. So while he wondered and
yawned, gaping, slaves started up from the floor and led him to a bath of
coloured marble, and bathed him in perfumed waters, and dressed him in a
dress of yellow silk, rich and ample. Then they paraded before him
through lesser apartments and across terraces, till they came to a great
hall; loftier and more spacious than any he had yet beheld, with
fountains at the two ends, and in the centre a tree with golden spreading
branches and leaves of gold; among the leaves gold-feathered birds, and
fruits of all seasons and every description--the drooping grape and the
pleasant-smelling quince, and the blood-red pomegranate, and the apricot,
and the green and rosy apple, and the gummy date, and the oily
pistachio-nut, and peaches, and citrons, and oranges, and the plum, and
the fig. Surely, they were countless in number, melting with ripeness,
soft, full to bursting; and the birds darted among them like sun-flashes.
Now, Shibli Bagarag thought, 'This is a wondrous tree! Wullahy! there is
nought like it save the tree in the hall of the Prophet in Paradise,
feeding the faithful!' As he regarded it he heard his name spoken in the
hall, and turning he beheld seven youths in royal garments, that were
like the youths he had feasted with, and yet unlike them, pale, and stern
in their manners, their courtesy as the courtesy of kings. They said,
'Sit with us and eat the morning's meal, O our guest!'

So he sat with them under the low branches of the tree; and they whistled
the tune of one bird and of another bird, and of another, and lo! those
different birds flew down with golden baskets hanging from their bills,
and in the baskets fruits and viands and sweet