of-breath voice
at intervals, 'What sight? what sight?' But the youth was powerless of
speech, and when at last he opened his lips, the little man shrank from
him, for he laughed as do the insane, a peal of laughter ended by gasps;
then a louder peal, presently softer; then a peal that started all the
echoes in Aklis. After awhile, as Abarak still cried in his ear, 'What
sight?' he looked at him with a large eye, saying querulously, 'Is it
written I shall be pushed by the shoulder through life? And is it in the
pursuit of further thwackings?'

Abarak heeded him not, crying still, 'What sight?' and Shibli Bagarag
lowered his tone, and jerked his body, pronouncing the name 'Rabesqurat!'
Then Abarak exclaimed, ''Tis as I weened. Oh, fool! to flash the Sword
and peer through the veil! Truly, there be few wits will bear that
sight!' On a sudden he cried, 'No cure but one, and that a sleep in the
bosom of the betrothed!'

Thereupon he hurried the youth yet faster across the dark lawns of Aklis
toward the passage of the Seventh Pillar, by which the twain had entered
that kingdom. And Shibli Bagarag saw as in a dream the shattered door,
shattered by the bar, remembering dimly as a thing distant in years the
netting of the Queen, and Noorna chained upon the pillar; he remembered
Shagpat even vacantly in his mind, as one sheaf of barley amid other
sheaves of the bearded field, so was he overcome by the awfulness of that
sight behind the veil of the Veiled Figure!

As they advanced to the passage, he was aware of an impediment to its
entrance, as it had been a wall of stone there; and seeing Abarak enter
the passage without let, he kicked hard in front at the invisible
obstruction, but there was no coming by. Abarak returned to him, and took
his right arm, and raised the sleeve from his wrist, and lo, the two
remaining hairs of Garraveen twisted round it in sapphire winds. Cried
he, 'Oh, the generosity of Gulrevaz! she has left these two hairs that he
may accomplish swiftly the destiny marked for him! but now, since his
gazing through that veil, he must part with them to get out of Aklis.'
And he muttered, 'His star is a strange one! one that leadeth him to
fortune by the path of frowns! to greatness by the aid of thwackings!
Truly the ways of Allah are wonderful!' Shibli Bagarag resisted him in
nothing, and Abarak loosed the two bright hairs from his wrist, and those
two hairs swelled and took glittering scales, and were sapphi