ingle
star is by the full moon on a bright midnight pouring lustre about. And
Noorna splashed Luloo, and said, 'This night we shall not sleep together,
O Luloo, nor lie close, thy bosom on mine.'

Thereat, Luloo wept afresh, and cried, 'Ah, cruel! and 'tis a sweet
thought for thee, and thou'lt have no mind for me, tossing on my hateful
lonely couch.'

Tenderly Noorna eyed Luloo, and the sprinkles of the bath fell with the
tears of both, and they clung together, and were like the lily and its
bud on one stalk in a shower. Then, when Noorna had spent her affection,
she said, 'O thou of the long downward lashes, thy love was constant when
I stood under a curse and was an old woman--a hag! Carest thou so little
to learn the name of him that claimeth me?'

Luloo replied, 'I thought of no one save myself and my loss, O my lost
pearl; happy is he, a youth of favour. Oh, how I shall hate him that
taketh thee from me. Tell me now his name, O sovereign of hearts!'

So Noorna smoothed the curves and corners of her mouth and calmed her
countenance, crying in a deep tone and a voice as of reverence,
'Shagpat!'

Now, at that name Luloo drank in her breath and was awed, and sank in
herself, and had just words to ask, 'Hath he demanded thee again in
marriage, O my mistress?'

Said Noorna, 'Even so.'

Luloo muttered, 'Great is the Dispenser of our fates!'

And she spake no further, but sighed and took napkins and summoned the
slave-girls, and arrayed Noorna silently in the robe of blue and bridal
ornaments. Then Noorna said to them that thronged about her, 'Put on,
each of ye, a robe of white, ye that are maidens, and a fillet of blue,
and a sash of saffron, and abide my coming.'

And she said to Luloo, 'Array thyself in a robe of blue, even as mine,
and let trinkets lurk in thy tresses, and abide my coming.'

Then went she forth from them, and veiled her head and swathed her figure
in raiment of a coarse white stuff, and was as the moon going behind a
hill of dusky snow; and she left the house, and passed along the streets
and by the palaces, till she came to the palace of her father, now filled
by Shagpat. Before the palace grouped a great concourse and a multitude
of all ages and either sex in that city, despite the blaze and the heat.
Like roaring of a sea beyond the mountains was the noise that issued from
them, and their eyes were a fire of beams against the portal of the
palace. Now, she saw in the crowd one Shafrac,