cockle-shell, King!'

Then the King threatened him, saying, 'There is a virtue in each of the
things thou seest: the China jar is brimmed with wine, and remaineth so
though a thousand drink of it; the dress of Samarcand rendereth the
wearer invisible; yet thou refusest to exchange them for thy hawk!'

And the King swore by the beard of his father he would seize perforce the
hawk and shut up Shibli Bagarag in the vault, if he fell not into his
bargain. Shibli Bagarag was advised by the hawk to accept the China jar
and the dress of Samarcand, and handed the hawk to the King in exchange
for these things. So the King took the hawk upon his wrist and departed
with it to the apartments of his daughter, and Shibli Bagarag went to the
chamber prepared for him in the palace.

Now, when it was night, Shibli Bagarag heard a noise at his lattice, and
he arose and peered through it, and lo! the hawk was fluttering without;
so he let it in, and caressed it, and the hawk bade him put on his silken
dress and carry forth his China jar, and go the round of the palace, and
offer drink to the sentinels and the slaves. So he did as the hawk
directed, and the sentinels and slaves were aware of a China jar brimmed
with wine that was lifted to their lips, but him that lifted it they saw
not: surely, they drank deep of the draught of astonishment.

Then the hawk flew before him, and he followed it to a chamber lit with
golden lamps, gorgeously hung, and full of a dusky splendour and the
faint sparkle of gems, ruby, amethyst, topaz, and beryl; in it there was
the hush of sleep, and the heart of Shibli Bagarag told him that one
beautiful was near. So he approached on tiptoe a couch of blue silk,
bordered with gold-wire, and inwoven with stars of blue turquoise stones,
as it had been the heavens of midnight. On the couch lay one, a woman,
pure in loveliness; the dark fringes of her closed lids like living
flashes of darkness, her mouth like an unstrung bow and as a double
rosebud, even as two isles of coral between which in the clear
transparent watery beds the pearls shine freshly.

And the hawk said to Shibli Bagarag, 'This is the Princess Goorelka, the
daughter of the King of Oolb, a sorceress, the Guardian of the Lily of
the Enchanted Sea. Beneath her pillow is the cockle-shell; grasp it, but
gaze not upon her.'

He approached and slid his arm beneath the pillow of the Princess, and
grasped the cockle-shell; but ere he drew it forth he g