and making the animal prance
up and prove its spirit.

And she cried reproachfully, 'O fool! is it thus our great aim will be
defeated by thy silly conceit? Lo, now, the greatness and the happiness
thou art losing for this idle vanity is to be as a dunghill cock matched
with an ostrich; and think not to escape the calamities thou bringest on
thyself, for as is said,

No runner can outstrip his fate;

and it will overtake thee, though thou part like an arrow from the bow.'

He still made a jest of her remonstrance, trying the temper of the
animal, and rejoicing in its dark flushes of ireful vigour.

And she cried out furiously, 'How! art thou past counsel? then will we
match strength with strength ere 'tis too late, though it weaken both.'

Upon that, she turned quickly to the Ass and stroked it from one
extremity to the other, crying, 'Karaz! Karaz!' shouting, 'Come forth in
thy power!' And the Ass vanished, and the Genie stood in his place, tall,
dark, terrible as a pillar of storm to travellers ranging the desert. He
exclaimed, 'What is it, O woman? Charge me with thy command!'

And she said, 'Wrestle with him thou seest on the Horse Garraveen, and
fling him from his seat.'

Then he yelled a glad yell, and stooped to Shibli Bagarag on the horse
and enveloped him, and seized him, and plucked him from the Horse, and
whirled him round, and flung him off. The youth went circling in the air,
high in it, and descended, circling, at a distance in the deep
meadow-waters. When he crept up the banks he saw the Genie astride the
Horse Garraveen, with a black flame round his head; and the Genie urged
him to speed and put him to the gallop, and was soon lost to sight, as he
had been a thunderbeam passing over a still lake at midnight. And Shibli
Bagarag was smitten with the wrong and the folly of his act, and sought
to hide his sight from Noorna; but she called to him, 'Look up, O youth!
and face the calamity. Lo, we have now lost the service of Karaz! for
though I utter ten spells and one spell in a breath, the Horse Garraveen
will ere that have stretched beyond the circle of my magic, and the Genie
will be free to do his ill deeds and plot against us. Sad is it! but
profit thou by a knowledge of thy weakness.'

Then said she, 'See, I have not failed to possess myself of the three
hairs of Garraveen, and there is that to rejoice in.'

She displayed them, and they were sapphire hairs, and had a flickering
light;