she with her head between her hands and her hair scattered by the storm,
as one despairing. Still he looked, and he save swimming round the pillar
that monstrous fish, with its sole baleful eye, which had gulped them
both in the closed shell of magic pearl; and he knew the fish for Karaz,
the Genie, their enemy. Then he turned to the Princess, with an imploring
voice for counsel how to reach her and bring her rescue; but she said,
'The Sword is in thy hands, none of us dare wield it'; and the seven
youths answered likewise. So, left to himself, he drew the Sword from his
girdle, and hissed on the heads of the serpents, at the same time holding
it so that it might lengthen out inimitably. Then he leaned it over the
eye of the glass, in the direction of the pillar besieged by the billows,
and lo! with one cut, even at that distance, he divided the fishy
monster, and with another severed the chains that had fettered Noorna;
and she arose and smiled blissfully to the sky, and stood upright, and
signalled him to lay the point of the blade on the pillar. When he had
done this, knowing her wisdom, she put a foot boldly upon the blade and
ran up it toward him, and she was half-way up the blade, when suddenly a
kite darted down upon her, pecking at her eyes, to confuse her. She waxed
unsteady and swayed this way and that, balancing with one arm and
defending herself from the attacks of the kite with another. It seemed to
Shibli Bagarag she must fall and be lost; and the sweat started on his
forehead in great drops big as nuts. Seeing that and the agitation of his
limbs, Gulrevaz cried, 'O Master of the Event, let us hear it!'

But he shrieked, 'The kite! the kite! she is running up the blade, and
the kite is at her eyes! and she swaying, swaying! falling, falling!'

So the Princess exclaimed, 'A kite! Koorookh is match for a kite!'

Then she smoothed the throat of Koorookh, and clasped round it a collar
of bright steel, roughened with secret characters; and she took a hoop of
gold, and passed the bird through it, urging it all the while with one
strange syllable; and the bird went up with a strong whirr of the wing
till he was over the sea, and caught sight of Noorna tottering beneath
him on the blade, and the kite pecking fiercely at her. Thereat he
fluttered eagerly a twinkle of time, and the next was down with his beak
in the neck of the kite, crimsoned in it. Now, by the shouts and
exclamations of Shibli Bagarag, the Princ