Little delayed Abarak at this to put her to the test of the Lily, and he held the flower to her, and saw the sight, and staggered back like one stricken with a shaft.  When he could get a breath he uttered such a howl that Rabesqurat in her drunkenness was fain to save her ears, and the hall echoed as with the bellows of a thousand beasts of the forest.  Then, to glut his revenge he ran for the sack, and emptied the contents of it, the Queen’s mirror, before her; and the sackful of eyes, they saw the sight, and sickened, rolling their whites.  That done, Abarak gave Shibli Bagarag the bar of iron, and bade him smite the pillars, all save the seventh; and he smote them strengthily, crumbling them at a blow, and bringing down the great hall and its groves, and glasses and gems, lamps, traceries, devices, a heap of ruin, the seventh pillar alone standing.  Then, while he pumped back breath into his body, Abarak said, ’There’s no delaying in this place now, O youth!  Say, halt thou spells for the entering of Aklis?’

He answered, ‘Three!’

Then said Abarak, ’’Tis well!  Surely now, if thou takest me in thy service, I’ll help thee to master the Event, and serve thee faithfully, requiring nought from thee save a sight of the Event, and ’tis I that myself missed one, wiled by Rabesqurat.’

Quoth Shibli Bagarag, ‘Thou?’

He answered, ‘No word of it now.  Is’t agreed?’

So Shibli Bagarag cried, ‘Even so.’

Thereupon, the twain entered the pillar, leaving Rabesqurat prone, and the waves of the sea bounding toward her where she lay.  Now, they descended and ascended flights of slippery steps, and sped together along murky passages, in which light never was, and under arches of caves with hanging crystals, groping and tumbling on hurriedly, till they came to an obstruction, and felt an iron door, frosty to the touch.  Then Abarak said to Shibli Bagarag, ‘Smite!’ And the youth lifted the bar to his right shoulder, and smote; and the door obeyed the blow, and discovered an opening into a strange dusky land, as it seemed a valley, on one side of which was a ragged copper sun setting low, large as a warrior’s battered shield, giving deep red lights to a brook that fell, and over a flat stream a red reflection, and to the sides of the hills a dark red glow.  The sky was a brown colour; the earth a deeper brown, like the skins of tawny lions.  Trees with reddened stems stood about the valley, scattered and in groups, showing between their leaves the cheeks of melancholy fruits swarthily tinged, and toward the centre of the valley a shining palace was visible, supported by massive columns of marble reddened by that copper sun.  Shibli Bagarag was awed at the stillness that hung everywhere, and said to Abarak, ’Where am I, O Abarak? the look of this place is fearful!’

And the little man answered, ’Where, but beneath the mountains in Aklis?  Wullahy!  I should know it, I that keep the passage of the seventh pillar!’