Tempted by extremes,
     The soul is most secure;
   Too vivid loveliness blinds with its beams,
   And eyes turned inward perceive the lure.

Pulling down his turban hastily, he stepped on tiptoe to within arm’s reach of her, and, looking another way, inclined over her soft vermeil mouth the phial slowly till it brimmed the neck, and dropped a drop of Paravid between the bow of those sweet lips.  Still not daring to gaze on her, he said then, ’My question is of the Lily, the Lily of the Sea, and where is it, O marvel?’

And he heard a voice answer in the tones of a silver bell, clear as a wind in strung wires, ’Where I lie, lies the Lily, the Lily of the Sea; I with it, it with me.’

Said he, ’O breather of music, tell me how I may lay hand on the flower of beauty to bear it forth.’

And he heard the voice, ’An equal space betwixt my right side and my left, and from the shoulder one span and half a span downward.’

Still without power to eye her, he measured the space and the spans, his hand beneath the coverlids of the couch, and at a spot of the bosom his hand sank in, and he felt a fluttering thing, fluttering like a frighted bird in the midst of the fire.  And the voice said, ’Quick, seize it, and draw it out, and tie it to my feet by the twines of red silk about it.’

He seized it and drew it out, and it was a heart—­a heart of blood-streaming with crimson, palpitating.  Tears flashed on his sight beholding it, and pity took the seat of fear, and he turned his eyes full on her, crying, ’O sad fair thing!  O creature of anguish!  O painful beauty!  Oh, what have I done to thee?’

But she panted, and gasped short and shorter gasps, pointing with one finger to her feet.  Then he took the warm living heart while it yet leapt and quivered and sobbed; and he held it with a trembling hand, and tied it by the red twines of silk about it to her feet, staining their whiteness.  When that was done, his whole soul melted with pity and swelled with sorrow, and ere he could meet her eyes a swoon overcame him.  Surely, when the world dawned to him a third time in those regions the damsel was no longer there, but in her place the Lily of Light.  He thought, ’It was a vision, that damsel! a terrible one; one to terrify and bewilder! a bitter sweetness!  Oh, the heart, the heart!’ Reflecting on the heart brought to his lids an overcharging of tears, and he wept violently awhile.  Then was he warned by the thought of his betrothed to take the Lily and speed with it from the realms of Rabesqurat; and he stole along the halls of the palace, and by the plashing fountains, and across the magic courts, passing chambers of sleepers, fair dreamers, and through ante-rooms crowded with thick-lipped slaves.  Lo, as he held the Lily to light him on, and the light of the Lily fell on them that were asleep, they paled and shrank, and were such as the death-chill maketh of us.  So he called upon his head the protection