She displayed them, and they were sapphire hairs, and had a flickering light; and they seemed to live, wriggling their lengths, and were as snakes with sapphire skins.  Then she said, ’Thy right wrist, O my betrothed!’

He gave her his right wrist, and she tied round it the three hairs of Garraveen, exclaiming, ’Thus do skilful carpenters make stronger what has broken and indicated disaster.  Surely, I confide in thy star?  I have faith in my foresight?’

And she cried, ’Eyes of mine, what sayest thou to me?  Lo, we must part awhile:  it is written.’

Said he, ’Leave me not, my betrothed:  what am I without thy counsel?  And go not from me, or this adventure will come to miserable issue.’

So she said, ‘Thou beginnest to feel my worth?’

He answered, ’O Noorna! was woman like thee before in this world?  Surely ’tis a mask I mark thee under; yet art thou perforce of sheer wisdom and sweet manners lovely in my sight; and I have a thirst to hear thee and look on thee.’

While he spake, a beam of struggling splendour burst from her, and she said, ’O thou dear youth, yes!  I must even go.  But I go glad of heart, knowing thee prepared to love me.  I must go to counteract the machinations of Karaz, for he’s at once busy, vindictive, and cunning, and there’s no time for us to lose; so farewell, my betrothed, and make thy wits keen to know me when we next meet.’

So he said, ‘And I—­whither go I?’

She answered, ‘To the City of Oolb straightway.’

Then he, ‘But I know not its bearing from this spot:  how reach it?’

She answered, ’What! thou with the phial of Paravid in thy vest, that endoweth, a single drop of it, the flowers, the herbage, the very stones and desert sands, with a tongue to articulate intelligible talk?’

Said he, ‘Is it so?’

She answered, ‘Even so.’

Ere Slubli Bagarag could question her further she embraced him, and blew upon his eyes, and he was blinded by her breath, and saw not her departure, groping for a seat on the rocks, and thinking her still by him.  Sight returned not to him till long after weariness had brought the balm of sleep upon his eyelids.

THE TALKING HAWK

Now, when he awoke he found himself alone in that place, the moon shining over the low meadows and flower-cups fair with night-dew.  Odours of night-flowers were abroad, filling the cool air with deliciousness, and he heard in the gardens below songs of the bulbul:  it was like a dream to his soul, and he lay somewhile contemplating the rich loveliness of the scene, that showed no moving thing.  Then rose he and bethought him of the words of Noorna, and of the City of Oolb, and the phial of the waters of Paravid in his vest; and he drew it forth, and dropped a drop of it on the rock where he had reclined.  A deep harmony seemed suddenly to awake inside the rock, and to his interrogation as to the direction of Oolb, he heard, ‘The path of the shadows of the moon.’