Section XI

NO sooner had I quitted the steps of the palace when I saw fluttering in front of me a bird similar to

Aspirna,

this one, however, having two wings like a butterfly’s besides its own. A voice issuing from a cloud commanded me to seize and to affix it and I darted forth after it. It did not fly but used its wings in order to run with the greatest rapidity. I pursued it; it fled before me and made me cover the entire plain several times. I followed it without pause. Finally, after pursuing it for nine days, I forced it to enter the tower which I had seen in the distance as I was leaving

  Tsahn

 

The walls of this edifice were of iron. Thirty-six columns of the same metal supported it. The interior was of the same material, incrusted with shining steel. The foundations of the tower were so constructed as to be twice as deep in the earth as they were high above ground. The bird had barely entered this enclosure when an icy cold seemed to overcome it. In vain it tried to move its numbed wings. It still fluttered, trying to flee, but so feebly that I reached it with the greatest ease.

I seized the bird, and driving a steel nail

 

Marah-nehush

through its wings, I affixed it to the floor of the tower with the aid of a hammer called

Shîtraj

 

Hardly had I finished when the bird acquired new strength. It did not move, however, but its eyes began to shine like topaz. I was gazing at it when my attention was attracted by a group in the center of the hall. It showed a handsome man in the prime of life. In his hand he held a staff about which two serpents were interlaced. The young man was striving to escape a larger and more powerful man who wore a girdle and a helmet of iron surmounted by waving red plumes. Near him a sword lay on a buckler covered with hieroglyphs. The armed man held in his hand a heavy chain with which he shackled the feet and body of the youth who tried in vain to flee from his terrible adversary. Two red tablets bore certain characters.

 

I departed from the tower, and opening a door between two pillars I found myself in a vast hall.