Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/115



ointments, enjoining them to paint their eyebrows tastefully and adorn their heads, don delicate silks with trailing sashes, powder their faces, darken their eyes, and decorate their arms with jewelled bracelets. He then caused aromatic grass to be spread throughout the tower; the bands played royal music in a gladsome strain; changes of splendid raiment were offered to the guest at stated intervals, and exquisite viands prepared for him every morning. At first the magician again declined to take up his abode there; eventually, however, he was constrained to go, although he did not stay in it^more than a few days.

One day, while having an audience of the King, the magician invited His Majesty to accompany him on a journey. The King accordingly laid hold of the magician's sleeve, and then both of them rose high into the air, as far as the very zenith of the heavens, where they found themselves at the magician's palace. It was roofed in with gold and silver beams, incrusted with pearls and jade. It stood far, far above the region of clouds and rain, and nothing led one to suppose that, when seen from below, it would look like nothing but a thick cloud itself. All the phenomena which appealed to the senses were quite different from those which prevailed among mortals, and the King fancied that it must be the Pure City, the Purple Hidden Palace, where the music of the spheres is heard—the home of God Himself. He gazed downward, and saw his own palace far below, with its terraces and arbours, like a mere heap of clods and billets; and then he thought how he would stay where he was for some tens of years, and give over troubling himself about his kingdom. But the magician proposed a further move; so away they soared again, till they came to a region where, if they looked up, there was no sun or moon to be seen, and, if they looked down, no seas or rivers were discernible. The reflection of light and shade dazzled the King's eyes, so that he could no longer see distinctly; strange sounds confused his ears, so that he could not hear distinctly. His whole frame became convulsed with dread, his mind was bewildered, and there was no more spirit left in him. He implored the magician to let him go back;