The Shaving of Shagpat - George Meredith (bookreader TXT) 📗

from the jewels upon her when she but moved a finger! Now, as they stood with their hands across their brows, she cried out, “O ye traversers of my sea! how is this, that I am made to thank Karaz for a sight of ye?”

And Noorna bin Noorka answered, “Surely, O Queen Rabesqurat, the haven of our voyage was Aklis, and we feared delay, seeing the fire of the mountain ablaze with expectations of us.”

Then the Queen cried angrily, “ ’Tis well thou hadst wit to close the shell, O Noorna, or there would have been delay indeed. Say, is not the road to Aklis through my palace? And it is the road thousands travel.”

So Noorna bin Noorka said, “O Queen, this do they; but are they of them that reach Aklis?”

And the Queen cried violently, purpling with passion, “This to me! when I helped ye to the plucking of the Lily?”

Now, the Queen muttered an imprecation, and called the name “Abarak!” and lo, a door opened in one of the pillars of jasper leading from the throne, and there came forth a little man, humped, with legs like bows, and arms reaching to his feet; in his hand a net weighted with leaden weights. So the Queen levelled her finger at Noorna, and he spun the net above her head, and dropped it on her shoulder, and dragged her with him to the pillar. When Shibli Bagarag saw that, the world darkened to him, and he rushed upon Abarak; but Noorna called swiftly in his ear, “Wait! wait! Thou by thy spells art stronger than all here save Abarak. Be true! Remember the seventh pillar!” Then, with a spurn from the hand of Abarak, the youth fell back senseless at the feet of the Queen.

Now, with the return of consciousness his hearing was bewitched with strange delicious melodies, the touch of stringed instruments, and others breathed into softly as by the breath of love, delicate, tender, alive with enamoured bashfulness. Surely, the soul that heard them dissolved like a sweet in the goblet, mingling with so much ecstasy of sound; and those melodies filling the white cave of the ear were even at once to drown the soul in delightfulness and buoy it with bliss, as a heavy-leaved flower is withered and refreshed by sun and dews. Surely, the youth ceased not to listen, and oblivion of cares and aught other in this life, save that hidden luting and piping, pillowed his drowsy head. At last there was a pause, and it seemed every maze of music had been wandered through. Opening his eyes hurriedly, as with the loss of the music his own breath had gone likewise, he beheld a garden golden with the light of lamps hung profusely from branches and twigs of trees by the glowing cheeks of fruits, apple and grape, pomegranate and quince; and he was reclining on a bank piled with purple cushions, his limbs clad in the richest figured silks, fringed like the ends of clouds round the sun, with amber fringes. He started up, striving to recall the confused memory of his adventures and what evil had befallen him, and he would have struggled with the vision of these glories, but it mastered him with the strength of a potent drug, so that the very name of his betrothed was forgotten by him, and he knew not whither he would, or the thing he wished for. Now, when he had risen from the soft green bank that was his couch, lo, at his feet a damsel weeping! So he lifted her by the hand, and she arose and looked at him, and began plaining of love and its tyrannies, softening him, already softened. Then said she, “What I suffer there is another, lovelier than I, suffering; thou the cause of it, O cruel youth!”

He said, “How, O damsel? what of my cruelty? Surely, I know nothing of it.”

But she exclaimed, “Ah, worse to feign forgetfulness!”

Now, he was bewildered at the words of the damsel, and followed her leading till they entered a dell in the garden canopied with foliage, and beyond it a green rise, and on the rise a throne. So he looked earnestly, and beheld thereon Queen Rabesqurat, she sobbing, her dark hair pouring in streams from the crown of her head. Seeing him, she cleared her eyes, and advanced to meet him timidly and with hesitating steps; but he shrank from her, and the Queen shrieked with grief, crying, “Is there in this cold heart no relenting?”

Then she said to him winningly, and in a low voice, “O youth, my husband, to whom I am a bride!”

He marvelled, saying, “This is a game, for indeed I am no husband, neither have I a bride⁠ ⁠… yet have I confused memory of some betrothal⁠ ⁠…”

Thereupon she cried, “Said I not so? and I the betrothed.”

Still he exclaimed, “I cannot think it! Wullahy, it were a wonder!”

So she said, “Consider how a poor youth of excellent proportions came to a flourishing Court before one, a widowed Queen, and she cast eyes of love on him, and gave him rule over her and all that was hers when he had achieved a task, and they were wedded. Oh, the bliss of it! Knit together with bond and a writing; and these were the dominions, I the Queen, woe’s me!⁠—thou the youth!”

Now, he was roiled by the enchantments of the Queen, caught in the snare of her beguilings; and he let her lead him to a seat beside her on the throne, and sat there awhile in the midst of feastings, mazed, thinking, “What life have I lived before this, if the matter be as I behold?” thinking, “ ’Tis true I have had visions of a widowed queen, and I a poor youth that came to her court, and espoused her, sitting in the vacant seat beside her, ruling a realm; but it was a dream, a dream⁠—yet, wah! here is she, here