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

what changes will follow! But ’tis in me to delude the barber, wullahy! and I will avert the calamity. I will save Shagpat!”

While the Queen Rabesqurat prated in this wise with flushed face, Shibli Bagarag was smitten with the greatness of his task, and reproached his soul with neglect of it. And he thought, “I am powerful by spells as none before me have been, and ’twas by my weakness the Queen sought to tangle me. I will clasp the Seventh Pillar and make an end of it, by Allah and his Prophet (praised be the name!), and I will reach Aklis by a short path and shave Shagpat with the sword.”

So he looked up, and Abarak was before him, the lifted nostrils of the little man wide with the flame of anger. And Abarak said, “O youth, regard me with the eyes of judgement! Now, is it not frightful to rate me little?⁠—an instigation of the evil one to repute me ugly?”

The promptings of wisdom counselled Shibli Bagarag to say, “Frightful beyond contemplation, O Abarak! one to shame our species! Surely, there is a moon between thy legs, a pear upon thy shoulders, and the cock that croweth is no match for thee in measure.”

Abarak cried, “We be aggrieved, we two! O youth, son of my uncle, I will give thee means of vengeance; give thou me means.”

Shibli Bagarag felt scorn at the Queen, and her hollowness, and he said, “ ’Tis well; take this Lily and hold it to her.”

Now, the Queen jeered Abarak, and as he approached her she shouted, “What! thou small of build! mite of creation! sour mixture! thou puppet of mine! thou! comest thou to seek a second kiss against the compact, knowing that I give not the well-favoured of mortals beyond one, a second.”

Little delayed Abarak at this to put her to the test of the Lily, and he held the flower to her, and saw the sight, and staggered back like one stricken with a shaft. When he could get a breath he uttered such a howl that Rabesqurat in her drunkenness was fain to save her ears, and the hall echoed as with the bellows of a thousand beasts of the forest. Then, to glut his revenge he ran for the sack, and emptied the contents of it, the Queen’s mirror, before her; and the sackful of eyes, they saw the sight, and sickened, rolling their whites. That done, Abarak gave Shibli Bagarag the bar of iron, and bade him smite the pillars, all save the seventh; and he smote them strengthily, crumbling them at a blow, and bringing down the great hall and its groves, and glasses and gems, lamps, traceries, devices, a heap of ruin, the seventh pillar alone standing. Then, while he pumped back breath into his body, Abarak said, “There’s no delaying in this place now, O youth! Say, halt thou spells for the entering of Aklis?”

He answered, “Three!”

Then said Abarak, “ ’Tis well! Surely now, if thou takest me in thy service, I’ll help thee to master the Event, and serve thee faithfully, requiring nought from thee save a sight of the Event, and ’tis I that myself missed one, wiled by Rabesqurat.”

Quoth Shibli Bagarag, “Thou?”

He answered, “No word of it now. Is’t agreed?”

So Shibli Bagarag cried, “Even so.”

Thereupon, the twain entered the pillar, leaving Rabesqurat prone, and the waves of the sea bounding toward her where she lay. Now, they descended and ascended flights of slippery steps, and sped together along murky passages, in which light never was, and under arches of caves with hanging crystals, groping and tumbling on hurriedly, till they came to an obstruction, and felt an iron door, frosty to the touch. Then Abarak said to Shibli Bagarag, “Smite!” And the youth lifted the bar to his right shoulder, and smote; and the door obeyed the blow, and discovered an opening into a strange dusky land, as it seemed a valley, on one side of which was a ragged copper sun setting low, large as a warrior’s battered shield, giving deep red lights to a brook that fell, and over a flat stream a red reflection, and to the sides of the hills a dark red glow. The sky was a brown colour; the earth a deeper brown, like the skins of tawny lions. Trees with reddened stems stood about the valley, scattered and in groups, showing between their leaves the cheeks of melancholy fruits swarthily tinged, and toward the centre of the valley a shining palace was visible, supported by massive columns of marble reddened by that copper sun. Shibli Bagarag was awed at the stillness that hung everywhere, and said to Abarak, “Where am I, O Abarak? the look of this place is fearful!”

And the little man answered, “Where, but beneath the mountains in Aklis? Wullahy! I should know it, I that keep the passage of the seventh pillar!”

Then the thought of his betrothed Noorna, and her beauty, and the words, “Remember the seventh pillar,” struck the heart of Shibli Bagarag, and he exclaimed passionately, “Is she in safety? Noorna, my companion, my betrothed, netted by thee, O Abarak!”

Abarak answered sharply, “Speak not of betrothals in this place, or the sword of Aklis will move without a hand!”

But Shibli Bagarag waxed the colour of the sun that was over them, and cried, “By Allah! I will smite thee with the bar, if thou swear not to her safety, and point not out to me where she now is.”

Then said Abarak, “Thou wilt make a better use of the bar by lifting it to my shoulder, and poising it, and peering through it.”

Shibli Bagarag lifted the bar to the shoulder of Abarak, and poised it, and peered through the length of it, and lo! there was a sea tossing in tumult, and one pillar standing erect in the midst of the sea; and on the pillar, above the washing waves, with hair blown back, and flapping raiment, pale