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

thou that tellest of the Shaving of Shagpat. It will be the shortest.”

Then he said, “The shadow of yonder palm is now a slanted spear up the looped wall of the City. Now, the time of Shagpat’s triumph, and his greatest majesty, will be when yonder walls chase the shadow of the palm up this hill; and then will Baba Mustapha be joining the chorus of creatures that shriek toward even ere they snooze. There’s not an ape in the woods, nor hyena in the forest, nor birds on the branches, nor frogs in the marsh that will outnoise Baba Mustapha under the thong! Wullahy, ’twill grieve his soul in aftertime when he sitteth secure in honours, courted, with a thousand ears at his bidding, that so much breath ’scaped him without toll of the tongue! But as the poet says truly:

“ ‘The chariot of Events lifteth many dusty heels,
And many, high and of renown, it crusheth with its wheels.’

“Wah! I have had my share of the thong, and am I, Master of the Event, to be squeamish in attaining an end by its means? Nay, by this Sword!”

Thereat, he strode once again to the summit of the hill, and in a moment the genii fronted him like two shot arrows quivering from the flight. So he cried, “It is done?”

They answered, “In faithfulness.”

So he beckoned to Noorna, and she came forward swiftly to him, exclaiming, “I read the plot, and the thing required of me; so say nought, but embrace me ere I leave thee, my betrothed, my master!”

He embraced her, and led her to where the genii stood. Then said he to the genii, “Convey her to the City, O ye slaves of the Sword, and watch over her there. If ye let but an evil wind ruffle the hair of her head, lo! I sever ye with a stroke that shaketh the under worlds. Remain by her till the shrieks of Baba Mustapha greet ye, and then will follow commotion among the crowd, and cries for Shagpat to show himself to the people, cries also of death to Feshnavat; and there will be an assembly in the King’s Hall of Justice; thither lead ye my betrothed, and watch over her.” And he said to Noorna, “Thou knowest my design?”

So she said, “When condemnation is passed on Feshnavat, that I appear in the hall as bride of Shagpat, and so rescue him that is my father.” And she cried, “Oh, fair delightful time that is coming! my happiness and thy honour on Earth dateth from it. Farewell, O my betrothed, beloved youth! Eyes of mine! these genii will be by, and there’s no cause for fear or sorrow, and ’tis for thee to look like morning that speeds the march of light. Thou, my betrothed, art thou not all that enslaveth the heart of woman?”

Cried Shibli Bagarag, “And thou, O Noorna, all that enraptureth the soul of man! Allah keep thee, my life!”

Lo! while they were wasting the rich love in their hearts, the genii rose up with Noorna, and she, waving her hand to him, was soon distant and as the white breast of a bird turned to the sun. Then went he to where Abarak was leaning, and summoned Koorookh, and the twain mounted him, and rose up high over the City of Shagpat to watch the ripening of the Event, as a vulture watcheth over the desert.

The Dish of Pomegranate Grain

Now, in the City of Shagpat, Kadza, spouse of Shagpat, she that had belaboured Shibli Bagarag, had a dream while these things were doing; and it was a dream of danger and portent to the glory of her eyes, Shagpat. So, at the hour when he was revealed to Shibli Bagarag, made luminous by the beams of Aklis, Kadza went to an inner chamber, and greased her hands and her eyelids, and drank of a phial, and commenced tugging at a brass ring fixed in the floor, and it yielded and displayed an opening, over which she stooped the upper half of her leanness, and pitching her note high, called “Karaz!” After that, she rose and retreated from the hole hastily, and in the winking of an eye it was filled, as ’twere a pillar of black smoke, by the body of the genie, he breathing hard with mighty travel. So he cried to her between his pantings and puffings, “Speak! where am I wanted, and for what?”

Now, Kadza was affrighted at the terribleness of his manner, and the great smell of the genie was an intoxication in her nostril, so that she reeled and could just falter out, “Danger to the Identical!”

Then he, in a voice like claps of thunder, “Out with it!”

She answered beseechingly, “ ’Tis a dream I had, O genie; a dream of danger to him.”

While she spake, the genie clenched his fists and stamped so that the palace shook and the earth under it, exclaiming, “O abominable Kadza! a dream is it? another dream? Wilt thou cease dreaming awhile, thou silly woman? Know I not he that’s powerful against us is in Aklis, crowned ape, and that his spells are gone? And I was distilling drops to defy the Sword and strengthen Shagpat from assault, yet bringest thou me from my labour by the Putrid Sea with thy accursed dream!” Thereat, he frowned and shot fire at her from his eyes, so that she singed, and the room thickened with a horrible smell of burning. She feared greatly and trembled, but he cooled himself against the air, crying presently in a diminished voice, “Let’s hear this dream, thou foolish Kadza! ’Tis as well to hear it. Probably Rabesqurat hath sent thee some sign from Aklis, where she ferryeth a term. What’s that saying:

“ ‘A woman’s at the core of every plot man plotteth,
And like an ill-reared fruit, first at the core it rotteth.’

“So, out with it, thou Kadza!”

Now, the urgency of that she had