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

dreamed overcame fear in Kadza, and she said, “O great genie and terrible, my dream was this. Lo! I saw an assemblage of the beasts of the forests and them that inhabit wild places. And there was the elephant and the rhinoceros and the hippopotamus, and the camel and the camelopard, and the serpent and the striped tiger; also the antelope, the hyena, the jackal, and above them, eminent in majesty, the lion. Surely, he sat as ’twere on a high seat, and they like suppliants thronging the presence: this I saw, the heart on my ribs beating for Shagpat. And there appeared among the beasts a monkey all ajoint with tricks, jerking with malice, he looking as ’twere hungry for the doing of things detestable; and the lion scorned him, and I marked him ridicule the lion: ’twas so. And the lion began to scowl, and the other beasts marked the displeasure of the lion. Then chased they that monkey from the presence, and for a while he was absent, and the lion sat in his place gravely, with calm, receiving homage of the other beasts; and down to his feet came the eagle that’s lord of air, and before him kneeled the great elephant, and the subtle serpent eyed him with awe. But soon did that monkey, the wretched animal! reappear, and there was no peace for the lion, he worrying till close within stretch of the lion’s paw! Wah! the lion might have crushed him, but that he’s magnanimous. And so it was that as the monkey advanced the lion roared to him, ‘Begone!’

“And the monkey cried, ‘Who commandeth?’

“So the lion roared, ‘The King of beasts and thy King!’

“Then that monkey cried, ‘Homage to the King of beasts and my King! Allah keep him in his seat, and I would he were visible.’

“So the lion roared, ‘He sitteth here acknowledged, thou graceless animal! and he’s before thee apparent.’

“Then the monkey affected eagerness, and gazed about him, and peered on this beast and on that, exclaiming like one that’s injured and under slight, ‘What’s this I’ve done, and wherein have I offended, that he should be hidden from me when pointed out?’

“So the lion roared, ‘ ’Tis I where I sit, thou offensive monkey!’

“Then that monkey in the upper pitch of amazement, ‘Thou! Is it for created thing to acknowledge a king without a tail? And, O beasts of the forest and the wilderness, how say ye? Am I to blame that I bow not to one that hath it not?’

“Upon that, the lion rose, and roared in the extreme of wrath; but the word he was about to utter was checked in him, for ’twas manifest that where he would have lashed a tail he shook a stump, wagging it as the dog doth. Lo! when the lion saw that, the majesty melted from him, and in a moment the plumpness of content and prosperity forsook him, so that his tawny skin hung flabbily and his jaw drooped, and shame deprived him of stateliness; abashed was he! Now, seeing the lion shamed in this manner, my heart beat violently for Shagpat, so that I awoke with the strength of its beating, and ’twas hidden from me whether the monkey was punished by the lion, or exalted by the other beasts in his place, or how came it that the lion’s tail was lost, witched from him by that villain of mischief, the monkey; but, O great genie, I knew there was a lion among men, reverenced, and with enemies; that lion, he that espoused me and my glory, Shagpat! ’Twas enough to know that and tremble at the omen of my dream, O genie. Wherefore I thought it well to summon thee here, that thou mightest set a guard over Shagpat, and shield him from the treacheries that beset him.”

When Kadza had ceased speaking, the genie glowered at her awhile in silence. Then said he, “What creature is that, Kadza, which tormenteth like the tongue of a woman, is small as her pretensions to virtue, and which showeth how the chapters of her history should be read by the holy ones, even in its manner of movement?”

Cried Kadza, “The flea that hoppeth!”

So he said, “ ’Tis well! Hast thou strength to carry one of my weight, O Kadza?”

She answered in squeamishness, “I, wullahy! I’m but a woman, genie, though the wife of Shagpat: and to carry thee is for the camel and the elephant and the horse.”

Then he, “Tighten thy girdle, and when tightened, let a loose loop hang from it.”

She did that, and he gave her a dark powder in her hand, saying, “Swallow the half of this, and what remaineth mix with water, and sprinkle over thee.”

That did she, and thereupon he exclaimed, “Now go, and thy part is to move round Shagpat; and a wind will strike thee from one quarter, and from which quarter it striketh is the one of menace and danger to Shagpat.”

So Kadza was diligent in doing what the genie commanded, and sought for Shagpat, and moved round him many times; but no wind struck her. She went back to the genie, and told him of this, and the genie cried, “What? no wind? not one from Aklis? Then will Shagpat of a surety triumph, and we with him.”

Now, there was joy on the features of Kadza and Karaz, till suddenly he said, “Halt in thy song! How if there be danger and menace above? and ’tis the thing that may be.”

Then he seized Kadza, and slung her by him, and went into the air, and up it till the roofs of the City of Shagpat were beneath their feet, all on them visible. And under an awning, on the roof of a palace, there was the Vizier Feshnavat and Baba Mustapha, they ear to lip in consultation, and Baba Mustapha brightening with the matter revealed to him, and bobbing his head, and breaking on the speech of the Vizier.