, and I mark Shagpat, even he, illumined by it, singled out,
where he sitteth on the roof of the palace by the market-place.'

So they looked, and it was as he had spoken, that Shagpat was singled out
in the midst of the city by the wondrous beams of the eye of Aklis, and
made prominent in effulgence.

Said Abarak, climbing to the level of observation, 'He hath a redness
like the inside of a halved pomegranate.'

Feshnavat stroked his chin, exclaiming, 'He may be likened to a mountain
goat in the midst of a forest roaring with conflagration.'

Said Shibli Bagarag, 'Now is he the red-maned lion, the bristling boar,
the uncombed buffalo, the plumaged cock, but soon will he be like nothing
else save the wrinkled kernel of a shaggy fruit. Lo, now, the Sword! it
leapeth to be at him, and 'twill be as the keen icicle of winter to that
perishing foliage, that doomed crop! So doth the destined minute destroy
with a flash the hoarded arrogance of ages; and the destined hand doeth
what creation failed to perform; and 'tis by order, destiny, and
preordainment, that the works of this world come to pass. This know I,
and I witness thereto that am of a surety ordained to the Shaving of
Shagpat!'

Then he stood apart and gazed from Shagpat to the city that now began to
move with the morning; elephants and coursers saddled by the gates of the
King's palace were visible, and camels blocking the narrow streets, and
the markets bustling. Surely, though the sun illumined that city, it was
as a darkness behind Shagpat singled by the beams of Aklis.

THE PLOT

Now, while Shibli Bagarag gazed on Shagpat kindled by the beams of Aklis,
lo, the Genii Karavejis and Veejravoosh circling each other in swift
circles like two sapphire rings toward him, and they whirled to a point
above his head, and fell and prostrated themselves at his feet: so he
cried, 'O ye slaves of the Sword, my servitors! how of the whereabout of
Karaz?'

They answered, 'O Master of the Event, we found him after many circlings
far off, and 'twas by the borders of the Putrid Sea. We came not close on
him, for he is stronger than we without the Sword, but it seemed he was
distilling drops of an oil from certain substances, large thickened drops
that dropped into a phial.'

Then Shibli Bagarag said, 'The season of weakness with me is over, and
they that confide in my strength, my cunning, my watchfulness, my
wielding of the Sword, have nought to fear for themselve