wdery perfume, and his hairiness
was as branches of the forest foliage bent under a sudden fall of
overwhelming snow that filleth the pits and sharpeneth the wolves with
hunger, and teacheth new cunning to the fox. A fox was Baba Mustapha in
his stratagems, and a wolf in the fierceness of his setting upon Shagpat.
Surely he drew forth the blade that was to shear Shagpat, and made with
it in the air a preparatory sweep and flourish; and the blade frolicked
and sent forth a light, and seemed eager for Shagpat. So Baba Mustapha
addressed his arm to the shearing, and inclined gently the edge of the
blade, and they marked him let it slide twice to a level with the head of
Shagpat, and at the third time it touched, and Kadza howled, but from
Baba Mustapha there burst a howl to madden the beasts; and he flung up
his blade, and wrenched open his robe, crying, 'A flea was it to bite in
that fashion? Now, I swear by the Merciful, a fang like that's common to
tigers and hyaenas and ferocious animals.'

Then looked he for the mark of the bite, plaining of its pang, and he
could find the mark nowhere. So, as he caressed himself, eyeing Shagpat
sheepishly and with gathering awe, Noorna said hurriedly to Kadza, 'Away
now, and call them in, the crowd about the palace, that they may behold
the triumph of Shagpat, for 'tis ripe, O Kadza!'

And Kadza replied, 'Thou'rt a wise woman, and I'll have thee richly
rewarded. Lo, I'm as a camel lightened of fifty loads, and the glory of
Shagpat see I as a new sun rising in the desert. Wullahy! thou'rt wise,
and I'll do thy bidding.'

Now, she went flying back to the palace, and called shrill calls to the
crowd, and collected them in the palace, and headed them through the
garden, and it was when Baba Mustapha had summoned courage for a second
essay, and was in the act of standing over Shagpat to operate on him,
that the crowd burst the doors, and he was quickly seized by them, and
tugged at and hauled at and pummelled, and torn and vituperated, and as a
wrecked vessel on stormy waters, plunging up and down with tattered
sails, when the crew fling overboard freight and ballast and provision.
Surely his time would have been short with that mob, but Noorna made
Kadza see the use of examining him before the King, and there were in
that mob sheikhs and fakirs, holy men who listened to the words of Kadza,
and exerted themselves to rescue Baba Mustapha, and quieted the rage that
was prevailing, and bor