k is it now, thou accursed traitress?'

Noorna replied, 'I've need of thee!'

He said, 'What shape?'

She answered, 'The shape of an Ass that will carry two on its back, thou
Perversity!'

Upon that, he cried, 'O faithless woman, how long shall I be the slave of
thy plotting? Now, but for that hair of my head, plucked by thy hand
while I slept, I were free, no doer of thy tasks. Say, who be these that
mark us?'

She answered, 'One, the Vizier Feshnavat; and one, Shibli Bagarag of
Shiraz, he that's destined to shave Shagpat, the son of Shimpoor, the son
of Shoolpi, the son of Shullum; and the youth is my betrothed.'

Now, at her words the whole Genie became as live coal with anger, and he
panted black and bright, and made a stride toward Shibli Bagarag, and
stretched his arm out to seize him; but Noorna, blew quickly on the
circles she had drawn, and the circles rose up in a white flame high as
the heads of those present, and the Genie shrank hastily back from the
flame, and was seized with fits of sneezing. Then she said in scorn,
'Easily, O Karaz, is a woman outwitted! Surely I could not guess what
would be thy action! and I was wanting in foresight and insight! and I am
a woman bearing the weight of my power as a woodman staggereth under the
logs he hath felled!'

So she taunted him, and he still sneezing and bent double with the might
of the sneeze. Then said Noorna in a stern voice, 'No more altercation
between us! Wait thou here till I reappear, Karaz!'

Thereupon, she went from them; and the two, Feshnavat and Shibli Bagarag,
feared greatly being left with the Genie, for he became all colours, and
loured on them each time that he ceased sneezing. He was clearly menacing
them when Noorna returned, and in her hand a saddle made of hide, traced
over with mystic characters and gold stripes.

So she cried, 'Take this!' Then, seeing he hesitated, she unclosed from
her left palm a powder, and scattered

it over him; and he grew meek, and the bending knee of obedience was his,
and he took the saddle. So she said, ''Tis well! Go now, and wait outside
the city in the shape of an Ass, with this saddle on thy back.'

The Genie groaned, and said, 'To hear is to obey!' And he departed with
those words, for she held him in bondage. Then she calmed down the white
flames of the circles that enclosed Shibli Bagarag and the Vizier
Feshnavat, and they stepped forth, marvelling at the greatness of her
sorceries that held