Abarak: 'O Master of the Event, secure now without delay the two
slaves of the Sword, and lean the blade toward Aklis.'

Upon that, he ran up rapidly to the summit of the mountain and drew the
Sword from his girdle, and leaned it toward Aklis, and it lengthened out
over lands, the blade of it a beam of solid brilliance. Presently, from
forth the invisible remoteness they saw the two Genii, Karavejis and
Veejravoosh, and they were footing the blade swiftly, like stars,
speeding up till they were within reach of the serpents of the hilt, when
they dropped to the earth, bowing their heads; so he commanded them to
rise, crying, 'Search ye the earth and its confines, and bring hither
tidings of the Genie Karaz.'

They said, 'To hear is to obey.'

Then they began to circle each round the other, circling more and more
sharply till beyond the stretch of sight, and Shibli Bagarag said to
Feshnavat, 'Am I not awake, O Feshnavat? I will know where is Karaz ere I
seek to operate on Shagpat, for it is well spoken of the poet:

"Obstructions first remove
Ere thou thy cunning prove";

and I will encounter this Karaz that was our Ass, ere I try the great
shave.'

Then said he, turning quickly, 'Yonder is the light from Aklis striking
on the city, 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