The Shaving of Shagpat; an Arabian entertainment — Complete

by George Meredith

  THE VEILED FIGURE

  Verily there was lightning in Aklis as Shibli Bagarag flashed the Swordover the clamouring beasts: the shape of the great palace stood forthvividly, and a wide illumination struck up the streams, and gilded thelarge hanging leaves, and drew the hills glimmeringly together, andscattered fires on the flat faces of the rocks. Then the seven youthssaid quickly, 'Away! out of Aklis, O Master of the Event! from city tocity of earth this light is visible, and men will know that Fate is intravail, and an Event preparing for them, and Shagpat will be warned bythe portent; wherefore lose not the happy point of time on which thy staris manifest.' And they cried again, 'Away! out of Aklis!' with gesturesof impatience, urging his departure.

  Then said he, 'O youths, Sons of Aklis, it is written that gratitude isthe poor man's mine of wealth, and the rich man's flower of beauty; and Ihave but that to give ye for all this aid and friendliness of yours.'

  But they exclaimed, 'No aid or friendliness in Aklis! By the gall of theRoc! it is well for thee thou camest armed with potent spells, and hadstone to advise and inspirit thee, or thou wouldst have stayed here topeople Aklis, and grazed in a strange shape.'

  Now, the seven waxed in impatience, and he laid their hands upon his headand moved from them with Abarak, to where in the dusk the elephant thathad brought them stood. Then the elephant kneeled and took the twain uponhis back, and bore them across the dark land to that reach of the riverwhere the boat was moored in readiness. They entered the boat silentlyamong its drapery of lotuses, and the Veiled Figure ferried them over thestream that rippled not with their motion. As they were crossing, desireto know that Veiled Figure counselled Shibli Bagarag evilly to draw theSword again, and flash it, so that the veil became transparent. Then,when Abarak turned to him for the reason of the flashing of the Sword, hebeheld the eyes of the youth fixed in horror, glaring as at sights beyondthe tomb. He said nought, but as the boat's-head whispered among thereeds and long flowers of the opposite marge, he took Shibli Bagarag bythe shoulders and pushed him out of the boat, and leaped out likewise,leading him from the marge forcibly, hurrying him forward from it, he atthe heels of the youth propelling him; and crying in out-of-breath voiceat intervals, 'What sight? what sight?' But the youth was powerless ofspeech, and when at last he opened his lips, the little man shrank fromhim, for he laughed as do the insane, a peal of laughter ended by gasps;then a louder peal, presently softer; then a peal that started all theechoes in Aklis. After awhile, as Abarak still cried in his ear, 'Whatsight?' he looked at him with a large eye, saying querulously, 'Is itwritten I shall be pushed by the shoulder through life? And is it in thepursuit of further thwackings?'

  Abarak heeded him not, crying still, 'What sight?' and Shibli Bagaraglowered his tone, and jerked his body, pronouncing the name 'Rabesqurat!'Then Abarak exclaimed, ''Tis as I weened. Oh, fool! to flash the Swordand peer through the veil! Truly, there be few wits will bear thatsight!' On a sudden he cried, 'No cure but one, and that a sleep in thebosom of the betrothed!'

  Thereupon he hurried the youth yet faster across the dark lawns of Aklistoward the passage of the Seventh Pillar, by which the twain had enteredthat kingdom. And Shibli Bagarag saw as in a dream the shattered door,shattered by the bar, remembering dimly as a thing distant in years thenetting of the Queen, and Noorna chained upon the pillar; he rememberedShagpat even vacantly in his mind, as one sheaf of barley amid othersheaves of the bearded field, so was he overcome by the awfulness of thatsight behind the veil of the Veiled Figure!

  As they advanced to the passage, he was aware of an impediment to itsentrance, as it had been a wall of stone there; and seeing Abarak enterthe passage without let, he kicked hard in front at the invisibleobstruction, but there was no coming by. Abarak returned to him, and tookhis right arm, and raised the sleeve from his wrist, and lo, the tworemaining hairs of Garraveen twisted round it in sapphire winds. Criedhe, 'Oh, the generosity of Gulrevaz! she has left these two hairs that hemay accomplish swiftly the destiny marked for him! but now, since hisgazing through that veil, he must part with them to get out of Aklis.'And he muttered, 'His star is a strange one! one that leadeth him tofortune by the path of frowns! to greatness by the aid of thwackings!Truly the ways of Allah are wonderful!' Shibli Bagarag resisted him innothing, and Abarak loosed the two bright hairs from his wrist, and thosetwo hairs swelled and took glittering scales, and were sapphire snakeswith wings of intense emerald; and they rose in the air spirallytogether, each over each, so that to see them one would fancy in thedarkness a fountain of sapphire waters flashed with the sheen of emerald.When they had reached a height loftier than the topmost palace-towers ofAklis, they descended like javelins into the earth, and in a momentre-appeared, in the shape of Genii when they are charitably disposed tothem they visit; not much above the mortal size, nor overbright, save fora certain fire in their eyes when they turned them; and they were clothedeach from head to foot in an armour of sapphire plates shot with steelyemerald. Surely the dragon-fly that darteth all day in the blaze overpools is like what they were. Abarak bit his forefinger and said, 'Who beye, O sons of brilliance?'

  They answered, 'Karavejis and Veejravoosh, slaves of the Sword.'

  Then he said, 'Come with us now, O slaves of the Sword, and help us tothe mountain of outer Aklis.'

  They answered, 'O thou, there be but two means for us of quitting Aklis:on the wrist of the Master, or down the blade of the Sword! and from thewrist of the Master we have been loosed, and no one of thy race can tieus to it again.'

  Abarak said, 'How then shall the Master leave Aklis?'

  They answered, 'By Allah in Aklis! he can carve a way whither he willwith the Sword.'

  But Abarak cried, 'O Karavejis and Veejravoosh! he bath peered throughthe veil of the Ferrying Figure.'

  Now, when they heard his words, the visages of the Genii darkened, andthey exclaimed sorrowfully, 'Serve we such a one?'

  And they looked at Shibli Bagarag a look of anger, so that he, whose witswere in past occurrences, imagined them his enemy and the foe of Noornasplit in two, crying, 'How? Is Karaz a couple? and do I multiply him withstrokes of the Sword?'

  Thereupon he drew the Sword from his girdle in wrath, flourishing it; andKaravejis and Veejravoosh felt the might of the Sword, and prostratedthemselves to the ground at his feet. And Abarak said, 'Arise, and bringus swiftly to the mountain of outer Aklis.'

  Then said they, 'Seek a passage down yonder brook in the moonbeams; andit is the sole passage for him now.'

  Abarak went with them to the brook that was making watery music to itselfbetween banks of splintered rock and over broad slabs of marble, bubblinghere and there about the roots of large-leaved water-flowers, andcatching the mirrored moon of Aklis in whirls, breaking it in lances.Then they waded into the water knee-deep, and the two Genii seized holdof a great slab of marble in the middle of the water, and under was ahollow brimmed with the brook, that the brook partly filled and flowedover. Then the Genii said to Abarak, 'Plunge!' and they said the same toShibli Bagarag. The swayer of the Sword replied, as it had been a simpleoccasion, a common matter, and a thing for the exercise of civility,'With pleasure and all willingness!' Thereupon he tightened his girth,and arrowing his two hands, flung up his heels and disappeared in thedepths, Abarak following. Surely, those two went diving downward till itseemed to each there was no bottom in the depth, and they would not ceaseto feel the rushing of the water in their ears till the time anticipatedby mortals.