the builder.  There would have been no end to it known; but the King rose and commenced plucking his beard and his hair,—­they likewise in silence.  When he had performed this ceremony a space, the King called, and a basin of water was brought to him, and handed round by slaves, and all dipped in it their hands, and renewed their countenances and re-arranged their limbs; and the Hall brightened with the eye of the King, and he cried, ’O people, lo, the plot is revealed to me, and ’tis a deep one; but, by this beard, we’ll strike at the root of it, and a blow of deadliness.  Surely we have humiliated ourselves, and vengeance is ours!  How say ye?’

A noise like the first sullen growl of a vexed wild beast which telleth that fury is fast travelling and the teeth will flash, followed these words; and the King called to his soldiers of the guard, ’Ho! forth with this wretch that dared defile Shagpat, the holy one! and on your heads be it to fetch hither Feshnavat, the son of Feil, that was my Vizier, he that was envious of Shagpat, and whom we spared in our clemency.’

Some of the guard went from the Hall to fulfil the King’s injunction on Feshnavat, others thrust forth Baba Mustapha in the eyes of the King.  Baba Mustapha was quaking as a frog quaketh for water, and he trembled and was a tongueless creature deserted of his lower limbs, and with eyeballs goggling, through exceeding terror.  Now, when the King saw him, he contracted his brows as one that peereth on a small and minute object, crying, ’How! is’t such as he, this monster of audaciousness and horrible presumption?  Truly ’tis said: 

     “For ruin and the deeds preluding change,
     Fear not great Beasts, nor Eagles when they range: 
     But dread the crawling worm or pismire mean,
     Satan selects them, for they are unseen.”

And this wretch is even of that sort, the select of Satan!  Off with the top of the reptile, and away with him!’

Now, at the issue of the mandate Baba Mustapha choked, and horror blocked the throat of confession in him, so that he did nought save stagger imploringly; but the prompting of Noorna sent Kadza to the foot of the throne, and Kadza bent her body and exclaimed, ’O King of the age! ’tis Kadza, the espoused of Shagpat thy servant, that speaketh; and lo! a wise woman has said in my ear, “How if this emissary and instrument of the Evil One, this barber, this filthy fellow, be made to essay on Shagpat before the people his science and his malice? for ’tis certain that Shagpat is surrounded where he sitteth by Genii invisible, defended by them, and no harm can hap to him, but an illumination of glory and triumph manifest”:  and for this barber, his punishment can afterwards be looked to, O great King!’

The King mused awhile and sank in his beard.  Then said he to them that had hold of Baba Mustapha watching for the signal, ’I have thought over it, and the means of bringing double honour on the head of Shagpat.  So release this fellow, and put in his hands the tackle taken from him.’