myriads of our kind; and enter thou to him gaily, as to perform a
friendly office, one meriting thanks and gratulations, saying, ''I will
preserve thee the Identical!'' Now he'll at first feign not to understand
thee, dense of wit that he is! but mince not matters with him, perform
well thy operation, and thou wilt come to great things. What say I? 'tis
certain that when thou hast shaved Shagpat thou wilt have achieved the
greatest of things, and be most noteworthy of thy race, thou, Shibli
Bagarag, even thou! and thou wilt be Master of the Event, so named in
anecdotes and histories and records, to all succeeding generations.'

At her words the breast of Shibli Bagarag took in a great wind, and he
hung his head a moment to ponder them; and he thought, 'There's
provokingness in the speech of this old woman, and she's one that
instigateth keenly. She called me by my name! Heard I that? 'Tis a
mystery!' And he thought, 'Peradventure she is a Genie, one of an ill
tribe, and she's luring me to my perdition in this city! How if that be
so?' And again he thought, 'It cannot be! She's probably the Genie that
presided over my birth, and promised me dower of great things through the
mouths of the readers of planets.'

Now, when Shibli Bagarag had so deliberated, he lifted his sight, and lo,
the old woman was no longer before him! He stared, and rubbed his eyes,
but she was clean gone. Then ran he to the knolls and eminences that
were scattered about, to command a view, but she was nowhere visible. So
he thought, ''Twas a dream!' and he was composing himself to despair upon
the scant herbage of one of those knolls, when as he chanced to gaze down
the city below, he saw there a commotion and a crowd of people flocking
one way; he thought, ''Twas surely no dream? come not Genii, and go they
not, in the fashion of that old woman? I'll even descend on yonder city,
and try my tackle on Shagpat, inquiring for him, and if he is there, I