known how great a thing has been achieved, and a record for the
generations to come; choice is that historian destined to record it!'

Quoth he, looking eagerly at her, 'O Noorna, what is it in thy speech
affecteth me? Surely it infuseth the vigour of wine, old wine; and I
shiver with desire to shave Shagpat, and spin threads for the historian
to weave in order. I, wullahy! had but dry visions of the greatness
destined for me till now, my betrothed! Shall I master an Event in
shaving him, and be told of to future ages? By Allah and his Prophet
(praise be to that name!), this is greatness! Say, Noorna, hadst thou
foreknowledge of me and my coming to this city?'

So she said, 'I was on the roofs one night among the stars ere moonrise,
O my betrothed, and 'twas close on the rise of this very month's moon.
The star of our enemy, Shagpat, was large and red, mine as it were
menaced by its proximity, nigh swallowed in its haughty beams and the
steady overbearings of its effulgence. 'Twas so as it had long been,
when suddenly, lo! a star from the upper heaven that shot down between
them wildly, and my star took lustre from it; and the star of Shagpat
trembled like a ring on a tightened rope, and waved and flickered, and
seemed to come forward and to retire; and 'twas presently as a comet in
the sky, bright,--a tadpole, with large head and lengthy tail, in the
assembly of the planets. This I saw: and that the stranger star was
stationed by my star, shielding it, and that it drew nearer to my star,
and entered its circle, and that the two stars seemed mixing the
splendour that was theirs. Now, that sight amazed me, and my heart in
its beating quickened with the expectation of things approaching. Surely
I rendered praise, and pressed both hands on my bosom, and watched, and
behold! the comet, the illumined tadpole, was becoming restless beneath
the joint rays of the twain that were dominating him; and he diminished,