Wondrous are the decrees of Providence! Praise be to Allah for them! So
the Genie, when he found himself baffled by me, and Shagpat with the
mighty hair in his head, the Identical, he yelled, and fetched Shagpat a
slap that sent him into the middle of the street; but Kadza screamed
after him, and there was immediately such lamentation in the city about
Shagpat, and such tearing of hair about him, that I perceived at once the
virtue that was in the Identical. As for Karaz, finding his claim as
possessor of the Identical no more valid, he vanished, and has been my
rebellious slave since, till thou, O my betrothed, mad'st me spend him in
curing thy folly on the horse Garraveen, and he escaped from my circles
beyond the dominion of the Ring; yet had he his revenge, for I that was
keeper of the Lily, had, I now learned ruefully, a bond of beauty with
it, and whatever was a stain to one withered the other. Then that
sorceress Goorelka stole my beauty from me by sprinkling a blight on the
petals of the fair flower, and I became as thou first saw'st me. But
what am I as I now am? Blissful! blissful! Surely I grew humble with
the loss of beauty, and by humility wise, so that I assisted Feshnavat to
become Vizier by the Ring, and watched for thy coming to shave Shagpat,
as a star watcheth; for 'tis written, 'A barber alone shall be shearer of
the Identical'; and he only, my betrothed, hath power to plant it in
Aklis, where it groweth as a pillar, bringing due reverence to Aklis.






THE WILES OF RABESQURAT

Now, when Noorna bin Noorka had made an end of her narration, she folded