He cried, 'The Sword of Aklis! nought save the Sword!'

Now, at these words the fox-heads and the sheep-heads and the ass-heads
and the other heads of beasts were lifted up, and lo! they put their
hands to their ears, and tapped their foreheads with the finger of
reflection, as creatures seeking to bring to mind a serious matter. Then
the fountains rose higher, and flung jets of radiant jewels, and a
drenching spray of gems upon them, and new thirst aroused them to renew
their gulping of the falls, and a look of eagerness was even in the eyes
of the ass-heads and the silly sheep-heads; surely, Shibli Bagarag
laughed to see them! Now, when he had pressed his lips to recover his
sight from the dazzling of those wondrous fountains, he heard himself
again addressed by the title of King, and there was before him a lofty
cock with a man's head. So he resumed the majesty of his march, and
followed the fine-stepping cock into another hall, spacious, and clouded
with heavy scents and perfumes burning in censers and urns, musk, myrrh,
ambergris, and livelier odours, gladdening the nostril like wine, making
the soul reel as with a draught of the forbidden drink. Here, before a
feast that would prick the dead with appetite, were shapes of beasts with
heads of men, asses, elephants, bulls, horses, swine, foxes, river-
horses, dromedaries; and they ate and drank as do the famished with munch
and gurgle, clacking their lips joyfully. Shibli Bagarag remembered the
condition of his frame when first he looked upon the City of Shagpat, and
was incited to eat and accede to the invitation of the cock with the
man's head, and sit among these merry feeders and pickers of mouth-
watering morsels, when, with the City of Shagpat, lo! he had a vision of
Shagpat, hairier than at their interview, arrogant in hairiness; his head
remote in contemptuous waves and curls and frizzes, and bushy
protuberances of hair, lost in it, like an idolatrous temple in
impenetrable thickets. Then the yearning of the Barber seized Shibli