So, while he sat the damsels hid their faces and started some paces from
him, as unable to bear the splendour of his presence, and in a moment,
lo! the door closed between him and them, and he was in darkness. Then
he heard a voice of the damsels cry in the hall, 'The ninety and ninth!
Peace now for us and blissfulness with our lords, for now all are filled
save the door of the Sword, which maketh the hundredth.' After that he
heard the same voice say, 'Leave them, O my sisters!'

So he listened to the noise of their departing, and knew he had been
duped. Surely his soul cursed him as he sat crowned and throned in that
darkness! He seized the crown to dash it to the earth, but the crown was
fixed on his forehead and would not come off; neither had he force to
rise from the throne. Now, the thought of Noorna, his betrothed, where
she rested waiting for him to deliver her, filled Shibli Bagarag with the
extremes of anguish; and he lifted his right arm and dashed it above his
head in the violence of his grief, striking in the motion a hidden gong
that gave forth a burst of thunder and a roll of bellowings, and lo! the
door opened before him, and the throne as he sat on it moved out of the
chamber into the hall where he had seen the damsels that duped him, and
on every side of the hall doors opened; and he marvelled to see men, old
and young, beardless and venerable, sitting upon thrones and crowned with
crowns, motionless, with eyes like stones in the recesses. He thought,
'These be other dupes! Wallaby! a drop of the waters of Paravid upon
their lips might reveal mysteries, and guide me to the Sword of my
seeking.' So, as he considered how to get at them from the seat of his
throne, his gaze fell on a mirror, and he beheld the crown on his
forehead what it was, bejewelled asses' ears stiffened upright, and
skulls of monkeys grinning with gems! The sight of that crowning his
head convulsed Shibli Bagarag with laughter, and, as he laughed, his seat
upon the throne was loosened, and he pitched from it, but the crown stuck