of fire to see him! Suddenly he desisted, and wiped the sweat from his
face. Then calling on the name of Allah, he gave a last keen cunning
sweep with the blade, and following that, the earth awfully quaked and
groaned, as if speaking in the abysmal tongue the Mastery of the Event to
all men. Aklis was revealed in burning beams as of a sun, and the
trouble of the air ceased, vapours slowly curling to the four quarters.
Shibli Bagarag had smitten clean through the Identical! Terribly had
Noorna and those that aided her been oppressed by the multitude of their
enemies; but, in a moment these melted away, and Karaz, together with the
scorpion that was Goorelka, vanished. Day was on the baldness of
Shagpat.






CONCLUSION

So was shaved Shagpat, the son of Shimpoor, the son of Shoolpi, the son
of Shullum, by Shibli Bagarag, of Shiraz, according to preordainment.

The chronicles relate, that no sooner had he mastered the Event, than men
on the instant perceived what illusion had beguiled them, and, in the
words of the poet,--

The blush with which their folly they confess
Is the first prize of his supreme success.

Even Bootlbac, the drum-beater, drummed in homage to him, and the four