my mistress?'

Said Noorna, 'Even so.'

Luloo muttered, 'Great is the Dispenser of our fates!'

And she spake no further, but sighed and took napkins and summoned the
slave-girls, and arrayed Noorna silently in the robe of blue and bridal
ornaments. Then Noorna said to them that thronged about her, 'Put on,
each of ye, a robe of white, ye that are maidens, and a fillet of blue,
and a sash of saffron, and abide my coming.'

And she said to Luloo, 'Array thyself in a robe of blue, even as mine,
and let trinkets lurk in thy tresses, and abide my coming.'

Then went she forth from them, and veiled her head and swathed her figure
in raiment of a coarse white stuff, and was as the moon going behind a
hill of dusky snow; and she left the house, and passed along the streets
and by the palaces, till she came to the palace of her father, now filled
by Shagpat. Before the palace grouped a great concourse and a multitude
of all ages and either sex in that city, despite the blaze and the heat.
Like roaring of a sea beyond the mountains was the noise that issued from
them, and their eyes were a fire of beams against the portal of the
palace. Now, she saw in the crowd one Shafrac, a shoemaker, and
addressed him, saying, 'O Shafrac, the shoemaker, what's this assembly
and how got together? for the poet says:

"Ye string not such assemblies in the street,
Save when some high Event should be complete."'

He answered, ''Tis an Event complete. Wullahy! the deputation from Shiraz
to Shagpat, and the submission of that vain city to the might of
Shagpat.' And he asked her, jestingly, 'Art thou a witch, to guess that,
O veiled and virtuous one?'

Quoth she, 'I read the thing that cometh ere 'tis come, and I read danger
to Shagpat in this deputation from Shiraz, and this dish of pomegranate
grain.'

So Shafrac cried, 'By the beard of my fathers and that of Shagpat! let's
speak of this to Zeel, the garlic-seller.'

He broadened to one that was by him, and said, 'O Zeel, what's thy mind?
Here's a woman, a wise woman, a witch, and she sees danger to Shagpat in
this deputation from Shiraz and this dish of pomegranate grain.'

Now, Zeel screwed his visage and gazed up into his forehead, and said,
''Twere best to consult with Bootlbac, the drum-beater.'

The two then called to Bootlbac, the drum-beater, and told him the
matter, and Bootlbac pondered, and tapped his brow and beat on his
stomach, and said, 'Krooz el Krazawik, th