e vestments of
each there was another pouring of the liquid lights. Then he with the
buffalo's head bade Shibli Bagarag help himself from the falls; but
Shibli Bagarag refused, for his soul was with Noorna, his betrothed; and
he saw her pale on that solitary pillar in the tumult of the sea, and
knew her safety depended on his faithfulness.

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
Bagarag, and desire to shear Shagpat was as a mighty overwhelming wave in
his bosom, and he sho