The Shaving of Shagpat, George Meredith [popular e readers TXT] 📗

steps, and passed through the halls as one familiar with them. Now, when they were all assembled in the anteroom of the hall, where Shibli Bagarag had first seen the seven youths, sons of Aklis, in their jollity, one of them said to the Antelope, “We have need of thee to speak a word with Aklis, O our sister!”

So the same youth requested the use of the phial of Paravid, and Shibli Bagarag applied it carefully, tenderly, to the mouth of the Antelope. Then the Antelope spake in a silver-ringing voice, saying, “What is it, O my brothers?”

They answered, “Thou knowest we dare not attempt interchange of speech with Aklis, seeing that we disobeyed him in visiting the kingdoms of the Earth: so it is for thee to question him as to the object of this youth, and it is the Shaving of Shagpat.”

So she said, “ ’Tis well; I wot of it.”

Then she advanced to the curtain concealing the abyss of the Roc and the bridge of its eggs, and went behind it. There was a pause, and they heard her say presently in a grave voice, toned with reverence, “How is it, O our father? is it a good thing that thy Sword be in use at this season?”

And they heard the Voice answer from a depth, “ ’Twere well it rust not!”

They heard her say, “O our father Aklis, and we wish to know if be held in favour by thee, and thou sanction it with thy Sword.”

And they heard the Voice answer, “The Shaving of Shagpat is my Sword alone equal to, and he that shaveth him performeth a service to mankind ranking next my vanquishing of the Roc.”

Then they heard her say, “And it is thy will we teach him the mysteries of the Sword, and that which may be done with it?”

And they heard the Voice answer, “Even so!”

After that the Voice was still, and soon the Antelope returned from behind the curtain, and the youths caressed her with brotherly caresses, and took a circle of hands about her, and so moved to the great hall of the gorgeous Tree, and fed her from the branches. Now, while they were there, Shibli Bagarag advanced to the Antelope, and knelt at her feet, and said, “O Princess of Aklis, surely I am betrothed to one constant as a fixed star, and brighter; a mistress of magic, and innocent as the bleating lamb; and she is now on a pillar, chained there, in the midst of the white wrathful sea, wailing for me to deliver her with this Sword of my seeking. So, now, I pray thee help me to the Sword swiftly, that I may deliver her.”

The youths, her brothers, clamoured and interposed, saying, “Take thy shape ere that, O Gulrevaz, our sister!”

But she cried, “He is betrothed! not till he graspeth the Sword. Tell him, the youth, our conditions, and for what exchange the Sword is yielded.”

And they said, “The conditions are, thou part with thy spells, all of them, O youth!”

And he said, “There is no condition harsh that exchangeth the Sword; O ye Seven, I agree!”

Then she said, “ ’Tis well! nobility is in the soul of this youth. Go before us now to the Cave of Chrysolites, O my brothers.”

So these departed before, and she in her antelope form followed footing gracefully, and made Shibli Bagarag repeat the story of his betrothal as they went.

The Sword of Aklis

Now, when they had made the passage of many halls, built of different woods, filled with diverse wonders, they descended a sloping vault, and came to a narrow way in the earth, hung with black, at the end of it a stedfast blaze like a sun, that grew larger as they advanced, and they heard the sea above them. The noise of it, and its plunging and weltering and its pitilessness, struck on the heart of Shibli Bagarag as with a blow, and he cried, “Haste, haste, O Princess! perchance she is even now calling to me with her tongue, and I not aiding her; delayed by the temptation of this crown and the guile of the Brides.”

She checked him, and said, “In Aklis no haste!” Then she said, “Look!” And lo, fronting them the single blaze became two fires; and drawing nigh, Shibli Bagarag beheld them what they were, angry eyes in the head of a great lion, a model of majesty, and passion was in his mane and power was in his forepaws; so while he lashed his tail as a tempest whippeth the tawny billows at night, and was lifting himself for a roar, she said, “A hair of Garraveen, and touch him with it!”

Shibli Bagarag pushed up his sleeve and broke one of the three sapphire hairs and stepped forward to the lion, holding in his right hand the hair of vivid light. The lion crouched, and was in the vigour of the spring when that hair touched him, and he trembled, tumbling on his knees and letting the twain pass. So they advanced beyond him, and lo! the Cave of Chrysolites irradiate with beams, breaks of brilliance, confluences of lively hues, restless rays, meeting, vanishing, flooding splendours, now scattered in dazzling joints and spars, now uniting in momentary disks of radiance. In the centre of the cave glowed a furnace, and round it he distinguished the seven youths, swarthier and sterner than before, dark sweat standing on the brows of each. Their words were brief, and they wore each a terrible frown, saying to him, without further salutation, “Thrust in the flame of this furnace thy right wrist.”

At the same moment, the Antelope said in his ear, “Do thou their bidding, and be not backward! In Aklis fear is ruin, and hesitation a destroyer.”

He fixed his mind on the devotedness of Noorna, and held his nether lip tightly between his teeth, and thrust his right wrist in the flame of the furnace. The wrist reddened, and became