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

O Kadza! and I say it; there’s danger threateneth him, and from that deputation and that dish of pomegranate grain.”

Now, Kadza laughed a loose laugh, and jeered at Noorna, crying, “Danger to Shagpat! he that’s attended by genii, and watched over by the greatest of them, day and night incessantly?”

And Noorna said, “I ask pardon of the Power that seeth, and of thee, if I be wrong. Wah! am I not also of them that watch over Shagpat? So then let thou and I go into the palace and examine the doings of this deputation and this dish of pomegranate grain.”

Now, Kadza remembered the scene on the roofs of the Vizier Feshnavat, and relaxed in her look of suspicion, and said, “ ’Tis well! Let’s in to them.”

Thereupon the twain threaded through the crowd and locked at the portals of the palace, and it was opened to them and they entered, and lo! the hand that opened the portals was the hand of a slave of the Sword, and against corners of the Court leaned slaves silly with slumber. So Kadza went up to them, and beat them, and shook them, and they yawned and mumbled, “Excellent grain! good grain! the grain of Shiraz!” And she beat them with what might was hers, till some fell sideways and some forward, still mumbling, “Excellent pomegranate grain!” Kadza was beside herself with anger and vexation at them, tearing them and cuffing them; but Noorna cried, “O Kadza! what said I? there’s danger to Shagpat in this dish of pomegranate grain! and what’s that saying:

“ ‘ ’Tis much against the Master’s wish
That slaves too greatly praise his dish.’

“Wullahy! I like not this talk of the grain of Shiraz.”

Now, while Noorna spake, the eyes of Kadza became like those of the starved wildcat, and she sprang off and along the marble of the Court, and clawed a passage through the air and past the marble pillars of the palace toward the first room of reception, Noorna following her. And in the first room were slaves leaning and lolling like them about the Court, and in the second room and in the third room, silent all of them and senseless. So at this sight the spark of suspicion became a mighty flame in the bosom of Kadza, and horror burst out at all ends of her, and she shuddered, and cried, “What for us, and where’s our hope if Shagpat be shorn, and he lopped of the Identical, shamed like the lion of my dream!”

And Noorna clasped her hands, and said, “ ’Tis that I fear! Seek for him, O Kadza!”

So Kadza ran to a window and looked forth over the garden of the palace, and it was a fair garden with the gleam of a fountain and watered plants and cool arches of shade, thick bowers, fragrant alleys, long sheltered terraces, and beyond the garden a summerhouse of marble fanned by the broad leaves of a palm. Now, when Kadza had gazed a moment, she shrieked, “He’s there! Shagpat! giveth he not the light of a jewel to the house that holdeth him? Awahy! and he’s witched there for an ill purpose.”

Then tore she from that room like a mad wild thing after its stolen cubs, and sped along corridors of the palace, and down the great flight of steps into the garden and across the garden, knocking over the ablution-pots in her haste; and Noorna had just strength to withhold her from dashing through the doors of the summerhouse to come upon Shagpat, she straining and crying, “He’s there, I say, O wise woman! Shagpat! let’s into him.”

But Noorna clung to her, and spake in her ear, “Wilt thou blow the fire that menaces him, O Kadza? and what are two women against the assailants of such a mighty one as he?” Then said she, “Watch, rather, and avail thyself of yonder window by the blue-painted pillar.”

So Kadza crept up to the blue-painted pillar which was on the right side of the porch, and the twain peered through the window. Noorna beheld the Dish of Pomegranate Grain; and it was on the floor, empty of the grain, and Baba Mustapha was by it alone making a lather, and he was twitching his mouth and his legs, and flinging about his arms, and Noorna heard him mutter wrathfully, “O accursed flea! art thou at me again?” And she heard him mutter as in anguish, “No peace for thee, O pertinacious flea! and my steadiness of hand will be gone, now when I have him safe as the hawk his prey, mine enemy, this Shagpat that abused me: thou abominable flea! And, O thou flea, wilt thou, vile thing! hinder me from mastering the Event, and releasing this people and the world from enchantment and bondage? And shall I fail to become famous to the ages and the times because of such as thee, flea?”

So Kadza whispered to Noorna, “What’s that he’s muttering? Is’t of Shagpat? for I mark him not here, nor the light by which he’s girt.”

She answered, “Listen with the ear and the eye and all the senses.”

Now, presently they heard Baba Mustapha say in a louder tone, like one that is secure from interruption, “Two lathers, and this the third! a potent lather! and I wot there’s not a hair in this world resisteth the sweep of my blade over such a lather as⁠—Ah! flea of iniquity and abomination! what! am I doomed to thy torments?⁠—so let’s spread! Lo! this lather, is’t not the pride of Shiraz? and the polish and smoothness it sheddeth, is’t not roseate? my invention! as the poet says⁠—O accursed flea! now the knee-joint, now the kneecap, and ’tis but a hop for thee to the armpit. Fires of the pit without bottom seize thee! is no place sacred from thee, and art thou a restless soul, infernal flea? So then, peace awhile, and here’s for the third lather.”

While he was speaking Baba Mustapha advanced to