So he flung some drops from the phial over the letters, and they glowed
the colour of blood and flashed with a report, and it was as if a fiery
forked-tongue had darted before them and spake the words written, and
they were, 'This is the crown of him who bath achieved his aim and
resteth here.' Thereupon, she stuck the needle in the door, and he pulled
the thread, and the door drew apart, and lo! a small chamber, and on a
raised cushion of blue satin a glittering crown, thick with jewels as a
frost, such as Ambition pineth to wear, and the knees of men weaken and
bend beholding, and it lanced lights about it like a living sun. Beside
the cushion was a vacant throne, radiant as morning in the East, ablaze
with devices in gold and gems, a seat to fill the meanest soul with
sensations of majesty and tempt dervishes to the sitting posture. Shibli
Bagarag was intoxicated at the sight, and he thought, 'Wah! but if I sit
on this throne and am a king, with that crown I can command men and
things! and I have but to say, Fetch Noorna, my betrothed, from yonder
pillar in the midst of the uproarious sea!--Let the hairy Shagpat be
shaved! and behold, slaves, thousands of them, do my bidding! Wullahy,
this is greatness!' Now, he made a rush to the throne, but the damsels
held him back, crying, 'Not for thy life till we have crowned thee, our
master and lord!'
Then they took the crown and crowned him with it; and he sat upon the
throne calmly, serenely, like a Sultan of the great race accustomed to
sovereignty, tempering the awfulness of his brows with benignant glances.
So, while he sat the damsels hid their faces and started some paces from
him, as unable to bear the splendour of his presence, and in a moment,
lo! the door closed between him and them, and he was in darkness. Then he
heard a voice of the damsels cry in the hall, 'The ninety and ninth!
Peace now for us and blissfulness with our lords, for now all are filled
save the door of the Sword, which maketh the hundredth.' After that he
heard the same voice say, 'Leave them, O my sisters!'
So he listened to the noise of their departing, and knew he had been
duped. Surely his soul cursed him as he sat crowned and throned in that
darkness! He seized the crown to dash it to the earth, but the crown was
fixed on his forehead and would not come off; neither had he force to
rise from the throne. Now, the thought of Noorna, his betrothed, where
she rested waiting for him to deliver her, filled Shibli Bagarag with the
extremes of anguish; and he lifted his right arm and dashed it above his
head in the violence of his grief, striking in the motion a hidden gong
that gave forth a burst of thunder and a roll of bellowings, and lo! the
door opened before him, and the throne as he sat on it moved out of the
chamber into the hall where he had seen the damsels that duped him, and
on every side of the hall doors opened; and he marvelled to see men, old
and young, beardless and venerable, sitting upon thrones and crowned with
crowns, motionless, with eyes like stones in the recesses. He thought,
'These be other dupes! Wallaby! a drop of the waters of Paravid upon
their lips might reveal mysteries, and guide me to the Sword of my
seeking.' So, as he considered how to get at them from the seat of his
throne, his gaze fell on a mirror, and he beheld the crown on his
forehead what it was, bejewelled asses' ears stiffened upright, and
skulls of monkeys grinning with gems! The sight of that crowning his head
convulsed Shibli Bagarag with laughter, and, as he laughed, his seat upon
the throne was loosened, and he pitched from it, but the crown stuck to
him and was tenacious of its hold as the lion that pounceth upon a
victim. He bowed to the burden of necessity, and took the phial, and
touched the lips of one that sat crowned on a throne with the waters in
the phial; and it was a man of exceeding age, whitened with time, and in
the long sweep of his beard like a mountain clad with snow from the peak
that is in the sky to the base that slopeth to the valley. Then he
addressed the old man on his throne, saying, 'Tell me, O King! how camest
thou here? and in search of what?'
The old man's lips moved, and he muttered in deep tones, 'When cometh he
of the ninety-and-ninth door?'