Upon that the voice said, 'Enter by virtue of the spells!' and the silver
door swung open, discovering a deep pit, lightened by a torch, and across
it, bridging it, a string of enormous eggs, rocs' eggs, hollowed, and so
large that a man might walk through them without stooping. At the side of
each egg three lamps were suspended from a claw, and the shell passage
was illumined with them from end to end. Shibli Bagarag thought, 'These
eggs are of a surety the eggs of the Roc mastered by Aklis with his
sword!' Now, as the sight of Shibli Bagarag grew familiar to the place,
he beheld at the bottom of the pit a fluttering mass of blackness and two
sickly eyes that glittered below.
Then thought he, 'Wah! if that be the Roc, and it not dead, will the bird
suffer one to defile its eggs with other than the sole of the foot,
naked?' He undid his sandals and kicked off the slippers given him by the
damsels that had duped him, and went into the first egg over the abyss,
and into the second, and into the third, and into the fourth, and into
the fifth. Surely the eggs swung with him, and bent; and the fear of
their breaking and he falling into the maw of the terrible bird made him
walk unevenly. When he had come to the seventh egg, which was the last,
it shook and swung violently, and he heard underneath the flapping of the
wings of the Roc, as with eagerness expecting a victim to prey upon. He
sustained his soul with the firmness of resolve and darted himself
lengthwise to the landing, clutching a hold with his right hand; as he
did so, the bridge of eggs broke, and he heard the feathers of the bird
in agitation, and the bird screaming a scream of disappointment as he
scrambled up the sides of the pit.
Now, Shibli Bagarag failed not to perform two prostrations to Allah, and
raised the song of gratitude for his preservation when he found himself
in safety. Then he looked up, and lo! behind a curtain, steps leading to
an anteroom, and beyond that a chamber like the chamber of kings where
they sit in state dispensing judgements, like the sun at noon in
splendour; and in the chamber seven youths, tall and comely young men,
calm as princes in their port, each one dressed in flowing robes, and
with a large glowing pearl in the front of their turbans. They advanced
to meet him, saying, 'Welcome to Aklis, thou that art proved worthy! 'Tis
holiday now with us'; and they took him by the hand and led him with them
in silence past fountain-jets and porphyry pillars to where a service
with refreshments was spread, meats, fowls with rice, sweetmeats,
preserves, palateable mixtures, and monuments of the cook's art, goblets
of wine like liquid rubies. Then one of the youths said to Shibli
Bagarag, 'Thou hast come to us crowned, O our guest! Now, it is not our
custom to pay homage, but thou shalt presently behold them that will, so
let not thy kingliness droop with us, but feast royally.'
And Shibli Bagarag said, 'O my princes, surely it is a silly matter to
crown a mouse! Humility hath depressed my stature! Wullahy, I have had
warning in the sticking of this crown to my brows, and it sticketh like
an abomination.'
They laughed at him, saying, 'It was the heaviness of that crown which
overweighted thee in the bridge of the abyss, and few be they that bear
it and go not to feed the Roc.'
Now, they feasted together, interchanging civilities, offering to each
other choice morsels, dainties. And the anecdotes of Shibli Bagarag, his
simplicity and his honesty, and his vanity and his airiness, and the
betraying tongue of the barber, diverted the youths; and they plied him
with old wine till his stores of merriment broke forth and were as a
river swollen by torrents of the mountain; and the seven youths laughed
at him, spluttering with laughter, lurching with it. Surely, he described
to them the loquacity of Baba Mustapha his uncle, and they laughed so
that their chins were uppermost; but at his mention of Shagpat greater
gravity was theirs, and they smoothed their faces solemnly, and the sun
of their merriment was darkened for awhile. Then they took to flinging
about pellets of a sugared preparation, and reciting verses in praise of
jovial living, challenging to drink this one and that one, passing the
cup with a stanza. Shibli Bagarag thought, 'What a life is this led by
these youths! a fair one! 'Tis they that be the sons of Aklis who sharpen
the Sword of Events; yet live they in jollity, skimming from the
profusion of abundance that which floateth!'
Now, marking him contemplative, one of the youths shouted, 'The King
lacketh homage!'