Then he lifted his arms, crying, 'Hie out of my presence! and whoso of ye
fetcheth a drop of the gall, with that one will I exchange the crown.'
At these words some moved hastily, but the most faltered, as doubting and
incredulous that he would propose such an exchange; and one, an old
monkey, sat down and crossed his legs, and made a study of Shibli
Bagarag, as of a sovereign that held forth a deceiving bargain. But he
cried again, 'Hie and haste! as my head is now cased I think it not the
honoured part.'
Then the old monkey arose with a puzzled look, half scornful, and made
for the door slowly, turning his head toward Shibli Bagarag betweenwhiles
as he went, and scratching his lower limbs with the mute reflectiveness
of age and extreme caution.
Now, when they were gone, Shibli Bagarag looked in the eyes of the seven
youths, and saw they were content with him, and his countenance was
brightened with approval. So he descended from his seat, and went with
them from the hall of ebony to a court where horses were waiting saddled,
and slaves with hawks on their wrists stood in readiness; and they
mounted each a horse, but he loitered. The seven youths divined his
feeling, and cried impatiently, 'Come! no lingering in Aklis!' So he
mounted likewise, and they emerged from the palace, and entered the hills
that glowed under the copper sun, and started a milk-white antelope with
ruby spots, and chased it from its cover over the sand-hills, a hawk
being let loose to worry it and distress its timid beaming eyes. When the
creature was quite overcome, one of the youths struck his heel into his
horse's side and flung a noose over the head of the quarry, and drew it
with them, gently petting it the way home to the palace. At the gates of
the palace it was released, and lo! it went up the 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.'