I whispered in his hairy pointed red ear, 'Sleep! sleep!' and lulled him
with a song, and he slept, being weary with my commissioning. Then I
bade Feshnavat, my father, fetch me one of my books of magic, and read in
it of the discovery of the Identical by means of the Ring; and I took the
Ring and hung it on a hair of my own head over the head of the Genie, and
saw one of the thin lengths begin to twist and dart and writhe, and shift
lustres as a creature in anguish. So I put the Ring on my forefinger,
and turned the hair round and round it, and tugged. Lo, with a noise
that stunned me, the hair came out! O my betrothed, what shrieks and
roars were those: with which the Genie awoke, finding himself bare of the
Identical! Oolb heard them, and the sea foamed like the mouth of
madness, as the Genie sped thunder-like over it, following me in mid-air.
Such a flight was that! Now, I found it not possible to hold the
Identical, for it twisted and stung, and was nigh slipping from me while
I flew. I saw white on a corner of the Desert, a city, and I descended
on it by the shop of a clothier that sat quietly by his goods and stuffs,
thinking of fate less than of kabobs and stews and rare seasonings. That
city hath now his name. Wullahy, had I not then sown in his head that
hair which he weareth yet, how had I escaped Karaz, and met thee?
Wondrous are the decrees of Providence! Praise be to Allah for them! So
the Genie, when he found himself baffled by me, and Shagpat with the
mighty hair in his head, the Identical, he yelled, and fetched Shagpat a
slap that sent him into the middle of the street; but Kadza screamed
after him, and there was immediately such lamentation in the city about
Shagpat, and such tearing of hair about him, that I perceived at once the
virtue that was in the Identical. As for Karaz, finding his claim as
possessor of the Identical no more valid, he vanished, and has been my
rebellious slave since, till thou, O my betrothed, mad'st me spend him in
curing thy folly on the horse Garraveen, and he escaped from my circles
beyond the dominion of the Ring; yet had he his revenge, for I that was
keeper of the Lily, had, I now learned ruefully, a bond of beauty with
it, and whatever was a stain to one withered the other. Then that
sorceress Goorelka stole my beauty from me by sprinkling a blight on the
petals of the fair flower, and I became as thou first saw'st me. But
what am I as I now am? Blissful! blissful! Surely I grew humble with
the loss of beauty, and by humility wise, so that I assisted Feshnavat to
become Vizier by the Ring, and watched for thy coming to shave Shagpat,
as a star watcheth; for 'tis written, 'A barber alone shall be shearer of
the Identical'; and he only, my betrothed, hath power to plant it in
Aklis, where it groweth as a pillar, bringing due reverence to Aklis.