Page:The Shaving of Shagpat.djvu/314

294 own hand, bestowed on the good old warrior the dress of honour presented to him by the Seven Sons, charactered with all the mysteries of Aklis, a marvel lost to men in the failure to master the Illusion now dominating earth.

So, then, of all that had worshipped Shagpat, only Kadza clung to him, and she departed with him into the realms of Rabesqurat, who reigned there, divided against herself by the stroke of the Sword. The Queen is no longer mighty, for the widening of her power has weakened it, she being now the mistress of the single-thoughted, and them that follow one idea to the exclusion of a second. The failure in the unveiling of her last-cherished Illusion was in the succumbing frailty of him that undertook the task, the world and its wise men having come to the belief that in thwackings there was ignominy to the soul of man, and a tarnish on the lustre of heroes. On that score, hear the words of the poet, a vain protest:


 * Ye that nourish hopes of fame!
 * Ye who would be known in song!

Ponder old history, and duly frame Your souls to meek acceptance of the thong.


 * Lo! of hundreds who aspire,
 * Eighties perish—nineties tire!

They who bear up, in spite of wrecks and wracks, Were season'd by celestial hail of thwacks.


 * Fortune in this mortal race
 * Builds on thwackings for its base;

Thus the All-Wise doth make a flail a staff, And separates his heavenly corn from chaff.


 * Think ye, had he never known
 * Noorna a belabouring crone,

Shibli Bagarag would have shaved Shagpát? The unthwack'd lives in chronicle a rat!