Page:The Shaving of Shagpat (1856).djvu/193

Rh that they possess! Strong are they! He that punisheth the innocent is but an instrument to exalt them, scourged for his pains."

Now while the King was lost in self-abasement, the Voice said, "Know, great King, that the restlessness of an uncompleted work is on the tomb of Rumdrum the barber, and if thou wouldst appease him, call hither one to shave thee, and lay upon his tomb the hairs of thy head."

So the King did this, and was shaved and laid the hairs upon the tomb. Then the Voice said, "O King, the calculations of Rumdrum were cut short, and in the tomb he cannot take them up, for no science availeth in the tomb, as is written:

Now he calculated thy nativity, and was summing the number of thy hairs when he was torn from thee, and the thing he would have foretold is dumb; so if thou wouldst know it, set thyself to count the number of thy hairs upon this tomb diligently, counting two for the hair of fortune, which is the Identical. And cease not to count, for when thou holdest off from counting it is the end of thy days."

So the King saw what he had lost in Rumdrum the barber, for he knew not the Identical, which is the hair of fortune, to count two for it; and his days were given to the counting these hairs upon the tomb,