their ascent of the heavens. When they were gone Noorna exclaimed, 'Now for the dish of pomegranate grain, O Baba Mustapha, and let nothing delay us further.'
Quoth Baba Mustapha, ''Tis ordered, O my princess and fair mistress, from the confectioner's; and with it the sleepy drug from the seller of medicaments—O accursed flea!'
Now, she laughed, and said, 'What am I, O Baba Mustapha?'
So he said, 'Not thou, O bright shooter of beams, but I, wullahy! I'm but a bundle of points through the pertinacity of this flea! a house of irritabilities! a mere mass of fretfulness! and I've no thought but for the chasing of this unlucky flea: was never flea like it in the world before this flea; and 'tis a flea to anger the holy ones, and make the saintly Dervish swear at such a flea.' He wriggled and curled where he sat, and Noorna cried, 'What! shall we be defeated by a flea, we that would shave Shagpat, and release this city and the world from bondage?' And she looked up to the sky that was then without a cloud, blazing with the sun on his mid seat, and exclaimed, 'O star of Shagpat! wilt thou constantly be in the ascendant, and defeat us, the liberators of men, with a flea?'
Now, whenever one of the twain, Baba Mustapha and the Vizier Feshnavat, commenced speaking of the dish of pomegranate grain, the torment of the flea took all tongue from him, and was destruction to the gravity of council and deliberation. The dish of pomegranate grain was brought to them by slaves, and the drug to induce sleep, yet neither could say aught concerning it, they were as jointy grasshoppers through the action of the flea, and the torment of the flea became a madness, they shrieking, ''Tis now with thee! 'Tis now with me! Fires of the damned on this flea!' In their extremity, they called to Allah for help, but no help came, save when they abandoned all speech concerning the dish of pomegranate grain,
