They answered, 'Men that were searchers of the Sword and plunged into the tank of temptation.'
And he said, 'How that?'
They answered, 'By the lures of vanity, the blinding of ambition, and tasting the gall of the Roc.'
So Shibli Bagarag leaned to the seven youths, saying, 'O my princes, but
for not tasting the gall of the Roc I might be as one of these. Wullahy!
I the King am warned by base creatures.' Then he said to the animals,
'Have ye still a longing for the crown?'
And they cried, all of them, 'O light of the astonished earth, we care for nought other than it.'
So he said, 'And is it known to ye how to dispossess the wearer of his burden?'
They answered, 'By a touch of the gall of the Roc on his forehead.'
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.