He stalked away with his son down the cypress alley, and the eight tailors lifted me and bore me after, followed by my daughter and my friend. I looked for the three blind ballad singers, but they were gone. I was in terrible danger, and I bitterly regretted my haste in refusing the Shears to the boy. _The Prince before the Seat of Judgment_ In the circular audience chamber they laid me down upon the floor. Babadag, grotesque and somber in the darkness, seated himself in the marble armchair on the daïs; and at the same time I heard, or fancied I heard, the voices of the ballad singers, afar off somewhere in the palace, singing away at one of their songs. “Pluck out the hairs!” said Babadag. “No, no!” said Figli, lying on the step of the daïs at his father’s feet. “Quick, scoundrels!” said Babadag; and the eight tailors, kneeling around me, plucked out with tiny instruments all the hairs of my eyebrows, by the roots. Then, at a sign from their master, they stood me on my feet and removed the spider’s thread from around my neck. My strength returned, and I found myself able to stand alone. “Gone is your power, maker of fables!” said Babadag. “The doublet is worthless. See!” And he held up what appeared to be the thread of a button. My smock was in strips, and the doublet was exposed to view. One button was missing. What had become of it? Babadag exhibited only the thread. “Dog of a peddler,” said he, “it is your due that I give you to Goolk the Spider for his web.” “Spare him! Spare him!” said Figli, in a kind of moan, rocking himself back and forth on the step of the daïs. “But Babadag is merciful,” went on the old man, “and loves a tale; and never have I heard so amusing a tissue of lies as that tale of Bald-er-Dash the Peddler. For that, and for the pleasure I shall have in repeating that tale hereafter, I spare you. You are harmless. Go! and as you have chosen to darken your skin with juices, let it be darker still. Go! and be you henceforth as black as night. I will lead you to the palace gate, and speed you, with your daughter and your friend, on your journey away from Oogh. Return no more, peddler, for the web awaits you, and Goolk the Spider longs for a brother.” He stepped down from his seat, and we others followed him in silence. I was conscious of no will to resist him further. We came to the court of the dry fountain, and there my daughter looked into my face in the moonlight. She screamed. We followed mournfully through the dark rooms, and came out on the steps before the palace; and there we saw a sight both terrible and beautiful. _The Doom of the City of Oogh_ The city was in flames. From every roof, as far as we could see, rose sheets of fire, and sparks showered upward into a pall of black smoke; and as we watched, new tongues of flame blazed up from quarters dark before. The city was doomed. “Ah!” said Babadag with a groan. “My city, my city!”