_Melek Taüs_, "the King of the Peacocks," is the Yezidi euphemism for Sheitan; who of course must never be referred to by the latter disparaging name.[49] His image in the form of a peacock is regarded as the Yezidi Palladium; and it was his principal image which was kept in that red-draped shrine. There are seven images or _s[=a]nj[=a]ks_[50] in the charge of the Yezidi priesthood. One is always kept at Sheikh Adi; and the rest go on circuit in the villages, to be exhibited to the faithful, and to receive the temple tithes.[51] Their progress is somewhat precarious; for the Kurds (when they can) like to capture them, thus combining pleasure and profit with a parade of religious zeal. It is probably one of these _sanjaks_ which is now in the British Museum; and, "if he had guessed that King George would like it," Mar Shimun "would have been delighted to make him a present of another," which was known to have been straying about Tyari a year or two before. The Kurds themselves roundly assert that they carried off the actual headquarters image when they looted the temple in 1892; but the priests contend that it had been already placed in hiding, and that the plunderers found only a dummy. The Kurds would of course say they took it, even if they did not; and the priests would equally of course deny it, even if they did. Both alternatives are equally probable; and the image has always been secreted so jealously that any identification is impossible.[52] There is therefore nothing to prevent us from believing whichever we choose. But although _Melek Taüs_ no doubt is the dominant guardian of Sheikh Adi, we feel that behind his presentment there broods an older tutelary shade. For when we quitted the larger sanctuary, and passed back again into the more eastern one, "Rabbi Mr. Wigram" headed at once for a small door in a corner, from whence a steep stone staircase plunged down into the bowels of the rock. A priest had planted himself in front of that door, making himself as broad as possible, and valiantly trying to mask it; and when he found concealment impossible, he pointedly bowed us away. They had shown us the shrine of _Melek Taüs_; but here was something which they could not show us. Here was one secret of Sheikh Adi which must be kept inviolate still. What would they have said, we wonder, had they been told that one of their visitors had already actually penetrated into that Holy of Holies? Would they have hailed him as a prophet? Would they have murdered him for sacrilege? Or would they have compromised matters by flatly refusing to believe? We discreetly kept our own counsel; but the thing had been done notwithstanding. And the story of how it happened needs a few explanatory remarks.