serpent. It had been a hard task, but it was performed, at the king’s request, by a small white worm or maggot which, taking the end of the thread between its teeth, crawled in at one end and out at the other. To reward this insignificant creature for its work, the king granted its request that it might lodge inside the seed-vessels and other parts of plants and feed thereon. Unknown to Suleymân it had found a home under the bark of the young Kharrûb-tree, his staff, and had penetrated to the very centre of the trunk. The time arrived for the king to die, and he happened to be sitting as usual, leaning on his staff, when Azrael came and took away his soul, unknown to the Jân; who worked on steadily for full forty years, not knowing that the king was dead, because the staff upheld his corpse just as if it had been alive. At last, however, the worm hollowed out the staff, which suddenly broke in two, so that the body of Suleymân rolled to the ground and the evil spirits knew that their tyrant was dead. To this day the traveller in the East is shown a huge unfinished stone in the quarries at Ba’albec, and others in different parts of the country, and is informed that they are some of the tasks left unfinished by the Jân, when at last they were sure that Suleymân el Hakìm was dead.
