Read The Shaving of Shagpat; an Arabian entertainment — Complete Page 2

  AND THIS IS THE STORY OF BHANAVAR THE BEAUTIFUL

  Know that at the foot of a lofty mountain of the Caucasus there lieth adeep blue lake; near to this lake a nest of serpents, wise and ancient.Now, it was the habit of a damsel to pass by the lake early at morn, onher way from the tents of her tribe to the pastures of the flocks. As shepressed the white arch of her feet on the soft green-mossed grasses bythe shore of the lake she would let loose her hair, looking over into thewater, and bind the braid again round her temples and behind her ears, asit had been in a lucent mirror: so doing she would laugh. Her laughterwas like the falls of water at moonrise; her loveliness like the verymoonrise; and she was stately as a palm-tree standing before the moon.

  This was Bhanavar the Beautiful.

  Now, the damsel was betrothed to the son of a neighbouring Emir, a youthcomely, well-fashioned, skilled with the bow, apt in all exercises; onethat sat his mare firm as the trained falcon that fixeth on the plungingbull of the plains; fair and terrible in combat as the lightning thatstrideth the rolling storm; and it is sung by the poet:

  When on his desert mare I see My prince of men, I think him then As high above humanity As he shines radiant over me.

  Lo! like a torrent he doth bound, Breasting the shock From rock to rock: A pillar of storm, he shakes the ground,

  His turban on his temples wound.

  Match me for worth to be adored A youth like him In heart and limb! Swift as his anger is his sword; Softer than woman his true word.

  Now, the love of this youth for the damsel Bhanavar was a consumingpassion, and the father of the damsel and the father of the youth lookedfairly on the prospect of their union, which was near, and was plightedas the union of the two tribes. So they met, and there was no voiceagainst their meeting, and all the love that was in them they were freeto pour forth far from the hearing of men, even where they would. Beforethe rising of the sun, and ere his setting, the youth rode swiftly fromthe green tents of the Emir his father, to waylay her by the waters ofthe lake; and Bhanavar was there, bending over the lake, her image in thelake glowing like the fair fulness of the moon; and the youth leaned toher from his steed, and sang to her verses of her great loveliness ereshe was wistful of him. Then she turned to him, and laughed lightly awelcome of sweetness, and shook the falls of her hair across the blushesof her face and her bosom; and he folded her to him, and those two wouldfondle together in the fashion of the betrothed ones (the blessing ofAllah be on them all!), gazing on each other till their eyes swam withtears, and they were nigh swooning with the fulness of their bliss.Surely 'twas an innocent and tender dalliance, and their prattle was thatof lovers till the time of parting, he showing her how she lookedbest--she him; and they were forgetful of all else that is, in theirsweet interchange of flatteries; and the world was a wilderness to themboth when the youth parted with Bhanavar by the brook which bounded thetents of her tribe.

  It was on a night when they were so together, the damsel leaning on hisarm, her eyes toward the lake, and lo! what seemed the reflection of alarge star in the water; and there was darkness in the sky above it,thick clouds, and no sight of the heavens; so she held her face to himsideways and said, 'What meaneth this, O my betrothed? for there isreflected in yonder lake a light as of a star, and there is no starvisible this night.'

  The youth trembled as one in trouble of spirit, and exclaimed, 'Look noton it, O my soul! It is of evil omen.'

  But Bhanavar kept her gaze constantly on the light, and the lightincreased in lustre; and the light became, from a pale sad splendour,dazzling in its brilliancy. Listening, they heard presently a gurglingnoise as of one deeply drinking. Then the youth sighed a heavy sigh andsaid, 'This is the Serpent of the Lake drinking of its waters, as is herwont once every moon, and whoso heareth her drink by the sheening of thatlight is under a destiny dark and imminent; so know I my days arenumbered, and it was foretold of me, this!' Now the youth sought todissuade Bhanavar from gazing on the light, and he flung his whole bodybefore her eyes, and clasped her head upon his breast, and clung abouther, caressing her; yet she slipped from him, and she cried, 'Tell me ofthis serpent, and of this light.'

  So he said, 'Seek not to hear of it, O my betrothed!'

  Then she gazed at the light a moment more intently, and turned her fairshape toward him, and put up her long white fingers to his chin, andsmoothed him with their softness, whispering, 'Tell me of it, my life!'

  And so it was that her winningness melted him, and he said, 'Bhanavar!the serpent is the Serpent of the Lake; old, wise, powerful; of the broodof the sacred mountain, that lifteth by day a peak of gold, and by nighta point of solitary silver. In her head, upon her forehead, between hereyes, there is a Jewel, and it is this light.'

  Then she said, 'How came the Jewel there, in such a place?'

  He answered, ''Tis the growth of one thousand years in the head of theserpent.'

  She cried, 'Surely precious?'

  He answered, 'Beyond price!'

  As he spake the tears streamed from him, and he was shaken with grief,but she noted nought of this, and watched the wonder of the light, andits increasing, and quivering, and lengthening; and the light was as anarrow of beams and as a globe of radiance. Desire for the Jewel waxed inher, and she had no sight but for it alone, crying, ''Tis a Jewelexceeding in preciousness all jewels that are, and for the possessing itwould I forfeit all that is.'

  So he said sorrowfully, 'Our love, O Bhanavar? and our hopes ofespousal?'

  But she cried, 'No question of that! Prove now thy passion for me, Owarrior! and win for me that Jewel.'

  Then he pleaded with her, and exclaimed, 'Urge not this! The winning ofthe Jewel is worth my life; and my life, O Bhanavar--surely its breath isbut the love of thee.'

  So she said, 'Thou fearest a risk?'

  And he replied, 'Little fear I; my life is thine to cast away. This Jewelit is evil to have, and evil followeth the soul that hath it.'

  Upon that she cried, 'A trick to cheat me of the Jewel! thy love iswanting at the proof.'

  And she taunted the youth her betrothed, and turned from him, andhardened at his tenderness, and made her sweet shape as a thorn to hiscaressing, and his heart was charged with anguish for her. So at thelast, when he had wept a space in silence, he cried, 'Thou hast willedit; the Jewel shall be thine, O my soul!'

  Then said he, 'Thou hast willed it, O Bhanavar! and my life is as a grainof sand weighed against thy wishes; Allah is my witness! Meet metherefore here, O my beloved, at the end of one quarter-moon, evenbeneath the shadow of this palm-tree, by the lake, and at this hour, andI will deliver into thy hands the Jewel. So farewell! Wind me once aboutwith thine arms, that I may take comfort from thee.'

  When their kiss was over the youth led her silently to the brook of theirparting--the clear, cold, bubbling brook--and passed from her sight; andthe damsel was exulting, and leapt and made circles in her glee, and shedanced and rioted and sang, and clapped her hands, crying, 'If I am nowBhanavar the Beautiful how shall I be when that Jewel is upon me, thebright light which beameth in the darkness, and needeth to light it noother light? Surely there will be envy among the maidens and the widows,and my name and the odour of my beauty will travel to the courts of farkings.'

  So was she jubilant; and her sisters that met her marvelled at her andthe deep glow that was upon her, even as the glow of the Great Desertwhen the sun has fallen; and they said among themselves, 'She is coveredall over with the blush of one that is a bride, and the bridegroom's kissyet burneth upon Bhanavar!'

  So they undressed her and she lay among them, and was all night even as abursting rose in a vase filled with drooping lilies; and one of themaidens that put her hand on the left breast of Bhanavar felt it full,and the heart beneath it panting and beating swifter than the ground isstruck by hooves of the chosen steed sent by the Chieftain to the city ofhis people with news of victory and the summons for rejoicing.

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nbsp; Now, the nights and the days of Bhanavar were even as this night, and shewas as an unquiet soul till the appointed time for the meeting with herlover had come. Then when the sun was lighting with slant beam the greengrass slope by the blue brook before her, Bhanavar arrayed herself andwent forth gaily, as a martial queen to certain conquest; and of all theflowers that nodded to the setting,--yea, the crimson, purple, purewhite, streaked-yellow, azure, and saffron, there was no flower fairer inits hues than Bhanavar, nor bird of the heavens freer in its glitteringplumage, nor shape of loveliness such as hers. Truly, when she had takenher place under the palm by the waters of the lake, that was noexaggeration of the poet, where he says:

  Snows of the mountain-peaks were mirror'd there Beneath her feet, not whiter than they were; Not rosier in the white, that falling flush Broad on the wave, than in her cheek the blush.

  And again:

  She draws the heavens down to her, So rare she is, so fair she is; They flutter with a crown to her, And lighten only where she is.

  And he exclaims, in verse that applieth to her:

  Exquisite slenderness! Sleek little antelope! Serpent of sweetness! Eagle that soaringly Wins me adoringly! Teach me thy fleetness, Vision of loveliness; Turn to my tenderness!

  Now, when the sun was lost to earth, and all was darkness, Bhanavar fixedher eyes upon an opening arch of foliage in the glade through which theyouth her lover should come to her, and clasped both hands across herbosom, so shaken was she with eager longing and expectation. In herhunger for his approach, she would at whiles pluck up the herbage abouther by the roots, and toss handfuls this way and that, chiding thepeaceful song of the nightbird in the leaves above her head; and she wassinking with fretfulness, when lo! from the opening arch of the glade asudden light, and Bhanavar knew it for the Jewel in the fingers of herbetrothed, by the strength of its effulgence. Then she called to himjoyfully a cry of welcome, and quickened his coming with her calls, andthe youth alighted from his mare and left it to pasture, and advanced toher, holding aloft the Jewel. And the Jewel was of great size and purity,round, and all-luminous, throwing rays and beams everywhere about it, amiracle to behold,--the light in it shining, and as the very life of theblood, a sweet crimson, a ruby, a softer rose, an amethyst of tenderhues: it was a full globe of splendours, showing like a very kingdom ofthe Blest; and blessed was the eye beholding it! So when he was withinreach of her arm, the damsel sprang to him and caught from his hand theJewel, and held it before her eyes, and danced with it, and pressed it onher bosom, and was as a creature giddy with great joy in possessing it.And she put the Jewel in her bosom, and looked on the youth to thank himfor the Jewel with all her beauty; for the passion of a mighty pride inhim who had won for her the Jewel exalted Bhanavar, and she said sweetly,'Now hast thou proved to me thy love of me, and I am thine, O mybetrothed,--wholly thine. Kiss me, then, and cease not kissing me, forbliss is in me.'

  But the youth eyed her sorrowfully, even as one that hath great yearning,and no power to move or speak.

  So she said again, in the low melody of deep love-tones, 'Kiss me, O mylover! for I desire thy kiss.'

  Still he spake not, and was as a pillar of stone.

  And she started, and cried, 'Thou art whole? without a hurt?' Then soughtshe to coax him to her with all the softness of her half-closed eyes andbudded lips, saying, ''Twas an idle fear! and I have thee, and thou artmine, and I am thine; so speak to me, my lover! for there is no musiclike the music of thy voice, and the absence of it is the absence of allsweetness, and there is no pleasure in life without it.'

  So the tenderness of her fondling melted the silence in him, andpresently his tongue was loosed, and he breathed in pain of spirit, andhis words were the words of the proverb:

  He that fighteth with poison is no match for the prick of a thorn.

  And he said, 'Surely, O Bhanavar, my love for thee surpasseth what istold of others that have loved before us, and I count no loss a loss thatis for thy sake.' And he sighed, and sang:

  Sadder than is the moon's lost light, Lost ere the kindling of dawn, To travellers journeying on,

  The shutting of thy fair face from my sight. Might I look on thee in death, With bliss I would yield my breath.

  Oh! what warrior dies With heaven in his eyes? O Bhanavar! too rich a prize! The life of my nostrils art thou, The balm-dew on my brow;

  Thou art the perfume I meet as I speed o'er the plains, The strength of my arms, the blood of my veins.

  Then said he, 'I make nothing matter of complaint, Allah witnesseth! noteven the long parting from her I love. What will be, will be: so was itwritten! 'Tis but a scratch, O my soul! yet am I of the dead and themthat are passed away. 'Tis hard; but I smile in the face of bitterness.'

  Now, at his words the damsel clutched him with both her hands, and theblood went from her, and she was as a block of white marble, even as oneof those we meet in the desert, leaning together, marking the wrath ofthe All-powerful on forgotten cities. And the tongue of the damsel wasdry, and she was without speech, gazing at him with wide-open eyes, likeone in trance. Then she started as a dreamer wakeneth, and flung herselfquickly on the breast of the youth, and put up the sleeve from his arm,and beheld by the beams of the quarter-crescent that had risen throughthe leaves, a small bite on the arm of the youth her betrothed, spottedwith seven spots of blood in a crescent; so she knew that the poison ofthe serpent had entered by that bite; and she loosened herself to theviolence of her anguish, shrieking the shrieks of despair, so that thevoice of her lamentation was multiplied about and made many voices in thenight. Her spirit returned not to her till the crescent of the moon wasyellow to its fall; and lo! the youth was sighing heavy sighs and leaningto the ground on one elbow, and she flung herself by him on the ground,seeking for herbs that were antidotes to the poison of the serpent,grovelling among the grasses and strewn leaves of the wood, peering atthem tearfully by the pale beams, and startling the insects as she moved.When she had gathered some, she pressed them and bruised them, and laidthem along his lips, that were white as the ball of an eye; and she madehim drink drops of the juices of the herbs, wailing and swaying her bodyacross him, as one that seeketh vainly to give brightness again to theflames of a dying fire. But now his time was drawing nigh, and he wasweak, and took her hand in his and gazed on her face, sighing, and said,'There is nothing shall keep me by thee now, O my betrothed, mybeautiful! Weep not, for it is the doing of fate, and not thy doing. Soere I go, and the grave-cloth separates thy heart from my heart, listento me. Lo, that Jewel! it is the giver of years and of powers, and ofloveliness beyond mortal, yet the wearing of it availeth not in thepursuit of happiness. Now art thou Queen over the serpents of this lake:it was the Queen-serpent I slew, and her vengeance is on me here. Now artthou mighty, O Bhanavar! and look to do well by thy tribe, and that fromwhich I spring, recompensing my father for his loss, pouring ointment onhis affliction, for great is the grief of the old man, and he loveth me,and is childless.'

  Then the youth fell back and was still; and Bhanavar put her ear to hismouth, and heard what seemed an inner voice murmuring in him, and it wasof his infancy and his boyhood, and of his father the Emir's first giftto him, his horse Zoora, in old times. Presently the youth revivedsomewhat, and looked upon her; but his sight was glazed with a film, andshe sang her name to him ere he knew her, and the sad sweetness of hername filled his soul, and he replied to her with it weakly, like a farecho that groweth fainter, 'Bhanavar! Bhanavar! Bhanavar!' Then a changecame over him, and the pain of the poison and the passion of thedeath-throe, and he was wistful of her no more; but she lay by him,embracing him, and in the last violence of his anguish he hugged her tohis breast. Then it was over, and he sank. And the twain were as a greatwave heaving upon the shore; lo, part is wasted where it falleth; partdraweth back into the waters. So was it!

  No
w the chill of dawn breathed blue on the lake and was astir among thedewy leaves of the wood, when Bhanavar arose from the body of the youth,and as she rose she saw that his mare Zoora, his father's first gift, wassnuffing at the ear of her dead master, and pawing him. At that sight thetears poured from her eyelids, and she sobbed out to the mare, 'O Zoora!never mare bore nobler burden on her back than thou in Zurvan mybetrothed. Zoora! thou weepest, for death is first known to thee in thedearest thing that was thine; as to me, in the dearest that was mine! AndO Zoora, steed of Zurvan my betrothed, there's no loveliness for us inlife, for the loveliest is gone; and let us die, Zoora, mare of Zurvan mybetrothed, for what is dying to us, O Zoora, who cherish beyond all thatwhich death has taken?'

  So spake she to Zoora the mare, kissing her, and running her fingersthrough the long white mane of the mare. Then she stooped to the body ofher betrothed, and toiled with it to lift it across the crimsonsaddle-cloth that was on the back of Zoora; and the mare knelt to her,that she might lay on her back the body of Zurvan; when that was done,Bhanavar paced beside Zoora the mare, weeping and caressing her,reminding her of the deeds of Zurvan, and the battles she had borne himto, and his greatness and his gentleness. And the mare went withoutleading. It was broad light when they had passed the glade and the covertof the wood. Before them, between great mountains, glimmered a space ofrolling grass fed to deep greenness by many brooks. The shadow of amountain was over it, and one slant of the rising sun, down a glade ofthe mountain, touched the green tent of the Emir, where it stood a littleapart from the others of his tribe. Goats and asses of the tribe werepasturing in the quiet, but save them nothing moved among the tents, andit was deep peacefulness. Bhanavar led Zoora slowly before the tent ofthe Emir, and disburdened Zoora of the helpless weight, and spread thelong fair limbs of the youth lengthwise across the threshold of theEmir's tent, sitting away from it with clasped hands, regarding it. Erelong the Emir came forth, and his foot was on the body of his son, and heknew death on the chin and the eyes of Zurvan, his sole son. Now the Emirwas old, and with the shock of that sight the world darkened before him,and he gave forth a groan and stumbled over the sunken breast of Zurvan,and stretched over him as one without life. When Bhanavar saw that oldman stretched over the body of his son, she sickened, and her ear wasfilled with the wailings of grief that would arise, and she stood up andstole away from the habitations of the tribe, stricken with her guilt,and wandered beyond the mountains, knowing not whither she went, lookingon no living thing, for the sight of a thing that moved was hateful toher, and all sounds were sounds of lamentation for a great loss.

  Now, she had wandered on alone two days and two nights, and nigh morn shewas seized with a swoon of weariness, and fell forward with her face tothe earth, and lay there prostrate, even as one that is adoring theshrine; and it was on the sands of the desert she was lying. It chancedthat the Chieftain of a desert tribe passed at midday by the spot, andseeing the figure of a damsel unshaded' by any shade of tree or herb ortent-covering, and prostrate on the sands, he reined his steed and leanedforward to her, and called to her. Then as she answered nothing hedismounted, and thrust his arm softly beneath her and lifted her gently;and her swoon had the whiteness of death, so that he thought her deadverily, and the marvel of her great loveliness in death smote the hearton his ribs as with a blow, and the powers of life went from him a momentas he looked on her and the long dark wet lashes that clung to hercolourless face, as at night in groves where the betrothed ones wander,the slender leaves of the acacia spread darkly over the full moon. And hecried, ''Tis a loveliness that maketh the soul yearn to the cold bosom ofdeath, so lovely, exceeding all that liveth, is she!'

  After he had contemplated her longwhile, he snatched his sight from her,and swung her swiftly on the back of his mare, and leaned her on one arm,and sped westward over the sands of the desert, halting not till he wasin the hum of many tents, and the sun of that day hung a red half-circleacross the sand. He alighted before the tent of his mother, and sentwomen in to her. When his mother came forth to the greetings of her son,he said no word, but pointed to the damsel where he had leaned her at thethreshold of her tent. His mother kissed him on the forehead, and turnedher shoulder to peer upon the damsel. But when she had close view ofBhanavar, she spat, and scattered her hair, and stamped, and cried aloud,'Away with her! this slut of darkness! there's poison on her very skirts,and evil in the look of her.'

  Then said he, 'O Rukrooth, my mother! art thou lost to charity and theuses of kindliness and the laws of hospitality, that thou talkest this ofthe damsel, a stranger? Take her now in, and if she be past help, as Ifear; be it thy care to give her decent burial; and if she live, O mymother, tend her for the love of thy son, and for the love of him begentle with her.'

  While he spake, Rukrooth his mother knelt over the damsel, as a cat thatsniffeth the suspected dish; and she flashed her eyes back on him,exclaiming scornfully, 'So art thou befooled, and the poison is alreadyin thee! But I will not have her, O my son! and thou, Ruark, my son,neither shalt thou have her. What! will I not die to save thee from aharm? Surely thy frown is little to me, my son, if I save thee from aharm; and the damsel here is--I shudder to think what; but never layshadow across my threshold dark as this!'

  Now, Ruark gazed upon his mother, and upon Bhanavar, and the face ofBhanavar was as a babe in sleep, and his soul melted to the partedsweetness of her soft little curved red lips and her closed eyelids, andher innocent open hands, where she lay at the threshold of the tent,unconscious of hardness and the sayings of the unjust. So he criedfiercely, 'No paltering, O Rukrooth, my mother: and if not to thy tent,then to mine!'

  When she heard him say that in the voice of his anger, Rukrooth fixed hereyes on him sorrowfully, and sighed, and went up to him and drew his headonce against her heart, and retreated into the tent, bidding the womenthat were there bring in the body of the damsel.

  It was the morning of another day when Bhanavar awoke; and she awoke in adream of Zoora, the mare of Zurvan her betrothed, that was dead, and thename of Zoora was on her tongue as she started up. She was on a couch ofsilk and leopard-skins; at her feet a fair young girl with a fan ofpheasant feathers. She stared at the hangings of the tent, which werericher than those of her own tribe; the cloths, and the cushions, and theembroideries; and the strangeness of all was pain to her, she knew notwhy. Then wept she bitterly, and with her tears the memory of what hadbeen came back to her, and she opened her arms to take into them thelittle girl that fanned her, that she might love something and be belovedawhile; and the child sobbed with her. After a time Bhanavar said, 'Wheream I, and amongst whom, my child, my sister?'

  And the child answered her, 'Surely in the tent of the mother of Ruark,the chief, even chief of the Beni-Asser, and he found thee in the desert,nigh dead. 'Tis so; and this morning will Ruark be gone to meet thechallenge of Ebn Asrac, and they will fight at the foot of the SnowMountains, and the shadow of yonder date-palm will be over our tent hereat the hour they fight, and I shall sing for Ruark, and kneel here in thedarkness of the shadow.'

  While the child was speaking there entered to them a tall aged woman,with one swathe of a turban across her long level brows; and she had hardblack eyes, and close lips and a square chin; and it was the mother ofRuark. She strode forward toward Bhanavar to greet her, and folded herlegs before the damsel. Presently she said, 'Tell me thy story, and ofthy coming into the hands of Ruark my son.'

  Bhanavar shuddered. So Rukrooth dismissed the little maiden from thechamber of the tent, and laid her left hand on one arm of Bhanavar, andsaid, 'I would know whence comest thou, that we may deal well by thee andthy people that have lost thee.'

  The touch of a hand was as the touch of a corpse to Bhanavar, and thedamsel was constrained to speak by a power she knew not of, and she toldall to Rukrooth of what had been, the great misery, and the wickednessthat was hers. Then Ruark's mother took hold of Bhanavar a strong grasp,and eyed her long, piteously, and with reproach, and rocked forward andback, and kept r
ocking to and fro, crying at intervals, 'O Ruark! my son!my son! this feared I, and thou art not the first! and I saw it, I sawit! Well-away! why came she in thy way, why, Ruark, my son, my fire-eye?Canst thou be saved by me, fated that thou art, thou fair-face? And wiltthou be saved by me, my son, ere thy story be told in tears as this one,that is as thine to me? And thou wilt seize a jewel, Ruark, O thou soulof wrath, my son, my dazzling Chief, and seize it to wear it, and thinkit bliss, this lovely jewel; but 'tis an anguish endless and for ever, myson! Woe's me! an anguish is she without end.'

  Rukrooth continued moaning, and the thought that was in the mother ofRuark struck Bhanavar like a light in the land of despair that darklyillumineth the dreaded gulfs and abysses of the land, and she knewherself black in evil; and the scourge of her guilt was upon her, and shecursed herself before Rukrooth, and fawned before her, abasing her body.So Rukrooth was drawn to the damsel by the violence of her self-accusingand her abandonment to grief, and lifted her, and comforted her, andafter awhile they had gentle speech together, and the two women openedtheir hearts and wept. Then it was agreed between them that Bhanavarshould depart from the encampment of the tribe before the return ofRuark, and seek shelter among her own people again, and aid them and thetribe of Zurvan, her betrothed, by the might of the Jewel which was hers,fulfilling the desire of Zurvan. The mind of the damsel was lowly, andher soul yearned for the blessing of Rukrooth.

  Darkness hung over the tent from the shadow of the date-palm whenBhanavar departed, and the blessing of Rukrooth was on her head. She wentforth fairly mounted on a fresh steed; beside her two warriors of themthat were left to guard the encampment of the tribe of Ruark in hisabsence; and Rukrooth watched at the threshold of her tent for the comingof Ruark.

  When it was middle night, and the splendour of the moon was beaming onthe edge of the desert, Bhanavar alighted to rest by the twigs of atamarisk that stood singly on the sands. The two warriors tied thefetlocks of their steeds, and spread shawls for her, and watched over herwhile she slept. And the damsel dreamed, and the roaring of the lion washoarse in her dream, and it was to her as were she the red whirlwind ofthe desert before whom all bowed in terror, the Arab, the wild horsemen,and the caravans of pilgrimage; and none could stay her, neither couldshe stay herself, for the curse of Allah was on men by reason of herguilt; and she went swinging great folds of darkness across kingdoms andempires of earth where joy was and peace of spirit; and in her trackamazement and calamity, and the whitened bones of noble youths, valorouschieftains. In that horror of her dream she stood up suddenly, and thrustforth her hands as to avert an evil, and advanced a step; and with theact her dream was cloven and she awoke, and lo! it was sunrise; and wherehad been two warriors of the Beni-Asser, were now five, and besides herown steed five others, one the steed of Ruark, and Ruark with them thatwatched over her: pale was the visage of the Chief. Ruark eyed Bhanavar,and signalled to his followers, and they, when they had lifted the damselto her steed and placed her in their front, mounted likewise, andflourished their lances with cries, and jerked their heels to the flanksof their steeds, and stretched forward till their beards were mixed withthe tossing manes, and the dust rose after them crimson in the sun. Sothey coursed away, speeding behind their Chief and Bhanavar; sweet werethe desert herbs under their crushing hooves! Ere the shadow of theacacia measured less than its height they came upon a spring of silverwater, and Ruark leaped from his steed, and Bhanavar from hers, and theyperformed their ablutions by that spring, and ate and drank, and wateredtheir steeds. While they were there Bhanavar lifted her eyes to Ruark,and said, 'Whither takest thou me, O my Chief?'

  His brow was stern, and he answered, 'Surely to the dwelling of thytribe.'

  Then she wept, and pulled her veil close, murmuring, ''Tis well!'

  They spake no further, and pursued their journey toward the mountains andacross the desert that was as a sea asleep in the blazing heat, and thesun till his setting threw no shade upon the sands bigger than what wasbroad above them. By the beams of the growing moon they entered the firstgorge of the mountains. Here they relaxed the swiftness of their pace,picking their way over broken rocks and stunted shrubs, and the mesh ofspotted creeping plants; all around them in shadow a freshness of noisyrivulets and cool scents of flowers, asphodel and rose blooming in plotsfrom the crevices of the crags. These, as the troop advanced, wound andwidened, gradually receding, and their summits, which were silver in themoonlight, took in the distance a robe of purple, and the sides of themountains were rounded away in purple beyond a space of emerald pasture.Now, Ruark beheld the heaviness of Bhanavar, and that she drooped in herseat, and he halted her by a cave at the foot of the mountains, browedwith white broom. Before it, over grass and cresses, ran a rill, a branchfrom others, larger ones, that went hurrying from the heights to feed themeadows below, and Bhanavar dipped her hand in the rill, and thought, 'Iam no more as thou, rill of the mountain, but a desert thing! Thy way isforward, thy end before thee; but I go this way and that; my end is darkto me; not a life is mine that will have its close kissing the coldcheeks of the saffron-crocus. Cold art thou, and I--flames! They thatlean to thee are refreshed, they that touch me perish.' Then she lookedforth on the stars that were above the purple heights, and the blushes ofinner heaven that streamed up the sky, and a fear of meeting the eyes ofher kindred possessed her, and she cried out to Ruark, 'O Chief of theBeni-Asser, must this be? and is there no help for it, but that I returnamong them that look on me basely?'

  Ruark stooped to her and said, 'Tell me thy name.'

  She answered, 'Bhanavar is my name with that people.'

  And he whispered, 'Surely when they speak of thee they say not Bhanavarsolely, but Bhanavar the Beautiful?'

  She started and sought the eye of the Chief, and it was fixed on her facein a softened light, as if his soul had said that thing. Then she sighed,and exclaimed, 'Unhappy are the beautiful! born to misery! Allah dressedthem in his grace and favour for their certain wretchedness! Lo, theircountenances are as the sun, their existence as the desert; barren arethey in fruits and waters, a snare to themselves and to others!'

  Now, the Chief leaned to her yet nearer, saying, 'Show me the Jewel.'

  Bhanavar caught up her hands and clenched them, and she cried bitterly,''Tis known to thee! She told thee, and there be none that know it not!'

  Arising, she thrust her hand into her bosom, and held forth the Jewel inthe palm of her white hand. When Ruark beheld the marvel of the Jewel,and the redness moving in it as of a panting heart, and the flashing eyeof fire that it was, and all its glory, he cried, 'It was indeed a Jewelfor queens to covet from the Serpent, and a prize the noblest might riskall to win as a gift for thee.'

  Then she said, 'Thy voice is friendly with me, O Ruark! and thou scornestnot the creature that I am. Counsel me as to my dealing with the Jewel.'

  Surely the eyes of the Chief met the eyes of Bhanavar as when thebrightest stars of midnight are doubled in a clear dark lake, and he sangin measured music:

  'Shall I counsel the moon in her ascending? Stay under that tall palm-tree through the night; Rest on the mountain-slope By the couching antelope, O thou enthroned supremacy of light! And for ever the lustre thou art lending, Lean on the fair long brook that leaps and leaps,-- Silvery leaps and falls. Hang by the mountain walls, Moon! and arise no more to crown the steeps, For a danger and dolour is thy wending!

  And, O Bhanavar, Bhanavar the Beautiful! shall I counsel thee, moon ofloveliness,--bright, full, perfect moon!--counsel thee not to ascend andbe seen and worshipped of men, sitting above them in majesty, thou thatart thyself the Jewel beyond price? Wah! What if thou cast it fromthee?--thy beauty remaineth!'

  And Bhanavar smote her palms in the moonlight, and exclaimed, 'How thenshall I escape this in me, which is a curse to them that approach me?'

  And he replied:

  Long we the less for the pearl of the sea Because in its depths there 's the death we flee? Long we th
e less, the less, woe's me! Because thou art deathly,--the less for thee?

  She sang aloud among the rocks and the caves and the illumined waters:

  Destiny! Destiny! why am I so dark? I that have beauty and love to be fair. Destiny! Destiny! am I but a spark Track'd under heaven in flames and despair? Destiny! Destiny! why am I desired Thus like a poisonous fruit, deadly sweet? Destiny! Destiny! lo, my soul is tired, Make me thy plaything no more, I entreat!

  Ruark laughed low, and said, 'What is this dread of Rukrooth my motherwhich weigheth on thee but silliness! For she saw thee willing to do wellby her; and thou with thy Jewel, O Bhanavar, do thou but well by thyself,and there will be no woman such as thou in power and excellence ofendowments, as there is nowhere one such as thou in beauty.' Then hesighed to her, 'Dare I look up to thee, O my Queen of Serpents?' And hebreathed as one that is losing breath, and the words came from him, 'Mysoul is thine!'

  When she heard him say this, great trouble was on the damsel, for hisvoice was not the voice of Zurvan her betrothed; and she remembered thesorrow of Rukrooth. She would have fled from him, but a dread of thedispleasure of the Chief restrained her, knowing Ruark a soul of wrath.Her eyelids dropped and the Chief gazed on her eagerly, and sang in apassion of praises of her; the fires of his love had a tongue, his speechwas a torrent of flame at the feet of the damsel. And Bhanavar exclaimed,'Oh, what am I, what am I, who have slain my love, my lover!--that oneshould love me and call on me for love? My life is a long weeping forhim! Death is my wooer!'

  Ruark still pleaded with her, and she said in fair gentleness, 'Speak notof it now in the freshness of my grief! Other times and seasons arethere. My soul is but newly widowed!'

  Fierce was the eye of the Chief, and he sprang up, crying, 'By the lifeof my head, I know thy wiles and the reading of these delays: but I'llnever leave thee, nor lose sight of thee, Bhanavar! And think not to flyfrom me, thou subtle, brilliant Serpent! for thy track is my track, andthy condition my condition, and thy fate my fate. By Allah! this is so.'

  Then he strode from her swiftly, and called to his Arabs. They hadkindled a fire to roast the flesh of a buffalo, slaughtered by them fromamong a herd, and were laughing and singing beside the flames of thefire. So by the direction of their Chief the Arabs brought slices ofsweet buffalo-flesh to Bhanavar, with cakes of grain: and Bhanavar atealone, and drank from the waters before her. Then they laid for her acouch within the cave, and the aching of her spirit was lulled, and sheslept there a dreamless sleep till morning.

  By the morning light Bhanavar looked abroad for the Chief, and he wasnowhere by. A pang of violent hope struck through her, and she pressedher bosom, praying he might have left her, and climbed the clefts andledges of the mountain to search over the fair expanse of pasture beyond,for a trace of him departing. The sun was on the heads of the heavyflowers, and a flood of gold down the gorges, and a delicate rose hue onthe distant peaks and upper dells of snow, which were as a crown to thescene she surveyed; but no sight of Ruark had she. And now she wasbeginning to rejoice, but on a sudden her eye caught far to east aglimpse of something in motion across an even slope of the lower hillsleaning to the valley; and it was a herd that rushed forward, like ablack torrent of the mountains flinging foam this way and that, and afterthe herd and at the sides of the herd she distinguished the white cloaksand scarfs and glittering steel of the Arabs of Ruark. Presently she sawa horseman break from the rest, and race in a line toward her. She knewthis one for Ruark, and sighed and descended slowly to meet him. Thegreeting of the Chief was sharp, his manner wild, and he said little erehe said, 'I will see thee under the light of the Jewel, so tie it in aband and set it on thy brow, Bhanavar!'

  Her mouth was open to intercede with his desire, but his forehead becameblack as night, and he shouted in the thunder of his lion-voice, 'Dothis!'

  She took the Jewel from its warm bed in her bosom, and held it, and gottogether a band of green weeds, and set it in the middle of the band, andtied the band on her brow, and lifted her countenance to the Chief. Ruarkstood back from her and gazed on her; and he would have veiled his sightfrom her, but his hand fell. Then the might of her loveliness seizedBhanavar likewise, and the full orbs of her eyes glowed on the Chief ason a mirror, and she moved her serpent figure scornfully, and smiled,saying, 'Is it well?'

  And he, when he could speak, replied, ''Tis well! I have seen thee! fornow can I die this day, if it be that I am to die. And well it is! fornow know I there is truly no place but the tomb can hold me from thee!'

  Bhanavar put the Jewel from her brow into her bosom, and questioned him,'What is thy dread this day, O my Chief?'

  He answered her gravely, 'I have seen Rukrooth my mother while I slept;and she was weeping, weeping by a stream, yea, a stream of blood; and itwas a stream that flowed in a hundred gushes from her own veins. The sunof this dawn now, seest thou not? 'tis overcrimson; the vulture hangethlow down yonder valley.' And he cried to her, 'Haste! mount with me; forI have told Rukrooth a thing; and I know that woman crafty in thethwarting of schemes; such a fox is she where aught accordeth not withher forecastings, and the judgment of her love for me! By Allah! 'twerewell we clash not; for that I will do I do, and that she will do dothshe.'

  So the twain mounted their steeds, and Ruark gathered his Arabs andplaced them, some in advance, some on either side of Bhanavar; and theyrode forward to the head of the valley, and across the meadows, throughthe blushing crowds of flowers, baths of freshest scents, cool breezesthat awoke in the nostrils of the mares neighings of delight; and thesepranced and curvetted and swung their tails, and gave expression to theirjoy in many graceful fashions; but a gloom was on Ruark, and a quick firein his falcon-eye, and he rode with heels alert on the flanks of hismare, dashing onward to right and left, as do they that beat the junglefor the crouching tiger. Once, when he was well-nigh half a league infront, he wheeled his mare, and raced back full on Bhanavar, grasping herbridle, and hissing between his teeth, 'Not a soul shall have thee saveI: by the tomb of my fathers, never, while life is with us!'

  And he taunted her with bitter names, and was as one in the madness ofintoxication, drunken with the aspect of her matchless beauty and withexceeding love for her. And Bhanavar knew that the dread of a mishap wason the mind of the Chief.

  Now, the space of pasture was behind them a broad lake of gold andjasper, and they entered a region of hills, heights, and fastnesses,robed in forests that rose in rounded swells of leafage, each overeach--above all points of snow that were as flickering silver flames inthe farthest blue. This was the country of Bhanavar, and she gazedmournfully on the glades of golden green and the glens of iron blackness,and the wild flowers, wild blossoms, and weeds well known to her thatwould not let her memory rest, and were wistful of what had been. And shethought, 'My sisters tend the flocks, my mother spinneth with the maidensof the tribe, my father hunteth; how shall I come among them but strange?Coldly will they regard me; I shall feel them shudder when they take meto their bosoms.'

  She looked on Ruark to speak with him, but the mouth of the Chief was setand white; and even while she looked, cries of treason and battle arosefrom the Arabs that were ahead, hidden by a branching wind of the wayround a mountain slant. Then the eyes of the Chief reddened, his nostrilsgrew wide, and the darkness of his face was as flame mixed with smoke,and he seized Bhanavar and hastened onward, and lo! yonder were his menovermatched, and warriors of the mountains bursting on them from anambush on all sides. Ruark leapt in his seat, and the light of combat wason him, and he dug his knees into his mare, and shouted the war-cry ofhis tribe, lifting his hands as it were to draw down wrath from the veryheavens, and rushed to the encounter. Says the poet:

  Hast thou seen the wild herd by the jungle galloping close? With a thunder of hooves they trample what heads may oppose: Terribly, crushingly, tempest-like, onward they sweep: But a spring from the reeds, and the panther is sprawling in air, And with muzzle to dust and black beards foam-la
sh'd, here and there, Scatter'd they fly, crimson-eyed, track'd with blood to the deep.

  Such was the onset of Ruark, his stroke the stroke of death; and ere theechoes had ceased rolling from that cry of his, the mountain-warriorswere scattered before him on the narrow way, hurled down the scrub of themountain, even as dead leaves and loosened stones; so like an arm oflightning was the Chief!

  Now Ruark pursued them, and was lost to Bhanavar round a slope of themountain. She quickened her pace to mark him in the glory of the battle,and behold! a sudden darkness enveloped her, and she felt herself in theswathe of tightened folds, clasped in an arm, and borne rapidly she knewnot whither, for she could hear and see nothing. It was to her as wereshe speeding constantly downward in darkness to the lower realms of theGenii of the Caucasus, and every sense, and even that of fear, wasstunned in her. How long an interval had elapsed she knew not, when thefolds were unwound; but it was light of day, and the faces of men, andthey were warriors that were about her, warriors of the mountain; but ofRuark and his Arabs no voice. So she said to them, 'What do ye with me?'

  And one among them, that was a youth of dignity and grace, and acountenance like morning on the mountains, answered, 'The will ofRukrooth, O lady! and it is the plight of him we bow to with Rukrooth,mother of the Desert-Chief.'

  She cried, 'Is he here, the Prince, that I may speak with him?'

  The same young warrior made answer, 'Not so; forewarned was he, and wellfor him!'

  Bhanavar drew her robe about her and was mute. Ere the setting of themoon they journeyed on with her; and continued so three days and nightsthrough the defiles and ravines and matted growths of the mountains. Onthe fourth dawn they were on the summit of a lofty mountain-rise; belowthem the sun, shooting a current of gold across leagues of sea. Then hethat had spoken with Bhanavar said, 'A sail will come,' and a sail camefrom under the sun. Scarce had the ship grated shore when the warriorslifted Bhanavar, and waded through the water with her, and placed herunwetted in the ship, and one, the fair youth among the warriors, sprangon board with her, remaining by her. So the captain pushed off, and thewind filled the sails, and Bhanavar was borne over the lustre of the sea,that was as a changing opal in its lustre, even as a melted jewel flowingfrom the fingers of the maker, the Almighty One. The ship ceased notsailing till they came to a narrow strait, where the sea was but a riverbetween fair sloping hills alight with towers and palaces, opening a wayto a great city that was in its radiance over the waters of the sea asthe aspect of myriad sheeny white doves breasting the wave. Hitherto theyoung warrior had held aloof in coldness of courtesy from Bhanavar; butnow he sat by her, and said, 'The bond between my prince and Rukrooth isaccomplished, and it was to snatch thee from the Chief of the Beni-Asserand bring thee even to this city.'

  Bhanavar exclaimed, 'Allah be praised in all things, and his will bedone!'

  The youth continued, 'Thou art alone here, O lady, exposed to the perilsof loneliness; surely it were well if I linger with thee awhile, and seeto thy welfare in this city, even as a brother with a sister; and I willdeal honourably by thee.'

  Bhanavar looked on the young warrior and blushed at his exceedingsweetness with her; the soft freshness of his voice was to her as theblossom-laden breeze in the valleys of the mountains, and she breathedlow the words of her gratitude, saying, 'If I am not a burden, let thisbe so.'

  Then said he, 'Know me by my name, which is Almeryl; and that we seemindeed of one kin, make known unto me thine.'

  She replied, 'Ill-omened is it, this name of Bhanavar!'

  The youth among warriors gazed on her a moment with the fluttering eye ofbashfulness, and said, 'Can they that have marked thee call thee otherthan Bhanavar the Beautiful?'

  She remembered that Ruark had spoken in like manner, and the curse of herbeauty smote her, and she thought, 'This fair youth, he hath not a motherto watch over him and ward off souls of evil. I dread there will come amishap to him through me; Allah shield him from it!' And she sought todissuade him from resting by her, but he cried, ''Tis but a choice todwell with thee or with the dogs in the street outside thy door, OBhanavar!'

  Now, the ship sailed close up to the quay, and cast anchor there in themidst of other ships of merchandise. Almeryl then threw a robe over hismountain dress and spoke with the captain apart, and he and Bhanavar tookleave of the captain, and landed on the quay among the porters, and ofthese one stepped forward to them and shouted cheerily, 'Where be theburdens and the bales, O ye, fair couple fashioned in the eye of elegantproportions? Ye twin palm-trees, male and female! Wullahy! broad is theback of your servant.'

  Almeryl beckoned to him that he should follow them, and he followed them,blessing the wind that had brought them to that city and the day. So theypassed through the streets and lanes of the city, and the porter pointedout this house and that house wanting an occupant, and Almeryl fixed onone in an open thoroughfare that had before it a grass-plot, and behind agarden with fountains and flowers, and grass-knolls shaded by trees; andhe paid down the half of its price, and had it furnished before nightfallsumptuously, and women in it to wait on Bhanavar, and stuffs and goods,and scents for the bath,--all luxuries whatsoever that tradesmen andmerchants there could give in exchange for gold. Then Almeryl dismissedthe porter in Allah's name, and gladdened his spirit with a gift over thedue of his hire that exalted him in the eyes of the porter, and theporter went from him, exclaiming, 'In extremity Ukleet is thy slave!' andhe sang:

  Shouldst thou see a slim youth with a damsel arriving, Be sure 'tis the hour when thy fortune is thriving; A generous fee makes the members so supple That over the world they could carry this couple.

  Now so it was that the youth Almeryl and the damsel Bhanavar abode in thecity they had come to weeks and months, and life to either of them as theflowing of a gentle stream, even as brother and sister lived they,chastely, and with temperate feasting. Surely the youth loved her with agreat love, and the heart of Bhanavar turned not from him, and was wonutterly by his gentleness and nobleness and devotion; and they relied oneach other's presence for any joy, and were desolate in absence, as thepoet says:

  When we must part, love, Such is my smart, love, Sweetness is savourless, Fairness is favourless! But when in sight, love, We two unite, love, Earth has no sour to me; Life is a flower to me!

  And with the increase of every day their passion increased, and therevealing light in their eyes brightened and was humid, as is sung by himthat luted to the rage of hearts:

  Evens star yonder Comes like a crown on us, Larger and fonder Grows its orb down on us; So, love, my love for thee Blossoms increasingly; So sinks it in the sea, Waxing unceasingly.

  On a night, when the singing-girls had left them, the youth could containhimself no more, and caught the two hands of Bhanavar in his, saying,'This that is in my soul for thee thou knowest, O Bhanavar! and 'tisspoken when I move and when I breathe, O my loved one! Tell me then thecause of thy shunning me whenever I would speak of it, and be plain withthee.'

  For a moment Bhanavar sought to release herself from his hold, but thelove in his eyes entangled her soul as in a net, and she sank forward tohim, and sighed under his chin, ''Twas indeed my very love of thee thatmade me.'

  The twain embraced and kissed a long kiss, and leaned sideways together,and Bhanavar said, 'Hear me, what I am.'

  Then she related the story of the Serpent and the Jewel, and of the deathof her betrothed. When it was ended, Almeryl cried, 'And was thisall?--this that severed us?' And he said, 'Hear what I am.'

  So he told Bhanavar how Rukrooth, the mother of Ruark, had sentmessengers to the Prince his father, warning him of the passage of Ruarkthrough the mountains with one a Queen of Serpents, a sorceress, that hadbewitched him and enthralled him in a mighty love for her, to the ruin ofRuark; and how the Chief was on his way with her to demand her inmarriage at the hands of her parents; and the words of Rukroo
th were, 'Bythe service that was between thee and my husband, and by the death hedied, O Prince, rescue the Chief my son from this damsel, and entrap herfrom him, and have her sent even to the city of the inland sea, for noless a distance than that keepeth Ruark from her.'

  And Almeryl continued, 'I questioned the messengers myself, and they toldme the marvel of thy loveliness and the peril to him that looked on it,so I swore there was no power should keep me from a sight of thee, O myloved one! my prize! my life! my sleek antelope of the hills! Surely whenmy father appointed the warriors to lie in wait for thy coming, I slippedamong them, so that they thought it ordered by him I should head them.The rest is known to thee, O my fountain of blissfulness! but thetreachery to Ruark was the treachery of Ebn Asrac, not of such warriorsas we; and I would have fallen on Ebn Asrac, had not Ruark so routed thatman without faith. 'Twas all as I have said, blessed be Allah and hisdecrees!'

  Bhanavar gazed on her beloved, and the bridal dew overflowed herunderlids, and she loosed her hair to let it flow, part over hershoulders, part over his, and in sighs that were the measure of music shesang:

  I thought not to love again! But now I love as I loved not before; I love not; I adore! O my beloved, kiss, kiss me! waste thy kisses like a rain. Are not thy red lips fain? Oh, and so softly they greet! Am I not sweet? Sweet must I be for thee, or sweet in vain: Sweet to thee only, my dear love! The lamps and censers sink, but cannot cheat These eyes of thine that shoot above Trembling lustres of the dove! A darkness drowns all lustres: still I see Thee, my love, thee! Thee, my glory of gold, from head to feet! Oh, how the lids of the world close quite when our lips meet!

  Almeryl strained her to him, and responded:

  My life was midnight on the mountain side; Cold stars were on the heights: There, in my darkness, I had lived and died, Content with nameless lights. Sudden I saw the heavens flush with a beam, And I ascended soon, And evermore over mankind supreme, Stood silver in the moon.

  And he fell playfully into a new metre, singing:

  Who will paint my beloved In musical word or colour? Earth with an envy is moved: Sea-shells and roses she brings, Gems from the green ocean-springs, Fruits with the fairy bloom-dews, Feathers of Paradise hues, Waters with jewel-bright falls, Ore from the Genii-halls: All in their splendour approved; All; but, match'd with my beloved, Darker, and denser, and duller.

  Then she kissed him for that song, and sang:

  Once to be beautiful was my pride, And I blush'd in love with my own bright brow: Once, when a wooer was by my side, I worshipp'd the object that had his vow: Different, different, different now, Different now is my beauty to me: Different, different, different now! For I prize it alone because prized by thee.

  Almeryl stretched his arm to the lattice, and drew it open, letting inthe soft night wind, and the sound of the fountain and the bulbul and thebeam of the stars, and versed to her in the languor of deep love:

  Whether we die or we live, Matters it now no more: Life has nought further to give: Love is its crown and its core. Come to us either, we're rife,-- Death or life!

  Death can take not away, Darkness and light are the same: We are beyond the pale ray, Wrapt in a rosier flame: Welcome which will to our breath; Life or death!

  So did these two lovers lute and sing in the stillness of the night,pouring into each other's ears melodies from the new sea of fancy andfeeling that flowed through them.

  Ere they ceased their sweet interchange of tenderness, which was but onespeech from one soul, a glow of light ran up the sky, and the edge of acloud was fired; and in the blooming of dawn Almeryl hung over Bhanavar,and his heart ached to see the freshness of her wondrous loveliness; andhe sang, looking on her:

  The rose is living in her cheeks, The lily in her rounded chin; She speaks but when her whole soul speaks, And then the two flow out and in, And mix their red and white to make The hue for which I'd Paradise forsake.

  Her brow from her black falling hair Ascends like morn: her nose is clear As morning hills, and finely fair With pearly nostrils curving near The red bow of her upper lip; Her bosom's the white wave beneath the ship.

  The fair full earth, the enraptured skies, She images in constant play: Night and the stars are in her eyes, But her sweet face is beaming day, A bounteous interblush of flowers: A dewy brilliance in a dale of bowers.

  Then he said, 'And this morning shall our contract of marriage be writtenand witnessed?'

  She answered, 'As my lord willeth; I am his.'

  Said he, 'And it is thy desire?'

  She nestled to him and dinted his bare arm with the pearls of her mouthfor a reply.

  So that morning their contract of marriage was written, and witnessed bythe legal number of witnesses in the presence of the Cadi, with hislicense on it endorsed; and Bhanavar was the bride of Almeryl, he herhusband. Never was youth blessed in a bride like that youth!

  Now, the twain lived together the circle of a full year of delightfulmarriage, and love lessened not in them, but was as the love of the firstday. Little cared they, having each other, for the loneliness of theirdwelling in that city, where they knew none save the porter Ukleet, whowent about their commissions. Sometimes to amuse themselves with hisdrolleries, they sent for him, and were bountiful with him, and made himdrink with them on the lawn of their garden leaning to an inlet of thesea; and then he would entertain them with all the scandal and gossip ofthe city, and its little folk and great. When he was outrageouslyextravagant in these stories of his, Bhanavar exclaimed, 'Are suchthings, now? can it be true?'

  And he nodded in his conceit, and replied loftily, ''Tis certain, O myPrince and Princess! ye be from the mountains, unused to the follies anddissipations of men where they herd; and ye know them not, men!'

  The lamps being lit in the garden to the edges of the water, where theylay one evening, Ukleet, who had been in his briskest mood, became grave,and put his forefinger to the side of his nose and began, 'Hear ye aughtof the great tidings? Wullahy! no other than the departure of the wife ofBoolp, the broker, into darkness. 'Tis of Boolp ye hire this house, andhad ye a hundred houses in this city ye might have had them from Boolpthe broker, he that's rich; and glory to them whom Allah prospereth, sayI! And I mention this matter, for 'tis certain now Boolp will takeanother wife to him to comfort him, for there be two things beloved ofBoolp, and therein manifesteth he taste and the discernment ofexcellence, and what is approved; and of these two things let the love ofhis hoards of the yellow-skinned treasure go first, and after thatattachment to the silver-skinned of creation, the fair, the rapturous;even to them! So by this see ye not Boolp will yearn in his soul foranother spouse? Now, O ye well-matched pair! what a chance were this,knew ye but a damsel of the mountains, exquisite in symmetry, a moon toenrapture the imagination of Boolp, and in the nature of things herit hispossessions! for Boolp is an old man, even very old.'

  They laughed, and cried, 'We know not of such a damsel, and the brokermust go unmarried for us.'

  When next Ukleet sat before them, Almeryl took occasion to speak of Boolpagain, and said, 'This broker, O Ukleet, is he also a lender of money?'

  Ukleet replied, 'O my Prince, he is or he is not: 'tis of the maybes. Iwot truly Boolp is one that baiteth the hook of an emergency.'

  The brows of the Prince were downcast, and he said no more; but on thefollowing morning he left Bhanavar early under a pretext, and salliedforth from the house of their abode alone.

  Since their union in that city they had not been once apart, and Bhanavargrieved and thought, 'Waneth his love for me?' and she called her womento her, and dressed in this dress and that dress, and was satisfied withnone. The dews of the bath stood cold upon her, and she trembled, andfled from mirr
or to mirror, and in each she was the same surpassingvision of loveliness. Then her women held a glass to her, and sheexamined herself closely, if there might be a fleck upon her anywhere,and all was as the snow of the mountains on her round limbs sloping inthe curves of harmony, and the faint rose of the dawn on slants of snowwas their hue. Twining her fingers and sighing, she thought, 'It is notthat! he cannot but think me beautiful.' She smiled a melancholy smile ather image in the glass, exclaiming, 'What availeth it, thy beauty? for heis away and looketh not on thee, thou vain thing! And what of thyloveliness if the light illumine it not, for he is the light to thee, andit is darkness when he's away.'

  Suddenly she thought, 'What's that which needeth to light it no otherlight? I had well-nigh forgotten it in my bliss, the Jewel!' Then shewent to a case of ebony-wood, where she kept the Jewel, and drew itforth, and shone in the beam of a pleasant imagination, thinking, ''Twillsurprise him!' And she robed herself in a robe of saffron, and set lessergems of the diamond and the emerald in the braid of her hair, and knottedthe Serpent Jewel firmly in a band of gold-threaded tissue, and had itwoven in her hair among the braids. In this array she awaited his coming,and pleased her mind with picturing his astonishment and the joy thatwould be his. Mute were the women who waited on her, for in their livesthey had seen no such sight as Bhanavar beneath the beams of the Jewel,and the whole chamber was aglow with her.

  Now, in her anxiety she sent them one and one repeatedly to look forth atthe window for the coming of the Prince. So, when he came not she wentherself to look forth, and stretched her white neck beyond the casement.While her head was exposed, she heard a cry of some one from the house inthe street opposite, and Bhanavar beheld in the house of the broker anold wrinkled fellow that gesticulated to her in a frenzy. She snatchedher veil down and drew in her head in anger at him, calling to her maids,'What is yonder hideous old dotard?'

  And they answered, laughing, ''Tis indeed Boolp the broker, O fairmistress and mighty!'

  To divert herself she made them tell her of Boolp, and they told her athousand anecdotes of the broker, and verses of him, and the constancy ofhis amorous condition, and his greediness. And Bhanavar was beguiled ofher impatience till it was evening, and the Prince returned to her. Sothey embraced, and she greeted him as usual, waiting what he would say,searching his countenance for a token of wonderment; but the youth knewnot that aught was added to her beauty, for he looked nowhere save in hereyes. Bhanavar was nigh weeping with vexation, and pushed him from her,and chid him with lack of love and weariness of her; and the eye of thePrince rose to her brow to read it, and he saw the Jewel. Almeryl clappedhis hands, crying, 'Wondrous! And this thy surprise for me, my fond one?beloved of mine!' Then he gazed on her a space, and said, 'Knowest thou,thou art terrible in thy beauty, Bhanavar, and hast the face of lightningunder that Jewel of the Serpent?'

  She kissed him, whispering, 'Not lightning to thee! Yet lovest thouBhanavar?'

  He replied, 'Surely so; and all save Bhanavar in this world is thedarkness of oblivion to me.'

  When it was the next morning, Almeryl rose to go forth again. Ere he hadpassed the curtain of the chamber Bhanavar caught him by the arm, and shewas trembling violently. Her visage was a wild inquiry: 'Thou goest?--andagain? There is something hidden from me!'

  Almeryl took her to his heart, and caressed her with fond flatteries,saying, 'Ask but what is beating under these two pomegranates, and thoulearnest all of me.'

  But she stamped her foot, crying, 'No! no! I will hear it! There's amystery.'

  So he said, 'Well, then, it is this only; small matter enough. I have abusiness with the captain of the vessel that brought us hither, and Imust see him ere he setteth sail; no other than that, thou jealous,watchful star! Pierce me with thine eyes; it is no other than that.'

  She levelled her lids at him till her lustrous black eyelashes were asarrows, and mimicked him softly, 'No other than that?'

  And he replied, 'Even so.'

  Then she clung to him like a hungry creature, repeating, 'Even so,' andlet him go. Alone, she summoned a slave, a black, and bade him fetch toher without delay Ukleet the porter, and the porter was presently usheredin to her, protesting service and devotion. So, she questioned him ofAlmeryl, and the Prince's business abroad, what he knew of it. Ukleetcommenced reciting verses on the ills of jealousy, but Bhanavar checkedhim with an eye that Ukleet had seen never before in woman or in man, andhe gaped at her helplessly, as one that has swallowed a bone. Shelaughed, crying, 'Learn, O thou fellow, to answer my like by the letter.'

  Now, what she heard from Ukleet when he had recovered his wits, was thatthe Prince had a business with none save the lenders of money. So shespake to Ukleet in a kindly tone, 'Thou art mine, to serve me?'

  He was as one fascinated, and delivered himself, 'Yea, O my mistress!with tongue-service, toe-service, back-service, brain-service, whatsopleaseth thy sweet presence.'

  Said she, 'Hie over to the broker opposite, and bring him hither to me.'

  Ukleet departed, saying, 'To hear is to obey.'

  She sat gazing on the Jewel and its counterchanging splendours in herhand, and the thought of Almeryl and his necessity was her only thought.Not ten minutes of the hour had passed before the women waiting on herannounced Ukleet and the broker Boolp. Bhanavar gave little heed to theold fellow's grimaces, and the compliments he addressed her, but handedhim the Jewel and desired his valuation of its worth. The face of Boolpwas a keen edge when he regarded Bhanavar, but the sight of the Jewelsharpened it tenfold, and he tossed his arms, exclaiming, 'A jewel,this!'

  So Bhanavar cried to him, 'Fix a price for it, O thou broker!'

  And Boolp, the old miser, debated, and began prating,

  'O lady! the soul of thy slave is abashed by a double beam, this thejewel of jewels, thou truly of thy sex; and saving thee there's no jewelof worth like this one, and together ye be--wullahy! never felt I aughtlike this since my espousal of Soolka that 's gone, and 'twas nothinglike it then! Now, O my Princess, confess it freely--this is but apretext, this valuation of the Jewel, and Ukleet our go-between; andleave the rewarding of him to me. Wullahy! I can be generous, and my daysof favour with fair ladies be not yet over. Blessed be Allah for thisday! And thinkest thou those eyes fell on me with discriminatingobservation ere my sense of perception was struck by thee? Not so, for Ihad noted thee, O moon of hearts, from my window yonder.'

  In this fashion Boolp the broker went on prating, and bowing, andscrewing the corners of his little acid eyes to wink the wink of commonaccord between himself and Bhanavar. Meantime she had spoken aside to oneof her women, and a second black slave entered the chamber, bearing inhis hand a twisted scourge, and that slave laid it on the back of Boolpthe broker, and by this means he was brought quickly to the valuation ofthe Jewel. Then he named a sum that was a great sum, but not the value ofthe Jewel to the fiftieth part, nay nor the five-hundredth part, of itsvalue; and Ukleet remonstrated with him, but he was resolute, saying,'Even that sum leaves me a beggar.'

  So Bhanavar said, 'My desire is for immediate payment of the money, andthe Jewel is thine for that sum.'

  Now the broker went to fetch the money, and returned with it in bags ofgold one-half the amount, and bags of silver one-third, and the remainderin writing made due at a certain period for payment. And he groaned andhanded her the money, and took the Jewel in his hands; ejaculating, 'Inthe name of Allah!'

  That evening, when it was dark and the lamps lit in the chamber, and thewine set and the nosegay, Almeryl asked of Bhanavar to see her under thelight of the Jewel. She warded him with an excuse, but he was earnestwith her. So she feigned that he teased her, saying, ''Tis that thou artno longer content with me as I am, O my husband!' Then she said, 'Wertthou successful in thy dealings this day?'

  His arm slackened round her, and he answered nothing. So she cried, 'Fieon thee, thou foolish one! and what is thy need of running over thiscity? Know I not thy case and thine occasion, O my beloved? Surely I amQueen of Serpents, a mis
tress of enchantments, a diviner of thingshidden, and I know thee. Here, then, is what thou requirest, and concealnot from me thy necessity another time, my husband!'

  Upon that she pointed his eye to the money-bags of gold and of silver.Almeryl was amazed, and asked her, 'How came these? for I was at the lastextremity, without coin of any kind.'

  She answered, 'How, but by the Serpents!'

  And he exclaimed, 'Would that I might work as that porter worketh, ratherthan this!'

  Now, seeing he bewailed her use of the powers of the Jewel, Bhanavar fellbetween his arms, and related to him her discovery of his condition, andhow she disposed of the Jewel to the broker, and of the scourging ofBoolp; and he praised her, and clave to her, and they laughed anddelighted their souls in plenteousness, and bliss was their portion; asthe poet says,

  Bliss that is born of mutual esteem And tried companionship, I truly deem A well-based palace, wherein fountains rise From springs that have their sources in the skies.

  So were they for awhile. It happened that one day, that was the last dayof the year since her wearing of the Jewel, Ukleet said to them, 'Bewary! the Vizier Aswarak hath his eye on you, and it is no cool one. Isay nothing: the wise are discreet in their tellings of the great. 'Tiscertain the broker Boolp forgetteth not his treatment here.'

  They smiled, turning to each other, and said, 'We live innocently, weharm no one, what should we fear?'

  During the night of that day Bhanavar awoke and kissed the Prince; andlo! he shuddered in his sleep as with the grave-cold. A second time shewas awakened on the breast of Almeryl by a dream of the Serpents of theLake Karatis--the lake of the Jewel; and she stood up, and there was inthe street a hum of voices, and she saw there before the house armed menwith naked steel in their hands. Scarce had she called Almeryl to her,when the outer door of their house was forced, and she shrieked to him,''Tis thou they come for: fly, O my Prince, my husband! the way of thegarden is clear.'

  But he said sadly, 'Nay, what am I? it is thou they would win from me.I'll leave thee not in this life.'

  So she cried, 'O my soul, then together!--but I shall hinder thee, and bea burden to thy flight.'

  And she called on the All-powerful for aid, and ran with him into thegarden of the house, and lo! by the water side at the end of the garden aboat full of armed soldiers with scimitars. So these fell upon them, andbound them, and haled them into the house again, where was the darkVizier Aswarak, and certain officers of the night watch with a force. TheVizier cried when he saw them, 'I accuse thee, Prince Almeryl, of beinghere in the city of our lord the King, to conspire against him and hisauthority.'

  Almeryl faced the Vizier firmly, and replied, 'I knew not in my life Ihad made an enemy; but there is one here who telleth that of me.'

  The Vizier frowned, saying, 'Thou deniest this? And thou here, and thyfather at war with the sovereignty of our lord the King!'

  Almeryl beheld his danger, and he said, 'Is this so?'

  Then cried the Vizier, 'Hear him! is not that a fair simulation?' So hecalled to the guard, 'Shackle him!' When that was done, he ordered thehouse to be sacked, and the women and the slaves he divided for a spoil,but he reserved Bhanavar to himself: and lo! twice she burst away fromthem that held her to hang upon the lips of Almeryl, and twice was shetorn from him as a grape-bunch is torn from the streaming vine, and thethird time she swooned and the anguish of life left her.

  Now, Bhanavar was borne to the harem of the Vizier, and for days shesuffered no morsel of food to enter her mouth, and was dying, had not theVizier in the cunning of his dissimulation fed her with distant glimpsesof Almeryl, to show her he yet lived. Then she thought, 'While my belovedliveth, life is due to me'; and she ate and drank and reassumed her fairfulness and the queenliness that was hers; but the Vizier had no love ofher, and respected her, considering in his mind, 'Time will exhaust thefury of this tigress, and she is a fruit worth the waiting for. Wullahy!I shall have possessed her ere the days of over-ripening.'

  There was in the harem of the Vizier a mountain-girl that had beenbrought there in her childhood, and trained to play upon the lute andaccompany her voice with the instrument. To this little damsel Bhanavargave her heart, and would listen all day, as in a trance, to her luting,till the desire to escape from that bondage and gather tidings of Almerylmastered her, and she persuaded one of the blacks of the harem with abribe to procure her an interview with the porter Ukleet. So at a certainhour of the night Ukleet was introduced into the garden of the harem, andhe was in the darkness of that garden a white-faced porter with kneesthat knocked the dread-march together; but Bhanavar strengthened hissoul, and he said to her, ''Twas the doing of Boolp the broker: and hewhispered the Vizier of thee and thy beauty, O my mistress! Surely thypunishment and this ruin is but part payment to Boolp of the price of theJewel, the great Jewel that's in the hands of the Vizier.'

  Then she questioned him: 'And Almeryl, the Prince, my husband, what ofhim?'

  Ukleet was dumb, and Bhanavar asked to hear no more. Surely she was atthe gates of pale spirits within an hour of her interview with Ukleet,and there was no blessedness for her save in death, the stiffer of ills,the drug that is infallible. As is said:

  Dark is that last stage of sorrow Which from Death alone can borrow Comfort:--

  Bhanavar would have died then, but in a certain pause of her fever theVizier stood by her. She looked at him long as she lay, and the life inher large eyes was ebbing away slowly; but there seemed presently acheck, as an eddy comes in the stream, and the light of intelligenceflowed like a reviving fire into her eyes, and her heart quickened withdesire of life while she looked on the Vizier. So she passed the pitch ofthat fever, and bloomed anew in her beauty, and cherished it, for she hada purpose.

  Now, there was rejoicing in the harem of the Vizier Aswarak when Bhanavararose from the couch; and the Vizier exulted, thinking, 'I have tamedthis wild beauty, or she had reached death in that extremity.' So heallowed Bhanavar greater freedom and indulgences, and Bhanavar feigned togive her soul to the pleasures women delight in, and the Vizier buriedher in gems and trinkets and costly raiment, robes of exquisite silks,the choicest of Samarcand and China; and he permitted her to makepurchases among certain of the warehouses of the city and the shops ofthe tradesmen, jewellers and others, so that she went about as she would,but for the slaves that attended her and the overseer of the harem. Thiscontinued, and Aswarak became urgent with her, and to remove suspicionfrom him she named a day from that period when she would be his. Meantimeshe contrived to see Ukleet the porter frequently, and within a week ofher engagement with the Vizier she gazed from a lattice-window of theharem, and beheld in the garden, by the beams of the moon, Ukleet, and hewas looking as on the watch for her. So she sent to him the littlemountain-girl she loved, but Ukleet would tell her nothing; then went sheherself, greeting him graciously, for his service was other than that ofself-seeking.

  Ukleet said, 'O Lady, mistress of hearts, moon of the tides of will! 'tiscertain I was thy slave from the hour I beheld thee first, and of thePrince, thy husband; Allah rest his soul! Now these be my tidings.Wullahy! the King is one maddened with the reports I've spread about ofthy beauty, yea! raging. And I have a friend in his palace, even anunder-cook, acute in the interpreting of wishes. There was he alwaysgabbling of thy case, O my Princess, till the head-cook seized hold onit, and so it went to the chamberlain, thence to the chief of theeunuchs, and from him in a natural course, to the King. Now from the Kingthe tracking of this tale went to the under-cook down again, and from himto me. So was I summoned to the King, and the King discoursed with me--Iwith him, in fair fluency; he in ejaculations of desire to have sight ofthee, I in expatiation on that he would see when he had his desire. Nowin this have I not done thee a service, O sovereign of fancies?'

  Bhanavar mused and said, 'On the after-morrow I pass through the city tomake a selection of goods, and I shall pass at noon by the great mosque,on my way to the shop of Ebn Roulchook, the K
ing's jeweller, beyond themeat-market. Of a surety, I know not how my lord the King may see me.'

  Said the porter, ''Tis enough! on my head be it.' And he went from her,singing the song:

  How little a thing serves Fortune's turn When she's intent on doing! How easily the world may burn When kings come out a-wooing!

  Now, ere she set forth on the after-morrow to make her purchases,Bhanavar sent word to the Vizier Aswarak that she would see him, and hecame to her drunken with alacrity, for he augured favourably that herreluctance was melting toward him: so she said, 'O my master, my time ofmourning is at an end, and I would look well before thee, even as oneworthy of being thy bride; so bestow on me, I pray thee, for my wearingthat day, the jewels that be in thy treasury, the brightest and clearestof them, and the largest.'

  The Vizier Aswarak replied, and he was one in great satisfaction of soul,'All that I have are thine. Wullahy! and one, a marvel, that I bought ofBoolp the broker, that had it from an African merchant.' So he commandedthe box wherein he had deposited the Jewel to be brought to him there inthe chamber of Bhanavar, and took forth the Serpent Jewel between hisforefinger and thumb, and laughed at the eager eyes of Bhanavar when shebeheld it, saying, ''Tis thine! thy bridal gift the day I possess thee.'

  Bhanavar trembled at the sight of the Jewel, and its redness was to heras the blood of Zurvan and Almeryl. She stretched her hand out for it andcried, 'This day, O my lord, make it mine.'

  So the Vizier said, 'Nay, what I have spoken will I keep to; it has costme much.'

  Bhanavar looked at him, and uttered in a soft tone, 'Truly it has costthee much.'

  Then she exclaimed, as in play, 'See me, how I look by its beam.' And inher guile she snatched the Jewel from him, and held it to her brow. ThenAswarak started from her and feared her, for the red light of the Jewelglowed, and darkened the chamber with its beam, darkening all save thelustre that was on the visage of Bhanavar. He shouted, 'What's this! Artthou a sorceress?'

  She removed the Jewel, and ceased glaring on him, and said, 'Nothing butthy poor slave!'

  Then he coaxed her to give him the Jewel, and she would not; he commandedher peremptorily, and she hesitated; so he grasped her tightened hand,and his face loured with wrath; yet she withheld the Jewel from himlaughing; and he was stirred to extreme wrath, and drew from his girdlethe naked scimitar, and menaced her with it. And he looked mighty; butshe dreaded him little, and stood her full height before him, daring him,and she was as the tigress defending a cub from a wilder beast. Now whenhe was about to call in the armed slaves of the palace, she said, 'I warnthee, Vizier Aswarak! tempt me not to match them that serve me with themthat serve thee.'

  He ground his teeth in fury, crying, 'A conspiracy! and in the harem!Now, thou traitress! the logic of the lash shall be tried upon thee.' Andhe roared, 'Ho! ye without there! ho!'

  But ere the slaves had entered Bhanavar rubbed the Jewel on her bosom,muttering, 'I have forborne till now! Now will I have a sacrifice, thoughI be it.' And rubbing the Jewel, she sang,

  Hither! hither! Come to your Queen; Come through the grey wall, Come through the green!

  There was heard a noise like the noise of a wind coming down a narrowgorge above falling waters, a hissing and a rushing of wings, and behold!Bhanavar was circled by rings and rings of serpent-folds that glowedround her, twisted each in each, with the fierceness of fire, she like aflame rising up white in the midst of them. The black slaves, when theyhad lifted the curtain of the harem-chamber, shrieked to see her, andAswarak crouched at her feet with the aspect of an angry beast carved instone. Then Bhanavar loosed on either of the slaves a serpent, saying,'What these have seen they shall not say.' And while the sweat droppedheavily from the forehead of Aswarak, she stepped out of the circle ofserpents, singing,

  Over! over! Hie to the lake! Sleep with the left eye, Keep the right awake.

  Then the serpents spread with a great whirr, and flew through the highwindow and the walls as they had come, and she said to the Vizier, 'Whatnow? Fearest thou? I have spared thee, thou that madest me desolate! andthy slaves are a sacrifice for thee. Now this I ask: Where lies mybeloved, the Prince my husband? Speak nothing of him, save the place ofhis burial!'

  So he told her, 'In the burial-ground of the great prison.'

  She rolled her eyes on the Vizier darkly, exclaiming, 'Even where thefelons lie entombed, he lieth!' And she began to pant, pale with what shehad done, and leaned to the floor, and called,

  Yellow stripe, with freckle red, Coil and curl, and watch by my head.

  And a serpent with yellow stripes and red freckles came like a javelindown to her, and coiled and curled round her head, and she slept an hour.When she arose the Vizier was yet there, sitting with folded knees. Soshe sped the serpent to the Lake Karatis, and called her women to her,and went to an inner room, and drew an outer robe and a vest over thatshe had on, and passed the Vizier, and said, 'Art thou not rejoiced inthy bride, O Aswarak? 'Twas a wondrous clemency, hers! Now but four moredays and thou claimest her. Say nothing of what thou hast seen, or thouwilt shortly see nothing further to say, my master.'

  So she left the Vizier sitting still in that chamber, and mounted a mule,attended by slaves on foot before and behind her, and passed through thestreets till she came to the shop of Ebn Roulchook. The King was indisguise at the extremity of the shop, and while she examined this andthat of the precious stones, Bhanavar for a moment made bare the beauty,of her face, and love's fires took fast hold of the King, and he cried,'I marvel not at the eloquence of the porter.'

  Now, she made Ebn Roulchook bring to her a circlet of gold, with a hollowin the frontal centre, and fit into that hollow the Serpent Jewel. So,while she laughed and chatted with her women Bhanavar lifted the circlet,and made her countenance wholly bare even to the neck and the beginningslope of the bosom, and fixed the circlet to her head with the Jewelburning on her brow. Then when he beheld the glory of excellingloveliness that she was, and the splendour in her eyes under the Jewel,the King shouted and parted with his disguise, and Ebn Roulchook and thewomen and slaves with Bhanavar fled to the courtyard that was behind theshop, leaving Bhanavar alone with the King. Surely Bhanavar returned notto the dwelling of the Vizier.

  Now, the King Mashalleed espoused Bhanavar, and she became his queen andruled him, and her word was the dictate of the land. Then caused she thebody of Almeryl, with the severed head of the Prince, to be disinterred,and entombed secretly in the palace; and she had lamps lit in the vault,and the pall spread, and the readers of the Koran to read by the tomb;and then she stole to the tomb hourly, in the day and in the night,wailing of him and her utter misery, repeating verses at the side of thetomb, and they were,

  Take me to thee! Like the deep-rooted tree, My life is half in earth, and draws Thence all sweetness; oh may my being pause Soon beside thee!

  Welcome me soon! As to the queenly moon, Man's homage to my beauty sets; Yet am I a rose-shrub budding regrets: Welcome me soon.

  Soul of my soul! Have me not half, but whole. Dear dust, thou art my eyes, my breath! Draw me to thee down the dark sea of death, Soul of my soul!

  And she sang:

  Sad are they who drink life's cup Till they have come to the bitter-sweet: Better at once to toss it up, And trample it beneath the feet; For venom-charged as serpents' eggs 'Tis then, and knows not other change. Early, early, early, have I reached the dregs Of life, and loathe and love the bittersweet, revenge!

  Then turned she aside, and sang musingly:

  I came to his arms like the flower of the spring, And he was my bird of the radiant wing: He flutter'd above me a moment, and won The bliss of my breast as a beam of the sun, Untouch'd and untasted till then--

  The voice in her throat was like a drowning creature, and she rose up,and chanted wildly:

/>   I weep again?

  What play is this? for the thing is dead in me long since: Will all the reviving rain Of heaven bring me back my Prince? But I, when I weep, when I weep, Blood will I weep! And when I weep, Sons for fathers shall weep; Mothers for sons shall weep; Wives for husbands shall weep! Earth shall complain of floods red and deep, When I weep!

  Upon that she ran up a secret passage to her chamber and rubbed theJewel, and called the serpents, to delight her soul with the sight of herpower, and rolled and sported madly among them, clutching them by thenecks till their thin little red tongues hung out, and their eyes were asdiscoloured blisters of venom. Then she arose, and her arms and neck andlips were glazed with the slime of the serpents, and she flung off herrobes to the close-fitting silken inner vest looped across her bosom withpearls, and whirled in a mazy dance-measure among them, and sangmelancholy melodies, making them delirious, fascinating them; and theyfollowed her round and round, in twines and twists and curves, witharched heads and stiffened tails; and the chamber swam like an undulatingsea of shifting sapphire lit by the moon of midnight. Not before the moonof midnight was in the sky ceased Bhanavar sporting with the serpents,and she sank to sleep exhausted in their midst.

  Such was the occupation of the Queen of Mashalleed when he came not toher. The women and slaves of the palace dreaded her, and the King himselfwas her very slave.

  Meanwhile the plot of her unforgivingness against Aswarak ripened: andthe Vizier beholding the bride he had lost Queen of Mashalleed hismaster, it was as she conceived, that his heart was eaten with jealousyand fierce rage. Bhanavar as she came across him spake mildly, and gavehim gentle looks, sad glances, suffering not his fires to abate, thetorment of his love to cool. Each night he awoke with a serpent in hisbed; the beam of her beauty was as the constant bite of a serpent,poisoning his blood, and he deluded his soul with the belief thatBhanavar loved him notwithstanding, and that she was seized forcibly fromhim by the King. 'Otherwise,' thought he, 'why loosed she not a serpentfrom the host to strangle me even as yonder black slaves?' Bhanavar knewthe mind of Aswarak, and considered, 'The King is cunning and weak, aslave to his desires, and in the bondage of the jewel, my beauty. TheVizier is unscrupulous, a hatcher of intrigues; but that he dreads me andhopes a favour of me, he would have wrought against me ere now. 'Tis thena combat 'twixt him and me. O my soul, art thou dreaming of a fair youththat was the bliss of thy bosom night and day, night and day? The Viziershall die!'

  One morning, and it was a year from the day she had become Queen ofMashalleed, Bhanavar sprang up quickly from the side of the King; and hewas gazing on her in amazement and loathing. She flew to her chamber,chasing forth her women, and ran to a mirror. Therein she saw three linesthat were on her brow, lines of age, and at the corners of her mouth andabout her throat a slackness of skin, the skin no longer its soft rosywhite, but withered brown as leaves of the forest. She shrieked, and fellback in a swoon of horror. When she recovered, she ran to the mirroragain, and it was the same sight. And she rose from swooning a thirdtime, and still she beheld the visage of a hag; nothing of beauty theresave the hair and the brilliant eyes. Then summoned she the serpents in acircle, and the number of them was that of the days in the year: and shebared her wrist and seized one, a gray-silver with sapphire spots, andhissed at him till he hissed, and foam whitened the lips of each.Thereupon she cried:

  Treble-tongue and throat of hell, What is come upon me, tell!

  And the Serpent replied,

  Jewel Queen! beauty's price! 'Tis the time for sacrifice!

  She grasped another, one of leaden colour, with yellow bars and silvercrescents, and cried:

  Treble-tongue and throat of fire, Name the creature ye require!

  And the Serpent replied:

  Ruby lip! poison tooth! We are hungry for a youth.

  She grasped another that writhed in her fingers like liquid emerald, andcried:

  Treble-tongue and throat of glue! How to know the one that's due?

  And the Serpent replied:

  Breast of snow! baleful bliss! He that wooing wins a kiss.

  She clutched one at her elbow, a hairy serpent with yellow languid eyesin flame-sockets and livid-lustrous length--a disease to look on, andcried:

  Treble-tongue and throat of gall! There's a youth beneath the pall.

  And the Serpent replied:

  Brilliant eye! bloody tear! He has fed us for a year.

  She squeezed that hairy serpent till her finger-points whitened in hisneck, and he dropped lifelessly, crying:

  Treble-tongues and things of mud! Sprang my beauty from his blood?

  And the Serpents rose erect, replying:

  Yearly one of us must die; Yearly for us dieth one; Else the Queen an ugly lie Lives till all our lives be done!

  Bhanavar stood up, and hurried them to Karatis. When she was alone shefell toward the floor, repeating, ''Tis the Curse!' Suddenly she thought,'Yet another year my beauty shall be nourished by my vengeance, yetanother! And, O Vizier, the kiss shall be thine, the kiss of doom; for Ihave doomed thee ere now. Thou, thou shalt restore me to my beauty: thatonly love I now my Prince is lost.'

  So she veiled her face in the close veil of the virtuous, and despatchedUkleet, whom she exalted in the palace of the King, to the Vizier; andUkleet stood before Aswarak, and said, 'O Vizier, my mistress truly islonging for you with excessive longing, and in what she now undergoeth isforgotten an evil done by you to her; and she bids you come and concertwith her a scheme deliberately as to the getting rid of this tyrant whois an affliction to her, and her life is lessened by him.'

  The Vizier was deceived by his passion, and he chuckled and exclaimed,'My very dream! and to mind me of her, then, she sent the serpents!Wullahy, in the matter of women, wait! For, as the poet declareth:

  'Tis vanity our souls for such to vex; Patience is a harvest of the sex.''

  And they fret themselves not overlong for husbands that are gone, theseyoung beauties. I know them. Tell the Queen of Serpents I am even hers tothe sole of my foot.'

  So it was understood between them that the Vizier should be at the gateof the garden of the palace that night, disguised; and the Vizierrejoiced, thinking, 'If she have not the Jewel with her, it shall go illwith me, and I foiled this time!'

  Ukleet then proceeded to the house of Boolp the broker, fronting thegutted ruins where Bhanavar had been happy in her innocence with Almeryl,the mountain prince, her husband. Boolp was engaged haggling with aslave-merchant the price of a fair slave, and Ukleet said to him,'Yetawhile delay, O Boolp, ere you expend a fraction of treasure, for truly amighty bargain of jewels is waiting for you at the palace of my lord theKing. So come thither with all your money-bags of gold and silver, andyour securities, and your bonds and dues in writing, for 'tis thefavourite of the King requireth you to complete a bargain with her, andthe price of her jewels is the price of a kingdom.'

  Said Boolp, 'Hearing is compliance in such a case.'

  And Ukleet continued, 'What a fortune is yours, O Boolp! truly the tideof fortune setteth into your lap. Fail not, wullahy! to come with all youpossess, or if you have not enough when she requireth it to complete thebargain, my mistress will break off with you. I know not if she intendeven other game for you, O lucky one!'

  Boolp hitched his girdle and shrugged, saying, ''Tis she will fail, Iwot,--she, in having therewith to complete the bargain between us. Wa!wa!--there! I've done this before now. Wullahy! if she have not enough ofher rubies and pearls to outweigh me and my gold, go to, Boolp willschool her! What says the poet?--

  ''Earth and ocean search, East, West, and North, to the South, None will match the bright rubies and pearls of her mouth.''

  'Aha! what? O Ukleet! And he says:

  ''The lovely ones a bargain made Wi
th me, and I renounced my trade, Half-ruined; 'Ah!' said they, 'return and win! To even scales ourselves we will throw in!'''

  How so? But let discreetness reign and security flourisheth!'

  Ukleet nodded at him, and repeated the distich:

  Men of worth and men of wits Shoot with two arrows, and make two hits.

  So he arranged with Boolp the same appointment as with the Vizier, andreturned to Queen Bhanavar.

  Now, in the dark of night Aswarak stood within the gate of thepalace-garden of Mashalleed that was ajar, and a hand from a veiledfigure reached to him, and he caught it, in the fulness of his delusion,crying, 'Thou, my Queen?' But the hand signified silence, and drew himpast the tank of the garden and through a court of the palace into apassage lit with lamps, and on into a close-curtained chamber, and beyonda heavy curtain into another, a circular passage descending between blackhangings, and at the bottom a square vault draped with black, and in itprecious woods burning, oils in censers, and the odour of ambergris andmyrrh and musk floating in clouds, and the sight of the Vizier was for atime obscured by the thickness of the incenses floating. As he becamefamiliar with the place, he saw marked therein a board spread at one endwith viands and wines, and the nosegay in a water-vase, and cups of goldand a service of gold,--every preparation for feasting mightily. So thesoul of Aswarak leapt, and he cried, 'Now unveil thyself, O moon of ourmeeting, my mistress!'

  The voice of Bhanavar answered him, 'Not till we have feasted anddrunken, and it seemeth little in our eyes. Surely the chamber is secure:could I have chosen one better for our meeting, O Aswarak?'

  Upon that he entreated her to sit with him to the feast, but she cried,'Nay! delay till the other is come.'

  Cried he, 'Another?'

  But she exclaimed, 'Hush!' and saying thus went forward to the foot ofthe passage, and Boolp was there, following Ukleet, both of them under aweight of bags and boxes. So she welcomed the broker, and led him to thefeast, he coughing and wheezing and blinking, unwitting the vexation ofthe Vizier, nor that one other than himself was there. When Boolp heardthe voice of the Vizier, in astonishment, addressing him, he started backand fell upon his bags, and the task of coaxing him to the board was asthat of haling a distempered beast to the water. Then they sat andfeasted together, and Ukleet with them; and if Aswarak or Boolp waxedimpatient of each other's presence, he whispered to them, 'Only wait! seewhat she reserveth for you.' And Bhanavar mused with herself, 'Truly thatreserved shall be not long coming!' So they drank, and wine got themastery of Aswarak, so that he made no secret of his passion, and beganto lean to her and verse extemporaneously in her ear; and she stinted notin her replies, answering to his urgency in girlish guise, sighing behindthe veil, as if under love's influence. And the Vizier pressed close, andsang:

  'Tis said that love brings beauty to the cheeks Of them that love and meet, but mine are pale; For merciless disdain on me she wreaks, And hides her visage from my passionate tale: I have her only, only when she speaks. Bhanavar, unveil!

  I have thee, and I have thee not! Like one Lifted by spirits to a shining dale In Paradise, who seeks to leap and run And clasp the beauty, but his foot doth fail, For he is blind: ah! then more woful none! Bhanavar, unveil!

  He thrust the wine-cup to her, and she lifted it under her veil, and thensang, in answer to him:

  My beauty! for thy worth Thank the Vizier!

  He gives thee second birth: Thank the Vizier!

  His blooming form without a fault: Thank the Vizier!

  Is at thy foot in this blest vault: Thank the Vizier!

  He knoweth not he telleth such a truth, Thank the Vizier!

  That thou, thro' him, spring'st fresh in blushing youth: Thank the Vizier!

  He knoweth little now, but he shall soon be wise: Thank the Vizier!

  This meeting bringeth bloom to cheeks and lips and eyes: Thank the Vizier!

  O my beloved in this blest vault, if I love thee for aye, Thank the Vizier!

  Thine am I, thine! and learns his soul what it has taught--to die, Thank the Vizier!

  Now, Aswarak divined not her meaning, and was enraptured with her, andcried, 'Wullahy! so and such thy love! Thine am I, thine! And what amusic is thy voice, O my mistress! 'Twere a bliss to Eblis in his tormentcould he hear it. Life of my head! and is thy beauty increased by me?Nay, thou flatterer!' Then he said to her, 'Away with these importunatedogs! 'tis the very hour of tenderness! Wullahy! they offend my nostril:stung am I at the sight of them.'

  She rejoined,--

  O Aswarak! star of the morn! Thou that wakenest my beauty from night and scorn, Thy time is near, and when 'tis come, Long will a jackal howl that this thy request had been dumb. O Aswarak! star of the morn!

  So the Vizier imaged in his mind the neglect of Mashalleed from thesewords, and said, 'Leave the King to my care, O Queen of Serpents, andexpend no portion of thy power on him; but hasten now the going of thesefellows; my heart is straitened by them, and I, wullahy! would gladly seea serpent round the necks of either.'

  She continued,--

  O Aswarak! star of the morn! Lo! the star must die when splendider light is born; In stronger floods the beam will drown: Shrink, thou puny orb, and dread to bring me my crown, O Aswarak! star of the morn!

  Then said she, 'Hark awhile at those two! There's a disputation betweenthem.'

  So they hearkened, and Ukleet was pledging Boolp, and passing the cup tohim; but a sullenness had seized the broker, and he refused it, andUkleet shouted, 'Out, boon-fellow! and what a company art thou, that thourefusest the pledge of friendliness? Plague on all sulkers!'

  And the broker, the old miser, obstinate as are the half-fuddled, beganto mumble, 'I came not here to drink, O Ukleet, but to make a bargain;and my bags be here, and I like not yonder veil, nor the presence ofyonder Vizier, nor the secresy of this. Now, by the Prophet and thatinterdict of his, I'll drink no further.'

  And Ukleet said, 'Let her not mark your want of fellowship, or 'twill goill with you. Here be fine wines, spirited wines! choice flavours! andyou drink not! Where's the soul in you, O Boolp, and where's the life inyou, that you yield her to the Vizier utterly? Surely she waiteth agallant sign from you, so challenge her cheerily.'

  Quoth Boolp, 'I care not. Shall I leave my wealth and all I possess voidof eyes? and she so that I recognise her not behind the veil?'

  Ukleet pushed the old miser jeeringly: 'You not recognise her? Oh, Boolp,a pretty dissimulation! Pledge her now a cup to the snatching of theveil, and bethink you of a fitting verse, a seemly compliment,--somethingsugary.'

  Then Boolp smoothed his head, and was bothered; and tapped it, andcommenced repeating to Bhanavar:

  I saw the moon behind a cloud, And I was cold as one that's in his shroud: And I cried, Moon!--

  Ukleet chorused him, 'Moon!' and Boolp was deranged in what he had tosay, and gasped,--

  Moon! I cried, Moon!--and I cried, Moon!

  Then the Vizier and Ukleet laughed till they fell on their backs; soBhanavar took up his verse where he left it, singing,--

  And to the cry Moon did make fair the following reply: 'Dotard, be still! for thy desire Is to embrace consuming fire.'

  Then said Boolp, 'O my mistress, the laws of conviviality have till nowrestrained me; but my coming here was on business, and with me my bags,in good faith. So let us transact this matter of the jewels, and afterthat the song of--

  ''Thou and I A cup will try,''

  even as thou wilt.'

  Bhanavar threw aside her outer robe and veil, and appeared in a dress ofsumptuous blue, spotted with gold bees; her face veiled with a veil ofgauzy silver, and she was as the moon in summer heavens, and strode marjestically forward, saying, 'The jewels? 'tis but one. Behold!'

  The lamps were ext
inguished, and in her hand was the glory of the SerpentJewel, no other light save it in the vaulted chamber.

  So the old miser perked his chin and brows, and cried wondering, 'I knowit, this Jewel, O my mistress.'

  She turned to the Vizier, and said, lifting the red gloom of the Jewel onhim, 'And thou?'

  Aswarak ate his under-lip.

  Then she cried, 'There's much ye know in common, ye two.'

  Thereupon Bhanavar passed from the feast on to the centre of the vault,and stood before the tomb of Almeryl, and drew the cloth from it; andthey saw by the glow of the Jewel that it was a tomb. When she hadmounted some steps at the side of the tomb, she beckoned them to come,crying, in a voice of sobs, 'This which is here, likewise ye may know.'

  So they came with the coldness of a mystery in their blood, and looked asshe looked intently over a tomb. The lid was of glass, and through theglass of the lid the Jewel flung a dark rosy ray on the body of Almeryllying beneath it.

  Now, the miser was perplexed at the sight; but Aswarak stepped backwardin defiance, bellowing, ''Twas for this I was tricked to come here! Is 'tfooling me a second time? By Allah! look to it; not a second time willAswarak be fooled.'

  Then she ran to him, and exclaimed, 'Fooled? For what cam'st thou to me?'

  And he, foaming and grinding his breath, 'Thou woman of wiles! thouserpent! but I'll be gone from here.'

  So she faltered in sweetness, knowing him doomed, and loving to dallywith him in her wickedness, 'Indeed if thou cam'st not for my kiss--'

  Then said the Vizier, 'Yet a further guile! Was't not an outrage to bringme here?'

  She faltered again, leaning the fair length of her limbs on a couch,''Tis ill that we are not alone, else could these lips convince theewell: else indeed!'

  And the Vizier cried, 'Chase then these intruders from us, O thousorceress, and above all serpents in power! for thou poisonest with atouch; and the eye and the ear alike take in thy poisons greedily. Thouovercomest the senses, the reason, the judgment; yea, vindictiveness,wrath, suspicions; leading the soul captive with a breath of thine, as'twere a breeze from the gardens of bliss.'

  Bhanavar changed her manner a little, lisping, 'And why that startingfrom the tomb of a dead harmless youth? And that abuse of me?'

  He peered at her inquiringly, echoing 'Why?'

  And she repeated, as a child might repeat it, 'Why that?'

  Then the Vizier smote his forehead in the madness of utter perplexity,changing his eye from Bhanavar to the tomb of Almeryl, doubting hertruth, yet dreading to disbelieve it. So she saw him fast enmeshed in hersubtleties, and clapped her hands crying, 'Come again with me to thetomb, and note if there be aught I am to blame in, O Aswarak, and plightthyself to me beside it.'

  He did nothing save to widen his eye at her somewhat; and she said, 'Thetwo are yonside the tomb, and they hear us not, and see us not by thislight of the Jewel; so come up to it boldly with me; free thy mind of itsdoubt, and for a reconcilement kiss me on the way.'

  Aswarak moved not forward; but as Bhanavar laid the Jewel in her bosom hetore the veil from her darkened head, and caught her to him and kissedher. Then Bhanavar laughed and shouted, 'How is it with thee, VizierAswarak?'

  He was tottering, and muttered, ''Tis a death-chill hath struck me evento my marrow.'

  So she drew the Jewel forth once more, and rubbed it ablaze, and thenoise of the Serpents neared; and they streamed into the vault and underit in fiery jets, surrounding Bhanavar, and whizzing about her till intheir velocity they were indivisible; and she stood as a fountain of fireclothed in flashes of the underworld, the new loveliness of her facegrowing vivid violet like an incessant lightning above them. Thenstretched she her two hands, and sang to the Serpents:--

  Hither, hither, to the feast! Hither to the sacrifice! Virtue for my sake hath ceased: Now to make an end of Vice!

  Twisted-tail and treble-tongue, Swelling length and greedy maw! I have had a horrid wrong; Retribution is the law!

  Ye that suck'd my youthful lord, Now shall make another meal: Seize the black Vizier abhorr'd; Seize him! seize him throat and heel!

  Set your serpent wits to find Tortures of a new device: Have him! have him heart and mind! Hither to the sacrifice'

  Then she whirled with them round and round as a tempest whirls; and whenshe had wound them to a fury, lo, she burst from the hissing circle anddragged Ukleet from the vault into the passage, and blocked the entranceto the vault. So was Queen Bhanavar avenged.

  Now, she said to Ukleet, 'Ransom presently the broker,--him they will notharm,' and hastened to the King that he might see her in her beauty. TheKing reclined on cushions in the harem with a fair slave-girl, newly fromthe mountains, toying with the pearls in her locks. Then thoughtBhanavar, 'Let him not slight me!' So she drew a rose-coloured veil overher face and sat beside Mashalleed. The King continued his fondling withthe girl, saying to her, 'Was there no destiny foretold of thy coming tothe palace of the King to rule it, O Nashta, starbeam in the waters! andhadst thou no dream of it?'

  Bhanavar struck the King's arm, but he noticed her not, and Nashtalaughed. Then Bhanavar controlled her trembling and said, 'A word, OKing! and vouchsafe me a hearing.'

  The King replied languidly, still looking on Nashta, ''Tis a command thatthe voice of none that are crabbed and hideous be heard in the harem, andI find comfort in it, O Nashta! but speak thou, my fountain ofsweet-dropping lute-notes!'

  Bhanavar caught the King's hand and said, 'I have to speak with thee;'tis the Queen. Chase from us this little wax puppet a space.'

  The King disengaged his hand and leaned it over to Nashta, who beganplaying with it, and fitting on it a ring, giggling. Then, as he answerednothing, Bhanavar came nearer and slapped him on the cheek. Mashalleedstarted to his feet, and his hand grasped his girdle; but thatwrathfulness was stayed when he beheld the veil slide from her visage. Sohe cried, 'My Queen! my soul!'

  She pointed to Nashta, and the King chid the girl, and sent her forthlean with his shifted displeasure, as a kitten slinks wet from afish-pond where it had thought to catch a great fish. Then Bhanavarexclaimed, 'There was a change in thy manner to me before that creature.'

  He sought to dissimulate with her, but at last he confessed, 'I was trulythis morning the victim of a sorcery.'

  Thereupon she cried, 'And thou went angered to find me not by thee on thecouch, but one in my place, a hag of ugliness. Hear then the case, OMashalleed! Surely that old crone had a dream, and it was that if sheslept one night by the King she would arise fresh in health from herills, and with powers lasting a year to heal others of all maladies witha touch. So she came to me, petitioning me to bring this about. O my lordthe King, did I well in being privy to her desire?'

  The King could not doubt this story of Bhanavar, seeing her constantloveliness, and the arch of her flashing brow, and the oval of her cheekand chin smooth as milk. So he said, 'O my Queen! I had thought to go, asI must, gladly; but how shall I go, knowing thy truth, thy beautyunchanged; thee faithful, a follower of the injunctions of the Prophet incharitable deeds?'

  Cried she, 'And whither goeth my lord, and on what errand?'

  He answered, 'The people of a province southward have raised the standardof revolt and mocked my authority; they have been joined by certain ofthe Arab chiefs subject to my dominion, and have defeated my armies. 'Tisto subdue them I go; yea, to crush them. Yet, wallaby! I know not. Care Iif kingdoms fall away, and nations, so that I have thee? Nay, let allpass, so that thou remain by me.'

  Bhanavar paced from him to a mirror, and frowned at the reflection of herfairness, thinking, 'Such had he spoken to the girl Nashta, or another,this King!' And she thought, 'I have been beloved by the noblest three onearth; I will ask no more of love; vengeance I have had. 'Tis time that Idemand of my beauty nothing save power, and I will make this King mystepping-stone to power, rejoicing my soul with the shock of arm
ies.'

  Now, she persuaded Mashalleed to take her with him on his expeditionagainst the Arabs; and they set forth, heading a great assemblage ofwarriors, southward to the land bordering the Desert. The King creditedthe suggestions of Bhanavar, that Aswarak had disappeared to join therebels, and pressed forward in his eagerness to inflict a chastisementsignal in swiftness upon them and that traitor; so eagerly Mashalleedjourneyed to his army in advance, that the main body, with Bhanavar, wasleft by him long behind. She had encouraged him, saying, 'I shall lovethee much if thou art speedy in winning success.' The Queen was housed onan elephant, harnessed with gold, and with silken purple trappings; fromthe rose-hued curtains of her palanquin she looked on a mighty march ofwarriors, filling the extent of the plains; all day she fed her sight onthem. Surely the story of her beauty became noised among the guards ofher person that rode and ran beneath the royal elephant, till thesoldiers of Mashalleed spake but of the beauty of the Queen, and Bhanavarwas as a moon shining over that sea of men.

  Now, they had passed the cultivated fields, and were halting by the fordof a river bordering the Desert, when lo! a warrior on the yonside,riding in a cloud of dust, and his shout was, 'The King Mashalleed isdefeated, and flying.' Then the Captains of the host witnessed to thegreatness of Allah, and were troubled with a dread, fearing to advance;but Bhanavar commanded a horse to be saddled for her, and mounted it, andplunged through the ford singly; so they followed her, and all day sherode forward on horseback, touching neither food nor drink. By night shewas a league beyond the foremost of them, and fell upon the King encampedin the Desert, with the loose remnant of his forces. Mashalleed, when hehad looked on her, forgot his affliction, and stood up to embrace her,but Bhanavar spurned him, crying, 'A time for this in the time ofdisgrace?' Then she said, 'How came it?'

  He answered, 'There was a Chief among the enemy, an Arab, before theterror of whom my people fled.'

  Cried she, 'Conquer him on the morrow, and till then I eat not, drinknot, sleep not.'

  On the morrow Mashalleed again encountered the rebels, and Bhanavar,seated on her elephant, from a sand-hillock under a palm, beheld theprowess of the Arab Chief and the tempest of battle that he was. Shethought, 'I have seen but one mighty in combat like that one, Ruark, theChief of the Beni-Asser.' Thereupon she coursed toward the King, evenwhere the arrows gloomed like locusts, thick and dark in the air aloof,and said, 'The victory is with yonder Chief! Hurl on him three of thysons of valour.'

  The three were selected, and made onslaught on this Chief, and perishedunder his arm.

  Bhanavar saw them fall, and exclaimed, 'Another attack on him, and withthrice three!'

  Her will was the mandate of Mashalleed, and these likewise were orderedforth, and closed on the Chief, but he darted from their toils andwheeled about them, spearing them one by one till the nine were in thedust. Bhanavar compressed her dry lips and muttered to the King, 'Headthou a body against him.'

  Mashalleed gathered round his standard the chosen of his warriors, andsmoothed his beard, and headed them. Then the Chief struck his lancebehind him, and stretched rapidly a half-circle across the sand, andhalted on a knoll. When they neared him he retreated in a furtherhalf-circle, and continued this wise, wasting the fury of Mashalleed,till he stood among his followers. There, as the King hesitated andprepared to retreat, he and the others of the tribe levelled their lancesand hung upon his rear, fretting them, slaughtering captains of thetroop. When Mashalleed turned to face his pursuer, the Chief was alone,immovable on his mare, fronting the ranks. Then Bhanavar taunted theKing, and he essayed the capture of that Chief a second time and a third,and it was each time as the first. Bhanavar looked about her with rapideyes, murmuring, 'Oh, what a Chief is he! Oh that a cloud would fall, asmoke arise, to blind these hosts, that I might sling my serpents on himunseen, for I will not be vanquished, though it be by Ruark!' So she drewto the King, and the altercation between them was fierce in the fury ofthe battle, he saying, ''Tis a feint of the Chief, this challenge; and Imust succour the left of my army by the well, that he is overmatchingwith numbers'; and she, 'If thou head them not, then will I, and thoushalt behold a woman do what thou durst not, and lose her love and winher scorn.' While they spake the Arabs they looked on seemed to flutterand waver, and the Chief was backing to them, calling to them as 'twerewords of shame to rally them. Seeing this, Mashalleed charged against theChief once more, and lo! the Arabs opened to receive him, closing on hisband of warriors like waters whitened by the storm on a fleet ofswift-scudding vessels: and there was a dust and a tumult visible, suchas is seen in the darkness when a vessel struck by the lightning-bolt issinking--flashes of steel, lifting of hands, rolling of horsemen andhorses. Then Bhanavar groaned aloud, 'They are lost! Shame to us! onlyone hope is left-that 'tis Ruark, this Chief!' Now, the view of the plaincleared, and with it she beheld the army of Mashalleed broken, the Kingborne down by a dust of Arabs; so she unveiled her face and rode on thehost with the horsemen that guarded her, glorious with a crown of goldand the glowing Jewel on her brow. When she was a javelin's flight fromthem the Arabs shouted and paused in terror, for the light of her headwas as the sun setting between clouds of thunder; but that Chief dashedforward like a flame beaten level by the wind, crying, 'Bhanavar;Bhanavar!' and she knew the features of Ruark; so she said, 'Even I!' Andhe cried again, 'Bhanavar! Bhanavar!' and was as one stricken by a shaft.Then Bhanavar threw on him certain of the horsemen with her, and hesuffered them without a sign to surround him and grasp his mare by thebridle-rein, and bring him, disarmed, before the Queen. At sight of Ruarka captive the Arabs fell into confusion, and lost heart, and werespeedily chased and scattered from the scene like a loose spray beforethe wind; but Mashalleed the King rejoiced mightily and praised Bhanavar,and the whole army of the King praised her, magnifying her.

  Now, with Ruark she interchanged no syllable, and said not farewell tohim when she departed with Mashalleed, to encounter other tribes; and theChief was bound and conducted a prisoner to the city of the inland sea,and cast into prison, in expectation of Death the releaser, and continuedthere wellnigh a year, eating the bitter bread of captivity. In theevening of every seventh day there came to him a little mountain girl,that sat by him and leaned a lute to her bosom, singing of the mountainand the desert, but he turned his face from her to the wall. One day shesang of Death the releaser, and Ruark thought, ''Tis come! she warnethme! Merciful is Allah!' On the morning that followed Ukleet entered thecell, and with him three slaves, blacks, armed with scimitars. So Ruarkstood up and bore witness to his faith, saying, 'Swift with the stroke!'but Ukleet exclaimed, 'Fear not! the end is not yet.'

  Then said he, 'Peace with thee! These slaves, O Chief, excelling inmartial qualities! surely they're my retinue, and the retinue of them ofmy rank in the palace; and where I go they go; for the exalted have moreshadows than one! yea, three have they in my case, even very grimly blackshadows, whereon the idle expend not laughter, and whoso joketh in theirhearing, 'tis, wullahy! the last joke of that person. In such-wise arethe powerful known among men, they that stand very prominent in the beamsof prosperity! Now this of myself; but for thee--of a surety the QueenBhanavar, my mistress, will be here by the time of the rising of themoon. In the name of Allah!' Saying that he departed in his greatness,and Ruark watched for her that rose in his soul as the moon in theheavens.

  Meanwhile Bhanavar had mused, ''Tis this day, the day when the Serpentsdesire their due, and the King Mashalleed they shall have; for what islife to him but a treachery and a dalliance, and what is my hold on himbut this Jewel of the Serpents? He has had the profit of beauty, and heshall yield the penalty: my kiss is for him, my serpent-kiss. And I willrelease Ruark, and espouse him, and war with kings, sultans, emperors,infidels, subduing them till they worship me.'

  She flashed her figure in the glass, and was lovely therein as one in thelight of Paradise; but ere she reached the King Mashalleed, lo! the hourof the Serpents had struck, and her beauty melted from her as snow meltsfrom off the
rock; and she was suddenly haggard in utter uncomeliness,and knew it not, but marched, smiling a grand smile, on to the King. Nowas Mashalleed lifted his eyes to her he started amazed, crying, 'The hagagain!' and she said, 'What of the hag, O my lord the King?' Thereat hewas yet more amazed, and exclaimed, 'The hag of ugliness with the voiceof Bhanavar! Has then the Queen lent that loathsomeness her voice also?'

  Bhanavar chilled a moment, and looked on the faces of the women present,and they were staring at her, the younger ones tittering, and among themNashta, whom she hated. So she cried, 'Away with ye!' But the Kingcommanded them, 'Stay!' Then the Queen leaned to him, saying, 'I willspeak with my lord alone'; whereat he shrank from her, and spat. Ice andflame shivered through the blood of Bhanavar, yet such was her eagernessto give the kiss to Mashalleed, that she leaned to him, still wooing himto her with smiles. Then the King seized her violently, and flung herover the marble floor to the very basin of the fountain, and the crownthat was on her brow fell and rolled to the feet of Nashta. The girllifted it, laughing, and was in the act of fitting it to her fair headamid the chuckles of her companions, when a slap from the hand ofBhanavar spun her twice round, and she dropped to the marble insensible.The King bellowed in wrath, and ran to Nashta, crying to the Queen,'Surrender that crown to her, foul hag!' But Bhanavar had bent over thebasin of the fountain, and beheld the image of her change therein, andwas hurrying from the hall and down the corridors of the palace to theprivate chamber. So he made bare the steel by his side, and followed herwith a number of the harem guard, menacing her, and commanding her tosurrender the crown with the Jewel. Ere she could lay hand on a veil, hewas beside her, and she was encompassed. In that extremity Bhanavarplucked the Jewel from her crown, and rubbed it, calling the Serpents toher. One came, one only, and that one would not move from her to slinghimself about the neck of Mashalleed, but whirled round her, hissing:

  Every hour a serpent dies, Till we have the sacrifice: Sweeten, sweeten, with thy kiss, Quick! a soul for Karatis.

  Surely the King bit his breath, marvelling, and his fury became an awfulfear, and he fell back from her, molesting her no further. Then shesqueezed the serpent till his body writhed in knots, and veiled herself,and sprang down a secret passage to the garden, and it was the time ofthe rising of the moon. Coolness and soothingness dropped on her as abalm from the great light, and she gazed on it murmuring, as in a memory:

  Shall I counsel the moon in her ascending? Stay under that dark palm-tree through the night, Rest on the mountain slope, By the couching antelope, O thou enthroned supremacy of light! And for ever the lustre thou art lending Lean on the fair long brook that leaps and leaps, Silvery leaps and falls: Hang by the mountain-walls, Moon! and arise no more to crown the steeps, For a danger and dolour is thy wending!

  And she panted and sighed, and wept, crying, 'Who, who will kiss me orhave my kiss now, that I may indeed be as yonder beam? Who, that I may beavenged on this King? And who sang that song of the ascending of themoon, that comes to me as a part of me from old times?' As she gazed onthe circled radiance swimming under a plume of palm leaves, sheexclaimed, 'Ruark! Ruark the Chief!' So she clasped her hands to herbosom, and crouched under the shadows of the garden, and fled through thegarden gates and the streets of the city, heavily veiled, to the prisonwhere Ruark awaited her within the walls and Ukleet without. The Governorof the prison had been warned by Ukleet of her coming, and the doors andbars opened before her unchallenged, till she stood in the cell of Ruark;her eyes, that were alone unveiled, scanned the countenance of the Chief,the fevered lustre-jet of his looks, and by the little moonlight in thecell she saw with a glance the straw-heap and the fetters, and theblack-bread and water untasted on the bench--signs of his misery anddesire for her coming. So she greeted him with the word of peace, and hereplied with the name of the All-Merciful. Then said she, 'O Ruark, ofRukrooth thy mother tell me somewhat.'

  He answered, 'I know nought of her since that day. Allah have her in hiskeeping!'

  So she cried, 'How? What say'st thou, Ruark? 'tis a riddle.'

  Then he, 'The oath of Ruark is no rope of sand! He swore to see her nottill he had set eyes on Bhanavar.'

  She knelt by the Chief, saying in a soft voice, 'Very greatly the Chiefof the Beni-Asser loved Bhanavar.' And she thought, 'Yea! greatly andverily love I him; and he shall be no victim of the Serpents, for I defythem and give them other prey.' So she said in deeper notes, 'Ruark! theQueen is come hither to release thee. O my Chief! O thou soul of wrath!Ruark, my fire-eye! my eagle of the desert! where is one on earth belovedas thou art by Bhanavar?' The dark light in his eyes kindled as light inthe eyes of a lion, and she continued, 'Ruark, what a yoke is hers whoweareth this crown! He that is my lord, how am I mated to him save inloathing? O my Chief, my lion! hadst thou no dream of Bhanavar, that shewould come hither to unbind thee and lift thee beside her, and live withthee in love and veilless loveliness,--thine? Yea! and in power overlands and nations and armies, lording the infidel, taming them tosubmission, exulting in defiance and assaults and victories andmagnanimities--thou and she?' Then while his breast heaved like a broadwave, the Queen started to her feet, crying, 'Lo, she is here! and thisshe offereth thee, Ruark!'

  A shrill cry parted from her lips, and to the clapping of her handsslaves entered the cell with lamps, and instruments to strike off thefetters from the Chief; and they released him, and Ruark leaned on theirshoulders to bear the weight of a limb, so was he weakened by captivity;but Bhanavar thrust them from the Chief, and took the pressure of hiselbow on her own shoulder, and walked with him thus to the door of thecell, he sighing as one in a dream that dreameth the bliss of bliss. Nowthey had gone three paces onward, and were in the light of many lamps,when behold! the veil of Bhanavar caught in the sleeve of Ruark as helifted it, and her visage became bare. She shrieked, and caught up hertwo hands to her brow, but the slaves had a glimpse of her, and saidamong themselves, 'This is not the Queen.' And they murmured, ''Tis animpostor! one in league with the Chief.' Bhanavar heard them say, 'Arresther with him at the Governor's gate,' and summoned her soul, thinking,'He loveth me, the Chief! he will look into my eyes and mark not thechange. What need I then to dread his scorn when I ask of him the kiss:now must it be given, or we are lost, both of us!' and she raised herhead on Ruark, and said to him, 'my Chief, ere we leave these walls andjoin our fates, wilt thou plight thyself to me with a kiss?'

  Ruark leapt to her like the bounding leopard, and gave her the kiss, aswere it his whole soul he gave. Then in a moment Bhanavar felt the blushof beauty burn over her, and drew the veil down on her face, and sufferedthe slaves to arrest her with Ruark, and bring her before the Governor,and from the Governor to the King in his council-chamber, with the Chiefof the Beni-Asser.

  Now, the King Mashalleed called to her, 'Thou traitress! thou sorceress!thou serpent!'

  And she answered under the veil, 'What, O my lord the King! and whereforethese evil names of me?'

  Cried he, 'Thou thing of guile! and thou hast pleaded with me for thelife of the Chief thus long to visit him in secret! Life of my head I butMashalleed is not one to be fooled.'

  So she said, ''Tis Bhanavar! hast thou forgotten her?'

  Then he waxed white with rage, exclaiming, 'Yea, 'tis she! a serpent inthe slough! and Ukleet in the torture hath told of thee what is known tohim. Unveil! unveil!'

  She threw the veil from her figure, and smiled, for Mashalleed was mute,the torrent of invective frozen on his mouth when he beheld the miracleof beauty that she was, the splendid jewel of throbbing loveliness. So toscourge him with the bitter lash of jealousy, Bhanavar turned her eyes onRuark, and said sweetly, 'Yet shalt thou live to taste again the bliss ofthe Desert. Pleasant was our time in it, O my Chief!' The King glared andchoked, and she said again, 'Nor he conquered thee, but I; and I thatconquered thee, little will it be for me to conquer him: his threats arethe winds of idleness.'

  Surely t
he world darkened before the eyes of Mashalleed, and he arose andcalled to his guard hoarsely, 'Have off their heads!' They hesitated,dreading the Queen, and he roared, 'Slay them!'

  Bhanavar beheld the winking of the steel, but ere the scimitarsdescended, she seized Ruark, and they stood in a whizzing ring ofserpents, the sound of whom was as the hum of a thousand wires struck bystorm-winds. Then she glowed, towering over them with the Chief claspedto her, and crying:

  King of vileness! match thy slaves With my creatures of the caves.

  And she sang to the Serpents:

  Seize upon him! sting him thro'! Thrice this day shall pay your due.

  But they, instead of obeying her injunction, made narrower their circleround Bhanavar and the Chief. She yellowed, and took hold of the nearestSerpent horribly, crying:

  Dare against me to rebel, Ye, the bitter brood of hell?

  And the Serpent gasped in reply:

  One the kiss to us secures: Give us ours, and we are yours.

  Thereupon another of the Serpents swung on, the feet of Ruark, windinghis length upward round the body of the Chief; so she tugged at that one,tearing it from him violently, and crying:

  Him ye shall not have, I swear! Seize the King that's crouching there.

  And that Serpent hissed:

  This is he the kiss ensures: Give us ours, and we are yours.

  Another and another Serpent she flung from the Chief, and they began toswarm venomously, answering her no more. Then Ruark bore witness to hisfaith, and folded his arms with the grave smile she had known in thedesert; and Bhanavar struggled and tussled with the Serpents infierceness, strangling and tossing them to right and left. 'Great isAllah!' cried all present, and the King trembled, for never was sightlike that seen, the hall flashing with the Serpents, and a woman-serpent,their Queen, raging to save one from their fury, shrieking at intervals:

  Never, never shall ye fold, Save with me the man I hold.

  But now the hiss and scream of the Serpents and the noise of theircircling was quickened to a slurred savage sound and they closed onRuark, and she felt him stifling and that they were relentless. So in theheight of the tempest Bhanavar seized the Jewel in the gold circlet onher brow and cast it from her. Lo! the Serpents instantly abated theirfrenzy, and flew all of them to pluck the Jewel, chasing the one that hadit in his fangs through the casement, and the hall breathed empty ofthem. Then in the silence that was, Bhanavar veiled her face and said tothe Chief, 'Pass from the hall while they yet dread me. No longer am IQueen of Serpents.'

  But he replied, 'Nay! said I not my soul is thine?'

  She cried to him, 'Seest thou not the change in me? I was bound to thoseSerpents for my beauty, and 'tis gone! Now am I powerless, hateful tolook on, O Ruark my Chief!'

  He remained still, saying, 'What thou hast been thou art.'

  She exclaimed, 'O true soul, the light is hateful to me as I to thelight; but I will yet save thee to comfort Rukrooth, thy mother.'

  So she drew him with her swiftly from the hall of the King ere the Kinghad recovered his voice of command; but now the wrath of the All-powerfulwas upon her and him! Surely within an hour from the flight of theSerpents, the slaves and soldiers of Mashalleed laid at his feet twoheads that were the heads of Ruark and Bhanavar; and they said, 'O greatKing, we tracked them to her chamber and through to a passage and a vaulthung with black, wherein were two corpses, one in a tomb and oneunburied, and we slew them there, clasping each other, O King of theage!'

  Mashalleed gazed upon the head of Bhanavar and sighed, for death had madethe head again fair with a wondrous beauty, a loveliness never beforeseen on earth.