Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу  The Shaving of Shagpat; an Arabian entertainment — Complete

автор George Meredith

The Thwackings

It was or­dained that Shibli Bagarag, nephew to the renowned Baba Mustapha, chief barber to the Court of Per­sia, should shave Shag­pat, the son of Shim­poor, the son of Shoolpi, the son of Shul­lum; and they had been clothiers for gen­er­a­tions, even to the time of Shag­pat, the il­lus­tri­ous.

Now, the story of Shibli Bagarag, and of the ball he fol­lowed, and of the sub­ter­ranean king­dom he came to, and of the en­chanted palace he entered, and of the sleep­ing king he shaved, and of the two prin­cesses he re­leased, and of the afreet held in sub­jec­tion by the arts of one and bottled by her, is it not known as ’twere writ­ten on the fin­ger­nails of men and traced in their corner-robes? As the poet says:

“Ripe with oft telling and old is the tale,
But ’tis of the sort that can never grow stale.”

Now, things were in that con­di­tion with Shibli Bagarag, that on a cer­tain day he was hungry and ab­ject, and the city of Shag­pat the clothier was be­fore him; so he made to­ward it, de­lib­er­at­ing as to how he should pro­cure a meal, for he had not a dirham in his girdle, and the re­mem­brance of great dishes and sa­voury in­gredi­ents were to him as the il­lu­sion of rivers sheen­ing on the sands to trav­el­lers gasp­ing with thirst.

And he con­sidered his case, cry­ing, “Surely this comes of wan­der­ing, and ’tis the curse of the in­quir­ing spirit! for in Shiraz, where my craft is in fa­vour, I should be sit­ting now with my uncle, Baba Mustapha, the lo­qua­cious one, cross-legged, par­tak­ing of seasoned sweet dishes, dip­ping my fin­gers in them, re­joicing my soul with scan­dal of the Court!”

Now, he came to a knoll of sand un­der a palm, from which the yel­low domes and mosques of the city of Shag­pat, and its black cypresses, and marble palace fronts, and shin­ing pil­lars, and lofty carven arches that spanned half-circles of the hot grey sky, were plainly vis­ible. Then gazed he awhile des­pond­ingly on the city of Shag­pat, and groaned in con­tem­pla­tion of his evil plight, as is said by the poet:

“The curse of sor­row is com­par­ison!
As the sun casteth shade, night showeth star,
We, meas­ur­ing what we were by what we are,
Be­hold the depth to which we are un­done.”

Where­fore he coun­sel­leth:

“Look neither too much up, nor down at all,
But, for­ward step­ping, strive no more to fall.”

And the ad­vice is ex­cel­lent; but, as is again said:

“The preacher preacheth, and the hearer heareth,
But com­fort first each func­tion re­quireth.”

And “wis­dom to a hungry stom­ach is thin pot­tage,” saith the shrewd reader of men. Little com­fort was there with Shibli Bagarag, as he looked on the city of Shag­pat the clothier! He cried aloud that his evil chance had got the bet­ter of him, and rolled his body in the sand, beat­ing his breast, and con­jur­ing up im­ages of the pro­fu­sion of dain­ties and the abund­ance of pro­vi­sion in Shiraz, ex­claim­ing, “Well-a-way and woe’s me! this it is to be se­lec­ted for the di­ver­sion of him that plot­teth against man.” Truly is it writ­ten:

“On dif­fer­ent heads mis­for­tunes come:
One bears them firm, an­other faints,
While this one hangs them like a drum
Whereon to bat­ter loud com­plaints.”

And of the three kinds, they who bang the drum out­num­ber the si­lent ones as do the bil­lows of the sea the ships that swim, or the grains of sand the trees that grow; a noisy mul­ti­tude.

Now, he was in the pits of des­pond­ency, even as one that yiel­deth without fur­ther struggle to the waves of tem­pest at mid­night, when he was ware of one stand­ing over him—a wo­man, old, wrinkled, a very crone, with but room for the draw­ing of a thread between her nose and her chin; she was, as is cited of them who be­tray the do­ings of Time,

“Wrinkled at the rind, and over­ripe at the core,”

and every part of her nod­ded and shook like a tree sapped by the wa­ters, and her joints were sharp as the hind-legs of a grasshop­per; she was in­deed one close-wrecked upon the rocks of Time.

Now, when the old wo­man had scanned Shibli Bagarag, she called to him, “O thou! what is it with thee, that thou rollest as one reft of his wits?”

He answered her, “I be­wail my con­di­tion, which is beg­gary, and the lack of that which fil­leth with pleas­ant­ness.”

So the old wo­man said, “Tell me thy case.”

He answered her, “O old wo­man, surely it was writ­ten at my birth that I should take ruin from the read­ers of plan­ets. Now, they pro­claimed that I was one day destined for great things, if I stood by my tackle, I, a barber. Know then, that I have had many of­fers and bribes, se­duct­ive ones, from the rich and the ex­al­ted in rank; and I heeded them not, mind­ful of what was fore­told of me. I stood by my tackle as a war­rior stan­deth by his arms, flour­ish­ing them. Now, when I found great things came not to me, and ’twas the con­tinu­ance of same­ness and sati­ety with Baba Mustapha, my uncle, in Shiraz—the tongue-wag­ger, the end­less tat­tler—surely I was ad­vised by the words of the poet to go forth in search of what was want­ing, and he says:

“ ‘Thou that dreamest an Event,
While Cir­cum­stance is but a waste of sand,
Arise, take up thy for­tunes in thy hand,
And daily for­ward pitch thy tent.’

“Now, I passed from city to city, pro­claim­ing my sci­ence, hold­ing aloft my tackle. Wul­lahy! many ad­ven­tures were mine, and if there’s some day pro­pi­tious­ness in for­tune, O old wo­man, I’ll tell thee of what be­fell me in the king­dom of Shah Shamshur­een: ’tis won­drous, a mat­ter to draw down the lower jaw with amazement! Now, so it was, that in the eyes of one city I was hon­oured and in re­quest, by reason of my call­ing, and I fared sump­tu­ously, even as a great of­ficer of state sur­roun­ded by slaves, loun­ging upon clouds of silk stuffs, circled by at­tent­ive ears: in an­other city there was no beast so base as I. Wah! I was one hunted of men and an ab­om­in­a­tion; no hous­ing for me, nought to op­er­ate upon. I was the lean dog that li­eth in wait for of­fal. It seemeth cer­tain, O old wo­man, that a curse hath fallen on barber­craft in these days, be­cause of the Identical, whose might I know not. Every­where it is grow­ing in dis­rep­ute; ’tis lan­guish­ing! Never­the­less till now I have pre­served my tackle, and I would des­cend on yon­der city to ex­er­cise it, even for a live­li­hood, for­get­ting awhile great things, but that I dread men may have changed there also—and there’s no sta­bil­ity in them, I call Al­lah (whose name be praised!) to wit­ness; so should I be a thing un­sightly, sub­ject to hate­ful cas­tig­a­tion; where­fore is it that I am in that state de­scribed by the poet, when,

“ ‘Dread­ing re­treat, dread­ing ad­vance to make,
Round we re­volve, like to the wounded snake.’

“Is not my case now a piteous one, one that toucheth the tender corner in man and wo­man?”

When she that listened had heard him to an end, she shook her gar­ments, cry­ing, “O youth, son of my uncle, be com­for­ted! for, if it is as I think, the read­ers of plan­ets were right, and thou art thus early within reach of great things—nigh grasp­ing them.”

Then she fell to mum­bling and re­cit­ing jigs of verse, quaint meas­ures; and she pored along the sand to where a line had been drawn, and saw that the foot­prints of the youth were traced along it. Lo, at that sight she clapped her hands joy­fully, and ran up to the youth, and peered in his face, ex­claim­ing, “Great things in­deed! and praise thou the read­ers of plan­ets, O nephew of the barber, they that sent thee search­ing the Event thou art to mas­ter. Wul­lahy! have I not half a mind to call thee already Master of the Event?”

Then she abated some­what in her live­li­ness, and said to him, “Know that the city thou seest is the city of Shag­pat, the clothier, and there’s no one liv­ing on the face of Earth, nor a soul that re­quireth thy craft more than he. Go there­fore thou, bold of heart, brisk, full of the spright­li­ness of the barber, and enter to him. Lo, thou’lt see him lolling in his shop­front to be ad­mired of this people—mar­velled at. Oh! no mis­tak­ing of Shag­pat, and the mole might dis­cern Shag­pat among myri­ads of our kind; and enter thou to him gaily, as to per­form a friendly of­fice, one mer­it­ing thanks and grat­u­la­tions, say­ing, ‘I will pre­serve thee the Identical!’ Now he’ll at first feign not to un­der­stand thee, dense of wit that he is! but mince not mat­ters with him, per­form well thy op­er­a­tion, and thou wilt come to great things. What say I? ’tis cer­tain that when thou hast shaved Shag­pat thou wilt have achieved the greatest of things, and be most note­worthy of thy race, thou, Shibli Bagarag, even thou! and thou wilt be Master of the Event, so named in an­ec­dotes and his­tor­ies and re­cords, to all suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions.”

At her words the breast of Shibli Bagarag took in a great wind, and he hung his head a mo­ment to pon­der them; and he thought, “There’s pro­vok­ing­ness in the speech of this old wo­man, and she’s one that in­stig­at­eth keenly. She called me by my name! Heard I that? ’Tis a mys­tery!” And he thought, “Perad­ven­ture she is a genie, one of an ill tribe, and she’s lur­ing me to my per­di­tion in this city! How if that be so?” And again he thought, “It can­not be! She’s prob­ably the genie that presided over my birth, and prom­ised me dower of great things through the mouths of the read­ers of plan­ets.”

Now, when Shibli Bagarag had so de­lib­er­ated, he lif­ted his sight, and lo, the old wo­man was no longer be­fore him! He stared, and rubbed his eyes, but she was clean gone. Then ran he to the knolls and em­in­ences that were scattered about, to com­mand a view, but she was nowhere vis­ible. So he thought, “ ’Twas a dream!” and he was com­pos­ing him­self to des­pair upon the scant herb­age of one of those knolls, when as he chanced to gaze down the city be­low, he saw there a com­mo­tion and a crowd of people flock­ing one way; he thought, “ ’Twas surely no dream? come not genii, and go they not, in the fash­ion of that old wo­man? I’ll even des­cend on yon­der city, and try my tackle on Shag­pat, in­quir­ing for him, and if he is there, I shall know I have had to do with a po­tent spirit. Al­lah pro­tect me!”

So, hav­ing shut to­gether the clasps of re­solve, he arose and made for the gates of the city, and entered it by the prin­cipal en­trance. It was a fair city, the fairest and chief of that coun­try; pros­per­ous, power­ful; a mart for nu­mer­ous com­mod­it­ies, han­di­crafts, wares; round it a wild coun­try and a waste of sand, ruled by the lion in his wrath, and in it the ti­ger, the cam­elo­pard, the ante­lope, and other an­im­als. Hither, in cara­vans, came the people of Oolb and the people of Damas­cus, and the people of Vatz, and they of Bagh­dad, and the Ringheez, great traders, and oth­ers, trad­ing; and there was con­stant flow of in­ter­course between them and the city of Shag­pat. Now as Shibli Bagarag paced up one of the streets of the city, he be­held a mul­ti­tude in pro­ces­sion fol­low­ing one that was crowned after the man­ner of kings, with a glit­ter­ing crown, clad in the yel­low girdled robes, and he sport­ing a fine pro­fu­sion of hair, un­equalled by all around him, save by one that was a little be­hind, shad­owed by his pres­ence. So Shibli Bagarag thought, “Is one of this twain Shag­pat? for never till now have I seen such rare growths, and ’twere in­deed a bliss to slip the blade between them and those masses of dark­ness that hang from them.” Then he stepped be­fore the King, and made him­self prom­in­ent in his path, hum­bling him­self; and it was as he an­ti­cip­ated, the King pre­ven­ted his re­moval by the slaves that would have dragged him away, and de­sired a hear­ing as to his busi­ness, and what brought him to the city, a stranger.

Thereupon Shibli Bagarag pros­trated him­self and cried, “O great King, Sover­eign of the Time! surely I am one to be looked on with the eye of grace; and I am nephew to Baba Mustapha, renowned in Shiraz, a barber;—I a barber, and it is my prayer, O King of the Age, that thou take me un­der thy pro­tec­tion and the shield of thy fair will, while I per­form good work in this city by op­er­at­ing on the un­shorn.”

When he had spoken, the King made a point of his eye­brows, and ex­claimed, “Shiraz? So they hold out against Shag­pat yet, aha? Shiraz! that nest of them! that rep­tile’s nest!” Then he turned to his Viz­ier be­side him, and said, “What shall be done with this fel­low?”

So the Viz­ier replied, “ ’Twere well, O King, he be summoned to a sense of the loath­some­ness of his craft by the agency of fifty stripes.”

The King said, “ ’Tis com­manded!”

Then he passed for­ward in his majesty, and Shibli Bagarag was ware of the power of five slaves upon him, and he was hur­ried at a quick pace through the streets and be­fore the eyes of the people, even to the com­mon re­cept­acle of felons, and there re­ceived from each slave sev­er­ally ten thwacks with a thong: ’tis cer­tain that at every thwack the thong took an air­ing be­fore it des­cen­ded upon him. Then loosed they him, to wander whither he lis­ted; and dis­gust was strong in him by reason of the dis­grace and the sever­ity of the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the blows. He strayed along the streets in wretched­ness, and hun­ger in­creased on him, as­sail­ing him first as a wolf in his vi­tals, then as it had been a chasm yawn­ing betwixt his trunk and his lower mem­bers. And he thought, “I have been long in chase of great things, and the hope of at­tain­ing them is great; yet, wul­lahy! would I barter all for one re­fresh­ing meal, and the sense of ful­ness. ’Tis so, and sad is it!” And he was mind­ful of the poet’s words—

“Who seeks the shadow to the sub­stance sin­neth,
And daily crav­ing what is not, he thin­neth:
His lean am­bi­tion how shall he at­tain?
For with this con­stant fool­ish­ness he doeth,
He, wax­ing liker to what he pur­su­eth,
Him­self be­cometh what he chased in vain!”

And again:

“Of hon­our half my fel­lows boast—
A thing that scorns and kills us:
Me­thinks that hon­ours us the most
Which nour­ishes and fills us.”

So he thought he would of a surety fling far away his tackle, dis­card barber­craft, and be as other men, a mor­tal, for­got­ten with his gen­er­a­tion. And he cried aloud, “O thou old wo­man! thou de­ceiver! what halt thou ob­tained for me by thy de­ceits? and why put I faith in thee to the pur­chase of a thwack­ing? Woe’s me! I would thou hadst been but a dream, thou crone! thou guile­ful par­cel of be­la­bour­ing bones!”

Now, while he lounged and strolled, and was ab­us­ing the old wo­man, he looked be­fore him, and lo, one lolling in his shop­front, and people stand­ing out­side the shop, mark­ing him with ad­mir­a­tion and rev­er­ence, and point­ing him out to each other with ap­prov­ing ges­tures. He who lolled there was in­deed a mir­acle of hair­i­ness, black with hair as he had been muzzled with it, and his head as it were a berry in a bush by reason of it. Then thought Shibli Bagarag, “ ’Tis Shag­pat! If the mole could swear to him, surely can I.” So he re­garded the clothier, and there was naught seen on Earth like the grav­ity of Shag­pat as he lolled be­fore those people, that failed not to as­semble in groups and gaze at him. He was as a sleepy lion cased in his mane; as an owl drowsy in the day­light. Now would he close an eye, or move two fin­gers, but of other mo­tion made he none, yet the people gazed at him with eager­ness. Shibli Bagarag was as­ton­ished at them, think­ing, “Hair! hair! There is might in hair; but there is greater might in the barber! Never­the­less here the barber is scorned, the grower of crops held in amaz­ing rev­er­ence.” Then thought he, “ ’Tis truly won­drous the crop he groweth; not even King Shamshur­een, after a thou­sand years, spor­ted such mighty pro­fu­sion! Him I sheared: it was a high task!—why not this Shag­pat?”

Now, long gaz­ing on Shag­pat awoke in Shibli Bagarag fierce de­sire to shear him, and it was scarce in his power to re­strain him­self from fly­ing at the clothier, he say­ing, “What obstacle now? what pro­tec­t­eth him? Nay, why not trust to the old wo­man? Said she not I should first es­say on Shag­pat? and ’twas my folly in ap­peal­ing to the King that brought on me that thwack­ing. ’Tis well! I’ll trust to her words. Wul­lahy! will it not lead me to great things?”

So it was, that as he thought this he con­tin­ued to keep eye on Shag­pat, and the hun­ger that was in him passed, and be­came a raven­ous vul­ture that flew from him and singled forth Shag­pat as prey; and there was no help for it but in he must go and state his case to Shag­pat, and es­say shear­ing him.

Now, when he was in the pres­ence, he ex­claimed, “Peace, O vendor of ap­parel, unto thee and unto thine!”

Shag­pat answered, “That with thee!”

Said Shibli Bagarag, “I have heard of thee, O thou won­der! Wul­lahy! I am here to render homage to that I be­hold.”

Shag­pat answered, “ ’Tis well!”

Then said Shibli Bagarag, “Praise my dis­cre­tion! I have even this day entered the city, and it is to thee I of­fer the first shave, O tangle of glory!”

At these words Shag­pat darkened, say­ing gruffly, “Thy jest is of­fens­ive, and it is un­season­able for stale­ness and lack of holi­ness.”

But Shibli Bagarag cried, “No jest, O pur­veyor to the out­ward of us! but a very ex­cel­lent earn­est.”

Thereat the face of Shag­pat was as an ex­ceed­ing red berry in a bush, and he said an­grily, “Have done! no more of it! or haply my spleen will be awakened, and that of them who see with more eyes than two.”

Never­the­less Shibli Bagarag urged him, and he winked, and ges­tic­u­lated, and poin­ted to his head, cry­ing, “Fall not, O man of the nicety of meas­ure, into the trap of er­ror; for ’tis I that am a barber, and a rar­ity in this city, even Shibli Bagarag of Shiraz! Know me nephew of the renowned Baba Mustapha, chief barber to the Court of Per­sia. Lan­guishest thou not for my art? Lo! with three sweeps I’ll give thee a clean poll, all save the Identical! and I can dis­cern and save it; fear me not, nor dis­trust my skill and the cun­ning that is mine.”

When he had heard Shibli Bagarag to a close, the coun­ten­ance of Shag­pat waxed fiery, as it had been flame kindled by trav­el­lers at night in a thorny bramble-bush, and he ruffled, and heaved, and was as when dense jungle-growths are stirred vi­ol­ently by the near ap­proach of a wild an­imal in his fury, shout­ing in short breaths, “A barber! a barber! Is’t so? can it be? To me? A barber! O thou, thou rep­tile! filthy thing! A barber! O dog! A barber? What? when I bid fair for the highest hon­ours known? O sac­ri­le­gious wretch! mon­ster! How? are the afreets jeal­ous, that they send thee to jibe me?”

Thereupon he set up a cry for his wife, and that wo­man rushed to him from an in­ner room, and fell upon Shibli Bagarag, be­la­bour­ing him.

So, when she was weary of this, she said, “O light of my eyes! O golden crop and ad­or­able man! what hath he done to thee?”

Shag­pat answered, “ ’Tis a barber! and he hath sworn to shave me, and leave me not save shorn!”

Hardly had Shag­pat spoken this, when she be­came limp with the hear­ing of it. Then Shibli Bagarag slunk from the shop; but without the crowd had in­creased, see­ing an al­ter­ca­tion, and as he took to his heels they fol­lowed him, and there was up­roar in the streets of the city and in the air above them, as of ra­ging genii, he like a star­ted quarry doub­ling this way and that, and at the corners of streets and open places, speed­ing on till there was no breath in his body, the cry still after him that he had bearded Shag­pat. At last they came up with him, and be­la­boured him each and all; it was a storm of thwacks that fell on the back of Shibli Bagarag. When they had wear­ied them­selves in this fash­ion, they took him as had he been a stray bundle or a dam­aged bale, and hurled him from the gates of the city into the wil­der­ness once more.

Now, when he was alone, he staggered awhile and then flung him­self to the earth, look­ing neither to the right nor to the left, nor above. All he could think was, “O ac­cursed old wo­man!” and this he kept re­peat­ing to him­self for solace; as the poet says:

“ ’Tis sure the spe­cial priv­ilege of hate,
To curse the au­thors of our evil state.”

As he was thus com­plain­ing, be­hold the very old wo­man be­fore him! And she wheezed, and croaked, and coughed, and shook her­self, and screwed her face into a pleas­ing pucker, and as­sumed wo­man­ish airs, and swayed her­self, like as do the full moons of the harem when the eye of the mas­ter is upon them. Hav­ing made an end of these pret­ti­nesses, she said, in a tone of soft in­sinu­ation, “O youth, nephew of the barber, look upon me.”

Shibli Bagarag knew her voice, and he would not look, think­ing, “Oh, what a dread­ful old wo­man is this! just call­ing on her name in de­test­a­tion maketh her present to us.” So the old wo­man, see­ing him res­ol­ute to shun her, leaned to him, and put one hand to her dress, and squat­ted be­side him, and said, “O youth, thou hast been thwacked!”

He groaned, lift­ing not his face, nor say­ing aught. Then said she, “Art thou truly in search of great things, O youth?”

Still he groaned, an­swer­ing no syl­lable. And she con­tin­ued, “ ’Tis surely in sweet friend­li­ness I ask. Art thou not a fair youth, one to en­tice a dam­sel to per­fect friend­li­ness?”

Louder yet did he groan at her words, think­ing, “A dam­sel, ver­ily!” So the old wo­man said, “I wot thou art angry with me; but now look up, O nephew of the barber! no time for vex­a­tion. What says the poet?—

“ ‘Cares the war­rior for his wounds
When the steed in battle bounds?’

“Moreover:

“ ‘Let him who grasps the crown strip not for shame,
Lest he ex­pose what gain’d it blow and maim!’

“So be it with thee and thy thwack­ing, O fool­ish youth! Hide it from thy­self, thou silly one! What! thou hast been thwacked, and re­fusest the fruit of it—which is res­ol­ute­ness, strength of mind, stern­ness in pur­suit of the ob­ject!”

Then she softened her tone to per­suas­ive­ness, say­ing, “ ’Twas writ­ten I should be the head of thy for­tune, O Shibli Bagarag! and thou’lt be en­vi­able among men by my aid, so look upon me, and (for I know thee fam­ished) thou shalt presently be sup­plied with vi­ands and bright wines and sweet­meats, del­ic­acies to cheer thee.”

Now, the prom­ise of food and pro­vi­sion was power­ful with Shibli Bagarag, and he looked up gloomily. And the old wo­man smiled archly at him, and wriggled in her seat like a dusty worm, and said, “Dost thou find me charm­ing, thou fair youth?”

He was nigh laugh­ing in her face, but re­strained him­self to reply, “Thou art that thou art!”

Said she, “Not so, but that I shall be.” Then she said, “O youth, pay me now a com­pli­ment!”

Shibli Bagarag was at a loss what fur­ther to say to the old wo­man, for his heart cursed her for her per­se­cu­tions, and ri­diculed her for her van­it­ies. At last he be­thought him­self of the say­ing of the poet, truly the off­spring of fine wit, where he says:

“Ex­pect no flat­ter­ies from me,
While I am empty of good things;
I’ll call thee fair, and I’ll agree
Thou bold­est Love in silken strings,
When thou hast primed me from thy plenteous store!
But, oh! till then a clod am I:
No seed within to throw up flowers:
All’s drouthy to the foun­tain dry:
To empty stom­achs Nature lowers:
The lake was full where heaven look’d fair of yore!”

So, when he had spoken that, the old wo­man laughed and ex­claimed, “Thou art apt! it is well said! Surely I ex­cuse thee till that time! Now listen! ’Tis writ­ten we work to­gether, and I know it by divin­a­tion. Have I not known thee wan­der­ing, and on thy way to this city of Shag­pat, where thou’lt some day sit throned? Now I pro­pose to thee this—and ’tis an ex­cel­lent pro­posal—that I lead thee to great things, and make thee glor­i­ous, a sit­ter in high seats, Master of an Event?”

Cried he, “A pro­posal hon­our­able to thee, and pleas­ant in the ear.”

She ad­ded, “Provided thou marry me in sweet mar­riage.”

Thereat he stared on va­cancy with a ser­i­ous eye, and he could scarce credit her earn­est­ness, but she re­peated the same. So presently he thought, “This old hag ap­peareth deep in the foun­tain of events, and she will be a right arm to me in the mas­ter­ing of one, a torch in dark­ness, see­ing there is wis­dom in her as well as wicked­ness. The thwack­ings?—sad was their taste, but they’re in the road lead­ing to great­ness, and I can­not say she put me out of that road in put­ting me where they were. Her age?—shall I com­plain of that when it is a sign she goeth shortly al­to­gether?”

As he was thus de­bat­ing he re­garded the old wo­man stealth­ily, and she was in agit­a­tion, so that her joints creaked like forest branches in a wind, and the puck­ers of her vis­age moved as do bil­lows of the sea to and fro, and the an­ti­cip­a­tions of a fair young bride are not more eager than what was vis­ible in the old wo­man. Wheed­lingly she looked at him, and shaped her mouth like a bird’s bill to soften it; and she drew to­gether her dress, to give her­self the look of slim­ness, us­ing all fas­cin­a­tions. He thought, “ ’Tis a won­drous old wo­man! Mar­riage would seem a thing of mo­ment to her, yet is the profit with me, and I’ll agree to it.” So he said, “ ’Tis a pact between us, O old wo­man!”

Now, the eyes of the old wo­man brightened when she heard him, and were as the eyes of a fal­con that eyeth game, hungry with red fire, and she looked brisk with im­pa­tience, laugh­ing a low laugh and say­ing, “O youth, I must claim of thee, as is usual in such cases, the kiss of con­tract.”

So Shibli Bagarag was mind­ful of what is writ­ten,

“If thou wouldst take the great leap, be ready for the little jump,”

and he stretched out his mouth to the fore­head of the old wo­man. When he had done so, it was as though she had been il­lu­min­ated, as when light is put in the hol­low of a pump­kin. Then said she, “This is well! this is a fair be­gin­ning! Now look, for thy for­tune will of a surety fol­low. Call me now sweet bride, and knocker at the threshold of hearts!”

So Shibli Bagarag sighed, and called her this, and he said, “For­get not my con­di­tion, O old wo­man, and that I am nigh fam­ished.”

Upon that she nod­ded gravely, and arose and shook her gar­ments to­gether, and beckoned for Shibli Bagarag to fol­low her; and the two passed through the gates of the city, and held on to­gether through divers streets and thor­ough­fares till they came be­fore the doors of a palace with a pillared en­trance; and the old wo­man passed through the doors of the palace as one fa­mil­iar to them, and lo! they were in a lofty court, built all of marble, and in the middle of it a foun­tain play­ing, splash­ing sil­very. Shibli Bagarag would have hal­ted here to breathe the cool re­fresh­ing­ness of the air, but the old wo­man would not; and she hur­ried on even to the open­ing of a spa­cious hall, and in it slaves in circle round a raised seat, where sat one that was their lord, and it was the Chief Viz­ier of the King.

Then the old wo­man turned round sharply to Shibli Bagarag, and said, “How of thy tackle, O my be­trothed?”

He answered, “The edge is keen, the hand ready.”

Then said she, “ ’Tis well.”

So the old wo­man put her two hands on the shoulders of Shibli Bagarag, say­ing, “Make thy rev­er­ence to him on the raised seat; have faith in thy tackle and in me. Re­nounce not either, what­so­ever en­su­eth. Be not abashed, O my bride­groom to be!”

Thereupon she thrust him in; and Shibli Bagarag was abashed, and played fool­ishly with his fin­gers, know­ing not what to do. So when the Chief Viz­ier saw him he cried out, “Who art thou, and what wantest thou?”

Now, the back of Shibli Bagarag tingled when he heard the Viz­ier’s voice, and he said, “I am, O man of ex­al­ted con­di­tion, he whom men know as Shibli Bagarag, nephew to Baba Mustapha, the renowned of Shiraz; my­self barber like­wise, proud of my art, pre­pared to ex­er­cise it.”

Then said the Chief Viz­ier, “This even to our faces! Won­der­ful is the au­da­city of im­pudence! Know, O nephew of the barber, thou art among them that hon­our not thy art. Is it not writ­ten, ‘For one thing thou shalt be crowned here, for that thing be thwacked there?’ So also it is writ­ten, ‘The tongue of the in­solent one is a lash and a per­petual cas­tig­a­tion to him.’ And it is writ­ten, O Shibli Bagarag, that I reap hon­our from thee, and there is no help but that thou be made an ex­ample of.”

So the Chief Viz­ier uttered com­mand, and Shibli Bagarag was ware of the power of five slaves upon him; and they seized him fa­mil­iarly, and placed him in po­s­i­tion, and made ready his cloth­ing for the re­cep­tion of fifty other thwacks with a thong, each sev­eral thwack com­ing down on him with a hiss, as it were a ser­pent, and with a smack, as it were the mouth of sat­is­fac­tion; and the people as­sembled ex­tolled the Chief Viz­ier, say­ing, “Well and vali­antly done, O stay of the State! and such­like to the ac­cursed race of barbers.”

Now, when they had passed be­fore the Chief Viz­ier and de­par­ted, lo! he fell to laugh­ing vi­ol­ently, so that his hair was agit­ated and was as a sand-cloud over him, and his coun­ten­ance be­hind it was as the sun of the desert re­flec­ted rip­plingly on the wa­ters of a bub­bling spring, for it had the as­pect of mer­ri­ness; and the Chief Viz­ier ex­claimed, “O Shibli Bagarag, have I not made fair show?”

And Shibli Bagarag said, “Ex­cel­lent fair show, O mighty one!” Yet knew he not in what, but he was ab­ject by reason of the thwacks.

So the Viz­ier said, “Thou lookest lean, even as one to whom For­tune oweth a long debt. Tell me now of thy barber­craft: per­chance thy gain will be great thereby?”

And Shibli Bagarag answered, “My gain has been great, O em­in­ent in rank, but of evil qual­ity, and I am con­tent not to in­crease it.” And he broke forth into lam­ent­a­tions, cry­ing in ex­cel­lent verse:—

“Why am I thus the sport of all—
A thing Fate knock­eth like a ball
From point to point of evil chance,
Even as the sneer of Cir­cum­stance?
While thirst­ing for the highest fame,
I hun­ger like the low­est beast:
To be the first of men I aim
And find my­self the least.”

Now, the Viz­ier delayed not when he heard this to have a fair sup­ply set be­fore Shibli Bagarag, and meats dressed in divers fash­ions, spiced, and col­oured, and with herbs, and wines in golden gob­lets, and slaves in at­tend­ance. So Shibli Bagarag ate and drank, and presently his soul arose from its pros­tra­tion, and he cried, “Wul­lahy! the head cook of King Shamshur­een could have worked no bet­ter as re­gards the res­tor­at­ive pro­cess.”

Then said the Chief Viz­ier, “O Shibli Bagarag, where now is thy tackle?”

And Shibli Bagarag winked and nod­ded and turned his head in the man­ner of the know­ing ones, and he re­cited the verse:

“ ’Tis well that we are some­times cir­cum­spect,
And hold ourselves in wit­less ways de­terred:
One thwack­ing made me ser­i­ously re­flect;
A second turned the cream of love to curd:
Most surely that pro­fes­sion I re­ject
Be­fore the fear of a pro­spect­ive third.”

So the Viz­ier said, “ ’Tis well, thou turn­est verse neatly.” And he ex­claimed ex­tem­por­an­eously:

“If thou wouldst have thy achieve­ment as high
As the wings of Am­bi­tion can fly:
If thou the clear sum­mit of hope wouldst at­tain,
And not have thy la­bour in vain;
Be stead­fast in that which im­pell’d, for the peace
Of earth he who leaves must have trust:
He is safe while he soars, but when faith shall cease,
Despond­ing he drops to the dust.”

Then said he, “Fear no fur­ther thwack­ing, but hon­our and prosper­ity in the place of it. What says the poet?—

“ ‘We faint, when for the fire
There needs one spark;
We droop, when our de­sire
Is near its mark.’

“How near to it art thou, O Shibli Bagarag! Know, then, that among this people there is great rev­er­ence for the grow­ing of hair, and he that is hair­i­est is hon­oured most, where­fore are barbers creatures of es­pe­cial ab­hor­rence, and of a surety flour­ish not. And so it is that I owe my sta­tion to the es­teem I pro­fess for the cul­tiv­a­tion of hair, and to my per­se­cu­tion of the clip­pers of it. And in this king­dom is no one that beareth such a crop as I, sav­ing one, a clothier, an ac­cursed one!—and may a blight fall upon him for his van­ity and his af­fect­a­tion of sol­emn priest­li­ness, and his lolling in his shop­front to be ad­mired and mar­velled at by the people. So this fel­low I would dis­grace and bring to scorn—this Shag­pat! for he is mine en­emy, and the eye of the King my mas­ter is on him. Now I con­ceive thy as­sist­ance in this mat­ter, Shibli Bagarag—thou, a barber.”

When Shibli Bagarag heard men­tion of Shag­pat, and the de­sire for ven­geance in the Viz­ier, he was as a new man, and he smelt the sweet­ness of his own re­venge as a vul­ture smel­leth the car­rion from afar, and he said, “I am thy ser­vant, thy slave, O Viz­ier!” Then smiled he as to his own soul, and he ex­claimed, “On my head be it!”

And it was to him as when sud­den gusts of per­fume from garden roses of the val­ley meet the trav­el­ler’s nos­tril on the hill that over­looketh the val­ley, filling him with ec­stasy and new­ness of life, del­ic­ate vis­ions. And he cried, “Wul­lahy! this is fair; this is well! I am he that was ap­poin­ted to do thy work, O man in of­fice! What says the poet?—

“ ‘The destined hand doth strike the fated blow:
Surely the ar­row’s fit­ted to the bow!’

“And he says:

“ ‘The feathered seed for the wind delayeth,
The wind above the garden swayeth,
The garden of its bur­den knoweth,
The bur­den falleth, sinketh, soweth.’ ”

So the Viz­ier chuckled and nod­ded, say­ing, “Right, right! aptly spoken, O youth of fa­vour! ’Tis even so, and there is wis­dom in what is writ­ten:

“ ‘Chance is a poor knave;
Its own sad slave;
Two meet that were to meet:
Life’s no cheat.’ ”

Upon that he cried, “First let us have with us the Eclipser of Reason, and take coun­sel with her, as is my cus­tom.”

Now, the Viz­ier made sig­nal to a slave in at­tend­ance, and the slave de­par­ted from the hall, and the Viz­ier led Shibli Bagarag into a closer cham­ber, which had a smooth floor of in­laid sil­ver and silken hangings, the win­dows look­ing forth on the gar­dens of the palace and its foun­tains and cool re­cesses of shade and tem­per­ate sweet­ness. While they sat there con­vers­ing in this metre and that, meas­ur­ing quo­ta­tions, lo! the old wo­man, the af­fi­anced of Shibli Bagarag—and she sump­tu­ously ar­rayed, in per­fect queen­li­ness, her head bound in a circlet of gems and gold, her fig­ure lus­trous with a full robe of flow­ing crim­son silk; and she wore slip­pers em­broidered with golden tracer­ies, and round her waist a girdle flash­ing with jew­els, so that to look on she was as a long fall­ing wa­ter in the last bright slant of the sun. Her hair hung dis­ar­ranged, and spread in a scattered fash­ion off her shoulders; and she was younger by many moons, her brow smooth where Shibli Bagarag had given the kiss of con­tract, her hand soft and white where he had taken it. Shibli Bagarag was smit­ten with as­ton­ish­ment at sight of her, and he thought, “Surely the as­pect of this old wo­man would real­ise the story of Bhanavar the Beau­ti­ful; and it is a story mar­vel­lous to think of; yet how great is the like­ness between Bhanavar and this old wo­man that groweth younger!”

And he thought again, “What if the story of Bhanavar be a true one; this old wo­man such as she—no other?”

So, while he con­sidered her, the Viz­ier ex­claimed, “Is she not fair—my daugh­ter?”

And the youth answered, “She is, O Viz­ier, that she is!”

But the Viz­ier cried, “Nay, by Al­lah! she is that she will be.” And the Viz­ier said, “ ’Tis she that is my daugh­ter; tell me thy thought of her, as thou thinkest it.”

And Shibli Bagarag replied, “O Viz­ier, my thought of her is, she seemeth in­deed as Bhanavar the Beau­ti­ful—no other.”

Then the Viz­ier and the Eclipser of Reason ex­claimed to­gether, “How of Bhanavar and her story, O youth? We listen!”

So Shibli Bagarag leaned slightly on a cush­ion of a couch, and nar­rated as fol­loweth.

And This Is the Story of Bhanavar the Beautiful

Know that at the foot of a lofty moun­tain of the Cau­casus there li­eth a deep 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, on her way from the tents of her tribe to the pas­tures of the flocks. As she pressed the white arch of her feet on the soft green-mossed grasses by the shore of the lake she would let loose her hair, look­ing over into the wa­ter, and bind the braid again round her temples and be­hind her ears, as it had been in a lu­cent mir­ror: so do­ing she would laugh. Her laughter was like the falls of wa­ter at moon­rise; her love­li­ness like the very moon­rise; 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 youth comely, well-fash­ioned, skilled with the bow, apt in all ex­er­cises; one that sat his mare firm as the trained fal­con that fixeth on the plunging bull of the plains; fair and ter­rible in com­bat as the light­ning that strideth 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 con­sum­ing pas­sion, and the father of the dam­sel and the father of the youth looked fairly on the pro­spect of their union, which was near, and was plighted as the union of the two tribes. So they met, and there was no voice against their meet­ing, and all the love that was in them they were free to pour forth far from the hear­ing of men, even where they would. Be­fore the rising of the sun, and ere his set­ting, the youth rode swiftly from the green tents of the Emir his father, to way­lay her by the wa­ters of the lake; and Bhanavar was there, bend­ing over the lake, her im­age in the lake glow­ing like the fair ful­ness of the moon; and the youth leaned to her from his steed, and sang to her verses of her great love­li­ness ere she was wist­ful of him. Then she turned to him, and laughed lightly a wel­come of sweet­ness, and shook the falls of her hair across the blushes of her face and her bosom; and he fol­ded her to him, and those two would fondle to­gether in the fash­ion of the be­trothed ones (the bless­ing of Al­lah be on them all!), gaz­ing on each other till their eyes swam with tears, and they were nigh swoon­ing with the ful­ness of their bliss. Surely ’twas an in­no­cent and tender dal­li­ance, and their prattle was that of lov­ers till the time of part­ing, he show­ing her how she looked best—she him; and they were for­get­ful of all else that is, in their sweet in­ter­change of flat­ter­ies; and the world was a wil­der­ness to them both when the youth par­ted with Bhanavar by the brook which bounded the tents of her tribe.

It was on a night when they were so to­gether, the dam­sel lean­ing on his arm, her eyes to­ward the lake, and lo! what seemed the re­flec­tion of a large 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 him side­ways and said, “What meaneth this, O my be­trothed? for there is re­flec­ted in yon­der lake a light as of a star, and there is no star vis­ible this night.”

The youth trembled as one in trouble of spirit, and ex­claimed, “Look not on it, O my soul! It is of evil omen.”

But Bhanavar kept her gaze con­stantly on the light, and the light in­creased in lustre; and the light be­came, from a pale sad splend­our, dazzling in its bril­liancy. Listen­ing, they heard presently a gurg­ling noise as of one deeply drink­ing. Then the youth sighed a heavy sigh and said, “This is the Ser­pent of the Lake drink­ing of its wa­ters, as is her wont once every moon, and whoso heareth her drink by the sheen­ing of that light is un­der a des­tiny dark and im­min­ent; so know I my days are numbered, and it was fore­told of me, this!” Now the youth sought to dis­suade Bhanavar from gaz­ing on the light, and he flung his whole body be­fore her eyes, and clasped her head upon his breast, and clung about her, caress­ing her; yet she slipped from him, and she cried, “Tell me of this 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 fair shape to­ward him, and put up her long white fin­gers to his chin, and smoothed 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 brood of the sac­red moun­tain, that lifteth by day a peak of gold, and by night a point of sol­it­ary sil­ver. In her head, upon her fore­head, between her eyes, 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 the ser­pent.”

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, and its in­creas­ing, and quiv­er­ing, and length­en­ing; and the light was as an ar­row of beams and as a globe of ra­di­ance. Desire for the Jewel waxed in her, and she had no sight but for it alone, cry­ing, “ ’Tis a Jewel ex­ceed­ing in pre­cious­ness all jew­els that are, and for the pos­sess­ing it would I for­feit all that is.”

So he said sor­row­fully, “Our love, O Bhanavar? and our hopes of es­pousal?”

But she cried, “No ques­tion of that! Prove now thy pas­sion for me, O war­rior! and win for me that Jewel.”

Then he pleaded with her, and ex­claimed, “Urge not this! The win­ning of the Jewel is worth my life; and my life, O Bhanavar—surely its breath is but 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 Jewel it 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 is want­ing at the proof.”

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

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

When their kiss was over the youth led her si­lently to the brook of their part­ing—the clear, cold, bub­bling brook—and passed from her sight; and the dam­sel was ex­ult­ing, and leapt and made circles in her glee, and she danced and ri­oted and sang, and clapped her hands, cry­ing, “If I am now Bhanavar the Beau­ti­ful how shall I be when that Jewel is upon me, the bright light which beameth in the dark­ness, and nee­deth to light it no other 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 far kings.”

So was she ju­bil­ant; and her sis­ters that met her mar­velled at her and the deep glow that was upon her, even as the glow of the Great Desert when the sun has fallen; and they said among them­selves, “She is covered all over with the blush of one that is a bride, and the bride­groom’s kiss yet bur­neth upon Bhanavar!”

So they un­dressed her and she lay among them, and was all night even as a burst­ing rose in a vase filled with droop­ing lilies; and one of the maid­ens 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 is struck by hooves of the chosen steed sent by the chief­tain to the city of his people with news of vic­tory and the sum­mons for re­joicing.

Now, the nights and the days of Bhanavar were even as this night, and she was as an un­quiet soul till the ap­poin­ted time for the meet­ing with her lover had come. Then when the sun was light­ing with slant beam the green grass slope by the blue brook be­fore her, Bhanavar ar­rayed her­self and went forth gaily, as a mar­tial queen to cer­tain con­quest; and of all the flowers that nod­ded to the set­ting—yea, the crim­son, purple, pure white, streaked-yel­low, azure, and saf­fron, there was no flower fairer in its hues than Bhanavar, nor bird of the heav­ens freer in its glit­ter­ing plumage, nor shape of love­li­ness such as hers. Truly, when she had taken her place un­der the palm by the wa­ters of the lake, that was no ex­ag­ger­a­tion 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 fixed her eyes upon an open­ing arch of fo­liage in the glade through which the youth her lover should come to her, and clasped both hands across her bosom, so shaken was she with eager long­ing and ex­pect­a­tion. In her hun­ger for his ap­proach, she would at whiles pluck up the herb­age about her by the roots, and toss hand­fuls this way and that, chid­ing the peace­ful song of the night­bird in the leaves above her head; and she was sink­ing with fret­ful­ness, when lo! from the open­ing arch of the glade a sud­den light, and Bhanavar knew it for the Jewel in the fin­gers of her be­trothed, by the strength of its ef­ful­gence. Then she called to him joy­fully a cry of wel­come, and quickened his com­ing with her calls, and the youth alighted from his mare and left it to pas­ture, and ad­vanced to her, hold­ing aloft the Jewel. And the Jewel was of great size and pur­ity, round, and all-lu­min­ous, throw­ing rays and beams every­where about it, a mir­acle to be­hold—the light in it shin­ing, and as the very life of the blood, a sweet crim­son, a ruby, a softer rose, an amethyst of tender hues: it was a full globe of splend­ours, show­ing like a very king­dom of the Blest; and blessed was the eye be­hold­ing it! So when he was within reach of her arm, the dam­sel sprang to him and caught from his hand the Jewel, and held it be­fore her eyes, and danced with it, and pressed it on her 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 him for the Jewel with all her beauty; for the pas­sion of a mighty pride in him 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 my be­trothed—wholly thine. Kiss me, then, and cease not kiss­ing me, for bliss 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 my lover! 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 sought she to coax him to her with all the soft­ness of her half-closed eyes and bud­ded lips, say­ing, “ ’Twas an idle fear! and I have thee, and thou art mine, and I am thine; so speak to me, my lover! for there is no mu­sic like the mu­sic of thy voice, and the ab­sence of it is the ab­sence of all sweet­ness, and there is no pleas­ure in life without it.”

So the ten­der­ness of her fond­ling melted the si­lence in him, and presently his tongue was loosed, and he breathed in pain of spirit, and his 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 is told of oth­ers that have loved be­fore us, and I count no loss a loss that is 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! not even the long part­ing from her I love. What will be, will be: so was it writ­ten! ’Tis but a scratch, O my soul! yet am I of the dead and them that 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 the blood went from her, and she was as a block of white marble, even as one of those we meet in the desert, lean­ing to­gether, mark­ing the wrath of the All-Power­ful on for­got­ten cit­ies. And the tongue of the dam­sel was dry, and she was without speech, gaz­ing at him with wide-open eyes, like one in trance. Then she star­ted as a dreamer waken­eth, and flung her­self quickly 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 through the leaves, a small bite on the arm of the youth her be­trothed, spot­ted with seven spots of blood in a cres­cent; so she knew that the poison of the ser­pent had entered by that bite; and she loosened her­self to the vi­ol­ence of her an­guish, shriek­ing the shrieks of des­pair, so that the voice of her lam­ent­a­tion was mul­ti­plied about and made many voices in the night. Her spirit re­turned not to her till the cres­cent of the moon was yel­low to its fall; and lo! the youth was sigh­ing heavy sighs and lean­ing to 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 at them tear­fully by the pale beams, and start­ling the in­sects as she moved. When she had gathered some, she pressed them and bruised them, and laid them along his lips, that were white as the ball of an eye; and she made him drink drops of the juices of the herbs, wail­ing and sway­ing her body across him, as one that seeketh vainly to give bright­ness again to the flames of a dy­ing fire. But now his time was draw­ing nigh, and he was weak, 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, my beau­ti­ful! Weep not, for it is the do­ing of fate, and not thy do­ing. So ere I go, and the grave-cloth sep­ar­ates thy heart from my heart, listen to me. Lo, that Jewel! it is the giver of years and of powers, and of love­li­ness bey­ond mor­tal, yet the wear­ing of it availeth not in the pur­suit 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 art thou mighty, O Bhanavar! and look to do well by thy tribe, and that from which I spring, re­com­pens­ing my father for his loss, pour­ing oint­ment on his 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 his mouth, and heard what seemed an in­ner voice mur­mur­ing in him, and it was of his in­fancy and his boy­hood, and of his father the Emir’s first gift to him, his horse Zoora, in old times. Presently the youth re­vived some­what, and looked upon her; but his sight was glazed with a film, and she sang her name to him ere he knew her, and the sad sweet­ness of her name filled his soul, and he replied to her with it weakly, like a far echo that groweth fainter, “Bhanavar! Bhanavar! Bhanavar!” Then a change came over him, and the pain of the poison and the pas­sion of the death-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 to his breast. Then it was over, and he sank. And the twain were as a great wave heav­ing upon the shore; lo, part is wasted where it falleth; part draweth back into the wa­ters. So was it!

Now the chill of dawn breathed blue on the lake and was astir among the dewy 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, was snuff­ing at the ear of her dead mas­ter, and paw­ing him. At that sight the tears 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 my be­trothed. Zoora! thou weep­est, for death is first known to thee in the dearest thing that was thine; as to me, in the dearest that was mine! And O Zoora, steed of Zurvan my be­trothed, there’s no love­li­ness for us in life, for the love­li­est is gone; and let us die, Zoora, mare of Zurvan my be­trothed, for what is dy­ing to us, O Zoora, who cher­ish bey­ond all that which death has taken?”

So spake she to Zoora the mare, kiss­ing her, and run­ning her fin­gers through the long white mane of the mare. Then she stooped to the body of her be­trothed, and toiled with it to lift it across the crim­son saddle­cloth 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 him to, and his great­ness and his gen­tle­ness. And the mare went without lead­ing. It was broad light when they had passed the glade and the cov­ert of the wood. Be­fore them, between great moun­tains, glimmered a space of rolling grass fed to deep green­ness by many brooks. The shadow of a moun­tain was over it, and one slant of the rising sun, down a glade of the moun­tain, touched the green tent of the Emir, where it stood a little apart from the oth­ers of his tribe. Goats and asses of the tribe were pas­tur­ing in the quiet, but save them noth­ing moved among the tents, and it was deep peace­ful­ness. Bhanavar led Zoora slowly be­fore the tent of the Emir, and dis­burdened Zoora of the help­less weight, and spread the long fair limbs of the youth length­wise across the threshold of the Emir’s tent, sit­ting away from it with clasped hands, re­gard­ing it. Ere long the Emir came forth, and his foot was on the body of his son, and he knew death on the chin and the eyes of Zurvan, his sole son. Now the Emir was 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 old man stretched over the body of his son, she sickened, and her ear was filled with the wail­ings of grief that would arise, and she stood up and stole away from the hab­it­a­tions of the tribe, stricken with her guilt, and wandered bey­ond the moun­tains, know­ing not whither she went, look­ing on no liv­ing thing, for the sight of a thing that moved was hate­ful to her, 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 she was seized with a swoon of wear­i­ness, and fell for­ward with her face to the earth, and lay there pros­trate, even as one that is ad­or­ing the shrine; and it was on the sands of the desert she was ly­ing. It chanced that the chief­tain of a desert tribe passed at mid­day by the spot, and see­ing the fig­ure of a dam­sel un­shaded by any shade of tree or herb or tent-cov­er­ing, and pros­trate on the sands, he reined his steed and leaned for­ward to her, and called to her. Then as she answered noth­ing he dis­moun­ted, and thrust his arm softly be­neath her and lif­ted her gently; and her swoon had the white­ness of death, so that he thought her dead ver­ily, and the mar­vel of her great love­li­ness in death smote the heart on his ribs as with a blow, and the powers of life went from him a mo­ment as he looked on her and the long dark wet lashes that clung to her col­our­less face, as at night in groves where the be­trothed ones wander, the slender leaves of the aca­cia spread darkly over the full moon. And he cried, “ ’Tis a love­li­ness that maketh the soul yearn to the cold bosom of death, 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 was in the hum of many tents, and the sun of that day hung a red half-circle across the sand. He alighted be­fore the tent of his mother, and sent wo­men 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 the threshold of her tent. His mother kissed him on the fore­head, and turned her shoulder to peer upon the dam­sel. But when she had close view of Bhanavar, 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 the uses of kind­li­ness and the laws of hos­pit­al­ity, that thou talkest this of the dam­sel, a stranger? Take her now in, and if she be past help, as I fear; be it thy care to give her de­cent burial; and if she live, O my mother, tend her for the love of thy son, and for the love of him be gentle with her.”

While he spake, Ruk­rooth his mother knelt over the dam­sel, as a cat that snif­feth the sus­pec­ted dish; and she flashed her eyes back on him, ex­claim­ing scorn­fully, “So art thou be­fooled, and the poison is already in 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 a harm? Surely thy frown is little to me, my son, if I save thee from a harm; and the dam­sel here is—I shud­der to think what; but never lay shadow across my threshold dark as this!”

Now, Ruark gazed upon his mother, and upon Bhanavar, and the face of Bhanavar was as a babe in sleep, and his soul melted to the par­ted sweet­ness of her soft little curved red lips and her closed eye­lids, and her in­no­cent open hands, where she lay at the threshold of the tent, un­con­scious of hard­ness and the say­ings of the un­just. So he cried fiercely, “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 her eyes on him sor­row­fully, and sighed, and went up to him and drew his head once against her heart, and re­treated into the tent, bid­ding the wo­men that were there bring in the body of the dam­sel.

It was the morn­ing of an­other day when Bhanavar awoke; and she awoke in a dream of Zoora, the mare of Zurvan her be­trothed, that was dead, and the name of Zoora was on her tongue as she star­ted up. She was on a couch of silk and leo­pard-skins; at her feet a fair young girl with a fan of pheas­ant feath­ers. She stared at the hangings of the tent, which were richer than those of her own tribe; the cloths, and the cush­ions, and the em­broid­er­ies; and the strange­ness of all was pain to her, she knew not why. Then wept she bit­terly, and with her tears the memory of what had been came back to her, and she opened her arms to take into them the little girl that fanned her, that she might love some­thing and be be­loved awhile; and the child sobbed with her. After a time Bhanavar said, “Where am 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 the chal­lenge of Ebn As­rac, and they will fight at the foot of the Snow Moun­tains, and the shadow of yon­der date-palm will be over our tent here at the hour they fight, and I shall sing for Ruark, and kneel here in the dark­ness 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 hard black eyes, and close lips and a square chin; and it was the mother of Ruark. She strode for­ward to­ward Bhanavar to greet her, and fol­ded her legs be­fore the dam­sel. Presently she said, “Tell me thy story, and of thy com­ing into the hands of Ruark my son.”

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

The touch of a hand was as the touch of a corpse to Bhanavar, and the dam­sel was con­strained to speak by a power she knew not of, and she told all to Ruk­rooth of what had been, the great misery, and the wicked­ness that was hers. Then Ruark’s mother took hold of Bhanavar a strong grasp, and eyed her long, piteously, and with re­proach, and rocked for­ward and back, and kept rock­ing 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 saw it! 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 wilt thou 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 soul of wrath, my son, my dazzling Chief, and seize it to wear it, and think it bliss, this lovely jewel; but ’tis an an­guish end­less and forever, my son! Woe’s me! an an­guish is she without end.”

Ruk­rooth con­tin­ued moan­ing, and the thought that was in the mother of Ruark struck Bhanavar like a light in the land of des­pair that darkly il­lu­mineth the dreaded gulfs and abysses of the land, and she knew her­self black in evil; and the scourge of her guilt was upon her, and she cursed her­self be­fore Ruk­rooth, and fawned be­fore her, abas­ing her body. So Ruk­rooth was drawn to the dam­sel by the vi­ol­ence of her self-ac­cus­ing and her aban­don­ment to grief, and lif­ted her, and com­for­ted her, and after awhile they had gentle speech to­gether, and the two wo­men opened their hearts and wept. Then it was agreed between them that Bhanavar should de­part from the en­camp­ment of the tribe be­fore the re­turn of Ruark, and seek shel­ter among her own people again, and aid them and the tribe 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, and her soul yearned for the bless­ing of Ruk­rooth.

Dark­ness hung over the tent from the shadow of the date-palm when Bhanavar de­par­ted, and the bless­ing of Ruk­rooth was on her head. She went forth fairly moun­ted on a fresh steed; be­side her two war­ri­ors of them that were left to guard the en­camp­ment of the tribe of Ruark in his ab­sence; and Ruk­rooth watched at the threshold of her tent for the com­ing of Ruark.

When it was middle night, and the splend­our of the moon was beam­ing on the edge of the desert, Bhanavar alighted to rest by the twigs of a tam­ar­isk that stood singly on the sands. The two war­ri­ors tied the fet­locks of their steeds, and spread shawls for her, and watched over her while she slept. And the dam­sel dreamed, and the roar­ing of the lion was hoarse in her dream, and it was to her as were she the red whirl­wind of the desert be­fore whom all bowed in ter­ror, the Arab, the wild horse­men, and the cara­vans of pil­grim­age; and none could stay her, neither could she stay her­self, for the curse of Al­lah was on men by reason of her guilt; and she went swinging great folds of dark­ness across king­doms and em­pires of Earth where joy was and peace of spirit; and in her track amazement and calam­ity, and the whitened bones of noble youths, val­or­ous chief­tains. In that hor­ror of her dream she stood up sud­denly, and thrust forth her hands as to avert an evil, and ad­vanced a step; and with the act her dream was cloven and she awoke, and lo! it was sun­rise; and where had been two war­ri­ors of the Beni-Asser, were now five, and be­sides her own steed five oth­ers, one the steed of Ruark, and Ruark with them that watched over her: pale was the vis­age of the Chief. Ruark eyed Bhanavar, and sig­nalled to his fol­low­ers, and they, when they had lif­ted the dam­sel to her steed and placed her in their front, moun­ted like­wise, and flour­ished their lances with cries, and jerked their heels to the flanks of their steeds, and stretched for­ward till their beards were mixed with the toss­ing manes, and the dust rose after them crim­son in the sun. So they coursed away, speed­ing be­hind their Chief and Bhanavar; sweet were the desert herbs un­der their crush­ing hooves! Ere the shadow of the aca­cia meas­ured less than its height they came upon a spring of sil­ver wa­ter, and Ruark leaped from his steed, and Bhanavar from hers, and they per­formed their ablu­tions by that spring, and ate and drank, and watered their 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 thy tribe.”

Then she wept, and pulled her veil close, mur­mur­ing, “ ’Tis well!”

They spake no fur­ther, and pur­sued their jour­ney to­ward the moun­tains and across the desert that was as a sea asleep in the blaz­ing heat, and the sun till his set­ting threw no shade upon the sands big­ger than what was broad above them. By the beams of the grow­ing moon they entered the first gorge of the moun­tains. Here they re­laxed the swift­ness of their pace, pick­ing their way over broken rocks and stun­ted shrubs, and the mesh of spot­ted creep­ing plants; all around them in shadow a fresh­ness of noisy rivu­lets and cool scents of flowers, as­phodel and rose bloom­ing in plots from the crevices of the crags. These, as the troop ad­vanced, wound and widened, gradu­ally re­ced­ing, and their sum­mits, which were sil­ver in the moon­light, took in the dis­tance a robe of purple, and the sides of the moun­tains were roun­ded away in purple bey­ond a space of em­er­ald pas­ture. Now, Ruark be­held the heav­i­ness of Bhanavar, and that she drooped in her seat, and he hal­ted her by a cave at the foot of the moun­tains, browed with white broom. Be­fore it, over grass and cresses, ran a rill, a branch from oth­ers, lar­ger ones, that went hur­ry­ing from the heights to feed the mead­ows be­low, and Bhanavar dipped her hand in the rill, and thought, “I am no more as thou, rill of the moun­tain, but a desert thing! Thy way is for­ward, thy end be­fore thee; but I go this way and that; my end is dark to me; not a life is mine that will have its close kiss­ing the cold cheeks of the saf­fron-cro­cus. Cold art thou, and I—flames! They that lean to thee are re­freshed, they that touch me per­ish.” Then she looked forth on the stars that were above the purple heights, and the blushes of in­ner heaven that streamed up the sky, and a fear of meet­ing the eyes of her kindred pos­sessed her, and she cried out to Ruark, “O Chief of the Beni-Asser, must this be? and is there no help for it, but that I re­turn among 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 Bhanavar solely, but Bhanavar the Beau­ti­ful?”

She star­ted and sought the eye of the Chief, and it was fixed on her face in a softened light, as if his soul had said that thing. Then she sighed, and ex­claimed, “Un­happy are the beau­ti­ful! born to misery! Al­lah dressed them in his grace and fa­vour for their cer­tain wretched­ness! Lo, their coun­ten­ances are as the sun, their ex­ist­ence as the desert; bar­ren are they 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 in the 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 eye of fire that it was, and all its glory, he cried, “It was in­deed a Jewel for queens to covet from the Ser­pent, and a prize the noblest might risk all to win as a gift for thee.”

Then she said, “Thy voice is friendly with me, O Ruark! and thou scorn­est not 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 the bright­est stars of mid­night are doubled in a clear dark lake, and he sang in 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 forever 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 of love­li­ness—bright, full, per­fect moon!—coun­sel thee not to as­cend and be seen and wor­shipped of men, sit­ting above them in majesty, thou that art thy­self the Jewel bey­ond price? Wah! What if thou cast it from thee?—thy beauty re­maineth!”

And Bhanavar smote her palms in the moon­light, and ex­claimed, “How then shall 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 the 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 mother which weigheth on thee but sil­li­ness! For she saw thee will­ing to do well by 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 of en­dow­ments, as there is nowhere one such as thou in beauty.” Then he sighed to her, “Dare I look up to thee, O my Queen of Ser­pents?” And he breathed as one that is los­ing breath, and the words came from him, “My soul is thine!”

When she heard him say this, great trouble was on the dam­sel, for his voice was not the voice of Zurvan her be­trothed; and she re­membered the sor­row of Ruk­rooth. She would have fled from him, but a dread of the dis­pleas­ure of the Chief re­strained her, know­ing Ruark a soul of wrath. Her eye­lids dropped and the Chief gazed on her eagerly, and sang in a pas­sion of praises of her; the fires of his love had a tongue, his speech was 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 one should love me and call on me for love? My life is a long weep­ing for him! Death is my wooer!”

Ruark still pleaded with her, and she said in fair gen­tle­ness, “Speak not of it now in the fresh­ness of my grief! Other times and sea­sons are there. My soul is but newly wid­owed!”

Fierce was the eye of the Chief, and he sprang up, cry­ing, “By the life of my head, I know thy wiles and the read­ing of these delays: but I’ll never leave thee, nor lose sight of thee, Bhanavar! And think not to fly from me, thou subtle, bril­liant Ser­pent! for thy track is my track, and thy 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 had kindled a fire to roast the flesh of a buf­falo, slaughtered by them from among a herd, and were laugh­ing and singing be­side the flames of the fire. So by the dir­ec­tion of their Chief the Arabs brought slices of sweet buf­falo-flesh to Bhanavar, with cakes of grain: and Bhanavar ate alone, and drank from the wa­ters be­fore her. Then they laid for her a couch within the cave, and the aching of her spirit was lulled, and she slept there a dream­less sleep till morn­ing.

By the morn­ing light Bhanavar looked abroad for the Chief, and he was nowhere by. A pang of vi­ol­ent hope struck through her, and she pressed her bosom, pray­ing he might have left her, and climbed the clefts and ledges 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 heavy flowers, and a flood of gold down the gorges, and a del­ic­ate rose hue on the dis­tant peaks and up­per dells of snow, which were as a crown to the scene she sur­veyed; but no sight of Ruark had she. And now she was be­gin­ning to re­joice, but on a sud­den her eye caught far to east a glimpse of some­thing in mo­tion across an even slope of the lower hills lean­ing to the val­ley; and it was a herd that rushed for­ward, like a black tor­rent of the moun­tains fling­ing foam this way and that, and after the herd and at the sides of the herd she dis­tin­guished the white cloaks and scarfs and glit­ter­ing steel of the Arabs of Ruark. Presently she saw a horse­man break from the rest, and race in a line to­ward her. She knew this one for Ruark, and sighed and des­cen­ded slowly to meet him. The greet­ing of the Chief was sharp, his man­ner wild, and he said little ere he said, “I will see thee un­der the light of the Jewel, so tie it in a band and set it on thy brow, Bhanavar!”

Her mouth was open to in­ter­cede with his de­sire, but his fore­head be­came black as night, and he shouted in the thun­der of his lion-voice, “Do this!”

She took the Jewel from its warm bed in her bosom, and held it, and got to­gether a band of green weeds, and set it in the middle of the band, and tied the band on her brow, and lif­ted her coun­ten­ance to the Chief. Ruark stood back from her and gazed on her; and he would have veiled his sight from her, but his hand fell. Then the might of her love­li­ness seized Bhanavar like­wise, and the full orbs of her eyes glowed on the Chief as on 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! for now can I die this day, if it be that I am to die. And well it is! for now 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 it was a stream that flowed in a hun­dred gushes from her own veins. The sun of this dawn now, seest thou not? ’tis over­crim­son; the vul­ture han­geth low down yon­der val­ley.” And he cried to her, “Haste! mount with me; for I have told Ruk­rooth a thing; and I know that wo­man crafty in the thwart­ing of schemes; such a fox is she where aught ac­cor­deth not with her fore­cast­ings, and the judg­ment of her love for me! By Al­lah! ’twere well we clash not; for that I will do I do, and that she will do doth she.”

So the twain moun­ted their steeds, and Ruark gathered his Arabs and placed them, some in ad­vance, some on either side of Bhanavar; and they rode for­ward to the head of the val­ley, and across the mead­ows, through the blush­ing crowds of flowers, baths of freshest scents, cool breezes that awoke in the nos­trils of the mares neigh­ings of de­light; and these pranced and cur­vet­ted and swung their tails, and gave ex­pres­sion to their joy in many grace­ful fash­ions; but a gloom was on Ruark, and a quick fire in his fal­con-eye, and he rode with heels alert on the flanks of his mare, dash­ing on­ward to right and left, as do they that beat the jungle for the crouch­ing ti­ger. Once, when he was well-nigh half a league in front, he wheeled his mare, and raced back full on Bhanavar, grasp­ing her bridle, and hiss­ing between his teeth, “Not a soul shall have thee save I: 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 of in­tox­ic­a­tion, drunken with the as­pect of her match­less beauty and with ex­ceed­ing love for her. And Bhanavar knew that the dread of a mis­hap was on the mind of the Chief.

Now, the space of pas­ture was be­hind them a broad lake of gold and jasper, and they entered a re­gion of hills, heights, and fast­nesses, robed in forests that rose in roun­ded swells of leaf­age, each over each—above all points of snow that were as flick­er­ing sil­ver flames in the farthest blue. This was the coun­try of Bhanavar, and she gazed mourn­fully on the glades of golden green and the glens of iron black­ness, and the wild flowers, wild blos­soms, and weeds well known to her that would not let her memory rest, and were wist­ful of what had been. And she thought, “My sis­ters tend the flocks, my mother spin­neth with the maid­ens of 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 me to their bos­oms.”

She looked on Ruark to speak with him, but the mouth of the Chief was set and white; and even while she looked, cries of treason and battle arose from the Arabs that were ahead, hid­den by a branch­ing wind of the way round a moun­tain slant. Then the eyes of the Chief reddened, his nos­trils grew 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 men over­matched, and war­ri­ors of the moun­tains burst­ing on them from an am­bush on all sides. Ruark leapt in his seat, and the light of com­bat was on him, and he dug his knees into his mare, and shouted the war-cry of his tribe, lift­ing his hands as it were to draw down wrath from the very heav­ens, 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-lash’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 the echoes had ceased rolling from that cry of his, the moun­tain-war­ri­ors were scattered be­fore him on the nar­row way, hurled down the scrub of the moun­tain, even as dead leaves and loosened stones; so like an arm of light­ning was the Chief!

Now Ruark pur­sued them, and was lost to Bhanavar round a slope of the moun­tain. 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 the swathe of tightened folds, clasped in an arm, and borne rap­idly she knew not whither, for she could hear and see noth­ing. It was to her as were she speed­ing con­stantly down­ward in dark­ness to the lower realms of the genii of the Cau­casus, and every sense, and even that of fear, was stunned in her. How long an in­ter­val had elapsed she knew not, when the folds were un­wound; but it was light of day, and the faces of men, and they were war­ri­ors that were about her, war­ri­ors of the moun­tain; but of Ruark 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 a coun­ten­ance like morn­ing on the moun­tains, answered, “The will of Ruk­rooth, 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 well for him!”

Bhanavar drew her robe about her and was mute. Ere the set­ting of the moon they jour­neyed on with her; and con­tin­ued so three days and nights through the de­files and rav­ines and mat­ted growths of the moun­tains. On the fourth dawn they were on the sum­mit of a lofty moun­tain-rise; be­low them the sun, shoot­ing a cur­rent of gold across leagues of sea. Then he that had spoken with Bhanavar said, “A sail will come,” and a sail came from un­der the sun. Scarce had the ship grated shore when the war­ri­ors lif­ted Bhanavar, and waded through the wa­ter with her, and placed her un­wet­ted in the ship, and one, the fair youth among the war­ri­ors, sprang on board with her, re­main­ing by her. So the cap­tain pushed off, and the wind 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 flow­ing from the fin­gers of the maker, the Almighty One. The ship ceased not sail­ing till they came to a nar­row strait, where the sea was but a river between fair slop­ing hills alight with towers and palaces, open­ing a way to a great city that was in its ra­di­ance over the wa­ters of the sea as the as­pect of myriad sheeny white doves breast­ing the wave. Hitherto the young war­rior had held aloof in cold­ness of cour­tesy from Bhanavar; but now he sat by her, and said, “The bond between my prince and Ruk­rooth is ac­com­plished, and it was to snatch thee from the Chief of the Beni-Asser and bring thee even to this city.”

Bhanavar ex­claimed, “Al­lah be praised in all things, and his will be done!”

The youth con­tin­ued, “Thou art alone here, O lady, ex­posed to the per­ils of loneli­ness; surely it were well if I linger with thee awhile, and see to thy wel­fare in this city, even as a brother with a sis­ter; and I will deal hon­our­ably by thee.”

Bhanavar looked on the young war­rior and blushed at his ex­ceed­ing sweet­ness with her; the soft fresh­ness of his voice was to her as the blos­som-laden breeze in the val­leys of the moun­tains, and she breathed low the words of her grat­it­ude, say­ing, “If I am not a bur­den, let this be so.”

Then said he, “Know me by my name, which is Almeryl; and that we seem in­deed 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 of bash­ful­ness, and said, “Can they that have marked thee call thee other than Bhanavar the Beau­ti­ful?”

She re­membered that Ruark had spoken in like man­ner, and the curse of her beauty smote her, and she thought, “This fair youth, he hath not a mother to watch over him and ward off souls of evil. I dread there will come a mis­hap to him through me; Al­lah shield him from it!” And she sought to dis­suade him from rest­ing by her, but he cried, “ ’Tis but a choice to dwell with thee or with the dogs in the street out­side thy door, O Bhanavar!”

Now, the ship sailed close up to the quay, and cast an­chor there in the midst of other ships of mer­chand­ise. Almeryl then threw a robe over his moun­tain dress and spoke with the cap­tain apart, and he and Bhanavar took leave of the cap­tain, and landed on the quay among the port­ers, and of these one stepped for­ward to them and shouted cheer­ily, “Where be the bur­dens and the bales, O ye, fair couple fash­ioned in the eye of el­eg­ant pro­por­tions? Ye twin palm-trees, male and fe­male! Wul­lahy! broad is the back 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 they passed through the streets and lanes of the city, and the porter poin­ted out this house and that house want­ing an oc­cu­pant, and Almeryl fixed on one in an open thor­ough­fare that had be­fore it a grass-plot, and be­hind a garden with foun­tains and flowers, and grass-knolls shaded by trees; and he paid down the half of its price, and had it fur­nished be­fore night­fall sump­tu­ously, and wo­men in it to wait on Bhanavar, and stuffs and goods, and scents for the bath—all lux­ur­ies what­so­ever that trades­men and mer­chants there could give in ex­change for gold. Then Almeryl dis­missed the porter in Al­lah’s name, and gladdened his spirit with a gift over the due of his hire that ex­al­ted him in the eyes of the porter, and the porter went from him, ex­claim­ing, “In ex­tremity Ukleet is thy slave!” and he 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 the city they had come to weeks and months, and life to either of them as the flow­ing of a gentle stream, even as brother and sis­ter lived they, chastely, and with tem­per­ate feast­ing. Surely the youth loved her with a great love, and the heart of Bhanavar turned not from him, and was won ut­terly by his gen­tle­ness and noble­ness and de­vo­tion; and they re­lied on each other’s pres­ence for any joy, and were des­ol­ate in ab­sence, as the poet 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 the re­veal­ing light in their eyes brightened and was hu­mid, as is sung by him that 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 con­tain him­self 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 ’tis spoken when I move and when I breathe, O my loved one! Tell me then the cause of thy shun­ning me whenever I would speak of it, and be plain with thee.”

For a mo­ment Bhanavar sought to re­lease her­self from his hold, but the love in his eyes en­tangled her soul as in a net, and she sank for­ward to him, and sighed un­der his chin, “ ’Twas in­deed my very love of thee that made 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 death of her be­trothed. When it was ended, Almeryl cried, “And was this all?—this that severed us?” And he said, “Hear what I am.”

So he told Bhanavar how Ruk­rooth, the mother of Ruark, had sent mes­sen­gers to the Prince his father, warn­ing him of the pas­sage of Ruark through the moun­tains with one a Queen of Ser­pents, a sor­ceress, that had be­witched him and en­thralled him in a mighty love for her, to the ruin of Ruark; and how the Chief was on his way with her to de­mand her in mar­riage at the hands of her par­ents; and the words of Ruk­rooth were, “By the ser­vice that was between thee and my hus­band, and by the death he died, O Prince, res­cue the Chief my son from this dam­sel, and en­trap her from him, and have her sent even to the city of the in­land sea, for no less a dis­tance than that kee­p­eth Ruark from her.”

And Almeryl con­tin­ued, “I ques­tioned the mes­sen­gers my­self, and they told me 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 my loved one! my prize! my life! my sleek ante­lope of the hills! Surely when my father ap­poin­ted the war­ri­ors to lie in wait for thy com­ing, I slipped among 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 the treach­ery to Ruark was the treach­ery of Ebn As­rac, not of such war­ri­ors as we; and I would have fallen on Ebn As­rac, had not Ruark so routed that man without faith. ’Twas all as I have said, blessed be Al­lah and his de­crees!”

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

“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:
Seashells 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 in the soft night wind, and the sound of the foun­tain and the bul­bul and the beam 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 and feel­ing that flowed through them.

Ere they ceased their sweet in­ter­change of ten­der­ness, which was but one speech from one soul, a glow of light ran up the sky, and the edge of a cloud was fired; and in the bloom­ing of dawn Almeryl hung over Bhanavar, and his heart ached to see the fresh­ness of her won­drous love­li­ness; and he 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 writ­ten and 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 mouth for a reply.

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

Now, the twain lived to­gether the circle of a full year of de­light­ful mar­riage, and love lessened not in them, but was as the love of the first day. Little cared they, hav­ing each other, for the loneli­ness of their dwell­ing in that city, where they knew none save the porter Ukleet, who went about their com­mis­sions. So­me­times to amuse them­selves with his droller­ies, they sent for him, and were boun­ti­ful with him, and made him drink with them on the lawn of their garden lean­ing to an in­let of the sea; and then he would en­ter­tain them with all the scan­dal and gos­sip of the city, and its little folk and great. When he was out­rageously ex­tra­vag­ant in these stor­ies of his, Bhanavar ex­claimed, “Are such things, now? can it be true?”

And he nod­ded in his con­ceit, and replied loftily, “ ’Tis cer­tain, O my Prince and Prin­cess! ye be from the moun­tains, un­used to the fol­lies and dis­sip­a­tions 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 they lay 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 aught of the great tid­ings? Wul­lahy! no other than the de­par­ture of the wife of Boolp, the broker, into dark­ness. ’Tis of Boolp ye hire this house, and had ye a hun­dred houses in this city ye might have had them from Boolp the broker, he that’s rich; and glory to them whom Al­lah prospereth, say I! And I men­tion this mat­ter, for ’tis cer­tain now Boolp will take an­other wife to him to com­fort him, for there be two things be­loved of Boolp, and therein mani­festeth he taste and the dis­cern­ment of ex­cel­lence, and what is ap­proved; and of these two things let the love of his hoards of the yel­low-skinned treas­ure go first, and after that at­tach­ment 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 for an­other 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 to en­rap­ture the ima­gin­a­tion of Boolp, and in the nature of things herit his pos­ses­sions! for Boolp is an old man, even very old.”

They laughed, and cried, “We know not of such a dam­sel, and the broker must go un­mar­ried for us.”

When next Ukleet sat be­fore them, Almeryl took oc­ca­sion to speak of Boolp again, 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. I wot 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 the fol­low­ing morn­ing he left Bhanavar early un­der a pre­text, and sal­lied forth from the house of their abode alone.

Since their union in that city they had not been once apart, and Bhanavar grieved and thought, “Waneth his love for me?” and she called her wo­men to her, and dressed in this dress and that dress, and was sat­is­fied with none. The dews of the bath stood cold upon her, and she trembled, and fled from mir­ror to mir­ror, and in each she was the same sur­pass­ing vis­ion of love­li­ness. Then her wo­men held a glass to her, and she ex­amined 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 in the curves of har­mony, and the faint rose of the dawn on slants of snow was their hue. Twin­ing her fin­gers and sigh­ing, she thought, “It is not that! he can­not but think me beau­ti­ful.” She smiled a mel­an­choly smile at her im­age in the glass, ex­claim­ing, “What availeth it, thy beauty? for he is away and looketh not on thee, thou vain thing! And what of thy love­li­ness if the light il­lu­mine it not, for he is the light to thee, and it is dark­ness when he’s away.”

Sud­denly she thought, “What’s that which nee­deth to light it no other light? I had well-nigh for­got­ten it in my bliss, the Jewel!” Then she went to a case of ebony-wood, where she kept the Jewel, and drew it forth, and shone in the beam of a pleas­ant ima­gin­a­tion, think­ing, “ ’Twill sur­prise him!” And she robed her­self in a robe of saf­fron, and set lesser gems of the dia­mond and the em­er­ald in the braid of her hair, and knot­ted the Ser­pent Jewel firmly in a band of gold-threaded tis­sue, and had it woven in her hair among the braids. In this ar­ray she awaited his com­ing, and pleased her mind with pic­tur­ing his as­ton­ish­ment and the joy that would be his. Mute were the wo­men who waited on her, for in their lives they 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 at the win­dow for the com­ing of the Prince. So, when he came not she went her­self to look forth, and stretched her white neck bey­ond the case­ment. While her head was ex­posed, she heard a cry of someone from the house in the street op­pos­ite, and Bhanavar be­held in the house of the broker an old wrinkled fel­low that ges­tic­u­lated to her in a frenzy. She snatched her 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 fair mis­tress and mighty!”

To di­vert her­self she made them tell her of Boolp, and they told her a thou­sand an­ec­dotes of the broker, and verses of him, and the con­stancy of his amor­ous con­di­tion, and his greed­i­ness. And Bhanavar was be­guiled of her im­pa­tience till it was even­ing, and the Prince re­turned to her. So they em­braced, and she greeted him as usual, wait­ing what he would say, search­ing his coun­ten­ance for a token of won­der­ment; but the youth knew not that aught was ad­ded to her beauty, for he looked nowhere save in her eyes. 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 the Prince rose to her brow to read it, and he saw the Jewel. Almeryl clapped his 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 light­ning un­der that Jewel of the Ser­pent?”

She kissed him, whis­per­ing, “Not light­ning to thee! Yet lovest thou Bhanavar?”

He replied, “Surely so; and all save Bhanavar in this world is the dark­ness of ob­li­vion to me.”

When it was the next morn­ing, Almeryl rose to go forth again. Ere he had passed the cur­tain of the cham­ber Bhanavar caught him by the arm, and she was trem­bling vi­ol­ently. Her vis­age was a wild in­quiry: “Thou goest?—and again? 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 thou learn­est all of me.”

But she stamped her foot, cry­ing, “No! no! I will hear it! There’s a mys­tery.”

So he said, “Well, then, it is this only; small mat­ter enough. I have a busi­ness with the cap­tain of the ves­sel that brought us hither, and I must 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 as ar­rows, 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,” and let him go. Alone, she summoned a slave, a black, and bade him fetch to her without delay Ukleet the porter, and the porter was presently ushered in to her, protest­ing ser­vice and de­vo­tion. So, she ques­tioned him of Almeryl, and the Prince’s busi­ness abroad, what he knew of it. Ukleet com­menced re­cit­ing verses on the ills of jeal­ousy, but Bhanavar checked him with an eye that Ukleet had seen never be­fore in wo­man or in man, and he gaped at her help­lessly, as one that has swal­lowed a bone. She laughed, 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 that the Prince had a busi­ness with none save the lenders of money. So she spake 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, whatso pleaseth 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 her hand, 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 her an­nounced Ukleet and the broker Boolp. Bhanavar gave little heed to the old fel­low’s grim­aces, and the com­pli­ments he ad­dressed her, but handed him the Jewel and de­sired his valu­ation of its worth. The face of Boolp was a keen edge when he re­garded Bhanavar, but the sight of the Jewel sharpened 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 the jewel of jew­els, thou truly of thy sex; and sav­ing thee there’s no jewel of worth like this one, and to­gether ye be—wul­lahy! never felt I aught like this since my es­pousal of Soolka that’s gone, and ’twas noth­ing like it then! Now, O my Prin­cess, con­fess it freely—this is but a pre­text, this valu­ation of the Jewel, and Ukleet our go-between; and leave the re­ward­ing of him to me. Wul­lahy! I can be gen­er­ous, and my days of fa­vour with fair ladies be not yet over. Blessed be Al­lah for this day! And thinkest thou those eyes fell on me with dis­crim­in­at­ing ob­ser­va­tion ere my sense of per­cep­tion was struck by thee? Not so, for I had noted thee, O moon of hearts, from my win­dow yon­der.”

In this fash­ion Boolp the broker went on prat­ing, and bow­ing, and screw­ing the corners of his little acid eyes to wink the wink of com­mon ac­cord between him­self and Bhanavar. Mean­time she had spoken aside to one of her wo­men, and a second black slave entered the cham­ber, bear­ing in his hand a twis­ted scourge, and that slave laid it on the back of Boolp the broker, and by this means he was brought quickly to the valu­ation of the Jewel. Then he named a sum that was a great sum, but not the value of the Jewel to the fiftieth part, nay nor the five-hun­dredth part, of its value; 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, and the Jewel is thine for that sum.”

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

That even­ing, when it was dark and the lamps lit in the cham­ber, and the wine set and the nose­gay, Almeryl asked of Bhanavar to see her un­der the light of the Jewel. She war­ded him with an ex­cuse, but he was earn­est with her. So she feigned that he teased her, say­ing, “ ’Tis that thou art no longer con­tent with me as I am, O my hus­band!” Then she said, “Wert thou suc­cess­ful in thy deal­ings this day?”

His arm slackened round her, and he answered noth­ing. So she cried, “Fie on thee, thou fool­ish one! and what is thy need of run­ning over this city? Know I not thy case and thine oc­ca­sion, O my be­loved? Surely I am Queen of Ser­pents, a mis­tress of en­chant­ments, a di­viner of things hid­den, and I know thee. Here, then, is what thou re­quirest, and con­ceal not from me thy ne­ces­sity an­other time, my hus­band!”

Upon that she poin­ted his eye to the money­bags of gold and of sil­ver. Almeryl was amazed, and asked her, “How came these? for I was at the last ex­tremity, without coin of any kind.”

She answered, “How, but by the Ser­pents!”

And he ex­claimed, “Would that I might work as that porter wor­keth, rather than this!”

Now, see­ing he be­wailed her use of the powers of the Jewel, Bhanavar fell between his arms, and re­lated to him her dis­cov­ery of his con­di­tion, and how she dis­posed of the Jewel to the broker, and of the scour­ging of Boolp; and he praised her, and clave to her, and they laughed and de­lighted their souls in plenteous­ness, and bliss was their por­tion; as the 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 a while. It happened that one day, that was the last day of the year since her wear­ing of the Jewel, Ukleet said to them, “Be wary! the Viz­ier Aswarak hath his eye on you, and it is no cool one. I say noth­ing: the wise are dis­creet in their tellings of the great. ’Tis cer­tain the broker Boolp for­getteth not his treat­ment here.”

They smiled, turn­ing to each other, and said, “We live in­no­cently, we harm no one, what should we fear?”

Dur­ing the night of that day Bhanavar awoke and kissed the Prince; and lo! he shuddered in his sleep as with the grave-cold. A second time she was awakened on the breast of Almeryl by a dream of the Ser­pents of the Lake Karatis—the lake of the Jewel; and she stood up, and there was in the street a hum of voices, and she saw there be­fore the house armed men with 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 the garden 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 be a bur­den to thy flight.”

And she called on the All-Power­ful for aid, and ran with him into the garden of the house, and lo! by the wa­ter side at the end of the garden a boat full of armed sol­diers with scim­it­ars. So these fell upon them, and bound them, and haled them into the house again, where was the dark Viz­ier Aswarak, and cer­tain of­ficers of the night watch with a force. The Viz­ier cried when he saw them, “I ac­cuse thee, Prince Almeryl, of be­ing here in the city of our lord the King, to con­spire against him and his au­thor­ity.”

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

The Viz­ier frowned, say­ing, “Thou deniest this? And thou here, and thy father 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 he called to the guard, “Shackle him!” When that was done, he ordered the house 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 from them that held her to hang upon the lips of Almeryl, and twice was she torn from him as a grape-bunch is torn from the stream­ing vine, and the third time she swooned and the an­guish of life left her.

Now, Bhanavar was borne to the harem of the Viz­ier, and for days she suffered no morsel of food to enter her mouth, and was dy­ing, had not the Viz­ier in the cun­ning of his dis­sim­u­la­tion fed her with dis­tant glimpses of Almeryl, to show her he yet lived. Then she thought, “While my be­loved liv­eth, life is due to me”; and she ate and drank and re­as­sumed her fair ful­ness and the queen­li­ness that was hers; but the Viz­ier had no love of her, and re­spec­ted her, con­sid­er­ing in his mind, “Time will ex­haust the fury 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 been brought there in her child­hood, and trained to play upon the lute and ac­com­pany her voice with the in­stru­ment. To this little dam­sel Bhanavar gave 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 Almeryl mastered her, and she per­suaded one of the blacks of the harem with a bribe to pro­cure her an in­ter­view with the porter Ukleet. So at a cer­tain hour of the night Ukleet was in­tro­duced into the garden of the harem, and he was in the dark­ness of that garden a white-faced porter with knees that knocked the dread-march to­gether; but Bhanavar strengthened his soul, and he said to her, “ ’Twas the do­ing of Boolp the broker: and he whispered the Viz­ier of thee and thy beauty, O my mis­tress! Surely thy pun­ish­ment and this ruin is but part pay­ment to Boolp of the price of the Jewel, the great Jewel that’s in the hands of the Viz­ier.”

Then she ques­tioned him: “And Almeryl, the Prince, my hus­band, what of him?”

Ukleet was dumb, and Bhanavar asked to hear no more. Surely she was at the 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 the Viz­ier stood by her. She looked at him long as she lay, and the life in her large eyes was ebbing away slowly; but there seemed presently a check, as an eddy comes in the stream, and the light of in­tel­li­gence flowed like a re­viv­ing fire into her eyes, and her heart quickened with de­sire of life while she looked on the Viz­ier. So she passed the pitch of that fever, and bloomed anew in her beauty, and cher­ished it, for she had a pur­pose.

Now, there was re­joicing in the harem of the Viz­ier Aswarak when Bhanavar arose from the couch; and the Viz­ier ex­ul­ted, think­ing, “I have tamed this wild beauty, or she had reached death in that ex­tremity.” So he al­lowed Bhanavar greater free­dom and in­dul­gences, and Bhanavar feigned to give her soul to the pleas­ures wo­men de­light in, and the Viz­ier bur­ied her in gems and trinkets and costly raiment, robes of ex­quis­ite silks, the choicest of Samarkand and Ch­ina; and he per­mit­ted her to make pur­chases among cer­tain of the ware­houses of the city and the shops of the 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. This con­tin­ued, and Aswarak be­came ur­gent with her, and to re­move sus­pi­cion from him she named a day from that period when she would be his. Mean­time she con­trived to see Ukleet the porter fre­quently, and within a week of her en­gage­ment with the Viz­ier she gazed from a lat­tice-win­dow of the harem, and be­held in the garden, by the beams of the moon, Ukleet, and he was look­ing as on the watch for her. So she sent to him the little moun­tain-girl she loved, but Ukleet would tell her noth­ing; then went she her­self, greet­ing him gra­ciously, for his ser­vice was other than that of self-seek­ing.

Ukleet said, “O Lady, mis­tress of hearts, moon of the tides of will! ’tis cer­tain I was thy slave from the hour I be­held thee first, and of the Prince, thy hus­band; Al­lah rest his soul! Now these be my tid­ings. Wul­lahy! the King is one maddened with the re­ports I’ve spread about of thy beauty, yea! ra­ging. And I have a friend in his palace, even an un­der-cook, acute in the in­ter­pret­ing of wishes. There was he al­ways gab­bling of thy case, O my Prin­cess, till the head-cook seized hold on it, and so it went to the cham­ber­lain, thence to the chief of the eu­nuchs, and from him in a nat­ural course, to the King. Now from the King the track­ing of this tale went to the un­der-cook down again, and from him to me. So was I summoned to the King, and the King dis­coursed with me—I with him, in fair flu­ency; he in ejac­u­la­tions of de­sire to have sight of thee, I in ex­pa­ti­ation on that he would see when he had his de­sire. Now in 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 to make a se­lec­tion of goods, and I shall pass at noon by the great mosque, on my way to the shop of Ebn Roulchook, the King’s jew­eller, bey­ond the meat-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 he came to her drunken with alac­rity, for he au­gured fa­vour­ably that her re­luct­ance was melt­ing to­ward him: so she said, “O my mas­ter, my time of mourn­ing is at an end, and I would look well be­fore thee, even as one worthy of be­ing thy bride; so be­stow on me, I pray thee, for my wear­ing that day, the jew­els that be in thy treas­ury, the bright­est and clearest of 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 of Boolp the broker, that had it from an African mer­chant.” So he com­manded the box wherein he had de­pos­ited the Jewel to be brought to him there in the cham­ber of Bhanavar, and took forth the Ser­pent Jewel between his fore­finger and thumb, and laughed at the eager eyes of Bhanavar when she be­held 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 her as the blood of Zurvan and Almeryl. She stretched her hand out for it and cried, “This day, O my lord, make it mine.”

So the Viz­ier said, “Nay, what I have spoken will I keep to; it has cost me much.”

Bhanavar looked at him, and uttered in a soft tone, “Truly it has cost thee much.”

Then she ex­claimed, as in play, “See me, how I look by its beam.” And in her guile she snatched the Jewel from him, and held it to her brow. Then Aswarak star­ted from her and feared her, for the red light of the Jewel glowed, and darkened the cham­ber with its beam, dark­en­ing all save the lustre that was on the vis­age of Bhanavar. He shouted, “What’s this! Art thou a sor­ceress?”

She re­moved the Jewel, and ceased glar­ing on him, and said, “Noth­ing but thy poor slave!”

Then he coaxed her to give him the Jewel, and she would not; he com­manded her per­emp­tor­ily, and she hes­it­ated; so he grasped her tightened hand, and his face loured with wrath; yet she with­held the Jewel from him laugh­ing; and he was stirred to ex­treme wrath, and drew from his girdle the na­ked scim­itar, and men­aced her with it. And he looked mighty; but she 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 when he was about to call in the armed slaves of the palace, she said, “I warn thee, Viz­ier Aswarak! tempt me not to match them that serve me with them that 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.” And he 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, though I 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 nar­row gorge above fall­ing wa­ters, a hiss­ing and a rush­ing of wings, and be­hold! Bhanavar was circled by rings and rings of ser­pent-folds that glowed round her, twis­ted each in each, with the fierce­ness of fire, she like a flame rising up white in the midst of them. The black slaves, when they had lif­ted the cur­tain of the harem-cham­ber, shrieked to see her, and Aswarak crouched at her feet with the as­pect of an angry beast carved in stone. Then Bhanavar loosed on either of the slaves a ser­pent, say­ing, “What these have seen they shall not say.” And while the sweat dropped heav­ily from the fore­head of Aswarak, she stepped out of the circle of ser­pents, 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 high win­dow and the walls as they had come, and she said to the Viz­ier, “What now? Fearest thou? I have spared thee, thou that mad­est me des­ol­ate! and thy slaves are a sac­ri­fice for thee. Now this I ask: Where lies my be­loved, the Prince my hus­band? Speak noth­ing of him, save the place of his burial!”

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

She rolled her eyes on the Viz­ier darkly, ex­claim­ing, “Even where the felons lie en­tombed, he li­eth!” And she began to pant, pale with what she had 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 javelin down 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. So she 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 that she had on, and passed the Viz­ier, and said, “Art thou not re­joiced in thy bride, O Aswarak? ’Twas a won­drous clem­ency, hers! Now but four more days and thou claimest her. Say noth­ing of what thou hast seen, or thou wilt 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 the streets till she came to the shop of Ebn Roulchook. The King was in dis­guise at the ex­tremity of the shop, and while she ex­amined this and that 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 hol­low in 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 be­gin­ning slope of the bosom, and fixed the circlet to her head with the Jewel burn­ing on her brow. Then when he be­held the glory of ex­cel­ling love­li­ness that she was, and the splend­our in her eyes un­der the Jewel, the King shouted and par­ted with his dis­guise, and Ebn Roulchook and the wo­men and slaves with Bhanavar fled to the court­yard that was be­hind the shop, leav­ing Bhanavar alone with the King. Surely Bhanavar re­turned not to the dwell­ing of the Viz­ier.

Now, the King Mashalleed es­poused Bhanavar, and she be­came his queen and ruled him, and her word was the dic­tate of the land. Then caused she the body 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 the tomb, 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 bit­ter­sweet:
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 the Jewel, and called the ser­pents, to de­light her soul with the sight of her power, and rolled and spor­ted madly among them, clutch­ing them by the necks till their thin little red tongues hung out, and their eyes were as dis­col­oured blisters of venom. Then she arose, and her arms and neck and lips were glazed with the slime of the ser­pents, and she flung off her robes to the close-fit­ting silken in­ner vest looped across her bosom with pearls, and whirled in a mazy dance-meas­ure among them, and sang mel­an­choly melod­ies, mak­ing them de­li­ri­ous, fas­cin­at­ing them; and they fol­lowed her round and round, in twines and twists and curves, with arched heads and stiffened tails; and the cham­ber swam like an un­du­lat­ing sea of shift­ing sap­phire lit by the moon of mid­night. Not be­fore the moon of 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 to her. The wo­men and slaves of the palace dreaded her, and the King him­self was her very slave.

Mean­while the plot of her un­for­giv­ing­ness against Aswarak ripened: and the Viz­ier be­hold­ing the bride he had lost Queen of Mashalleed his mas­ter, it was as she con­ceived, that his heart was eaten with jeal­ousy and fierce rage. Bhanavar as she came across him spake mildly, and gave him gentle looks, sad glances, suf­fer­ing not his fires to abate, the tor­ment of his love to cool. Each night he awoke with a ser­pent in his bed; the beam of her beauty was as the con­stant bite of a ser­pent, pois­on­ing his blood, and he de­luded his soul with the be­lief that Bhanavar loved him not­with­stand­ing, and that she was seized for­cibly from him by the King. “Other­wise,” thought he, “why loosed she not a ser­pent from the host to strangle me even as yon­der black slaves?” Bhanavar knew the mind of Aswarak, and con­sidered, “The King is cun­ning and weak, a slave to his de­sires, and in the bond­age of the jewel, my beauty. The Viz­ier is un­scru­pu­lous, a hatcher of in­trigues; but that he dreads me and hopes a fa­vour of me, he would have wrought against me ere now. ’Tis then a com­bat ’twixt him and me. O my soul, art thou dream­ing of a fair youth that was the bliss of thy bosom night and day, night and day? The Viz­ier shall die!”

One morn­ing, and it was a year from the day she had be­come Queen of Mashalleed, Bhanavar sprang up quickly from the side of the King; and he was 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 lines that were on her brow, lines of age, and at the corners of her mouth and about her throat a slack­ness of skin, the skin no longer its soft rosy white, but withered brown as leaves of the forest. She shrieked, and fell back in a swoon of hor­ror. When she re­covered, she ran to the mir­ror again, and it was the same sight. And she rose from swoon­ing a third time, and still she be­held the vis­age of a hag; noth­ing of beauty there save the hair and the bril­liant eyes. Then summoned she the ser­pents in a circle, and the num­ber of them was that of the days in the year: and she bared her wrist and seized one, a gray-sil­ver with sap­phire spots, and hissed 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 sil­ver cres­cents, 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, and cried:

“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 eyes in flame-sock­ets and livid-lus­trous length—a dis­ease to look on, and cried:

“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 his neck, 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 she fell to­ward the floor, re­peat­ing, “ ’Tis the Curse!” Sud­denly she thought, “Yet an­other year my beauty shall be nour­ished by my ven­geance, yet an­other! And, O Viz­ier, the kiss shall be thine, the kiss of doom; for I have doomed thee ere now. Thou, thou shalt re­store me to my beauty: that only love I now my Prince is lost.”

So she veiled her face in the close veil of the vir­tu­ous, and des­patched Ukleet, whom she ex­al­ted in the palace of the King, to the Viz­ier; and Ukleet stood be­fore Aswarak, and said, “O Viz­ier, my mis­tress truly is long­ing for you with ex­cess­ive long­ing, and in what she now un­der­goeth is for­got­ten an evil done by you to her; and she bids you come and con­cert with her a scheme de­lib­er­ately as to the get­ting rid of this tyr­ant who is 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, these young beau­ties. I know them. Tell the Queen of Ser­pents I am even hers to the sole of my foot.”

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

Ukleet then pro­ceeded to the house of Boolp the broker, front­ing the gut­ted ru­ins where Bhanavar had been happy in her in­no­cence with Almeryl, the moun­tain prince, her hus­band. Boolp was en­gaged hag­gling with a slave-mer­chant the price of a fair slave, and Ukleet said to him, “Yet awhile delay, O Boolp, ere you ex­pend a frac­tion of treas­ure, for truly a mighty bar­gain of jew­els is wait­ing for you at the palace of my lord the King. So come thither with all your money­bags of gold and sil­ver, and your se­cur­it­ies, and your bonds and dues in writ­ing, for ’tis the fa­vour­ite of the King re­quireth you to com­plete a bar­gain with her, and the 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 tide of for­tune setteth into your lap. Fail not, wul­lahy! to come with all you pos­sess, or if you have not enough when she re­quireth it to com­plete the bar­gain, my mis­tress will break off with you. I know not if she in­tend even other game for you, O lucky one!”

Boolp hitched his girdle and shrugged, say­ing, “ ’Tis she will fail, I wot—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 of her ru­bies and pearls to out­weigh me and my gold, go to, Boolp will school 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
With 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, and re­turned to Queen Bhanavar.

Now, in the dark of night Aswarak stood within the gate of the palace-garden of Mashalleed that was ajar, and a hand from a veiled fig­ure reached to him, and he caught it, in the ful­ness of his de­lu­sion, cry­ing, “Thou, my Queen?” But the hand sig­ni­fied si­lence, and drew him past the tank of the garden and through a court of the palace into a pas­sage lit with lamps, and on into a close-cur­tained cham­ber, and bey­ond a heavy cur­tain into an­other, a cir­cu­lar pas­sage des­cend­ing between black hangings, and at the bot­tom a square vault draped with black, and in it pre­cious woods burn­ing, oils in censers, and the odour of am­ber­gris and myrrh and musk float­ing in clouds, and the sight of the Viz­ier was for a time ob­scured by the thick­ness of the in­censes float­ing. As he be­came fa­mil­iar with the place, he saw marked therein a board spread at one end with vi­ands and wines, and the nose­gay in a wa­ter-vase, and cups of gold and a ser­vice of gold—every pre­par­a­tion for feast­ing migh­tily. So the soul of Aswarak leapt, and he cried, “Now un­veil thy­self, O moon of our meet­ing, my mis­tress!”

The voice of Bhanavar answered him, “Not till we have feasted and drunken, 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 of the pas­sage, and Boolp was there, fol­low­ing Ukleet, both of them un­der a weight of bags and boxes. So she wel­comed the broker, and led him to the feast, he cough­ing and wheez­ing and blink­ing, un­wit­ting the vex­a­tion of the Viz­ier, nor that one other than him­self was there. When Boolp heard the voice of the Viz­ier, in as­ton­ish­ment, ad­dress­ing him, he star­ted back and fell upon his bags, and the task of coax­ing him to the board was as that of hal­ing a dis­tempered beast to the wa­ter. Then they sat and feasted to­gether, and Ukleet with them; and if Aswarak or Boolp waxed im­pa­tient of each other’s pres­ence, he whispered to them, “Only wait! see what she re­ser­veth for you.” And Bhanavar mused with her­self, “Truly that re­served shall be not long com­ing!” So they drank, and wine got the mas­tery of Aswarak, so that he made no secret of his pas­sion, and began to lean to her and verse ex­tem­por­an­eously in her ear; and she stin­ted not in her replies, an­swer­ing to his ur­gency in girl­ish guise, sigh­ing be­hind the veil, as if un­der love’s in­flu­ence. And the Viz­ier pressed close, and sang:

“ ’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 then sang, 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, and cried, “Wul­lahy! so and such thy love! Thine am I, thine! And what a mu­sic is thy voice, O my mis­tress! ’Twere a bliss to Eb­lis in his tor­ment could 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 im­por­tunate dogs! ’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 these words, and said, “Leave the King to my care, O Queen of Ser­pents, and ex­pend no por­tion of thy power on him; but hasten now the go­ing of these fel­lows; my heart is straitened by them, and I, wul­lahy! would gladly see a 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 between them.”

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

And the broker, the old miser, ob­stin­ate as are the half-fuddled, began to 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 of yon­der Viz­ier, nor the secresy of this. Now, by the Prophet and that in­ter­dict of his, I’ll drink no fur­ther.”

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

Quoth Boolp, “I care not. Shall I leave my wealth and all I pos­sess void of 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 the veil, and be­think you of a fit­ting verse, a seemly com­pli­ment—some­thing sug­ary.”

Then Boolp smoothed his head, and was bothered; and tapped it, and com­menced 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 to say, and gasped—

“Moon! I cried, Moon!—and I cried, Moon!”

Then the Viz­ier and Ukleet laughed till they fell on their backs; so Bhanavar 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 now re­strained 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 after that 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 of sump­tu­ous blue, spot­ted with gold bees; her face veiled with a veil of gauzy sil­ver, and she was as the moon in sum­mer heav­ens, and strode majestic­ally for­ward, say­ing, “The jew­els? ’tis but one. Be­hold!”

The lamps were ex­tin­guished, and in her hand was the glory of the Ser­pent Jewel, no other light save it in the vaul­ted cham­ber.

So the old miser perked his chin and brows, and cried won­der­ing, “I know it, this Jewel, O my mis­tress.”

She turned to the Viz­ier, and said, lift­ing the red gloom of the Jewel on him, “And thou?”

Aswarak ate his un­der­lip.

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; and they saw by the glow of the Jewel that it was a tomb. When she had moun­ted 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 as she looked in­tently over a tomb. The lid was of glass, and through the glass of the lid the Jewel flung a dark rosy ray on the body of Almeryl ly­ing be­neath it.

Now, the miser was per­plexed at the sight; but Aswarak stepped back­ward in de­fi­ance, bel­low­ing, “ ’Twas for this I was tricked to come here! Is’t fool­ing me a second time? By Al­lah! look to it; not a second time will Aswarak 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! thou ser­pent! but I’ll be gone from here.”

So she faltered in sweet­ness, know­ing him doomed, and lov­ing to dally with 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 bring me 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 thee well: else in­deed!”

And the Viz­ier cried, “Chase then these in­truders from us, O thou sor­ceress, and above all ser­pents in power! for thou poison­est with a touch; and the eye and the ear alike take in thy pois­ons greed­ily. Thou over­comest 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 start­ing from 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 her truth, yet dread­ing to dis­be­lieve it. So she saw him fast en­meshed in her sub­tleties, and clapped her hands cry­ing, “Come again with me to the tomb, and note if there be aught I am to blame in, O Aswarak, and plight thy­self to me be­side it.”

He did noth­ing save to widen his eye at her some­what; and she said, “The two are yon­side the tomb, and they hear us not, and see us not by this light of the Jewel; so come up to it boldly with me; free thy mind of its doubt, and for a re­con­cile­ment kiss me on the way.”

Aswarak moved not for­ward; but as Bhanavar laid the Jewel in her bosom he tore the veil from her darkened head, and caught her to him and kissed her. Then Bhanavar laughed and shouted, “How is it with thee, Viz­ier Aswarak?”

He was tot­ter­ing, and muttered, “ ’Tis a death-chill hath struck me even to my mar­row.”

So she drew the Jewel forth once more, and rubbed it ablaze, and the noise of the Ser­pents neared; and they streamed into the vault and un­der it in fiery jets, sur­round­ing Bhanavar, and whizz­ing about her till in their ve­lo­city they were in­di­vis­ible; and she stood as a foun­tain of fire clothed in flashes of the un­der­world, the new love­li­ness of her face grow­ing vivid vi­olet like an in­cess­ant light­ning above them. Then stretched 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 when she had wound them to a fury, lo, she burst from the hiss­ing circle and dragged Ukleet from the vault into the pas­sage, and blocked the en­trance to the vault. So was Queen Bhanavar avenged.

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

Bhanavar struck the King’s arm, but he no­ticed her not, and Nashta laughed. Then Bhanavar con­trolled her trem­bling and said, “A word, O King! and vouch­safe me a hear­ing.”

The King replied lan­guidly, still look­ing on Nashta, “ ’Tis a com­mand that the voice of none that are crabbed and hideous be heard in the harem, and I find com­fort in it, O Nashta! but speak thou, my foun­tain of sweet-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 began play­ing with it, and fit­ting on it a ring, gig­gling. Then, as he answered noth­ing, Bhanavar came nearer and slapped him on the cheek. Mashalleed star­ted to his feet, and his hand grasped his girdle; but that wrath­ful­ness was stayed when he be­held the veil slide from her vis­age. So he cried, “My Queen! my soul!”

She poin­ted to Nashta, and the King chid the girl, and sent her forth lean with his shif­ted dis­pleas­ure, as a kit­ten slinks wet from a fish­pond where it had thought to catch a great fish. Then Bhanavar ex­claimed, “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 truly this morn­ing the vic­tim of a sor­cery.”

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

The King could not doubt this story of Bhanavar, see­ing her con­stant love­li­ness, and the arch of her flash­ing brow, and the oval of her cheek and chin smooth as milk. So he said, “O my Queen! I had thought to go, as I must, gladly; but how shall I go, know­ing thy truth, thy beauty un­changed; thee faith­ful, a fol­lower of the in­junc­tions of the Prophet in char­it­able deeds?”

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

He answered, “The people of a province south­ward have raised the stand­ard of re­volt and mocked my au­thor­ity; they have been joined by cer­tain of the Arab chiefs sub­ject to my domin­ion, and have de­feated my armies. ’Tis to sub­due them I go; yea, to crush them. Yet, wul­lahy! I know not. Care I if king­doms fall away, and na­tions, so that I have thee? Nay, let all pass, so that thou re­main by me.”

Bhanavar paced from him to a mir­ror, and frowned at the re­flec­tion of her fair­ness, think­ing, “Such had he spoken to the girl Nashta, or an­other, this King!” And she thought, “I have been be­loved by the noblest three on Earth; I will ask no more of love; ven­geance I have had. ’Tis time that I de­mand of my beauty noth­ing save power, and I will make this King my step­ping-stone to power, re­joicing my soul with the shock of armies.”

Now, she per­suaded Mashalleed to take her with him on his ex­ped­i­tion against the Arabs; and they set forth, head­ing a great as­semblage of war­ri­ors, south­ward to the land bor­der­ing the Desert. The King cred­ited the sug­ges­tions of Bhanavar, that Aswarak had dis­ap­peared to join the rebels, and pressed for­ward in his eager­ness to in­flict a chas­tise­ment sig­nal in swift­ness upon them and that traitor; so eagerly Mashalleed jour­neyed to his army in ad­vance, that the main body, with Bhanavar, was left by him long be­hind. She had en­cour­aged him, say­ing, “I shall love thee much if thou art speedy in win­ning suc­cess.” The Queen was housed on an ele­phant, har­nessed with gold, and with silken purple trap­pings; from the rose-hued cur­tains of her pa­lan­quin she looked on a mighty march of war­ri­ors, filling the ex­tent of the plains; all day she fed her sight on them. Surely the story of her beauty be­came noised among the guards of her per­son that rode and ran be­neath the royal ele­phant, till the sol­diers of Mashalleed spake but of the beauty of the Queen, and Bhanavar was as a moon shin­ing over that sea of men.

Now, they had passed the cul­tiv­ated fields, and were halt­ing by the ford of 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 is de­feated, and fly­ing.” Then the Cap­tains of the host wit­nessed to the great­ness of Al­lah, and were troubled with a dread, fear­ing to ad­vance; but Bhanavar com­manded a horse to be saddled for her, and moun­ted it, and plunged through the ford singly; so they fol­lowed her, and all day she rode for­ward on horse­back, touch­ing neither food nor drink. By night she was a league bey­ond the fore­most of them, and fell upon the King en­camped in the Desert, with the loose rem­nant of his forces. Mashalleed, when he had looked on her, for­got his af­flic­tion, and stood up to em­brace her, but Bhanavar spurned him, cry­ing, “A time for this in the time of dis­grace?” Then she said, “How came it?”

He answered, “There was a Chief among the en­emy, an Arab, be­fore the ter­ror of whom my people fled.”

Cried she, “Con­quer him on the mor­row, and till then I eat not, drink not, sleep not.”

On the mor­row Mashalleed again en­countered the rebels, and Bhanavar, seated on her ele­phant, from a sand-hil­lock un­der a palm, be­held the prowess of the Arab Chief and the tem­pest of battle that he was. She thought, “I have seen but one mighty in com­bat like that one, Ruark, the Chief of the Beni-Asser.” Thereupon she coursed to­ward the King, even where 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 thy sons of valour.”

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

Bhanavar saw them fall, and ex­claimed, “Another at­tack on him, and with thrice three!”

Her will was the man­date of Mashalleed, and these like­wise were ordered forth, and closed on the Chief, but he dar­ted from their toils and wheeled about them, spear­ing them one by one till the nine were in the dust. Bhanavar com­pressed her dry lips and muttered to the King, “Head thou a body against him.”

Mashalleed gathered round his stand­ard the chosen of his war­ri­ors, and smoothed his beard, and headed them. Then the Chief struck his lance be­hind him, and stretched rap­idly a half-circle across the sand, and hal­ted on a knoll. When they neared him he re­treated in a fur­ther half-circle, and con­tin­ued this wise, wast­ing the fury of Mashalleed, till he stood among his fol­low­ers. There, as the King hes­it­ated and pre­pared to re­treat, he and the oth­ers of the tribe lev­elled their lances and hung upon his rear, fret­ting them, slaughter­ing cap­tains of the troop. When Mashalleed turned to face his pur­suer, the Chief was alone, im­mov­able on his mare, front­ing the ranks. Then Bhanavar taunted the King, 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 rapid eyes, mur­mur­ing, “Oh, what a Chief is he! Oh that a cloud would fall, a smoke arise, to blind these hosts, that I might sling my ser­pents on him un­seen, for I will not be van­quished, though it be by Ruark!” So she drew to the King, and the al­ter­ca­tion between them was fierce in the fury of the battle, he say­ing, “ ’Tis a feint of the Chief, this chal­lenge; and I must suc­cour the left of my army by the well, that he is over­match­ing with num­bers”; and she, “If thou head them not, then will I, and thou shalt be­hold a wo­man do what thou durst not, and lose her love and win her scorn.” While they spake the Arabs they looked on seemed to flut­ter and waver, and the Chief was back­ing to them, call­ing to them as ’twere words of shame to rally them. See­ing this, Mashalleed charged against the Chief once more, and lo! the Arabs opened to re­ceive him, clos­ing on his band of war­ri­ors like wa­ters whitened by the storm on a fleet of swift-scud­ding ves­sels: and there was a dust and a tu­mult vis­ible, such as is seen in the dark­ness when a ves­sel struck by the light­ning-bolt is sink­ing—flashes of steel, lift­ing of hands, rolling of horse­men and horses. Then Bhanavar groaned aloud, “They are lost! Shame to us! only one hope is left-that ’tis Ruark, this Chief!” Now, the view of the plain cleared, and with it she be­held the army of Mashalleed broken, the King borne down by a dust of Arabs; so she un­veiled her face and rode on the host with the horse­men that guarded her, glor­i­ous with a crown of gold and the glow­ing Jewel on her brow. When she was a javelin’s flight from them the Arabs shouted and paused in ter­ror, for the light of her head was as the sun set­ting between clouds of thun­der; but that Chief dashed for­ward like a flame beaten level by the wind, cry­ing, “Bhanavar; Bhanavar!” and she knew the fea­tures of Ruark; so she said, “Even I!” And he cried again, “Bhanavar! Bhanavar!” and was as one stricken by a shaft. Then Bhanavar threw on him cer­tain of the horse­men with her, and he suffered them without a sign to sur­round him and grasp his mare by the bridle-rein, and bring him, dis­armed, be­fore the Queen. At sight of Ruark a cap­tive the Arabs fell into con­fu­sion, and lost heart, and were speedily chased and scattered from the scene like a loose spray be­fore the 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 to him when she de­par­ted with Mashalleed, to en­counter other tribes; and the Chief was bound and con­duc­ted a pris­oner to the city of the in­land sea, and cast into prison, in ex­pect­a­tion of Death the re­leaser, and con­tin­ued there well-nigh a year, eat­ing the bit­ter bread of cap­tiv­ity. In the even­ing 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 moun­tain and the desert, but he turned his face from her to the wall. One day she sang of Death the re­leaser, and Ruark thought, “ ’Tis come! she war­neth me! Mer­ci­ful is Al­lah!” On the morn­ing that fol­lowed Ukleet entered the cell, and with him three slaves, blacks, armed with scim­it­ars. So Ruark stood 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 in mar­tial qual­it­ies! surely they’re my ret­inue, and the ret­inue of them of my rank in the palace; and where I go they go; for the ex­al­ted have more shad­ows than one! yea, three have they in my case, even very grimly black shad­ows, whereon the idle ex­pend not laughter, and whoso joketh in their hear­ing, ’tis, wul­lahy! the last joke of that per­son. In such-wise are the power­ful known among men, they that stand very prom­in­ent in the beams of prosper­ity! Now this of my­self; but for thee—of a surety the Queen Bhanavar, my mis­tress, will be here by the time of the rising of the moon. 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 the heav­ens.

Mean­while Bhanavar had mused, “ ’Tis this day, the day when the Ser­pents de­sire their due, and the King Mashalleed they shall have; for what is life to him but a treach­ery and a dal­li­ance, and what is my hold on him but this Jewel of the Ser­pents? He has had the profit of beauty, and he shall yield the pen­alty: my kiss is for him, my ser­pent-kiss. And I will re­lease 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 the light of Paradise; but ere she reached the King Mashalleed, lo! the hour of the Ser­pents had struck, and her beauty melted from her as snow melts from 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. Now as Mashalleed lif­ted his eyes to her he star­ted amazed, cry­ing, “The hag again!” and she said, “What of the hag, O my lord the King?” Thereat he was yet more amazed, and ex­claimed, “The hag of ugli­ness with the voice of 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 them Nashta, whom she hated. So she cried, “Away with ye!” But the King com­manded them, “Stay!” Then the Queen leaned to him, say­ing, “I will speak with my lord alone”; whereat he shrank from her, and spat. Ice and flame shivered through the blood of Bhanavar, yet such was her eager­ness to give the kiss to Mashalleed, that she leaned to him, still woo­ing him to her with smiles. Then the King seized her vi­ol­ently, and flung her over the marble floor to the very basin of the foun­tain, and the crown that was on her brow fell and rolled to the feet of Nashta. The girl lif­ted it, laugh­ing, and was in the act of fit­ting it to her fair head amid the chuckles of her com­pan­ions, when a slap from the hand of Bhanavar 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 the basin of the foun­tain, and be­held the im­age of her change therein, and was hur­ry­ing from the hall and down the cor­ridors of the palace to the private cham­ber. So he made bare the steel by his side, and fol­lowed her with a num­ber of the harem guard, men­acing her, and com­mand­ing her to sur­render the crown with the Jewel. Ere she could lay hand on a veil, he was be­side her, and she was en­com­passed. In that ex­tremity Bhanavar plucked the Jewel from her crown, and rubbed it, call­ing the Ser­pents to her. One came, one only, and that one would not move from her to sling him­self 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 aw­ful fear, and he fell back from her, mo­lest­ing her no fur­ther. Then she squeezed 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 of the rising of the moon. Cool­ness and sooth­ing­ness dropped on her as a balm 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 forever 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 or have my kiss now, that I may in­deed be as yon­der beam? Who, that I may be avenged on this King? And who sang that song of the as­cend­ing of the moon, that comes to me as a part of me from old times?” As she gazed on the circled ra­di­ance swim­ming un­der a plume of palm leaves, she ex­claimed, “Ruark! Ruark the Chief!” So she clasped her hands to her bosom, and crouched un­der the shad­ows of the garden, and fled through the garden gates and the streets of the city, heav­ily veiled, to the prison where Ruark awaited her within the walls and Ukleet without. The Governor of the prison had been warned by Ukleet of her com­ing, and the doors and bars 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 the cell she saw with a glance the straw-heap and the fet­ters, and the black-bread and wa­ter un­tasted on the bench—signs of his misery and de­sire for her com­ing. So she greeted him with the word of peace, and he replied with the name of the All-Mer­ci­ful. Then said she, “O Ruark, of Ruk­rooth thy mother tell me some­what.”

He answered, “I know nought of her since that day. Al­lah have her in his keep­ing!”

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 not till he had set eyes on Bhanavar.”

She knelt by the Chief, say­ing in a soft voice, “Very greatly the Chief of the Beni-Asser loved Bhanavar.” And she thought, “Yea! greatly and ver­ily love I him; and he shall be no vic­tim of the Ser­pents, for I defy them and give them other prey.” So she said in deeper notes, “Ruark! the Queen 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 be­loved as thou art by Bhanavar?” The dark light in his eyes kindled as light in the eyes of a lion, and she con­tin­ued, “Ruark, what a yoke is hers who weareth this crown! He that is my lord, how am I mated to him save in loath­ing? O my Chief, my lion! hadst thou no dream of Bhanavar, that she would come hither to un­bind thee and lift thee be­side her, and live with thee in love and veil­less love­li­ness—thine? Yea! and in power over lands and na­tions and armies, lord­ing the in­fi­del, tam­ing them to sub­mis­sion, ex­ult­ing in de­fi­ance and as­saults and vic­tor­ies and mag­nan­im­it­ies—thou and she?” Then while his breast heaved like a broad wave, the Queen star­ted to her feet, cry­ing, “Lo, she is here! and this she of­fereth thee, Ruark!”

A shrill cry par­ted from her lips, and to the clap­ping of her hands slaves entered the cell with lamps, and in­stru­ments to strike off the fet­ters from the Chief; and they re­leased him, and Ruark leaned on their shoulders 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 his el­bow on her own shoulder, and walked with him thus to the door of the cell, he sigh­ing as one in a dream that dreameth the bliss of bliss. Now they 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 he lif­ted it, and her vis­age be­came bare. She shrieked, and caught up her two hands to her brow, but the slaves had a glimpse of her, and said among them­selves, “This is not the Queen.” And they mur­mured, “ ’Tis an im­postor! one in league with the Chief.” Bhanavar heard them say, “Ar­rest her 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 the change. 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 her head on Ruark, and said to him, “my Chief, ere we leave these walls and join our fates, wilt thou plight thy­self to me with a kiss?”

Ruark leapt to her like the bound­ing leo­pard, and gave her the kiss, as were it his whole soul he gave. Then in a mo­ment Bhanavar felt the blush of beauty burn over her, and drew the veil down on her face, and suffered the 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 Chief of 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 where­fore these evil names of me?”

Cried he, “Thou thing of guile! and thou hast pleaded with me for the life of the Chief thus long to visit him in secret! Life of my head! but Mashalleed 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 in the slough! and Ukleet in the tor­ture hath told of thee what is known to him. 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 mir­acle of beauty that she was, the splen­did jewel of throb­bing love­li­ness. So to scourge him with the bit­ter lash of jeal­ousy, Bhanavar turned her eyes on Ruark, and said sweetly, “Yet shalt thou live to taste again the bliss of the Desert. Pleas­ant was our time in it, O my Chief!” The King glared and choked, and she said again, “Nor he conquered thee, but I; and I that conquered thee, little will it be for me to con­quer him: his threats are the winds of idle­ness.”

Surely the world darkened be­fore the eyes of Mashalleed, and he arose and called 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 scim­it­ars des­cen­ded, she seized Ruark, and they stood in a whizz­ing ring of ser­pents, the sound of whom was as the hum of a thou­sand wires struck by storm-winds. Then she glowed, tower­ing over them with the Chief clasped to 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 circle round Bhanavar and the Chief. She yel­lowed, and took hold of the nearest Ser­pent 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, wind­ing his 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 to swarm venom­ously, an­swer­ing her no more. Then Ruark bore wit­ness to his faith, and fol­ded his arms with the grave smile she had known in the desert; and Bhanavar struggled and tussled with the Ser­pents in fierce­ness, strangling and toss­ing them to right and left. “Great is Al­lah!” cried all present, and the King trembled, for never was sight like 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 their circ­ling was quickened to a slurred sav­age sound and they closed on Ruark, and she felt him stifling and that they were re­lent­less. So in the height of the tem­pest Bhanavar seized the Jewel in the gold circlet on her brow and cast it from her. Lo! the Ser­pents in­stantly abated their frenzy, and flew all of them to pluck the Jewel, chas­ing the one that had it in his fangs through the case­ment, and the hall breathed empty of them. Then in the si­lence that was, Bhanavar veiled her face and said to the Chief, “Pass from the hall while they yet dread me. No longer am I Queen 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 those Ser­pents for my beauty, and ’tis gone! Now am I power­less, hate­ful to look 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 the light; 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 King had re­covered his voice of com­mand; but now the wrath of the All-Power­ful was upon her and him! Surely within an hour from the flight of the Ser­pents, the slaves and sol­diers of Mashalleed laid at his feet two heads that were the heads of Ruark and Bhanavar; and they said, “O great King, we tracked them to her cham­ber and through to a pas­sage and a vault hung with black, wherein were two corpses, one in a tomb and one un­bur­ied, and we slew them there, clasp­ing each other, O King of the age!”

Mashalleed gazed upon the head of Bhanavar and sighed, for death had made the head again fair with a won­drous beauty, a love­li­ness never be­fore seen on Earth.

The Betrothal

Now, when Shibli Bagarag had ceased speak­ing, the Viz­ier smiled gravely, and shook his beard with sat­is­fac­tion, and said to the Eclipser of Reason, “What opinest thou of this nephew of the barber, O Noorna bin Noorka?”

She answered, “O Fesh­navat, my father, truly I am con­tent with the bar­gain of my be­trothal. He, wul­lahy, is a fair youth of flow­ing speech.” Then she said, “Ask thou him what he opin­eth of me, his be­trothed?”

So the Viz­ier put that in­ter­rog­a­tion to Shibli Bagarag, and the youth was in per­plex­ity; think­ing, “Is it pos­sible to be joy­ful in the em­brace of one that hath brought thwack­ings upon us, ser­i­ous blows?” Think­ing, “Yet hath she, when the mood cometh, kindly looks; and I marked her eye dwell­ing on me ad­mir­ingly!” And he thought, “May­hap she that groweth younger and coun­teth nature back­wards, hath a his­tory that would af­fect me; or, it may be, my kisses—wah! I like not to give them, and it is said,

“ ‘Love is wither’d by the withered lip’;

“and that,

“ ‘On bones be­come too prom­in­ent he’ll trip.’

“Yet put the case, that my kisses—I shower them not, Al­lah the All-See­ing is my wit­ness! and they be given dain­tily as ’twere to the leaf of a nettle, or over-hot pi­lau. Yet haply kisses re­peated might re­store her to a bloom, and it is cer­tain youth is some­how stolen from her, if the Viz­ier Fesh­navat went be­fore her, and his blood be her blood; and he is power­ful, she wise. I’ll de­cide to act the part of a re­joicer, and ex­press of her opin­ions hon­eyed to the soul of that sex.”

Now, while he was thus de­bat­ing he hung his head, and the Viz­ier awaited his re­sponse, knit­ting his brows an­grily at the delay, and at the last he cried, “What! no an­swer? how’s this? Shall thy like dare hold de­bate when ques­tioned of my like? And is my daugh­ter Noorna bin Noorka, thinkest thou, a slave-girl in the mar­ket—thou hag­gling at her price, O thou nephew of the barber?”

So Shibli Bagarag ex­claimed, “O ex­al­ted one, be­stower of the bride! surely I de­bated with my­self but for ap­pro­pri­ate terms; and I delayed to se­lect the metre of the verse fit­ting my thoughts of her, and my won­drous good for­tune, and the hon­our done me.”

Then the Viz­ier, “Let us hear: we listen.”

And Shibli Bagarag was ad­vised to deal with il­lus­tra­tions in his di­lemma, by­ways of ex­pres­sion, and spake in ex­tem­por­an­eous verse, and with a full voice:

“The pu­pils of the Sage for liv­ing Beauty sought;
And one a Vi­sion clasped, and one a Model wrought.
‘I have it!’ each ex­claimed, and rivalry arose:
‘Paint me thy Maid of air!’ ‘Thy Grace of clay dis­close.’
‘What! limbs that can­not move!’ ‘What! lips that melt away!’
‘Keep thou thy Maid of air!’ ‘Shroud up thy Grace of clay!’
’Twas thus, con­tend­ing hot, they went be­fore the Sage,
And knelt at the wise wells of cold as­cetic age.
‘The fairest of the twain, O father, thou re­cord:’
He answered, ‘Fairest she who’s likest to her lord.’
Said they, ‘What fairer thing matched with them might pre­vail?’
The Sage aus­terely smiled, and said, ‘Yon mon­key’s tail.’

’Tis left for after-time his wis­dom to de­clare:
That’s love­li­est we best love, and to ourselves com­pare.
Yet love­lier than all hands shape or fan­cies build,
The mean­est thing of Earth God with his fire hath filled.”

Now, when Shibli Bagarag ceased, Noorna bin Noorka cried, “Enough, O won­drous turner of verse, thou that art hon­est!” And she laughed loudly, rust­ling like a bag of shav­ings, and rolling in her laughter.

Then said she, “O my be­trothed, is not the thing thou wouldst say no other than—

“ ‘Each to his mind doth the fairest en­fold,
For broken long since was Beauty’s mould’;

“and, ‘Thou that art old, withered, I can­not flat­ter thee, as I can in no way pay com­pli­ments to the mon­key’s tail of high design; nev­er­the­less the Sage would do thee hon­our’? So read I thy il­lus­tra­tion, O keen of wit! and thou art for­given its bold­ness, my be­trothed—Wul­lahy! ut­terly so.”

Now, the youth was abashed at her dis­cern­ment, and the kind­li­ness of her man­ner won him to say:

“There’s many a flower of sweet­ness, there’s many a gem of Earth
Would thrill with bliss our be­ing, could we per­ceive its worth.
O beau­teous is cre­ation, in fash­ion and device!
If I have fail’d to think thee fair, ’tis blind­ness is my vice.”

And she answered him:

“I’ve proved thy wit and power of verse,
That is at will dif­fuse and terse:
Lest thou com­mence to lie—be dumb!
I am con­tent: the time will come!”

Then she said to the Viz­ier Fesh­navat, “O my father, there is all in this youth, the nephew of the barber, that’s de­sir­able for the un­der­tak­ing; and his feet will be on a level with the task we pro­pose for him, he the height of man above it. ’Tis clear that van­ity will trip him, but hon­esty is a strong up­holder; and he is one that hath the spirit of en­ter­prise and the mask of dis­sim­u­la­tion: grat­it­ude I ob­serve in him; and it is as I thought when I came upon him on the sand-hill out­side the city, that his star is clearly in a web with our star, he destined for the Shav­ing of Shag­pat.”

So the Viz­ier replied, “He hath had thwack­ings, yet is he not de­terred from mak­ing fur­ther at­tempt on Shag­pat. I think well of him, and I au­gur hope­fully. Wul­lahy! the Cadi shall be sent for; I can sleep in his secresy; and he shall per­form the ce­re­mon­ies of be­trothal, even now and where we sit, and it shall be for him to write the terms of con­tract: so shall we bind the youth firmly to us, and he will be one of us as we are, de­voted to the un­der­tak­ing by three bonds—the bond of ven­geance, the bond of am­bi­tion, and that of love.”

Now, so it was that the Viz­ier des­patched a sum­mons for the at­tend­ance of the Cadi, and he came and per­formed between Shibli Bagarag and Noorna bin Noorka ce­re­mon­ies of be­trothal, and wrote terms of con­tract; and they were wit­nessed duly by the legal num­ber of wit­nesses, and so worded that he had no claim on her as wife till such time as the Event to which he bound him­self was mastered. Then the fees be­ing paid, and com­pli­ments in­ter­changed, the Viz­ier ex­claimed, “Be ye happy! and let the weak cling to the strong; and be ye two to one in this world, and no split halves that be­tray di­vi­sion and stick not to­gether when the gum is heated.” Then he made a sign to the Cadi and them that had wit­nessed the con­tract to fol­low him, leav­ing the be­trothed ones to their own com­pany.

So when they were alone Noorna gazed on the youth wist­fully, and said in a soft tone, “Thou art dazed with the ad­ven­ture, O youth! Surely there is one kiss ow­ing me: art thou will­ing? Am I re­duced to beg it of thee? Or dream’st thou?”

He lif­ted his head and replied, “Even so.”

Thereat he stood up lan­guidly, and went to her and kissed her. And she smiled and said, “I wot it will be oth­er­wise, and thou wilt learn swift­ness of limb, bright­ness of eye, and the long­ing for earthly beatitude, when next I ask thee, O my be­trothed!”

Lo! while she spake, new light seemed in her; and it was as if a splen­did jewel were strug­gling to cast its beams through the sides of a crys­tal vase smeared with dust and old dirt and spin­nings of the damp spider. He was amazed, and cried, “How’s this? What change is passing in thee?”

She said, “Joy in thy kiss, and that I have ’scaped Shag­pat.”

Then he: “Shag­pat? How? had that wretch claim over thee ere I came?”

But she looked fear­fully at the corners of the room and ex­claimed, “Hush, my be­trothed! speak not of him in that fash­ion, ’tis dan­ger­ous; and my power can­not keep off his emis­sar­ies at all times.” Then she said, “O my be­trothed, know me a sor­ceress en­sor­celled; not that I seem, but that I shall be! Wait thou for the time and it will re­ward thee. What! thou think’st to have plucked a wrinkled o’erripe fruit—a mouldy pomegranate un­der the branches, a sour tam­ar­ind? ’Tis well! I say nought, save that time will come, and be thou con­tent. It is truly as I said, that I have thee between me and Shag­pat; and that hon­oured one of this city thought fit in his pre­sump­tion to de­mand me in mar­riage at the hands of my father, know­ing me wise, and know­ing the thing that trans­formed me to this, the ab­om­in­able fel­low! Surely my father en­ter­tained not his pro­posal save with scorn; but the King looked fa­vour­ably on it, and it is even now mat­ter of re­proach to Fesh­navat, my father, that he with­hol­d­eth me from Shag­pat.”

Quoth Shibli Bagarag, “A clothier, O Noorna, con­trol the Viz­ier! and de­mand of him his daugh­ter in mar­riage! and a clothier in­flu­ence the King against his Viz­ier!—tis, wul­lahy! a riddle.”

She replied, “ ’Tis even so, eyes of mine, my be­trothed! but thou know’st not Shag­pat, and that he is. Lo! the King, and all of this city save we three, are held in en­chant­ment by him, and made fool­ish by one hair that’s in his head.”

Shibli Bagarag star­ted in his seat like one that shineth with a dis­cov­ery, and cried, “The Identical!”

Then she, sigh­ing, “ ’Tis that in­deed! but the Identical of Identic­als, the chief and head of them, and I, woe’s me! I, the planter of it.”

So he said, “How so?”

But she cried, “I’ll tell thee not here, nor aught of my­self and him, and the genie held in bond­age by me, till thou art proved by ad­ven­ture, and we float peace­fully on the sea of the Bright Lily: there shalt thou see me as I am, and hear my story, and mar­vel at it; for ’tis won­drous, and a mani­fest­a­tion of the Power that dwel­l­eth un­seen.”

So Shibli Bagarag pondered awhile on the strange nature of the things she hin­ted, and laughter seized him as he re­flec­ted on Shag­pat, and the whole city en­chanted by one hair in his head; and he ex­claimed, “O Noorna, knoweth he, Shag­pat, of the might in him?”

She answered, “Enough for his vain soul that homage is paid to him, and he careth not for the where­fore!”

Shibli Bagarag fixed his eyes on the deep-flowered car­pets of the floor, as if read­ing there a mat­ter quaintly writ­ten, and smiled, say­ing, “What bold­ness was mine—the mak­ing of­fer to shear Shag­pat, the lion in his lair, he that hol­d­eth a whole city in en­chant­ment! Wah! ’twas an in­stance of dar­ing!”

And Noorna said, “Not only an en­tire city, but other cit­ies af­fected by him, as wit­ness Oolb, whither thou wilt go; and there be gov­ern­ments and states, and con­di­tions of men re­mote, that hang upon him, Shag­pat. ’Tis even so; I swell not his size. When thou hast mastered the Event, and sent him forth shiv­er­ing from thy blade like the shorn lamb, ’twill be known how great a thing has been achieved, and a re­cord for the gen­er­a­tions to come; choice is that his­tor­ian destined to re­cord it!”

Quoth he, look­ing eagerly at her, “O Noorna, what is it in thy speech af­fect­eth me? Surely it in­fu­seth the vigour of wine, old wine; and I shiver with de­sire to shave Shag­pat, and spin threads for the his­tor­ian to weave in or­der. I, wul­lahy! had but dry vis­ions of the great­ness destined for me till now, my be­trothed! Shall I mas­ter an Event in shav­ing him, and be told of to fu­ture ages? By Al­lah and his Prophet (praise be to that name!), this is great­ness! Say, Noorna, hadst thou fore­know­ledge of me and my com­ing to this city?”

So she said, “I was on the roofs one night among the stars ere moon­rise, O my be­trothed, and ’twas close on the rise of this very month’s moon. The star of our en­emy, Shag­pat, was large and red, mine as it were men­aced by its prox­im­ity, nigh swal­lowed in its haughty beams and the steady over­bear­ings of its ef­ful­gence. ’Twas so as it had long been, when sud­denly, lo! a star from the up­per heaven that shot down between them wildly, and my star took lustre from it; and the star of Shag­pat trembled like a ring on a tightened rope, and waved and flickered, and seemed to come for­ward and to re­tire; and ’twas presently as a comet in the sky, bright—a tad­pole, with large head and lengthy tail, in the as­sembly of the plan­ets. This I saw: and that the stranger star was sta­tioned by my star, shield­ing it, and that it drew nearer to my star, and entered its circle, and that the two stars seemed mix­ing the splend­our that was theirs. Now, that sight amazed me, and my heart in its beat­ing quickened with the ex­pect­a­tion of things ap­proach­ing. Surely I rendered praise, and pressed both hands on my bosom, and watched, and be­hold! the comet, the il­lumined tad­pole, was be­com­ing rest­less be­neath the joint rays of the twain that were dom­in­at­ing him; and he di­min­ished, and lashed his tail un­eas­ily, half madly, dart­ing as do cap­tured beasts from the fet­ters that con­strain them. Then went there from thy star—for I know now ’twas thine—a mo­ment­ary flash across the head of the tad­pole, and again an­other and an­other, rap­idly, per­tina­ciously. And from thy star there passed re­peated flashes across the head of the tad­pole, till his bril­liance was as ’twere severed from him, and he, like drossy sil­ver, a dead shape in the con­spicu­ous heav­ens. And he be­came yel­low as the rolling eyes of sick wretches in pain, and shrank in his place like pale parch­ment at the touch of flame; dull was he as an an­imal fas­cin­ated by fear, and de­prived of all power to make head against the foe, dark­ness, that now be­set him, and usurped part of his yet lively tail, and settled on his head, and coated part of his body. So when this tad­pole, that was once ter­rible to me, be­came turbaned, shoed, and shawled with dark­ness, and there was little of him re­main­ing vis­ible, lo! a con­clud­ing flash shot from thy star, and he fell heav­ily down the sky and be­low the hills, into the sea, that is the En­chanted Sea, whose queen is Rabesqurat, Mis­tress of Il­lu­sions. Now when my soul re­covered from amazement at the mar­vels seen, I arose and went from the starry roofs to con­sult my books of ma­gic, and ’twas re­vealed to me that one was wan­der­ing to a junc­tion with my des­tiny, and that by his means the great aim would of a surety be ac­com­plished—Shag­pat shaved! So my pur­pose was to dis­cover him; and I made cal­cu­la­tions, and summoned them that serve me to search for such a youth as thou art; fairly, O my be­trothed, did I pre­con­ceive thee. And so it was that I traced a ma­gic line from the sand-hills to the city, and from the outer hills to the sand-hills; and whoso ap­proached by that line I knew was he marked out as my cham­pion, my be­trothed—a youth destined for great things. Was I right? The egg hatcheth. Thou art already proved by thwack­ings, seasoned to the un­der­tak­ing, and I doubt not thou art he that will fin­ish with that tad­pole Shag­pat, and sit in the high seat, thy name an odour in dis­tant lands, a joy to the his­tor­ian, the Com­piler of Events, thou Master of the Event, the greatest which time will wit­ness for ages to come.”

When she had spoken Shibli Bagarag con­sidered her words, and the know­ledge that he was se­lec­ted by des­tiny as Master of the Event in­flated him; and he was a hawk in eager­ness, a pea­cock in pride, an os­trich in ful­ness of chest, cry­ing, “O Noorna bin Noorka! is’t really so? Truly it must be, for the read­ers of plan­ets were also busy with me at the time of my birth, in­ter­pret­ing of me in ex­cess­ive agit­a­tion; and the thing they fore­told is as thou fore­tellest. I am, wul­lahy! marked: I walk mani­fest in the eye of Provid­ence.”

Thereupon he ex­ul­ted, and his mind strut­ted through the fu­ture of his days, and down the lad­der of all time, ex­act­ing homage from men, his brethren; and ’twas bey­ond the art of Noorna to fix him to the present du­ties of the en­ter­prise: he was as feathered seed be­fore the breath of van­ity.

Now, while the twain dis­coursed, she of the pre­par­a­tions for shav­ing Shag­pat, he of his com­ple­tion of the deed, and the hon­ours due to him as Master of the Event, Fesh­navat the Viz­ier re­turned to them from his en­ter­tain­ment of the Cadi; and he had bribed him to si­lence with a mighty bribe. So he called to them—

“Ho! be ye ready to com­mence the work? and have ye ad­vised to­gether as to the be­gin­ning? True is that triplet:

“ ‘Whatever en­ter­prise man hath,
For wak­ing love or curb­ing wrath,
’Tis the first step that makes a path.’

“And how have ye de­term­ined as to that first step?”

Noorna replied, “O my father! we have not de­cided, and there hath been yet no de­lib­er­a­tion between us as to that.”

Then he said, “All this while have ye talked, and no de­lib­er­a­tion as to that! Lo, I have drawn the Cadi to our plot, and bribed him with a mighty bribe; and I have pre­pared pos­sible dis­guises for this nephew of the barber; and I have had the wit­nesses of thy be­trothal des­patched to for­eign parts, far king­doms in the land of Roum, to pre­vent tat­tling and gab­bling; and ye that were left alone for de­bat­ing as to the great deed, ye have not yet de­lib­er­ated as to that! Is’t known to ye, O gab­blers, aught of the pun­ish­ment in­flic­ted by Shahpesh, the Per­sian, on Khi­pil, the Builder?—a pun­ish­ment that, by Al­lah!”

Shibli Bagarag said, “How of that pun­ish­ment, O Viz­ier?”

And the Viz­ier nar­rated as fol­loweth.

And This Is the Punishment of Shahpesh, the Persian, on Khipil, the Builder

They re­late that Shahpesh, the Per­sian, com­manded the build­ing of a palace, and Khi­pil was his builder. The work lingered from the first year of the reign of Shahpesh even to his fourth. One day Shahpesh went to the river­side where it stood, to in­spect it. Khi­pil was sit­ting on a marble slab among the stones and blocks; round him stretched lazily the ma­sons and stone­cut­ters and slaves of bur­den; and they with the curve of hu­mor­ous en­joy­ment on their lips, for he was re­cit­ing to them ad­ven­tures, in­ter­spersed with an­ec­dotes and re­cit­a­tions and po­etic in­stances, as was his wont. They were like pleased flocks whom the shep­herd hath led to a pas­ture freshened with brooks, there to feed in­dol­ently; he, the shep­herd, in the midst.

Now, the King said to him, “O Khi­pil, show me my palace where it stan­deth, for I de­sire to grat­ify my sight with its fair­ness.”

Khi­pil abased him­self be­fore Shahpesh, and answered, “ ’Tis even here, O King of the age, where thou de­light­est the earth with thy foot and the ear of thy slave with sweet­ness. Surely a site of vant­age, one that dom­in­at­eth earth, air, and wa­ter, which is the builder’s first and chief re­quis­i­tion for a noble palace, a palace to fill for­eign kings and sul­tans with the dis­trac­tion of envy; and it is, O Sover­eign of the time, a site, this site I have chosen, to oc­cupy the tongues of trav­el­lers and awaken the flights of po­ets!”

Shahpesh smiled and said, “The site is good! I laud the site! Like­wise I laud the wis­dom of Ebn Bus­rac, where he ex­claims:

“ ‘Be sure, where Vir­tue faileth to ap­pear,
For her a gor­geous man­sion men will rear;
And day and night her praises will be heard,
Where never yet she spake a single word.’ ”

Then said he, “O Khi­pil, my builder, there was once a farm ser­vant that, hav­ing neg­lected in the seed­time to sow, took to singing the rich­ness of his soil when it was har­vest, in proof of which he dis­played the abund­ance of weeds that col­oured the land every­where. Dis­cover to me now the com­plete­ness of my halls and apart­ments, I pray thee, O Khi­pil, and be the ex­cel­lence of thy con­struc­tion made vis­ible to me!”

Quoth Khi­pil, “To hear is to obey.”

He con­duc­ted Shahpesh among the un­fin­ished sa­loons and im­per­fect courts and roof­less rooms, and by half erec­ted ob­elisks, and columns pierced and chipped, of the palace of his build­ing. And he was be­wildered at the words spoken by Shahpesh; but now the King ex­al­ted him, and ad­mired the per­fec­tion of his craft, the great­ness of his la­bour, the speed­i­ness of his con­struc­tion, his as­siduity; feign­ing not to be­hold his neg­li­gence.

Presently they went up wind­ing bal­usters to a marble ter­race, and the King said, “Such is thy de­vo­tion and con­stancy in toil, Khi­pil, that thou shalt walk be­fore me here.”

He then com­manded Khi­pil to pre­cede him, and Khi­pil was heightened with the hon­our. When Khi­pil had paraded a short space he stopped quickly, and said to Shahpesh, “Here is, as it chan­ceth, a gap, O King! and we can go no fur­ther this way.”

Shahpesh said, “All is per­fect, and it is my will thou delay not to ad­vance.”

Khi­pil cried, “The gap is wide, O mighty King, and mani­fest, and it is an in­com­plete part of thy palace.”

Then said Shahpesh, “O Khi­pil, I see no dis­tinc­tion between one part and an­other; ex­cel­lent are all parts in beauty and pro­por­tion, and there can be no part in­com­plete in this palace that oc­cu­pi­eth the builder four years in its build­ing: so ad­vance, do my bid­ding.”

Khi­pil yet hes­it­ated, for the gap was of many strides, and at the bot­tom of the gap was a deep wa­ter, and he one that knew not the mo­tion of swim­ming. But Shahpesh ordered his guard to point their ar­rows in the dir­ec­tion of Khi­pil, and Khi­pil stepped for­ward hur­riedly, and fell in the gap, and was swal­lowed by the wa­ter be­low. When he rose the second time, suc­cour reached him, and he was drawn to land trem­bling, his teeth chat­ter­ing. And Shahpesh praised him, and said, “This is an apt con­triv­ance for a bath, Khi­pil O my builder! well con­ceived; one that taketh by sur­prise; and it shall be thy re­ward daily when much talk­ing hath fa­tigued thee.”

Then he bade Khi­pil lead him to the hall of state. And when they were there Shahpesh said, “For a priv­ilege, and as a mark of my ap­prob­a­tion, I give thee per­mis­sion to sit in the marble chair of yon­der throne, even in my pres­ence, O Khi­pil.”

Khi­pil said, “Surely, O King, the chair is not yet ex­ecuted.”

And Shahpesh ex­claimed, “If this be so, thou art but the length of thy meas­ure on the ground, O talk­at­ive one!”

Khi­pil said, “Nay, ’tis not so, O King of splend­ours! blind that I am! yon­der’s in­deed the chair.”

And Khi­pil feared the King, and went to the place where the chair should be, and bent his body in a sit­ting pos­ture, eye­ing the King, and made pre­tence to sit in the chair of Shahpesh, as in con­spir­acy to amuse his mas­ter.

Then said Shahpesh, “For a token that I ap­prove thy ex­e­cu­tion of the chair, thou shalt be hon­oured by re­main­ing seated in it up to the hour of noon; but move thou to the right or to the left, show­ing thy soul in­sens­ible of the hon­our done thee, trans­fixed thou shalt be with twenty ar­rows and five.”

The King then left him with a guard of twenty-five of his body­guard; and they stood around him with bent bows, so that Khi­pil dared not move from his sit­ting pos­ture. And the ma­sons and the people crowded to see Khi­pil sit­ting on his mas­ter’s chair, for it be­came ru­moured about. When they be­held him sit­ting upon noth­ing, and he trem­bling to stir for fear of the loosen­ing of the ar­rows, they laughed so that they rolled upon the floor of the hall, and the echoes of laughter were a thou­sand-fold. Surely the ar­rows of the guards swayed with the laughter that shook them.

Now, when the time had ex­pired for his sit­ting in the chair, Shahpesh re­turned to him, and he was cramped, pi­ti­able to see; and Shahpesh said, “Thou hast been ex­al­ted above men, O Khi­pil! for that thou didst ex­ecute for thy mas­ter has been found fit­ting for thee.”

Then he bade Khi­pil lead the way to the noble gar­dens of dal­li­ance and pleas­ure that he had planted and con­trived. And Khi­pil went in that state de­scribed by the poet, when we go drag­gingly, with re­mon­strat­ing mem­bers,

“Know­ing a dread­ful strength be­hind,
And a dark fate be­fore.”

They came to the gar­dens, and be­hold, these were full of weeds and nettles, the foun­tains dry, no tree to be seen—a desert. And Shahpesh cried, “This is in­deed of ad­mir­able design, O Khi­pil! Fee­lest thou not the cool­ness of the foun­tains?—their re­fresh­ing­ness? Truly I am grate­ful to thee! And these flowers, pluck me now a hand­ful, and tell me of their per­fume.”

Khi­pil plucked a hand­ful of the nettles that were there in the place of flowers, and put his nose to them be­fore Shahpesh, till his nose was reddened; and de­sire to rub it waxed in him, and pos­sessed him, and be­came a pas­sion, so that he could scarce re­frain from rub­bing it even in the King’s pres­ence. And the King en­cour­aged him to sniff and en­joy their fra­grance, re­peat­ing the poet’s words:

“Me­thinks I am a lover and a child,
A little child and happy lover, both!
When by the breath of flowers I am be­guiled
From sense of pain, and lulled in odor­ous sloth.
So I ad­ore them, that no mis­tress sweet
Seems wor­thier of the love which they awake:
In in­no­cence and beauty more com­plete,
Was never maiden cheek in morn­ing lake.
Oh, while I live, sur­round me with fresh flowers!
Oh, when I die, then bury me in their bowers!”

And the King said, “What say­est thou, O my builder? that is a fair quo­ta­tion, ap­plic­able to thy feel­ings, one that ex­pres­seth them?”

Khi­pil answered, “ ’Tis elo­quent, O great King! com­pre­hens­ive­ness would be its por­tion, but that it al­lu­deth not to the de­light of chaf­ing.”

Then Shahpesh laughed, and cried, “Chafe not! it is an ill thing and a hideous! This nose­gay, O Khi­pil, it is for thee to present to thy mis­tress. Truly she will re­ceive thee well after its present­a­tion! I will have it now sent in thy name, with word that thou fol­low­est quickly. And for thy nettled nose, surely if the whim seize thee that thou de­sirest its chaf­ing, to thy neigh­bour is per­mit­ted what to thy hand is re­fused.”

The King set a guard upon Khi­pil to see that his or­ders were ex­ecuted, and ap­poin­ted a time for him to re­turn to the gar­dens.

At the hour in­dic­ated Khi­pil stood be­fore Shahpesh again. He was pale, saddened; his tongue drooped like the tongue of a heavy bell, that when it soundeth giv­eth forth mourn­ful sounds only: he had also the look of one battered with many beat­ings. So the King said, “How of the present­a­tion of the flowers of thy cul­ture, O Khi­pil?”

He answered, “Surely, O King, she re­ceived me with wrath, and I am shamed by her.”

And the King said, “How of my clem­ency in the mat­ter of the chaf­ing?”

Khi­pil answered, “O King of splend­ours! I made pe­ti­tion to my neigh­bours whom I met, ac­cost­ing them civilly and with im­plor­ing, for I ached to chafe, and it was the very ra­ging thirst of de­sire to chafe that was mine, de­vour­ing eager­ness for solace of chaf­ing. And they chafed me, O King; yet not in those parts which throbbed for the chaf­ing, but in those which ab­horred it.”

Then Shahpesh smiled and said, “ ’Tis cer­tain that the mag­nan­im­ity of mon­archs is as the rain that falleth, the sun that shineth: and in this spot it fer­til­iz­eth rich­ness; in that en­cour­a­geth rank­ness. So art thou but a weed, O Khi­pil! and my grace is thy chas­tise­ment.”

Now, the King ceased not per­se­cut­ing Khi­pil, un­der pre­tence of do­ing him hon­our and heap­ing fa­vours on him. Three days and three nights was Khi­pil gasp­ing without wa­ter, com­pelled to drink of the drought of the foun­tain, as an hon­our at the hands of the King. And he was seven days and seven nights made to stand with stretched arms, as they were the branches of a tree, in each hand a pomegranate. And Shahpesh brought the people of his court to re­gard the won­drous pomegranate shoot planted by Khi­pil, very won­drous, and a new sort, worthy the gar­dens of a King. So the wis­dom of the King was ap­plauded, and men wot­ted he knew how to pun­ish of­fences in coin, by the pun­ish­ment in­flic­ted on Khi­pil the builder. Be­fore that time his af­fairs had lan­guished, and the cur­rents of busi­ness in­stead of flow­ing had be­come stag­nant pools. It was the fash­ion to do as did Khi­pil, and fancy the tongue a con­structor rather than a com­ment­ator; and there is a doom upon that people and that man which run­neth to seed in gabble, as the poet says in his wis­dom:

“If thou wouldst be fam­ous, and rich in splen­did fruits,
Leave to bloom the flower of things, and dig among the roots.”

Truly after Khi­pil’s pun­ish­ment there were few in the domin­ions of Shahpesh who sought to win the hon­ours be­stowed by him on gab­blers and idlers: as again the poet:

“When to lo­qua­cious fools with pa­tience rare
I listen, I have thoughts of Khi­pil’s chair:
His bath, his nose­gay, and his fount I see—
Him­self stretch’d out as a pomegranate-tree.
And that I am not Shahpesh I re­gret,
So to in­mesh the bab­bler in his net.
Well is that wis­dom worthy to be sung,
Which raised the Palace of the Wag­ging Tongue!”

And whoso is pun­ished after the fash­ion of Shahpesh, the Per­sian, on Khi­pil, the Builder, is said to be one “in the Palace of the Wag­ging Tongue” to this time.

The Genie Karaz

Now, when the voice of the Viz­ier had ceased, Shibli Bagarag ex­claimed, “O Viz­ier, this night, no later, I’ll sur­prise Shag­pat, and shave him while he slee­p­eth: and he shall wake shorn be­side his spouse. Wul­lahy! I’ll delay no longer, I, Shibli Bagarag.”

Said the Viz­ier, “Thou?”

And he replied, “Surely, O Viz­ier! thou know­est little of my dex­ter­ity.”

So the Viz­ier laughed, and Noorna bin Noorka laughed, and he was at a loss to in­ter­pret the cause of their laughter. Then said Noorna, “O my be­trothed, there’s not a doubt among us of thy dex­ter­ity, nor ques­tion of thy will­ing­ness; but this shav­ing of Shag­pat, wul­lahy! ’tis longer work than what thou makest of it.”

And he cried, “How? be­cause of the Chief of Identic­als planted by thee in his head?”

She answered, “Be­cause of that; but ’tis the smal­lest op­poser, that.”

Then the Viz­ier said, “Let us con­sult.”

So Shibli Bagarag gave ear, and the Viz­ier con­tin­ued, “There’s first, the Chief of Identic­als planted by thee in the head of that pre­sump­tu­ous fel­low, O my daugh­ter! By what means shall that be over­come?”

She said, “I rank not that first, O Fesh­navat, my father; surely I rank first the il­lu­sions with which Rabesqurat hath sur­roun­ded him, and made it dif­fi­cult to know him from his semb­lances, whenever real danger threaten­eth him.”

The Viz­ier as­sen­ted, say­ing, “Se­cond, then, the Chief of Identic­als?”

She answered, “Nay, O my father; second, the weak­ness that’s in man, and the little prob­ab­il­ity of his fin­ish­ing with Shag­pat at one ef­fort; and there is but a sole chance for whoso at­temp­teth, and if he faileth, ’tis forever he faileth.”

So the Viz­ier said, “Even I knew not ’twas so grave! Third, then, the Chief of Identic­als?”

She replied, “Third! which showeth the dif­fi­culty of the task. Read ye not, first, how the barber must come upon Shag­pat and fix him for his op­er­a­tion; second, how the barber must be pos­sessed of more than mor­tal strength to mas­ter him in so many strokes; third, how the barber must have a blade like no other blade in this world in sharp­ness, in tem­per, in ve­lo­city of sweep, that he may reap this crop which flour­ish­eth on Shag­pat, and with it the ma­gic hair which de­fi­eth edge of mor­tal blades?”

Now, the Viz­ier sighed at the words, say­ing, “Power­ful is Shag­pat. I knew not the thing I un­der­took. I fear his mas­tery of us, and we shall be con­temned—ob­jects for the red fin­ger of scorn.”

Noorna turned to Shibli Bagarag and asked, “Do the three bonds of en­ter­prise—ven­geance, am­bi­tion, and love—shrink in thee from this great con­test?”

Shibli Bagarag said, “ ’Tis ter­rible! on my head be it!”

She gazed at him a mo­ment ten­derly, and said, “Thou art worthy of what is in store for thee, O my be­trothed! and I think little of the dangers, in con­tem­pla­tion of the cour­age in thee. Lo, if ven­geance and am­bi­tion spur thee so, how will not love when ad­ded to the two?”

Then said she, “As to the en­chant­ments and spells that shall over­reach him, and as to the blade where­with to shear him?”

Fesh­navat ex­claimed, “Yon­der’s in­deed where we stumble and are tripped at start­ing.”

But she cried, “What if I know of a sword that nought on Earth or un­der res­isteth, and be­fore the keen edge of which all Il­lu­sions and Identic­als are as sum­mer grass to the scythe?”

They both shouted, “The where­about of that sword, O Noorna!”

So she said, “ ’Tis in Ak­lis, in the moun­tains of the Koosh; and the seven sons of Ak­lis sharpen it day and night till the ad­ven­turer cometh to claim it for his oc­ca­sion. Whoso suc­cee­deth in com­ing to them they know to have power over the sword, and ’tis then hol­i­day for them. Many are the im­ped­i­ments, and they are as holes where the fox haunteth. So they de­liver to his hand the sword till his ob­ject is at­tained, his Event mastered, smit­ten through with it; and ’tis called the Sword of Events. Surely, with it the father of the Seven van­quished the mighty Roc, Kroo­jis, that threatened man­kind with ruin, and a stain of the Roc’s blood is yet on the hilt of the sword. How say­est thou, O Fesh­navat—shall we de­vote ourselves to get pos­ses­sion of that Sword?”

So the Viz­ier brightened at her words, and said, “O ex­cel­lent in wis­dom and star of coun­sel! speak fur­ther, and as to the means.”

Noorna bin Noorka con­tin­ued, “Thou know­est, O my father, I am pro­fi­cient in the arts of ma­gic, and I am what I am, and what I shall be, by its uses. ’Tis known to thee also that I hold a genie in bond­age, and can ut­ter ten spells and one spell in a breath. Surely my ser­vices to the youth in his at­tain­ment of the Sword will be bey­ond price! Now to reach Ak­lis and the Sword there are three things needed—charms: and one is a phial full of the wa­ters of Para­vid from the wells in the moun­tain yon­side the desert; and one, cer­tain hairs that grow in the tail of the horse Gar­raveen, he that roameth wild in the mead­ows of Melistan; and one, that the youth gather and bear to Ak­lis, for the white ante­lope Gulre­vaz, the Lily of the Lovely Light that groweth in the hol­low of the crags over the En­chanted Sea: with these spells he will com­mand the Sword of Ak­lis, and noth­ing can bar him pas­sage. Moreover I will ex­pend in his aid all my sub­tleties, my trans­form­a­tions, the stores of my wis­dom. Many seek this Sword, and people the realms of Rabesqurat, or are beasts in Ak­lis, or crowned Apes, or go to feed the Roc, Kroo­jis, in the abyss be­neath the Roc’s-egg bridge; but there’s vir­tue in Shibli Bagarag: wul­lahy! I am wist­ful in him of the hand of Destiny, and he will suc­ceed in this un­der­tak­ing if he dareth it.”

Shibli Bagarag cried, “At thy bid­ding, O Noorna! Care I for dangers? I’m on fire to wield the Sword, and mas­ter the Event.”

Thereupon, Noorna bin Noorka arose in­stantly, and took him by the cheeks a tender pinch, and praised him. Then drew she round him a circle with her fore­finger that left a mark like the shim­mer­ing of evan­es­cent green flame, say­ing, “White was the day I set eyes on thee!” Round the Viz­ier, her father, she drew a like circle; and she took an un­guent, and traced with it char­ac­ters on the two circles, and let­ters of strange form, ar­rowy, lance-like, like lean­ing sheaves, and crouch­ing ba­boons, and kick­ing jack­asses, and cocks a-crow, and lutes slack-strung; and she knelt and mumbled over and over words of ma­gic, like the drone of a bee to hear, and as a roll of wa­ter, noth­ing dis­tin­guish­able. After that she sought for an un­guent of a red col­our, and smeared it on a part of the floor by the corner of the room, and wrote on it in sil­ver fluid a word that was the word “Eb­lis,” and over that like­wise she droned awhile. Presently she arose with a white-heated face, the sweat on her brow, and said to Shibli Bagarag and Fesh­navat hur­riedly and in a harsh tone, “How? have ye fear?”

They answered, “Our faith is in Al­lah, our con­fid­ence in thee.”

Said she then, “I sum­mon the genie I hold in bond­age. He will be wrath­ful; but ye are se­cure from him. He’s this mo­ment in the farthest re­gion of Earth, do­ing ill, as is his wont, and the wont of the stock of Eb­lis.”

So the Viz­ier said, “He’ll be no true helper, this genie, and I care not for his com­pany.”

She answered, “O my father! leave thou that to me. What says the poet?—

“ ‘It is the sapi­ency of fools,
To shrink from hand­ling evil tools.’ ”

Now, while she was speak­ing, she sud­denly in­clined her ear as to a dis­tant noise; but they heard noth­ing. Then, after again listen­ing, she cried in a sharp voice, “Ho! muffle your mouths with both hands, and stir not from the ring of the circles, as ye value life and its bless­ings.”

So they did as she bade them, and watched her curi­ously. Lo! she swathed the up­per and lower part of her face in linen, leav­ing the lips and eyes ex­posed; and she took wa­ter from an ewer, and sprinkled it on her head, and on her arms and her feet, mut­ter­ing in­cant­a­tions. Then she listened a third time, and stooped to the floor, and put her lips to it, and called the name, “Karaz!” And she called this name seven times loudly, sneez­ing between whiles. Then, as it were in an­swer to her sum­mons, there was a deep growl of thun­der, and the palace rocked, tot­ter­ing; and the air be­came smoky and full of curl­ing va­pours. Presently they were aware of the cry of a cat, and its mi­aul­ings; and the patch of red un­guent on the floor par­ted and they be­held a tawny cat with an arched back. So Noorna bin Noorka frowned fiercely at the cat, and cried, “This is thy shape, O Karaz; change! for it serves not the pur­pose.”

The cat changed, and was a leo­pard with glow­ing yel­low eyes, crouched for the spring. So Noorna bin Noorka stamped, and cried again, “This is thy shape, O Karaz; change! for it serves not the pur­pose.”

And the leo­pard changed, and was a ser­pent with many folds, sleek, curled, venom­ous, hiss­ing.

Noorna bin Noorka cried in wrath, “This is thy shape, O Karaz; change! or thou’lt be no other till Eb­lis is ac­cep­ted in Paradise.”

And the ser­pent van­ished. Lo! in its place a genie of ter­rible as­pect, black as a sol­it­ary tree seared by light­ning; his fore­head ridged and cloven with red streaks; his hair and ears reddened; his eyes like two hol­low pits dug by the shep­herd for the wolf, and the wolf in them. He shouted, “What work is it now, thou ac­cursed trait­ress?”

Noorna replied, “I’ve need of thee!”

He said, “What shape?”

She answered, “The shape of an ass that will carry two on its back, thou Perversity!”

Upon that, he cried, “O faith­less wo­man, how long shall I be the slave of thy plot­ting? Now, but for that hair of my head, plucked by thy hand while I slept, I were free, no doer of thy tasks. Say, who be these that mark us?”

She answered, “One, the Viz­ier Fesh­navat; and one, Shibli Bagarag of Shiraz, he that’s destined to shave Shag­pat, the son of Shim­poor, the son of Shoolpi, the son of Shul­lum; and the youth is my be­trothed.”

Now, at her words the whole genie be­came as live coal with an­ger, and he panted black and bright, and made a stride to­ward Shibli Bagarag, and stretched his arm out to seize him; but Noorna blew quickly on the circles she had drawn, and the circles rose up in a white flame high as the heads of those present, and the genie shrank hast­ily back from the flame, and was seized with fits of sneez­ing. Then she said in scorn, “Eas­ily, O Karaz, is a wo­man out­wit­ted! Surely I could not guess what would be thy ac­tion! and I was want­ing in foresight and in­sight! and I am a wo­man bear­ing the weight of my power as a wood­man staggereth un­der the logs he hath felled!”

Now, at her words the whole genie be­came as live coal with an­ger, and he panted black and bright, and made a stride to­ward Shibli Bagarag, and stretched his arm out to seize him; but Noorna blew quickly on the circles she had drawn, and the circles rose up in a white flame high as the heads of those present, and the genie shrank hast­ily back from the flame, and was seized with fits of sneez­ing. Then she said in scorn, “Eas­ily, O Karaz, is a wo­man out­wit­ted! Surely I could not guess what would be thy ac­tion! and I was want­ing in foresight and in­sight! and I am a wo­man bear­ing the weight of my power as a wood­man staggereth un­der the logs he hath felled!”

So she taunted him, and he still sneez­ing and bent double with the might of the sneeze. Then said Noorna in a stern voice, “No more al­ter­ca­tion between us! Wait thou here till I re­appear, Karaz!”

Thereupon, she went from them; and the two, Fesh­navat and Shibli Bagarag, feared greatly be­ing left with the genie, for he be­came all col­ours, and loured on them each time that he ceased sneez­ing. He was clearly men­acing them when Noorna re­turned, and in her hand a saddle made of hide, traced over with mys­tic char­ac­ters and gold stripes.

So she cried, “Take this!” Then, see­ing he hes­it­ated, she un­closed from her left palm a powder, and scattered it over him; and he grew meek, and the bend­ing knee of obed­i­ence was his, and he took the saddle. So she said, “ ’Tis well! Go now, and wait out­side the city in the shape of an ass, with this saddle on thy back.”

The genie groaned, and said, “To hear is to obey!” And he de­par­ted with those words, for she held him in bond­age. Then she calmed down the white flames of the circles that en­closed Shibli Bagarag and the Viz­ier Fesh­navat, and they stepped forth, mar­vel­ling at the great­ness of her sor­cer­ies that held such a genie in bond­age.

The Well of Paravid

Now, there was haste in the move­ments of Noorna bin Noorka, and she ar­rayed her­self and clutched Shibli Bagarag by the arm, and the twain de­par­ted from Fesh­navat the Viz­ier, and came to the out­side of the city, and lo! there was the genie by a well un­der a palm, and he stand­ing in the shape of an ass, saddled. So they moun­ted him, and in a mo­ment they were in the midst of the desert, and naught round them save the hot glim­mer of the sands and the grey of the sky. Surely, the ass went at such a pace as never ass went be­fore in this world, rest­ing not by the rivu­lets, nor un­der the palms, nor be­side the date-boughs; it was as if the ass scur­ried without mo­tion of his legs, so swiftly went he. At last the desert gave signs of a bor­der on the low line of the dis­tance, and this grew rap­idly higher as they ad­vanced, re­veal­ing a coun­try of hills and rocks, and at the base of these the ass res­ted.

So Noorna said, “This desert that we have passed, O my be­trothed, many are they that per­ish in it, and reach not the well; but give thanks to Al­lah that it is passed.”

Then said she, “Dis­mount, and be wary of mov­ing to the front or to the rear of this ass, and meas­ure thy dis­tance from the lash of his tail.”

So Shibli Bagarag dis­moun­ted, and fol­lowed her up the hills and the rocks, through rav­ines and gorges of the rocks, and by tum­bling tor­rents, among hanging woods, over per­il­ous pre­cip­ices, where no sun hath pierced, and the bones of trav­el­lers whiten in loneli­ness; and they con­tin­ued mount­ing up­ward by wind­ing paths, now closed in by cov­erts, now upon open heights hav­ing great views, and presently a moun­tain was dis­closed to them, green at the sides high up it; and Noorna bin Noorka said to Shibli Bagarag, “Mount here, for the cun­ning of this ass can fur­nish him no ex­cuse fur­ther for mak­ing thee food for the birds of prey.”

So Shibli Bagarag moun­ted, and they ceased not to as­cend the green slopes till the grass be­came scanty and dark­ness fell, and they were in a re­gion of snow and cold. Then Noorna bin Noorka tethered the ass to a stump of a tree and breathed in his ear, and the ass be­came as a creature carved in stone; and she drew from her bosom two bags of silk, and blew in one and entered it, bid­ding Shibli Bagarag do like­wise with the other bag; and he obeyed her, draw­ing it up to his neck, and the de­light­ful­ness of warmth came over him. Then said she, “To­mor­row, at noon, we shall reach near the sum­mit of the moun­tain and the Well of Para­vid, if my power last over this ass; and from that time thou wilt be on the high road to great­ness, so fail not to re­mem­ber what I have done for thee, and be not guilty of in­grat­it­ude when thy hand is the stronger.”

He prom­ised her, and they lay and slept. When he awoke the sun was half-risen, and he looked at Noorna bin Noorka in the silken bag, and she was yet in the peace­ful­ness of pleas­ant dreams; but for the ass, surely his eyes rolled, and his head and fore legs were en­dued with life, while his lat­ter half seemed of stone. And the youth called to Noorna bin Noorka, and poin­ted to her the strange­ness of the con­di­tion of the ass. As she cast eyes on him she cried out, and rushed to him, and took him by the ears and blew up his nos­trils, and the an­imal was quiet. Then she and Shibli Bagarag moun­ted him again, and she said to him, “It is well thou wert more vi­gil­ant than I, and that the sun rose not on this ass while I slept, or my en­chant­ment would have thawed on him, and he would have ’scaped us.”

She gave her heel to the ass, and the ass hung his tail in sul­len­ness and drooped his head; and she laughed, cry­ing, “Karaz, silly fel­low! do thy work will­ingly, and take wisely thine out­wit­ting.”

She jeered him as they jour­neyed, and made the soul of Shibli Bagarag merry, so that he jerked in his seat upon the ass. Now, as they as­cen­ded the moun­tain they came to the open­ing of a cav­ern, and Noorna bin Noorka hal­ted the ass, and said to Shibli Bagarag, “We part here, and I wait for thee in this place. Take this phial, and fill it with the wa­ters of the well, after thy bath. The way is be­fore thee—speed on it.”

He climbed the sides of the moun­tain, and was soon hid­den in the clefts and bey­ond the perches of the vul­ture. She kept her eyes on the rocky point when he dis­ap­peared, await­ing his re­turn; and the sun went over her head and sank on the yon­side of the moun­tain, and it was by the beams of the moon that she be­held Shibli Bagarag drop­ping from the crags and ledges of rock, slid­ing and steady­ing him­self down­ward till he reached her with the phial in his hand, filled; and he was ra­di­ant, as it were di­vine with fresh­ness, so that Noorna, be­fore she spoke wel­come to him, was lost in con­tem­plat­ing the warm shine of his vis­age, call­ing to mind the poet’s words:

“The wealth of light in sun and moon,
All nature’s wealth,
Hath mor­tal beauty for a boon
When match’d with health.”

Then said she, “O Shibli Bagarag, ’tis achieved, this first of thy tasks; for mutely on the fresh red of thy mouth, my be­trothed, speak­eth the honey of per­suas­ive­ness, and the chil­dren of Ak­lis will not res­ist thee.” So she took the phial from him and led forth the ass, and the twain moun­ted the ass and des­cen­ded the slopes of the moun­tain in moon­light; and Shibli Bagarag said, “Lo! I have marked won­ders, and lived a life since our part­ing; and this well, ’tis a mir­acle to dip in it, and by it sit many maid­ens weep­ing and old men bab­bling, and youths that were idle youths strik­ing bubbles from the sur­face of the wa­ter. The well is roun­ded with marble, and the sky is clear in it, cool in it, the whole Earth im­aged therein.”

Then Noorna said, “Hadst thou a dif­fi­culty in ob­tain­ing the wa­ters of the well?”

He answered, “Surely all was made smooth for me by thy aid. Now when I came to the well I marked not them by it, but plunged, and the depth of that well seemed to me the very depth of the Earth it­self, so went I ever down­ward; and when I was near the bot­tom of the well I had for­got­ten life above, and lo! no sooner had I touched the bot­tom of the well when my head emerged from the sur­face: ’twas won­drous! But for a sign that touched the bot­tom of the well, see, O Noorna bin Noorka, the Jewel, the one of myri­ads that glit­ter at the bot­tom, and I plucked it for a gift to thee.”

So Noorna took the Jewel from his hand that was torn and crim­son, and she cried, “Thou fair youth, thou bleed­est with the pluck­ing of it, and it was writ­ten, no hand shall pluck a jewel at the bot­tom of that well without let­ting of blood. Even so it is! Worthy art thou, and I was not mis­taken in thee.”

At her words Shibli Bagarag burst forth into praises of her, and he sang:

“What is my wor­thi­ness
Match’d with thy worth?
Dark­ness and earth­i­ness,
Dust and dearth!

“O Noorna, thou art wise above wo­men: great and glor­i­ous over them.”

In this fash­ion the youth lauded her that was his be­trothed, but she ex­claimed, “Hush! or the jeal­ousy of this ass will be aroused, and of a surety he’ll spill us.”

Then he laughed and she laughed till the tail of Karaz trembled.

The Horse Garraveen

Now, they des­cen­ded leis­urely the slopes of the moun­tain, and when they were again in the green of its base, Noorna called to the ass, “Ho! Karaz! Sniff now the breezes, for the end of our jour­ney by night is the mead­ows of Melistan. For­ward in thy might, and bray not when we are in them, for thy com­fort’s sake!”

The ass sniffed, turn­ing to the four quar­ters, and chose a cer­tain dir­ec­tion, and bore them swiftly over hills and streams ed­dy­ing in sil­ver; over huge mounds of sand, where the tents of Be­douins stood in white clusters; over lakes smooth as the cheeks of sleep­ing love­li­ness; by walls of cit­ies, mosques, and palaces; un­der towers that rose as an armed man with the steel on his brows and the frown of battle; by the shores of the pale foam­ing sea it bore them, go­ing at a pace that the Arab on his steed out­strip­peth not. So when the sun was red and the dews were blush­ing with new light, they struggled from a wil­der­ness of bar­ren broken ground, and saw be­neath them, in the warm beams, green, peace­ful, deep, the mead­ows of Melistan. They were mead­ows dan­cing with flowers, as it had been fresh dam­sels of the moun­tain, fair with vari­ety of col­ours that were so many gleams of chan­ging light as the breezes of the morn swept over them; lav­ish of hues, of sweet­ness, of pleas­ant­ness, fir for the souls of the blest.

Then, after they had gazed awhile, Noorna bin Noorka said, “In these mead­ows the horse Gar­raveen roameth at will. Her­oes of bliss be­stride him on great days. He is black to look on; speed quivers in his flanks like the light­ning; his nos­trils are wide with flame; there is that in his eye which is settled fire, and that in his hoofs which is ready thun­der; when he paws the Earth king­doms quake: no an­imal liv­eth with blood like the horse Gar­raveen. He is un­der a curse, for that he bore on his back one who de­fied the Prophet. Now, to make him come to thee thou must blow the call of battle, and to catch him thou must con­trive to strike him on the fet­lock as he runs with this musk-ball which I give thee; and to tame him thou must trace between his eyes a fig­ure or the cres­cent with thy fore­nail. When that is done, bring him to me here, where I await thee, and I will ad­vise thee fur­ther.”

So she said, “Go!” and Shibli Bagarag showed her the breadth of his shoulders, and stepped briskly to­ward the mead­ows, and was soon brush­ing among the flowers and soft mosses of the mead­ows, lift­ing his nos­trils to the joy­ful smells, look­ing about him with the broad eye of one that hungereth for a com­ing thing. The birds went up above him, and the trees shook and sparkled, and the wa­ters of brooks and broad rivers flashed like wav­ing mir­rors waved by the slave-girls in sport when the beau­ties of the harem riot and dip their gleam­ing shoulders in the bath. He wandered on, lost in the glad­ness that lived, till the loud neigh of a steed startled him, and by the banks of a river be­fore him he be­held the horse Gar­raveen stoop­ing to drink of the river; glor­i­ous was the look of the creature—sil­ver-hoofed, fash­ioned in the curves of beauty and swift­ness. So Shibli Bagarag put up his two hands and blew the call of battle, and the horse Gar­raveen arched his neck at the call, and swung upon his haunches, and sought the call, an­swer­ing it, and toss­ing his mane as he ad­vanced swiftly. Then, as he neared, Shibli Bagarag held the musk-ball in his fin­gers, and aimed at the fet­lock of the horse Gar­raveen, and flung it, and struck him so that he stumbled and fell. He snorted fiercely as he bent to the grass, but Shibli Bagarag ran to him, and grasped strongly the tuft of hair hanging for­ward between his ears, and traced between his fine eyes a fig­ure of the cres­cent with his fore­nail, and the horse ceased plunging, and was gentle as a colt by its mother’s side, and suffered Shibli Bagarag to be­stride him, and spurn him with his heel to speed, and bore him fleetly across the fair length of the golden mead­ows to where Noorna bin Noorka sat await­ing him. She uttered a cry of wel­come, say­ing, “This is achieved with di­li­gence and skill, O my be­trothed! and on thy right wrist I mark strength like a sleep­ing leo­pard, and the chil­dren of Ak­lis will not res­ist thee.”

So she bade him alight from the horse, but he said, “Nay.” And she called to him again to alight, but he cried, “I will not alight from him! By Al­lah! such a bound­ing wave of bliss have I never yet had be­neath me, and I will give him rein once again; as the poet says:

“ ‘Div­inely rings the rush­ing air
When I am on my mettled mare:
When fast along the plains we fly,
A creature of the heav­ens am I.’ ”

Then she lev­elled her brows at him, and said gravely, “This is the tempta­tion thou art fall­ing into, as have thou­sands be­fore thy time. Give him the rein a second time, and he will bear thee to the red pit, and halt upon the brink, and pitch thee into it among bleed­ing masses and skel­et­ons of thy kind, where they lie who were men like to thee, and were borne away by the horse Gar­raveen.”

He gave no heed to her words, taunt­ing her, and mak­ing the an­imal prance up and prove its spirit.

And she cried re­proach­fully, “O fool! is it thus our great aim will be de­feated by thy silly con­ceit? Lo, now, the great­ness and the hap­pi­ness thou art los­ing for this idle van­ity is to be as a dunghill cock matched with an os­trich; and think not to es­cape the calam­it­ies thou bring­est on thy­self, for as is said,

“No run­ner can out­strip his fate;

“and it will over­take thee, though thou part like an ar­row from the bow.”

He still made a jest of her re­mon­strance, try­ing the tem­per of the an­imal, and re­joicing in its dark flushes of ire­ful vigour.

And she cried out furi­ously, “How! art thou past coun­sel? then will we match strength with strength ere ’tis too late, though it weaken both.”

Upon that, she turned quickly to the ass and stroked it from one ex­tremity to the other, cry­ing, “Karaz! Karaz!” shout­ing, “Come forth in thy power!” And the ass van­ished, and the genie stood in his place, tall, dark, ter­rible as a pil­lar of storm to trav­el­lers ran­ging the desert. He ex­claimed, “What is it, O wo­man? Charge me with thy com­mand!”

And she said, “Wrestle with him thou seest on the horse Gar­raveen, and fling him from his seat.”

Then he yelled a glad yell, and stooped to Shibli Bagarag on the horse and en­vel­oped him, and seized him, and plucked him from the horse, and whirled him round, and flung him off. The youth went circ­ling in the air, high in it, and des­cen­ded, circ­ling, at a dis­tance in the deep meadow-wa­ters. When he crept up the banks he saw the genie astride the horse Gar­raveen, with a black flame round his head; and the genie urged him to speed and put him to the gal­lop, and was soon lost to sight, as he had been a thun­der­beam passing over a still lake at mid­night. And Shibli Bagarag was smit­ten with the wrong and the folly of his act, and sought to hide his sight from Noorna; but she called to him, “Look up, O youth! and face the calam­ity. Lo, we have now lost the ser­vice of Karaz! for though I ut­ter ten spells and one spell in a breath, the horse Gar­raveen will ere that have stretched bey­ond the circle of my ma­gic, and the genie will be free to do his ill deeds and plot against us. Sad is it! but profit thou by a know­ledge of thy weak­ness.”

Then said she, “See, I have not failed to pos­sess my­self of the three hairs of Gar­raveen, and there is that to re­joice in.”

She dis­played them, and they were sap­phire hairs, and had a flick­er­ing light; and they seemed to live, wrig­gling their lengths, and were as snakes with sap­phire skins. Then she said, “Thy right wrist, O my be­trothed!”

He gave her his right wrist, and she tied round it the three hairs of Gar­raveen, ex­claim­ing, “Thus do skil­ful car­penters make stronger what has broken and in­dic­ated dis­aster. Surely, I con­fide in thy star? I have faith in my foresight?”

And she cried, “Eyes of mine, what say­est thou to me? Lo, we must part awhile: it is writ­ten.”

Said he, “Leave me not, my be­trothed: what am I without thy coun­sel? And go not from me, or this ad­ven­ture will come to miser­able is­sue.”

So she said, “Thou be­gin­nest to feel my worth?”

He answered, “O Noorna! was wo­man like thee be­fore in this world? Surely ’tis a mask I mark thee un­der; yet art thou per­force of sheer wis­dom and sweet man­ners lovely in my sight; and I have a thirst to hear thee and look on thee.”

While he spake, a beam of strug­gling splend­our burst from her, and she said, “O thou dear youth, yes! I must even go. But I go glad of heart, know­ing thee pre­pared to love me. I must go to coun­ter­act the mach­in­a­tions of Karaz, for he’s at once busy, vin­dict­ive, and cun­ning, and there’s no time for us to lose; so farewell, my be­trothed, and make thy wits keen to know me when we next meet.”

So he said, “And I—whither go I?”

She answered, “To the City of Oolb straight­way.”

Then he, “But I know not its bear­ing from this spot: how reach it?”

She answered, “What! thou with the phial of Para­vid in thy vest, that en­doweth, a single drop of it, the flowers, the herb­age, the very stones and desert sands, with a tongue to ar­tic­u­late in­tel­li­gible talk?”

Said he, “Is it so?”

She answered, “Even so.”

Ere Shibli Bagarag could ques­tion her fur­ther she em­braced him, and blew upon his eyes, and he was blinded by her breath, and saw not her de­par­ture, grop­ing for a seat on the rocks, and think­ing her still by him. Sight re­turned not to him till long after wear­i­ness had brought the balm of sleep upon his eye­lids.

The Talking Hawk

Now, when he awoke he found him­self alone in that place, the moon shin­ing over the low mead­ows and flower-cups fair with night-dew. Odours of night-flowers were abroad, filling the cool air with de­li­cious­ness, and he heard in the gar­dens be­low songs of the bul­bul: it was like a dream to his soul, and he lay some­while con­tem­plat­ing the rich love­li­ness of the scene, that showed no mov­ing thing. Then rose he and be­thought him of the words of Noorna, and of the City of Oolb, and the phial of the wa­ters of Para­vid in his vest; and he drew it forth, and dropped a drop of it on the rock where he had re­clined. A deep har­mony seemed sud­denly to awake in­side the rock, and to his in­ter­rog­a­tion as to the dir­ec­tion of Oolb, he heard, “The path of the shad­ows of the moon.”

Thereupon he ad­vanced to a prom­in­ent part of the rocks above the mead­ows, and be­held the shad­ows of the moon thrown for­ward into dim­ness across a waste of sand. And he stepped down­ward to the level of sand, and went the way of the shad­ows till it was dawn. Then dropped he a drop of the wa­ters of the phial on a spike of lav­ender, and there was a voice said to him in reply to what he ques­tioned, “The path of the shad­ows of the sun.”

The shad­ows of the sun were thrown for­ward across the same waste of sand, and he turned and pur­sued his way, rest­ing at noon be­neath a date-tree, and re­fresh­ing him­self at a clear spring be­side it. Surely he was joy­ful as he went, and elated with high pro­spects, singing:

“Sun and moon with their bright fin­gers
Point the hero’s path;

If in his great work he lingers,
Well may they be wroth.”

Now, the ex­tent of the dur­a­tion of his travel was four days and an equal num­ber of nights; and it was on the fifth morn that he entered the gates of a city by the sea, even at that hour when the in­hab­it­ants were rising from sleep: fair was the sea bey­ond it, and the har­bour was crowded with ves­sels, ships stored with mer­chand­ise—silks, dates, dia­monds, Damas­cus steel, huge bales piled on the decks for the land of Roum and other lands. Shibli Bagarag thought, “There’s scarce a doubt but that one of those sails will set for Oolb shortly. Wul­lahy! if I knew which, I’d board her and win a berth in her.” Presently he thought, “I’ll go to the pub­lic foun­tain and ques­tion it with the speech-win­ning wa­ters.” Thereupon he passed down the streets of the city and came to an open space, where stood the foun­tain, and sprinkled it with Para­vid; and the foun­tain spake, say­ing, “Where men are, ques­tion not dumb things.”

Cried he, “Faileth Para­vid in its power? Have I done aught to baffle my­self?”

Then he thought, “ ’Twere nev­er­the­less well to do as the foun­tain dir­ec­t­eth, and ques­tion men while I see them.” And he walked about among the people, and came to the quays of the har­bour where the ships lay close in, many of them an easy leap from shore, and con­sidered whom to ad­dress. So, as he loitered about the quays, med­it­at­ing on the means at the dis­posal of the All-Wise, and mark­ing the ves­sels wist­fully, be­hold, there ad­vanced to him one at a quick pace, in the garb of a sailor. He ob­served Shibli Bagarag at­tent­ively a mo­ment, and ex­claimed as it were in the plen­it­ude of re­spect and with the man­ner of one that is abashed, “Surely, thou art Shibli Bagarag, the nephew of the barber, him we watch for.”

So Shibli Bagarag mar­velled at this re­cog­ni­tion, and answered, “Am I then already fam­ous to that ex­tent?”

And he that ac­cos­ted him said, “ ’Tis cer­tain the trum­pet was blown be­fore thy steps, and there is not a man in this city but knoweth of thy des­tin­a­tion to the City of Oolb, and that thou art upon the track of great things, one chosen to bring about im­min­ent changes.”

Then said Shibli Bagarag, “For this I praise Noorna bin Noorka, daugh­ter of Fesh­navat, Viz­ier of the King that ruleth in the city of Shag­pat! She saw me, that I was marked for great­ness. Wul­lahy, the eagle knoweth me from afar, and pro­claimeth me; the ante­lope of the hills scenteth the com­ing of one not as other men, and tel­l­eth his tid­ings; the wind of the desert shapeth its gust to a mean­ing, so that the stranger may wot Shibli Bagarag is at hand!”

He puffed his chest, and straightened his legs like the cock, and was as a man upon whom the Sultan has be­stowed a dress of hon­our, even as the plumed pea­cock. Then the other said:

“Know that I am cap­tain of yon­der ves­sel, that stands farthest out from the har­bour with her sails slackened; and she is laden with figs and fruits which I ex­change for silks, spices, and other mer­chand­ise, with the people of Oolb. Now, what says the poet?—

“ ‘Delay in thine un­der­tak­ing
Is dis­aster of thy own mak­ing’;

“and he says also:

“ ‘Great­ness is solely for them that suc­ceed;
’Tis a rot­ten ap­plause that gives earlier meed.’

“There­fore it is ad­vis­able for thee to fol­low me on board without loss of time, and we will sail this very night for the City of Oolb.”

Now, Shibli Bagarag was ruled by the words of the cap­tain al­beit he de­sired to stay awhile and re­ceive the homage of the people of that city. So he fol­lowed him into a boat that was by, and the twain were rowed by sail­ors to the ship. Then, when they were aboard the cap­tain set sail, and they were soon in the hol­lows of deep wa­ters. There was a berth in the ship set apart for Shibli Bagarag, and one for the cap­tain. Shibli Bagarag, when he entered his berth, be­held at the head of his couch a hawk; its eyes red as ru­bies, its beak sharp as the curve of a scim­itar. So he called out to the cap­tain, and the cap­tain came to him; but when he saw the hawk, he plucked his turban from his head, and dashed it at the hawk, and af­ter­ward ran to it, try­ing to catch it; and the hawk flit­ted from corner to corner of the berth, he after it with open arms. Then he took a sword, but the hawk flew past him, and fixed on the back part of his head, tear­ing up his hair by the talons, and peck­ing over his fore­head at his eyes. And Shibli Bagarag heard the hawk scream the name “Karaz,” and he looked closely at the Cap­tain of the ves­sel, and knew him for the genie Karaz. Then trembled he with ex­ceed­ing ter­ror, curs­ing his credu­lit­ies, for he saw him­self in the hands of the genie, and noth­ing but this hawk friendly to him on the fear­ful wa­ters. When the hawk had torn up a cer­tain hair, the genie stiffened, and glowed like cop­per in the fur­nace, the whole length of him; and he des­cen­ded heav­ily through the bot­tom of the ship, and sank into the wa­ters be­neath, which hissed and smoked as at a bar of heated iron. Then Shibli Bagarag gave thanks to the Prophet, and praised the hawk, but the hawk dar­ted out of the cabin, and he fol­lowed it on deck, and, lo! the ves­sel was in flames, and the hawk in a circle of the flames; and the flames soared with it, and left it no out­let. Now, as Shibli Bagarag watched the hawk, the flames stretched out to­wards him and took hold of his vest­ments. So he delayed not to com­mend his soul to the All-Mer­ci­ful, and bore wit­ness to his faith, and plunged into the sea head­long. When he rose, the ship had van­ished, and all was dark­ness where it had been; so he buf­feted with the bil­lows, think­ing his last hour had come, and there was no help for him in this world; and the spray shaken from the bil­lows blinded him, the great walls of wa­ter crumbled over him; strength failed him, and his memory ceased to pic­ture im­ages of the old time—his heart to beat with am­bi­tion; and to keep the weight of his head above the sur­face was be­com­ing a thing worth the ransom of kings. As he was sink­ing and turn­ing his eyes up­ward, he heard a flut­ter as of fledgling’s wings, and the two red ruby eyes of the hawk were vis­ible above him, like steady fires in the gloom. And the hawk perched on him, and bur­ied it­self among the wet hairs of his head, and presently tak­ing the Identical in its beak, the hawk lif­ted him half out of wa­ter, and bore him a dis­tance, and dropped him. This the hawk did many times, and at the last, Shibli Bagarag felt land be­neath him, and could wade through the surges to the shore. He gave thanks to the Su­preme Dis­poser, kneel­ing pros­trate on the shore, and fell into a sleep deep in peace­ful­ness as a fathom­less well, un­ruffled by a breath.

Now, when it was dawn Shibli Bagarag awoke and looked in­land, and saw plainly the min­arets of a city shin­ing in the first beams, and the front of yel­low moun­tains, and people mov­ing about the walls and on the towers and among the pas­tures round the city; so he made to­ward them, and in­quired of them the name of their city. And they stared at him, cry­ing, “What! know’st thou not the City of Oolb? the hawk on thy shoulder could tell thee that much.” He looked and saw that the hawk was on his shoulder; and its left wing was scorched, the plumage blackened. So he said to the hawk, “Is it prof­it­able, O pre­serving bird, to ask of thee ques­tions?”

The hawk shook its wings and closed an eye.

So he said, “Do I well in en­ter­ing this city?”

The hawk shook its wings again and closed an eye.

So he said, “To what house shall I dir­ect my steps in this strange city for the at­tain­ment of the pur­pose I have?”

The hawk flew, and soared, and alighted on the top­most of the towers of Oolb. So when it re­turned he said, “O bird! rare bird! my coun­sel­lor! it is an in­dic­a­tion, this alight­ing on the highest tower, that thou ad­visest me to go straight to the palace of the King?”

The hawk flapped its wings and winked both eyes; so Shibli Bagarag took forth the phial from his breast, re­mem­ber­ing the vir­tues of the wa­ters of the Well of Para­vid, and touched his lips with them, that he might be en­dowed with flow­ing speech be­fore the King of Oolb. As he did this the phial was open, and the hawk leaned to it and dipped its beak into the wa­ter; and he entered the city and passed through the long streets to­wards the palace of the King, and craved audi­ence of him as one that had a thing mar­vel­lous to tell. So the King com­manded that Shibli Bagarag should be brought be­fore him, for he was a lover of mar­vels. As he went into the pres­ence of the King, Shibli Bagarag listened to the hawk, for the hawk spake his lan­guage, and it said, “Pro­claim to the King a new won­der—‘the talk­ing hawk.’ ”

So when he had bent his body to the King, he pro­claimed the new won­der; and the King seemed not to ob­serve the hawk, and said, “From what city art thou?”

He answered, “Nat­ive, O King, to Shiraz; newly from the City of Shag­pat.”

And the King asked, “How is it with that hairy won­der?”

He answered, “The dark forest flour­ish­eth about him.”

And the King said, “That is well! We of the City of Oolb take our fash­ions from them of the City of Shag­pat, and it is but yes­ter­day that I bas­ti­nadoed a barber that strayed among us.”

Shibli Bagarag sighed when he heard the King, and thought to him­self, “How un­for­tu­nate is the race of barbers, once hon­our­able and in es­teem! Surely it will not be oth­er­wise till Shag­pat is shaved!” And the King called out to him for the cause of his sigh­ing; so he said, “I sigh, O King of the age, con­sid­er­ing how like may be the case of the barber bas­ti­nadoed but yes­ter­day, in his worth and value, to that of Room­d­room, the reader of plan­ets, that was a barber.”

And he re­lated the story of Room­d­room for the edi­fic­a­tion of the King and the ex­al­ta­tion of barber­craft, de­liv­er­ing him­self neatly and win­ningly and poin­tedly, so that the story should ap­ply, which was its merit and its ori­gin.

Goorelka of Oolb

When Shibli Bagarag had fin­ished his nar­ra­tion of the case of Room­d­room the barber, the King of Oolb said, “O thou, nat­ive of Shiraz, there is per­sua­sion and sweet­ness and fas­cin­a­tion on thy tongue, and I am touched with com­pas­sion for the soles of Baba Mustapha, that I bas­ti­nadoed but yes­ter­day, and he was from Shiraz like­wise.”

Now, the heart of Shibli Bagarag leapt when he heard men­tion of Baba Mustapha; and he knew him for his uncle that was search­ing him. He would have cried aloud his re­la­tion­ship, but the hawk whispered in his ear. Then the hawk said to him, “There is danger in the King’s mute­ness re­spect­ing me, for I am vis­ible to him. Pro­claim the spirit of proph­ecy.”

So he pro­claimed that spirit, and the King said, “Prophesy to me of barber­craft.”

And he cried, “O King of the age, the barber is abased, trod­den un­der­foot, given over to the sneers and the gibes of them that flat­ter the power­ful ones; he is as the winter worm, as the cro­codile in the slime of his sleep by the bank, as the sick eagle be­fore moult­ing. But I say, O King, that he will come forth like the ser­pent in a new skin, sham­ing the old one; he slept a cater­pil­lar, and will come forth a but­ter­fly; he sank a star, and lo! he ris­eth a con­stel­la­tion.”

Now, while he was speak­ing in the fer­vour of his soul, the King said some­thing to one of the court of­ficers sur­round­ing him, and there was brought to the King a basin, a soap-bowl, and barber’s tackle. When Shibli Bagarag saw these, the uses of the barber rushed upon his mind, and de­sire to sway the tackle pushed him for­ward and agit­ated him, so that he could not keep his hands from them.

Then the King ex­claimed, “It is as I thought. Our pas­sions be­tray them­selves, and our habits; so is it writ­ten. By Al­lah! I swear thou art thy­self none other than a barber, O youth.”

Shibli Bag­wrag was nigh faint­ing with ter­ror at this dis­cov­ery of the King, but the hawk said in his ear, “Pro­claim speech in the tackle.” So he pro­claimed speech in the tackle; and the King smiled doubt­fully, and said, “If this be a cheat, Shiraz will not see thy face more.”

Then the hawk whispered in his ear, “Drop on the tackle secretly a drop from the phial.” This he did, spread­ing his gar­ments, and com­manded the tackle to speak. And the tackle spake, each por­tion of it, con­fusedly as the noise of Ba­bel. So the King mar­velled greatly, and said, “ ’Tis a greater won­der than the talk­ing hawk, the talk­ing tackle. Wul­lahy! it en­nobleth barber­craft! Yet it were well to com­pre­hend the say­ing of the tackle.”

Then the hawk flew to the tackle and fluttered about it, and lo! the blade and the brush stood up and said in a shrill tone, “It is or­dained that Shag­pat shall be shaved, and that Shibli Bagarag shall shave him.”

The King bit the fore­finger of amazement, and said, “What then en­su­eth, O talk­ing tackle?”

And the brush and the blade stood up, and said in a shrill tone, “Hon­our to Shibli Bagarag and barbers! Shame unto Shag­pat and his fel­lows!”

Upon that, the King cried, “Enough, O talk­ing tackle; I will fore­stall the com­ing thing. I will be shaved! wul­lahy, that will I!”

Then the hawk whispered to Shibli Bagarag, “For­ward and shear him!” So he stepped forth and seized the tackle, and ad­dressed him­self keenly to the shav­ing of the King of Oolb, lath­er­ing him and per­form­ing his task with per­fect skill. And the courtiers crowded to fol­low the ex­ample of the King, and Shibli Bagarag shaved them, all of them. Now, when they were shaved, fear smote them, the fear of ri­dicule, and each laughed at the change that was in the other; but the King cried, “See that or­der is is­sued for the people of Oolb to be as we be­fore to­mor­row’s sun. So is laughter taken in re­verse.” And the King said aside to Shibli Bagarag, “Say now, what may be thy price for yon­der hawk?”

And the hawk bade him say, “The loan of thy cockleshell.”

The King mused, and said, “That is much to ask, for it is that which beareth the Prin­cess my daugh­ter to the Lily of the En­chanted Sea, which she nour­ish­eth; and if ’tis harmed, she will be stricken with ugli­ness, as was the daugh­ter of the Viz­ier Fesh­navat, who ten­ded it be­fore her. Yet is this hawk a bird of price. What be its qual­it­ies, be­sides the gift of speech?”

Shibli Bagarag answered, “To coun­sel in ex­tremity; to fore­warn; to coun­ter­act en­chant­ments and foul ma­gic.”

Upon that the King said, “Fol­low me!”

And the King led the way from the hall, through many spa­cious cham­bers fair with mir­rors and silks and pre­cious woods, and smooth marble floors, down into a vault lit by a lamp that was shaped like an eye. Round the vault were hung helm-pieces, and swords, and rich-stud­ded hous­ings; and there were silken dresses, and costly shawls, and tall vases and jars of Ch­ina, tapestries, and gold ser­vices. And the King said, “Take thy choice of these in ex­change for the hawk.”

But Shibli Bagarag said, “Nought save a loan of the cockleshell, King!”

Then the King threatened him, say­ing, “There is a vir­tue in each of the things thou seest: the Ch­ina jar is brimmed with wine, and re­maineth so though a thou­sand drink of it; the dress of Samarkand rendereth the wearer in­vis­ible; yet thou re­fusest to ex­change them for thy hawk!”

And the King swore by the beard of his father he would seize per­force the hawk and shut up Shibli Bagarag in the vault, if he fell not into his bar­gain. Shibli Bagarag was ad­vised by the hawk to ac­cept the Ch­ina jar and the dress of Samarkand, and handed the hawk to the King in ex­change for these things. So the King took the hawk upon his wrist and de­par­ted with it to the apart­ments of his daugh­ter, and Shibli Bagarag went to the cham­ber pre­pared for him in the palace.

Now, when it was night, Shibli Bagarag heard a noise at his lat­tice, and he arose and peered through it, and lo! the hawk was flut­ter­ing without; so he let it in, and caressed it, and the hawk bade him put on his silken dress and carry forth his Ch­ina jar, and go the round of the palace, and of­fer drink to the sen­tinels and the slaves. So he did as the hawk dir­ec­ted, and the sen­tinels and slaves were aware of a Ch­ina jar brimmed with wine that was lif­ted to their lips, but him that lif­ted it they saw not: surely, they drank deep of the draught of as­ton­ish­ment.

Then the hawk flew be­fore him, and he fol­lowed it to a cham­ber lit with golden lamps, gor­geously hung, and full of a dusky splend­our and the faint sparkle of gems, ruby, amethyst, to­paz, and beryl; in it there was the hush of sleep, and the heart of Shibli Bagarag told him that one beau­ti­ful was near. So he ap­proached on tip­toe a couch of blue silk, bordered with gold-wire, and in­woven with stars of blue tur­quoise stones, as it had been the heav­ens of mid­night. On the couch lay one, a wo­man, pure in love­li­ness; the dark fringes of her closed lids like liv­ing flashes of dark­ness, her mouth like an un­strung bow and as a double rose­bud, even as two isles of coral between which in the clear trans­par­ent wa­tery beds the pearls shine freshly.

And the hawk said to Shibli Bagarag, “This is the Prin­cess Goorelka, the daugh­ter of the King of Oolb, a sor­ceress, the Guard­ian of the Lily of the En­chanted Sea. Beneath her pil­low is the cockleshell; grasp it, but gaze not upon her.”

He ap­proached and slid his arm be­neath the pil­low of the Prin­cess, and grasped the cockleshell; but ere he drew it forth he gazed upon her, and the lustre of her coun­ten­ance trans­fixed him as with a javelin, so that he could not stir, nor move his eyes from the con­tem­pla­tion of her sweet­ness of fea­ture. The hawk dar­ted at him fiercely, and pecked at him to draw his at­ten­tion from her, and he stepped back, yet he con­tin­ued tak­ing fatal draughts from the ma­gic cup of her beauty. Then the hawk screamed a loud scream of an­guish, and the Prin­cess awoke, and star­ted halfway from the couch, and stared about her, and saw the bird in agit­a­tion. As she looked at the bird a shud­der passed over her, and she snatched a veil and drew it over her face, mur­mur­ing, “I dream, or I am un­der the eye of a man.” Then she felt be­neath the pil­low, and knew that the cockleshell had been touched; and in a mo­ment she leapt from her couch, and ran to a mir­ror and saw her­self as she was, a full-moon made to snare the war­i­est and sit singly high on a throne in the hearts of men. At the sight of her beauty she smiled and seemed at peace, mur­mur­ing still, “I am un­der the eye of a man, or I dream.” Now, while she so mur­mured she ar­rayed her­self, and took the cockleshell, and passed through the ante­room among her wo­men sleep­ing; and Shibli Bagarag tracked her till she came to the vault; and she entered it and walked to the corner from which had hung the dress of Samarkand. When she saw it gone her face waxed pale, and she gazed slowly at all points, mut­ter­ing, “There is no fur­ther doubt but that I am un­der the eye of a man!” Thereupon she ran hast­ily from the vault, and passed between the sen­tinels of the palace, and saw them where they lay drowsy with in­tox­ic­a­tion: so she knew that the Ch­ina jar and the dress of Samarkand had been used that night, and for no pur­pose friendly to her wishes. Then she passed down the palace steps, and through the gates of the palace and the city, till she came to the shore of the sea; there she launched the cockleshell and took the wind in her gar­ments, and sat in it, filling it to over­flow­ing, yet it floated. And Shibli Bagarag waded to the cockleshell and took hold of it, and was drawn along by its mo­tion swiftly through the wa­ters, so that a foam swept after him; and Goorelka marked the foam. Now, they had pas­sage over the bil­lows smoothly, and soon the length of the sea was darkened with two high rocks, and between them there was a nar­row chan­nel of the sea, roughened with moon­light. So they sped between the rocks, and came upon a purple sea, dark-blue over­head, with large stars lean­ing to the waves. There was a soft whis­per­ing­ness in the breath of the breezes that swung there, and many sails of charmed ships were seen in mo­ment­ary gleams, flap­ping the mast idly far away. Warm as new milk from the full ud­ders were the wa­ters of that sea, and fig­ures of fair wo­men stretched length­wise with the cur­rent, and lif­ted a head as they rushed rolling by. Truly it was en­chanted even to the very bed!