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 bitter-sweet:
Better at once to toss it up,
And trample it beneath the feet;
For venom-charged as serpents' eggs
'Tis then, and knows not other change.
Early, early, early, have I reached the dregs
Of life, and loathe and love the bittersweet, revenge!
Then turned she aside, and sang musingly:
I came to his arms like the flower of the spring,
And he was my bird of the radiant wing:
He flutter'd above me a moment, and won
The bliss of my breast as a beam of the sun,
Untouch'd and untasted till then--
The voice in her throat was like a drowning creature, and she rose up,
and chanted wildly: