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
fish-pond 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?'