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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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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!
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