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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.
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?
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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