ng 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 h