ire. Now
in this have I not done thee a service, O sovereign of fancies?'

Bhanavar mused and said, 'On the after-morrow I pass through the city to
make a selection of goods, and I shall pass at noon by the great mosque,
on my way to the shop of Ebn Roulchook, the King's jeweller, beyond the
meat-market. Of a surety, I know not how my lord the King may see me.'

Said the porter, ''Tis enough! on my head be it.' And he went from her,
singing the song:

How little a thing serves Fortune's turn
When she's intent on doing!
How easily the world may burn
When kings come out a-wooing!

Now, ere she set forth on the after-morrow to make her purchases,
Bhanavar sent word to the Vizier Aswarak that she would see him, and he
came to her drunken with alacrity, for he augured favourably that her
reluctance was melting toward him: so she said, 'O my master, my time of
mourning is at an end, and I would look well before thee, even as one
worthy of being thy bride; so bestow on me, I pray thee, for my wearing
that day, the jewels that be in thy treasury, the brightest and clearest
of them, and the largest.'

The Vizier Aswarak replied, and he was one in great satisfaction of soul,
'All that I have are thine. Wullahy! and one, a marvel, that I bought of
Boolp the broker, that had it from an African merchant.' So he commanded
the box wherein he had deposited the Jewel to be brought to him there in
the chamber of Bhanavar, and took forth the Serpent Jewel between his
forefinger and thumb, and laughed at the eager eyes of Bhanavar when she
beheld it, saying, ''Tis thine! thy bridal gift the day I possess thee.'

Bhanavar trembled at the sight of the Jewel, and its redness was to her
as the blood of Zurvan and Almeryl. She stretched her hand out for it and
cried, 'This day, O my lord, make it mine.'

So the Vizier said, 'Nay, what I have spoken will I keep to; it has cost
me much.'

Bhanavar looked at him, and uttered in a soft tone, 'Truly it has cost
thee much.'

Then she exclaimed, as in play, 'See me, how I look by its beam.' And in
her guile she snatched the Jewel from him, and held it to her brow. Then
Aswarak started from her and feared her, for the red light of the Jewel
glowed, and darkened the chamber with its beam, darkening all save the
lustre that was on the visage of Bhanavar. He shouted, 'What's this! Art
thou a sorceress?'

She removed the Jewel, and ceased glaring on him, and said, 'Nothin