his whole body
before her eyes, and clasped her head upon his breast, and clung about
her, caressing her; yet she slipped from him, and she cried, 'Tell me of
this serpent, and of this light.'

So he said, 'Seek not to hear of it, O my betrothed!'

Then she gazed at the light a moment more intently, and turned her fair
shape toward him, and put up her long white fingers to his chin, and
smoothed him with their softness, whispering, 'Tell me of it, my life!'

And so it was that her winningness melted him, and he said, 'Bhanavar!
the serpent is the Serpent of the Lake; old, wise, powerful; of the brood
of the sacred mountain, that lifteth by day a peak of gold, and by night
a point of solitary silver. In her head, upon her forehead, between her
eyes, there is a Jewel, and it is this light.'

Then she said, 'How came the Jewel there, in such a place?'

He answered, ''Tis the growth of one thousand years in the head of the
serpent.'

She cried, 'Surely precious?'

He answered, 'Beyond price!'

As he spake the tears streamed from him, and he was shaken with grief,
but she noted nought of this, and watched the wonder of the light, and
its increasing, and quivering, and lengthening; and the light was as an
arrow of beams and as a globe of radiance. 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.'

Then he pleaded with her, and exclaimed, 'Urge not this! The winning of
the Jewel is worth my life; and my life, O Bhanavar--surely its breath is
but the love of thee.'

So she said, 'Thou fearest a risk?'

And he replied, 'Little fear I; my life is thine to cast away. This Jewel
it is evil to have, and evil followeth the soul that hath it.'

Upon that she cried, 'A trick to cheat me of the Jewel! thy love is
wanting at the proof.'

And she taunted the youth her betrothed, and turned from him, and
hardened at his tenderness, and made her sweet shape as a thorn to his
caressing, and his heart was charged with anguish for her. So at the
last, when he had wept a space in silence, he cried, 'Thou hast willed
it; the Jewel shall be thine, O my soul!'

Then said he, 'Thou hast willed it, O Bh