it, over grass and cresses, ran a rill, a branch
from others, larger ones, that went hurrying from the heights to feed the
meadows below, and Bhanavar dipped her hand in the rill, and thought, 'I
am no more as thou, rill of the mountain, but a desert thing! Thy way is
forward, thy end before thee; but I go this way and that; my end is dark
to me; not a life is mine that will have its close kissing the cold
cheeks of the saffron-crocus. Cold art thou, and I--flames! They that
lean to thee are refreshed, they that touch me perish.' Then she looked
forth on the stars that were above the purple heights, and the blushes of
inner heaven that streamed up the sky, and a fear of meeting the eyes of
her kindred possessed her, and she cried out to Ruark, 'O Chief of the
Beni-Asser, must this be? and is there no help for it, but that I return
among them that look on me basely?'

Ruark stooped to her and said, 'Tell me thy name.'

She answered, 'Bhanavar is my name with that people.'

And he whispered, 'Surely when they speak of thee they say not Bhanavar
solely, but Bhanavar the Beautiful?'

She started and sought the eye of the Chief, and it was fixed on her face
in a softened light, as if his soul had said that thing. Then she sighed,
and exclaimed, 'Unhappy are the beautiful! born to misery! Allah dressed
them in his grace and favour for their certain wretchedness! Lo, their
countenances are as the sun, their existence as the desert; barren are
they in fruits and waters, a snare to themselves and to others!'

Now, the Chief leaned to her yet nearer, saying, 'Show me the Jewel.'

Bhanavar caught up her hands and clenched them, and she cried bitterly,
''Tis known to thee! She told thee, and there be none that know it not!'

Arising, she thrust her hand into her bosom, and held forth the Jewel in
the palm of her white hand. When Ruark beheld the marvel of the Jewel,
and the redness moving in it as of a panting heart, and the flashing eye
of fire that it was, and all its glory, he cried, 'It was indeed a Jewel
for queens to covet from the Serpent, and a prize the noblest might risk
all to win as a gift for thee.'

Then she said, 'Thy voice is friendly with me, O Ruark! and thou scornest
not the creature that I am. Counsel me as to my dealing with the Jewel.'

Surely the eyes of the Chief met the eyes of Bhanavar as when the
brightest stars of midnight are doubled in a clear dark lake, and he sang
in measured music:

'