self. And she said: What? And I said:
How can the King thy husband be so utterly bereft of his reason as to
let any other man see his star? Or is he, in very truth, actually
blind? For I could understand it, if he really cannot see.

And she looked at me with surprise: and she said slowly: Dost thou
actually not know, what everybody knows? And I said: I know nothing
that everybody knows, being as I am a stranger. But this I know, very
well, that if thou wert _my_ pearl, I would take very good care to
hide thee. For even an honest man might well turn robber, tempted by
the sight of such an ocean pearl. And she said, very quietly: It needs
no thief to steal the pearl, if indeed it be a pearl, which its owner
cast away long ago as a thing of no value, for anyone to pick up as he
passes by.

And I stared at her in stupefaction, and I struck my hands together
and exclaimed: Art thou mad, or am I dreaming? And she said gently: It
is true. And anybody but a stranger like thyself would have known it,
without needing to be told. And she dropped her eyes, and sat for a
while, fingering the string of her lute, as if on purpose to make
herself into a picture for my intoxicated gaze: and suddenly she said:
Why should I make a secret of a thing that another will tell thee, if
I do not, adding to the truth slanders that are false? It is better
for thee, and for me, to learn from my own mouth what it is impossible
to hide. There is a relation of the King, whose name is Narasinha. And
one day he saw me by accident, on the roof of the palace, and
instantly he lost his reason, as all the men who see me always do. And
not long after, the King was set upon by numbers in a battle, and
within a very little of being slain; and Narasinha saved his life,
very nearly losing his own. And the King said, when all was over: Now,
then, O Narasinha, ask me for anything I have, no matter what: it is
thine. And Narasinha saw his opportunity. And he shut his eyes, like
one that leaps from a precipice to life or death. And he said: Give me
thy Queen, Tarawali: or else, slay me, here and now, with this very
sword that saved thy life. And then, to his amazement, as he stood
with his head bowed, expecting death, the King burst out laughing. And
he said: Is that all? Aha! Narasinha, we were both frightened, thou
and I: thou, of asking, and I, of what thou mightest ask. Didst thou
not think, I should slay thee, for thinking of her even in a dream?
But my life