O Boolp, ere you expend a fraction of treasure, for truly a
mighty bargain of jewels is waiting for you at the palace of my lord the
King. So come thither with all your money-bags of gold and silver, and
your securities, and your bonds and dues in writing, for 'tis the
favourite of the King requireth you to complete a bargain with her, and
the price of her jewels is the price of a kingdom.'

Said Boolp, 'Hearing is compliance in such a case.'

And Ukleet continued, 'What a fortune is yours, O Boolp! truly the tide
of fortune setteth into your lap. Fail not, wullahy! to come with all you
possess, or if you have not enough when she requireth it to complete the
bargain, my mistress will break off with you. I know not if she intend
even other game for you, O lucky one!'

Boolp hitched his girdle and shrugged, saying, ''Tis she will fail, I
wot,--she, in having therewith to complete the bargain between us. Wa!
wa!--there! I've done this before now. Wullahy! if she have not enough of
her rubies and pearls to outweigh me and my gold, go to, Boolp will
school her! What says the poet?--

''Earth and ocean search, East, West, and North, to the South,
None will match the bright rubies and pearls of her mouth.''

'Aha! what? O Ukleet! And he says:

''The lovely ones a bargain made
With me, and I renounced my trade,
Half-ruined; 'Ah!' said they, 'return and win!
To even scales ourselves we will throw in!'''

How so? But let discreetness reign and security flourisheth!'

Ukleet nodded at him, and repeated the distich:

Men of worth and men of wits
Shoot with two arrows, and make two hits.

So he arranged with Boolp the same appointment as with the Vizier, and
returned to Queen Bhanavar.

Now, in the dark of night Aswarak stood within the gate of the
palace-garden of Mashalleed that was ajar, and a hand from a veiled
figure reached to him, and he caught it, in the fulness of his delusion,
crying, 'Thou, my Queen?' But the hand signified silence, and drew him
past the tank of the garden and through a court of the palace into a
passage lit with lamps, and on into a close-curtained chamber, and beyond
a heavy curtain into another, a circular passage descending between black
hangings, and at the bottom a square vault draped with black, and in it
precious woods burning, oils in censers, and the odour of ambergris and
myrrh and musk floating in clouds, and the sight of the Vizier was for a