saw him fast enmeshed in her
subtleties, and clapped her hands crying, 'Come again with me to the
tomb, and note if there be aught I am to blame in, O Aswarak, and plight
thyself to me beside it.'

He did nothing save to widen his eye at her somewhat; and she said, 'The
two are yonside the tomb, and they hear us not, and see us not by this
light of the Jewel; so come up to it boldly with me; free thy mind of its
doubt, and for a reconcilement kiss me on the way.'

Aswarak moved not forward; but as Bhanavar laid the Jewel in her bosom he
tore the veil from her darkened head, and caught her to him and kissed
her. Then Bhanavar laughed and shouted, 'How is it with thee, Vizier
Aswarak?'

He was tottering, and muttered, ''Tis a death-chill hath struck me even
to my marrow.'

So she drew the Jewel forth once more, and rubbed it ablaze, and the
noise of the Serpents neared; and they streamed into the vault and under
it in fiery jets, surrounding Bhanavar, and whizzing about her till in
their velocity they were indivisible; and she stood as a fountain of fire
clothed in flashes of the underworld, the new loveliness of her face
growing vivid violet like an incessant lightning above them. Then
stretched she her two hands, and sang to the Serpents:--

Hither, hither, to the feast!
Hither to the sacrifice!
Virtue for my sake hath ceased:
Now to make an end of Vice!

Twisted-tail and treble-tongue,
Swelling length and greedy maw!
I have had a horrid wrong;
Retribution is the law!

Ye that suck'd my youthful lord,
Now shall make another meal:
Seize the black Vizier abhorr'd;
Seize him! seize him throat and heel!

Set your serpent wits to find
Tortures of a new device:
Have him! have him heart and mind!
Hither to the sacrifice'

Then she whirled with them round and round as a tempest whirls; and when
she had wound them to a fury, lo, she burst from the hissing circle and
dragged Ukleet from the vault into the passage, and blocked the entrance
to the vault. So was Queen Bhanavar avenged.

Now, she said to Ukleet, 'Ransom presently the broker,--him they will not
harm,' and hastened to the King that he might see her in her beauty. The
King reclined on cushions in the harem with a fair slave-girl, newly from
the mountains, toying with the pearls in her locks. Then thought
Bhanavar, 'Let him no