t slight me!' So she drew a rose-coloured veil over
her face and sat beside Mashalleed. The King continued his fondling with
the girl, saying to her, 'Was there no destiny foretold of thy coming to
the palace of the King to rule it, O Nashta, starbeam in the waters! and
hadst thou no dream of it?'

Bhanavar struck the King's arm, but he noticed her not, and Nashta
laughed. Then Bhanavar controlled her trembling and said, 'A word, O
King! and vouchsafe me a hearing.'

The King replied languidly, still looking on Nashta, ''Tis a command that
the voice of none that are crabbed and hideous be heard in the harem, and
I find comfort in it, O Nashta! but speak thou, my fountain of
sweet-dropping lute-notes!'

Bhanavar caught the King's hand and said, 'I have to speak with thee;
'tis the Queen. Chase from us this little wax puppet a space.'

The King disengaged his hand and leaned it over to Nashta, who began
playing with it, and fitting on it a ring, giggling. Then, as he answered
nothing, Bhanavar came nearer and slapped him on the cheek. Mashalleed
started to his feet, and his hand grasped his girdle; but that
wrathfulness was stayed when he beheld the veil slide from her visage. So
he cried, 'My Queen! my soul!'

She pointed to Nashta, and the King chid the girl, and sent her forth
lean with his shifted displeasure, as a kitten slinks wet from a
fish-pond where it had thought to catch a great fish. Then Bhanavar
exclaimed, 'There was a change in thy manner to me before that creature.'

He sought to dissimulate with her, but at last he confessed, 'I was truly
this morning the victim of a sorcery.'

Thereupon she cried, 'And thou went angered to find me not by thee on the
couch, but one in my place, a hag of ugliness. Hear then the case, O
Mashalleed! Surely that old crone had a dream, and it was that if she
slept one night by the King she would arise fresh in health from her
ills, and with powers lasting a year to heal others of all maladies with
a touch. So she came to me, petitioning me to bring this about. O my lord
the King, did I well in being privy to her desire?'

The King could not doubt this story of Bhanavar, seeing her constant
loveliness, and the arch of her flashing brow, and the oval of her cheek
and chin smooth as milk. So he said, 'O my Queen! I had thought to go, as
I must, gladly; but how shall I go, knowing thy truth, thy beauty
unchanged; thee faithful, a follower of the injunctions of the Prophet