with Ruark she interchanged no syllable, and said not farewell to
him when she departed with Mashalleed, to encounter other tribes; and the
Chief was bound and conducted a prisoner to the city of the inland sea,
and cast into prison, in expectation of Death the releaser, and continued
there wellnigh a year, eating the bitter bread of captivity. In the
evening of every seventh day there came to him a little mountain girl,
that sat by him and leaned a lute to her bosom, singing of the mountain
and the desert, but he turned his face from her to the wall. One day she
sang of Death the releaser, and Ruark thought, ''Tis come! she warneth
me! Merciful is Allah!' On the morning that followed Ukleet entered the
cell, and with him three slaves, blacks, armed with scimitars. So Ruark
stood up and bore witness to his faith, saying, 'Swift with the stroke!'
but Ukleet exclaimed, 'Fear not! the end is not yet.'

Then said he, 'Peace with thee! These slaves, O Chief, excelling in
martial qualities! surely they're my retinue, and the retinue of them of
my rank in the palace; and where I go they go; for the exalted have more
shadows than one! yea, three have they in my case, even very grimly black
shadows, whereon the idle expend not laughter, and whoso joketh in their
hearing, 'tis, wullahy! the last joke of that person. In such-wise are
the powerful known among men, they that stand very prominent in the beams
of prosperity! Now this of myself; but for thee--of a surety the Queen
Bhanavar, my mistress, will be here by the time of the rising of the
moon. In the name of Allah!' Saying that he departed in his greatness,
and Ruark watched for her that rose in his soul as the moon in the
heavens.

Meanwhile Bhanavar had mused, ''Tis this day, the day when the Serpents
desire their due, and the King Mashalleed they shall have; for what is
life to him but a treachery and a dalliance, and what is my hold on him
but this Jewel of the Serpents? He has had the profit of beauty, and he
shall yield the penalty: my kiss is for him, my serpent-kiss. And I will
release Ruark, and espouse him, and war with kings, sultans, emperors,
infidels, subduing them till they worship me.'

She flashed her figure in the glass, and was lovely therein as one in the
light of Paradise; but ere she reached the King Mashalleed, lo! the hour
of the Serpents had struck, and her beauty melted from her as snow melts
from off the rock; and she was suddenly haggard in utte