on, the feet of Ruark, winding
his length upward round the body of the Chief; so she tugged at that one,
tearing it from him violently, and crying:

Him ye shall not have, I swear!
Seize the King that's crouching there.

And that Serpent hissed:

This is he the kiss ensures:
Give us ours, and we are yours.

Another and another Serpent she flung from the Chief, and they began to
swarm venomously, answering her no more. Then Ruark bore witness to his
faith, and folded his arms with the grave smile she had known in the
desert; and Bhanavar struggled and tussled with the Serpents in
fierceness, strangling and tossing them to right and left. 'Great is
Allah!' cried all present, and the King trembled, for never was sight
like that seen, the hall flashing with the Serpents, and a woman-serpent,
their Queen, raging to save one from their fury, shrieking at intervals:

Never, never shall ye fold,
Save with me the man I hold.

But now the hiss and scream of the Serpents and the noise of their
circling was quickened to a slurred savage sound and they closed on
Ruark, and she felt him stifling and that they were relentless. So in the
height of the tempest Bhanavar seized the Jewel in the gold circlet on
her brow and cast it from her. Lo! the Serpents instantly abated their
frenzy, and flew all of them to pluck the Jewel, chasing the one that had
it in his fangs through the casement, and the hall breathed empty of
them. Then in the silence that was, Bhanavar veiled her face and said to
the Chief, 'Pass from the hall while they yet dread me. No longer am I
Queen of Serpents.'

But he replied, 'Nay! said I not my soul is thine?'

She cried to him, 'Seest thou not the change in me? I was bound to those
Serpents for my beauty, and 'tis gone! Now am I powerless, hateful to
look on, O Ruark my Chief!'

He remained still, saying, 'What thou hast been thou art.'

She exclaimed, 'O true soul, the light is hateful to me as I to the
light; but I will yet save thee to comfort Rukrooth, thy mother.'

So she drew him with her swiftly from the hall of the King ere the King
had recovered his voice of command; but now the wrath of the All-powerful
was upon her and him! Surely within an hour from the flight of the
Serpents, the slaves and soldiers of Mashalleed laid at his feet two
heads that were the heads of Ruark and Bhanavar; and they said, 'O great
King, we tracked them to her chambe