And he, when he could speak, replied, ’’Tis well!  I have seen thee! for now can I die this day, if it be that I am to die.  And well it is! for now know I there is truly no place but the tomb can hold me from thee!’

Bhanavar put the Jewel from her brow into her bosom, and questioned him, ‘What is thy dread this day, O my Chief?’

He answered her gravely, ’I have seen Rukrooth my mother while I slept; and she was weeping, weeping by a stream, yea, a stream of blood; and it was a stream that flowed in a hundred gushes from her own veins.  The sun of this dawn now, seest thou not? ’tis overcrimson; the vulture hangeth low down yonder valley.’  And he cried to her, ’Haste! mount with me; for I have told Rukrooth a thing; and I know that woman crafty in the thwarting of schemes; such a fox is she where aught accordeth not with her forecastings, and the judgment of her love for me!  By Allah! ’twere well we clash not; for that I will do I do, and that she will do doth she.’

So the twain mounted their steeds, and Ruark gathered his Arabs and placed them, some in advance, some on either side of Bhanavar; and they rode forward to the head of the valley, and across the meadows, through the blushing crowds of flowers, baths of freshest scents, cool breezes that awoke in the nostrils of the mares neighings of delight; and these pranced and curvetted and swung their tails, and gave expression to their joy in many graceful fashions; but a gloom was on Ruark, and a quick fire in his falcon-eye, and he rode with heels alert on the flanks of his mare, dashing onward to right and left, as do they that beat the jungle for the crouching tiger.  Once, when he was well-nigh half a league in front, he wheeled his mare, and raced back full on Bhanavar, grasping her bridle, and hissing between his teeth, ’Not a soul shall have thee save I:  by the tomb of my fathers, never, while life is with us!’

And he taunted her with bitter names, and was as one in the madness of intoxication, drunken with the aspect of her matchless beauty and with exceeding love for her.  And Bhanavar knew that the dread of a mishap was on the mind of the Chief.

Now, the space of pasture was behind them a broad lake of gold and jasper, and they entered a region of hills, heights, and fastnesses, robed in forests that rose in rounded swells of leafage, each over each—­ above all points of snow that were as flickering silver flames in the farthest blue.  This was the country of Bhanavar, and she gazed mournfully on the glades of golden green and the glens of iron blackness, and the wild flowers, wild blossoms, and weeds well known to her that would not let her memory rest, and were wistful of what had been.  And she thought, ’My sisters tend the flocks, my mother spinneth with the maidens of the tribe, my father hunteth; how shall I come among them but strange?  Coldly will they regard me; I shall feel them shudder when they take me to their bosoms.’