But ere the slaves had entered Bhanavar rubbed the Jewel on her bosom, muttering, ’I have forborne till now!  Now will I have a sacrifice, though I be it.’  And rubbing the Jewel, she sang,

Hither! hither! 
Come to your Queen;
Come through the grey wall,
Come through the green!

There was heard a noise like the noise of a wind coming down a narrow gorge above falling waters, a hissing and a rushing of wings, and behold!  Bhanavar was circled by rings and rings of serpent-folds that glowed round her, twisted each in each, with the fierceness of fire, she like a flame rising up white in the midst of them.  The black slaves, when they had lifted the curtain of the harem-chamber, shrieked to see her, and Aswarak crouched at her feet with the aspect of an angry beast carved in stone.  Then Bhanavar loosed on either of the slaves a serpent, saying, ‘What these have seen they shall not say.’  And while the sweat dropped heavily from the forehead of Aswarak, she stepped out of the circle of serpents, singing,

Over! over! 
Hie to the lake! 
Sleep with the left eye,
Keep the right awake.

Then the serpents spread with a great whirr, and flew through the high window and the walls as they had come, and she said to the Vizier, ’What now?  Fearest thou?  I have spared thee, thou that madest me desolate! and thy slaves are a sacrifice for thee.  Now this I ask:  Where lies my beloved, the Prince my husband?  Speak nothing of him, save the place of his burial!’

So he told her, ‘In the burial-ground of the great prison.’

She rolled her eyes on the Vizier darkly, exclaiming, ’Even where the felons lie entombed, he lieth!’ And she began to pant, pale with what she had done, and leaned to the floor, and called,

          Yellow stripe, with freckle red,
          Coil and curl, and watch by my head.

And a serpent with yellow stripes and red freckles came like a javelin down to her, and coiled and curled round her head, and she slept an hour.  When she arose the Vizier was yet there, sitting with folded knees.  So she sped the serpent to the Lake Karatis, and called her women to her, and went to an inner room, and drew an outer robe and a vest over that she had on, and passed the Vizier, and said, ’Art thou not rejoiced in thy bride, O Aswarak?  ’Twas a wondrous clemency, hers!  Now but four more days and thou claimest her.  Say nothing of what thou hast seen, or thou wilt shortly see nothing further to say, my master.’

So she left the Vizier sitting still in that chamber, and mounted a mule, attended by slaves on foot before and behind her, and passed through the streets till she came to the shop of Ebn Roulchook.  The King was in disguise at the extremity of the shop, and while she examined this and that of the precious stones, Bhanavar for a moment made bare the beauty, of her face, and love’s fires took fast hold of the King, and he cried, ‘I marvel not at the eloquence of the porter.’