The Vizier was deceived by his passion, and he chuckled and exclaimed, ’My very dream! and to mind me of her, then, she sent the serpents!  Wullahy, in the matter of women, wait!  For, as the poet declareth: 

          ’Tis vanity our souls for such to vex;
          Patience is a harvest of the sex.’’

And they fret themselves not overlong for husbands that are gone, these young beauties.  I know them.  Tell the Queen of Serpents I am even hers to the sole of my foot.’

So it was understood between them that the Vizier should be at the gate of the garden of the palace that night, disguised; and the Vizier rejoiced, thinking, ’If she have not the Jewel with her, it shall go ill with me, and I foiled this time!’

Ukleet then proceeded to the house of Boolp the broker, fronting the gutted ruins where Bhanavar had been happy in her innocence with Almeryl, the mountain prince, her husband.  Boolp was engaged haggling with a slave-merchant the price of a fair slave, and Ukleet said to him,’Yet awhile delay, O Boolp, ere you expend a fraction of treasure, for truly a mighty bargain of jewels is waiting for you at the palace of my lord the King.  So come thither with all your money-bags of gold and silver, and your securities, and your bonds and dues in writing, for ’tis the favourite of the King requireth you to complete a bargain with her, and the price of her jewels is the price of a kingdom.’

Said Boolp, ‘Hearing is compliance in such a case.’

And Ukleet continued, ’What a fortune is yours, O Boolp! truly the tide of fortune setteth into your lap.  Fail not, wullahy! to come with all you possess, or if you have not enough when she requireth it to complete the bargain, my mistress will break off with you.  I know not if she intend even other game for you, O lucky one!’

Boolp hitched his girdle and shrugged, saying, ’’Tis she will fail, I wot,—­she, in having therewith to complete the bargain between us.  Wa! wa!—­there!  I’ve done this before now.  Wullahy! if she have not enough of her rubies and pearls to outweigh me and my gold, go to, Boolp will school her!  What says the poet?—­

’’Earth and ocean search, East, West, and North, to the South,
None will match the bright rubies and pearls of her mouth.’’

’Aha! what?  O Ukleet!  And he says: 

’’The lovely ones a bargain made
With me, and I renounced my trade,
Half-ruined; ‘Ah!’ said they, ’return and win! 
To even scales ourselves we will throw in!’’’

How so?  But let discreetness reign and security flourisheth!’

Ukleet nodded at him, and repeated the distich: 

Men of worth and men of wits
Shoot with two arrows, and make two hits.

So he arranged with Boolp the same appointment as with the Vizier, and returned to Queen Bhanavar.