Now, the King Mashalleed called to her, ’Thou traitress! thou sorceress! thou serpent!’

And she answered under the veil, ’What, O my lord the King! and wherefore these evil names of me?’

Cried he, ’Thou thing of guile! and thou hast pleaded with me for the life of the Chief thus long to visit him in secret!  Life of my head I but Mashalleed is not one to be fooled.’

So she said, ‘’Tis Bhanavar! hast thou forgotten her?’

Then he waxed white with rage, exclaiming, ’Yea, ’tis she! a serpent in the slough! and Ukleet in the torture hath told of thee what is known to him.  Unveil! unveil!’

She threw the veil from her figure, and smiled, for Mashalleed was mute, the torrent of invective frozen on his mouth when he beheld the miracle of beauty that she was, the splendid jewel of throbbing loveliness.  So to scourge him with the bitter lash of jealousy, Bhanavar turned her eyes on Ruark, and said sweetly, ’Yet shalt thou live to taste again the bliss of the Desert.  Pleasant was our time in it, O my Chief!’ The King glared and choked, and she said again, ’Nor he conquered thee, but I; and I that conquered thee, little will it be for me to conquer him:  his threats are the winds of idleness.’

Surely the world darkened before the eyes of Mashalleed, and he arose and called to his guard hoarsely, ‘Have off their heads!’ They hesitated, dreading the Queen, and he roared, ‘Slay them!’

Bhanavar beheld the winking of the steel, but ere the scimitars descended, she seized Ruark, and they stood in a whizzing ring of serpents, the sound of whom was as the hum of a thousand wires struck by storm-winds.  Then she glowed, towering over them with the Chief clasped to her, and crying: 

          King of vileness! match thy slaves
          With my creatures of the caves.

And she sang to the Serpents: 

          Seize upon him! sting him thro’! 
          Thrice this day shall pay your due.

But they, instead of obeying her injunction, made narrower their circle round Bhanavar and the Chief.  She yellowed, and took hold of the nearest Serpent horribly, crying: 

               Dare against me to rebel,
               Ye, the bitter brood of hell?

And the Serpent gasped in reply: 

               One the kiss to us secures: 
               Give us ours, and we are yours.

Thereupon another of the Serpents swung 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.