Bhanavar struck the King’s arm, but he noticed her not, and Nashta laughed.  Then Bhanavar controlled her trembling and said, ’A word, O King! and vouchsafe me a hearing.’

The King replied languidly, still looking on Nashta, ’’Tis a command that the voice of none that are crabbed and hideous be heard in the harem, and I find comfort in it, O Nashta! but speak thou, my fountain of sweet-dropping lute-notes!’

Bhanavar caught the King’s hand and said, ’I have to speak with thee; ‘tis the Queen.  Chase from us this little wax puppet a space.’

The King disengaged his hand and leaned it over to Nashta, who began playing with it, and fitting on it a ring, giggling.  Then, as he answered nothing, Bhanavar came nearer and slapped him on the cheek.  Mashalleed started to his feet, and his hand grasped his girdle; but that wrathfulness was stayed when he beheld the veil slide from her visage.  So he cried, ‘My Queen! my soul!’

She pointed to Nashta, and the King chid the girl, and sent her forth lean with his shifted displeasure, as a kitten slinks wet from a fish-pond where it had thought to catch a great fish.  Then Bhanavar exclaimed, ‘There was a change in thy manner to me before that creature.’

He sought to dissimulate with her, but at last he confessed, ’I was truly this morning the victim of a sorcery.’

Thereupon she cried, ’And thou went angered to find me not by thee on the couch, but one in my place, a hag of ugliness.  Hear then the case, O Mashalleed!  Surely that old crone had a dream, and it was that if she slept one night by the King she would arise fresh in health from her ills, and with powers lasting a year to heal others of all maladies with a touch.  So she came to me, petitioning me to bring this about.  O my lord the King, did I well in being privy to her desire?’

The King could not doubt this story of Bhanavar, seeing her constant loveliness, and the arch of her flashing brow, and the oval of her cheek and chin smooth as milk.  So he said, ’O my Queen!  I had thought to go, as I must, gladly; but how shall I go, knowing thy truth, thy beauty unchanged; thee faithful, a follower of the injunctions of the Prophet in charitable deeds?’

Cried she, ‘And whither goeth my lord, and on what errand?’

He answered, ’The people of a province southward have raised the standard of revolt and mocked my authority; they have been joined by certain of the Arab chiefs subject to my dominion, and have defeated my armies.  ’Tis to subdue them I go; yea, to crush them.  Yet, wallaby!  I know not.  Care I if kingdoms fall away, and nations, so that I have thee?  Nay, let all pass, so that thou remain by me.’

Bhanavar paced from him to a mirror, and frowned at the reflection of her fairness, thinking, ’Such had he spoken to the girl Nashta, or another, this King!’ And she thought, ’I have been beloved by the noblest three on earth; I will ask no more of love; vengeance I have had.  ’Tis time that I demand of my beauty nothing save power, and I will make this King my stepping-stone to power, rejoicing my soul with the shock of armies.’