and she wore slippers embroidered with golden traceries, and round her waist a girdle flashing with jewels, so that to look on she was as a long falling water in the last bright slant of the sun.  Her hair hung disarranged, and spread in a scattered fashion off her shoulders; and she was younger by many moons, her brow smooth where Shibli Bagarag had given the kiss of contract, her hand soft and white where he had taken it.  Shibli Bagarag was smitten with astonishment at sight of her, and he thought, ’Surely the aspect of this old woman would realise the story of Bhanavar the Beautiful; and it is a story marvellous to think of; yet how great is the likeness between Bhanavar and this old woman that groweth younger!’

And he thought again, ’What if the story of Bhanavar be a true one; this old woman such as she—­no other?’

So, while he considered her, the Vizier exclaimed, ’Is she not fair—­my daughter?’

And the youth answered, ‘She is, O Vizier, that she is!’

But the Vizier cried, ‘Nay, by Allah! she is that she will be.’  And the Vizier said, ’’Tis she that is my daughter; tell me thy thought of her, as thou thinkest it.’

And Shibli Bagarag replied, ’O Vizier, my thought of her is, she seemeth indeed as Bhanavar the Beautiful—­no other.’

Then the Vizier and the Eclipser of Reason exclaimed together, ’How of Bhanavar and her story, O youth?  We listen!’

So Shibli Bagarag leaned slightly on a cushion of a couch, and narrated as followeth.

AND THIS IS THE STORY OF BHANAVAR THE BEAUTIFUL

Know that at the foot of a lofty mountain of the Caucasus there lieth a deep blue lake; near to this lake a nest of serpents, wise and ancient.  Now, it was the habit of a damsel to pass by the lake early at morn, on her way from the tents of her tribe to the pastures of the flocks.  As she pressed the white arch of her feet on the soft green-mossed grasses by the shore of the lake she would let loose her hair, looking over into the water, and bind the braid again round her temples and behind her ears, as it had been in a lucent mirror:  so doing she would laugh.  Her laughter was like the falls of water at moonrise; her loveliness like the very moonrise; and she was stately as a palm-tree standing before the moon.

This was Bhanavar the Beautiful.

Now, the damsel was betrothed to the son of a neighbouring Emir, a youth comely, well-fashioned, skilled with the bow, apt in all exercises; one that sat his mare firm as the trained falcon that fixeth on the plunging bull of the plains; fair and terrible in combat as the lightning that strideth the rolling storm; and it is sung by the poet: 

     When on his desert mare I see
        My prince of men,
        I think him then
     As high above humanity
     As he shines radiant over me.

     Lo! like a torrent he doth bound,
        Breasting the shock
        From rock to rock: 
     A pillar of storm, he shakes the ground,