this way and that; my end is dark to me; not a life is mine that will have its close kissing the cold cheeks of the saffron-crocus.  Cold art thou, and I—­flames!  They that lean to thee are refreshed, they that touch me perish.’  Then she looked forth on the stars that were above the purple heights, and the blushes of inner heaven that streamed up the sky, and a fear of meeting the eyes of her kindred possessed her, and she cried out to Ruark, ’O Chief of the Beni-Asser, must this be? and is there no help for it, but that I return among them that look on me basely?’

Ruark stooped to her and said, ‘Tell me thy name.’

She answered, ‘Bhanavar is my name with that people.’

And he whispered, ’Surely when they speak of thee they say not Bhanavar solely, but Bhanavar the Beautiful?’

She started and sought the eye of the Chief, and it was fixed on her face in a softened light, as if his soul had said that thing.  Then she sighed, and exclaimed, ’Unhappy are the beautiful! born to misery!  Allah dressed them in his grace and favour for their certain wretchedness!  Lo, their countenances are as the sun, their existence as the desert; barren are they in fruits and waters, a snare to themselves and to others!’

Now, the Chief leaned to her yet nearer, saying, ‘Show me the Jewel.’

Bhanavar caught up her hands and clenched them, and she cried bitterly, ‘’Tis known to thee!  She told thee, and there be none that know it not!’

Arising, she thrust her hand into her bosom, and held forth the Jewel in the palm of her white hand.  When Ruark beheld the marvel of the Jewel, and the redness moving in it as of a panting heart, and the flashing eye of fire that it was, and all its glory, he cried, ’It was indeed a Jewel for queens to covet from the Serpent, and a prize the noblest might risk all to win as a gift for thee.’

Then she said, ’Thy voice is friendly with me, O Ruark! and thou scornest not the creature that I am.  Counsel me as to my dealing with the Jewel.’

Surely the eyes of the Chief met the eyes of Bhanavar as when the brightest stars of midnight are doubled in a clear dark lake, and he sang in measured music: 

     ’Shall I counsel the moon in her ascending? 
   Stay under that tall palm-tree through the night;
     Rest on the mountain-slope
     By the couching antelope,
   O thou enthroned supremacy of light! 
    And for ever the lustre thou art lending,
   Lean on the fair long brook that leaps and leaps,—­
     Silvery leaps and falls. 
     Hang by the mountain walls,
   Moon! and arise no more to crown the steeps,
    For a danger and dolour is thy wending!

And, O Bhanavar, Bhanavar the Beautiful! shall I counsel thee, moon of loveliness,—­bright, full, perfect moon!—­counsel thee not to ascend and be seen and worshipped of men, sitting above them in majesty, thou that art thyself the Jewel beyond price?  Wah!  What if thou cast it from thee?—­thy beauty remaineth!’