The Shaving of Shagpat, George Meredith [popular e readers TXT] 📗

the Jewel, and Ukleet our go-between; and leave the rewarding of him to me. Wullahy! I can be generous, and my days of favour with fair ladies be not yet over. Blessed be Allah for this day! And thinkest thou those eyes fell on me with discriminating observation ere my sense of perception was struck by thee? Not so, for I had noted thee, O moon of hearts, from my window yonder.”

In this fashion Boolp the broker went on prating, and bowing, and screwing the corners of his little acid eyes to wink the wink of common accord between himself and Bhanavar. Meantime she had spoken aside to one of her women, and a second black slave entered the chamber, bearing in his hand a twisted scourge, and that slave laid it on the back of Boolp the broker, and by this means he was brought quickly to the valuation of the Jewel. Then he named a sum that was a great sum, but not the value of the Jewel to the fiftieth part, nay nor the five-hundredth part, of its value; and Ukleet remonstrated with him, but he was resolute, saying, “Even that sum leaves me a beggar.”

So Bhanavar said, “My desire is for immediate payment of the money, and the Jewel is thine for that sum.”

Now the broker went to fetch the money, and returned with it in bags of gold one-half the amount, and bags of silver one-third, and the remainder in writing made due at a certain period for payment. And he groaned and handed her the money, and took the Jewel in his hands; ejaculating, “In the name of Allah!”

That evening, when it was dark and the lamps lit in the chamber, and the wine set and the nosegay, Almeryl asked of Bhanavar to see her under the light of the Jewel. She warded him with an excuse, but he was earnest with her. So she feigned that he teased her, saying, “ ’Tis that thou art no longer content with me as I am, O my husband!” Then she said, “Wert thou successful in thy dealings this day?”

His arm slackened round her, and he answered nothing. So she cried, “Fie on thee, thou foolish one! and what is thy need of running over this city? Know I not thy case and thine occasion, O my beloved? Surely I am Queen of Serpents, a mistress of enchantments, a diviner of things hidden, and I know thee. Here, then, is what thou requirest, and conceal not from me thy necessity another time, my husband!”

Upon that she pointed his eye to the moneybags of gold and of silver. Almeryl was amazed, and asked her, “How came these? for I was at the last extremity, without coin of any kind.”

She answered, “How, but by the Serpents!”

And he exclaimed, “Would that I might work as that porter worketh, rather than this!”

Now, seeing he bewailed her use of the powers of the Jewel, Bhanavar fell between his arms, and related to him her discovery of his condition, and how she disposed of the Jewel to the broker, and of the scourging of Boolp; and he praised her, and clave to her, and they laughed and delighted their souls in plenteousness, and bliss was their portion; as the poet says,

“Bliss that is born of mutual esteem
And tried companionship, I truly deem
A well-based palace, wherein fountains rise
From springs that have their sources in the skies.”

So were they for a while. It happened that one day, that was the last day of the year since her wearing of the Jewel, Ukleet said to them, “Be wary! the Vizier Aswarak hath his eye on you, and it is no cool one. I say nothing: the wise are discreet in their tellings of the great. ’Tis certain the broker Boolp forgetteth not his treatment here.”

They smiled, turning to each other, and said, “We live innocently, we harm no one, what should we fear?”

During the night of that day Bhanavar awoke and kissed the Prince; and lo! he shuddered in his sleep as with the grave-cold. A second time she was awakened on the breast of Almeryl by a dream of the Serpents of the Lake Karatis⁠—the lake of the Jewel; and she stood up, and there was in the street a hum of voices, and she saw there before the house armed men with naked steel in their hands. Scarce had she called Almeryl to her, when the outer door of their house was forced, and she shrieked to him, “ ’Tis thou they come for: fly, O my Prince, my husband! the way of the garden is clear.”

But he said sadly, “Nay, what am I? it is thou they would win from me. I’ll leave thee not in this life.”

So she cried, “O my soul, then together!⁠—but I shall hinder thee, and be a burden to thy flight.”

And she called on the All-Powerful for aid, and ran with him into the garden of the house, and lo! by the water side at the end of the garden a boat full of armed soldiers with scimitars. So these fell upon them, and bound them, and haled them into the house again, where was the dark Vizier Aswarak, and certain officers of the night watch with a force. The Vizier cried when he saw them, “I accuse thee, Prince Almeryl, of being here in the city of our lord the King, to conspire against him and his authority.”

Almeryl faced the Vizier firmly, and replied, “I knew not in my life I had made an enemy; but there is one here who telleth that of me.”

The Vizier frowned, saying, “Thou deniest this? And thou here, and thy father at war with the sovereignty of our lord the King!”

Almeryl beheld his danger, and he said, “Is this so?”

Then cried the Vizier, “Hear him! is not that a fair simulation?” So he called to the guard, “Shackle him!” When that was done, he ordered the house to be