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

the broker, and he refused it, and Ukleet shouted, “Out, boon-fellow! and what a company art thou, that thou refusest the pledge of friendliness? Plague on all sulkers!”

And the broker, the old miser, obstinate as are the half-fuddled, began to mumble, “I came not here to drink, O Ukleet, but to make a bargain; and my bags be here, and I like not yonder veil, nor the presence of yonder Vizier, nor the secrecy of this. Now, by the Prophet and that interdict of his, I’ll drink no further.”

And Ukleet said, “Let her not mark your want of fellowship, or ’twill go ill with you. Here be fine wines, spirited wines! choice flavours! and you drink not! Where’s the soul in you, O Boolp, and where’s the life in you, that you yield her to the Vizier utterly? Surely she waiteth a gallant sign from you, so challenge her cheerily.”

Quoth Boolp, “I care not. Shall I leave my wealth and all I possess void of eyes? and she so that I recognise her not behind the veil?”

Ukleet pushed the old miser jeeringly: “You not recognise her? Oh, Boolp, a pretty dissimulation! Pledge her now a cup to the snatching of the veil, and bethink you of a fitting verse, a seemly compliment⁠—something sugary.”

Then Boolp smoothed his head, and was bothered; and tapped it, and commenced repeating to Bhanavar:

“I saw the moon behind a cloud,
And I was cold as one that’s in his shroud:
And I cried, Moon!⁠—”

Ukleet chorused him, “Moon!” and Boolp was deranged in what he had to say, and gasped⁠—

“Moon! I cried, Moon!⁠—and I cried, Moon!”

Then the Vizier and Ukleet laughed till they fell on their backs; so Bhanavar took up his verse where he left it, singing⁠—

“And to the cry
Moon did make fair the following reply:
“Dotard, be still! for thy desire
Is to embrace consuming fire.”

Then said Boolp, “O my mistress, the laws of conviviality have till now restrained me; but my coming here was on business, and with me my bags, in good faith. So let us transact this matter of the jewels, and after that the song of⁠—

“ ‘Thou and I
A cup will try,’ ”

“even as thou wilt.”

Bhanavar threw aside her outer robe and veil, and appeared in a dress of sumptuous blue, spotted with gold bees; her face veiled with a veil of gauzy silver, and she was as the moon in summer heavens, and strode majestically forward, saying, “The jewels? ’tis but one. Behold!”

The lamps were extinguished, and in her hand was the glory of the Serpent Jewel, no other light save it in the vaulted chamber.

So the old miser perked his chin and brows, and cried wondering, “I know it, this Jewel, O my mistress.”

She turned to the Vizier, and said, lifting the red gloom of the Jewel on him, “And thou?”

Aswarak ate his underlip.

Then she cried, “There’s much ye know in common, ye two.”

Thereupon Bhanavar passed from the feast on to the centre of the vault, and stood before the tomb of Almeryl, and drew the cloth from it; and they saw by the glow of the Jewel that it was a tomb. When she had mounted some steps at the side of the tomb, she beckoned them to come, crying, in a voice of sobs, “This which is here, likewise ye may know.”

So they came with the coldness of a mystery in their blood, and looked as she looked intently over a tomb. The lid was of glass, and through the glass of the lid the Jewel flung a dark rosy ray on the body of Almeryl lying beneath it.

Now, the miser was perplexed at the sight; but Aswarak stepped backward in defiance, bellowing, “ ’Twas for this I was tricked to come here! Is’t fooling me a second time? By Allah! look to it; not a second time will Aswarak be fooled.”

Then she ran to him, and exclaimed, “Fooled? For what cam’st thou to me?”

And he, foaming and grinding his breath, “Thou woman of wiles! thou serpent! but I’ll be gone from here.”

So she faltered in sweetness, knowing him doomed, and loving to dally with him in her wickedness, “Indeed if thou cam’st not for my kiss⁠—”

Then said the Vizier, “Yet a further guile! Was’t not an outrage to bring me here?”

She faltered again, leaning the fair length of her limbs on a couch, “ ’Tis ill that we are not alone, else could these lips convince thee well: else indeed!”

And the Vizier cried, “Chase then these intruders from us, O thou sorceress, and above all serpents in power! for thou poisonest with a touch; and the eye and the ear alike take in thy poisons greedily. Thou overcomest the senses, the reason, the judgment; yea, vindictiveness, wrath, suspicions; leading the soul captive with a breath of thine, as ’twere a breeze from the gardens of bliss.”

Bhanavar changed her manner a little, lisping, “And why that starting from the tomb of a dead harmless youth? And that abuse of me?”

He peered at her inquiringly, echoing “Why?”

And she repeated, as a child might repeat it, “Why that?”

Then the Vizier smote his forehead in the madness of utter perplexity, changing his eye from Bhanavar to the tomb of Almeryl, doubting her truth, yet dreading to disbelieve it. So she saw him fast enmeshed in her subtleties, and clapped her hands crying, “Come again with me to the tomb, and note if there be aught I am to blame in, O Aswarak, and plight thyself to me beside it.”

He did nothing save to widen his eye at her somewhat; and she said, “The two are yonside the tomb, and they hear us not, and see us not by this light of the Jewel; so come up to it boldly with me; free thy mind of its doubt, and for a reconcilement kiss me on the way.”

Aswarak moved not forward; but as Bhanavar laid the Jewel in her bosom he tore the veil from her darkened head, and caught her to