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

meeting, and all the love that was in them they were free to pour forth far from the hearing of men, even where they would. Before the rising of the sun, and ere his setting, the youth rode swiftly from the green tents of the Emir his father, to waylay her by the waters of the lake; and Bhanavar was there, bending over the lake, her image in the lake glowing like the fair fullness of the moon; and the youth leaned to her from his steed, and sang to her verses of her great loveliness ere she was wistful of him. Then she turned to him, and laughed lightly a welcome of sweetness, and shook the falls of her hair across the blushes of her face and her bosom; and he folded her to him, and those two would fondle together in the fashion of the betrothed ones (the blessing of Allah be on them all!), gazing on each other till their eyes swam with tears, and they were nigh swooning with the fullness of their bliss. Surely ’twas an innocent and tender dalliance, and their prattle was that of lovers till the time of parting, he showing her how she looked best⁠—she him; and they were forgetful of all else that is, in their sweet interchange of flatteries; and the world was a wilderness to them both when the youth parted with Bhanavar by the brook which bounded the tents of her tribe.

It was on a night when they were so together, the damsel leaning on his arm, her eyes toward the lake, and lo! what seemed the reflection of a large star in the water; and there was darkness in the sky above it, thick clouds, and no sight of the heavens; so she held her face to him sideways and said, “What meaneth this, O my betrothed? for there is reflected in yonder lake a light as of a star, and there is no star visible this night.”

The youth trembled as one in trouble of spirit, and exclaimed, “Look not on it, O my soul! It is of evil omen.”

But Bhanavar kept her gaze constantly on the light, and the light increased in lustre; and the light became, from a pale sad splendour, dazzling in its brilliancy. Listening, they heard presently a gurgling noise as of one deeply drinking. Then the youth sighed a heavy sigh and said, “This is the Serpent of the Lake drinking of its waters, as is her wont once every moon, and whoso heareth her drink by the sheening of that light is under a destiny dark and imminent; so know I my days are numbered, and it was foretold of me, this!” Now the youth sought to dissuade Bhanavar from gazing on the light, and he flung his whole body before her eyes, and clasped her head upon his breast, and clung about her, caressing her; yet she slipped from him, and she cried, “Tell me of this serpent, and of this light.”

So he said, “Seek not to hear of it, O my betrothed!”

Then she gazed at the light a moment more intently, and turned her fair shape toward him, and put up her long white fingers to his chin, and smoothed him with their softness, whispering, “Tell me of it, my life!”

And so it was that her winningness melted him, and he said, “Bhanavar! the serpent is the Serpent of the Lake; old, wise, powerful; of the brood of the sacred mountain, that lifteth by day a peak of gold, and by night a point of solitary silver. In her head, upon her forehead, between her eyes, there is a Jewel, and it is this light.”

Then she said, “How came the Jewel there, in such a place?”

He answered, “ ’Tis the growth of one thousand years in the head of the serpent.”

She cried, “Surely precious?”

He answered, “Beyond price!”

As he spake the tears streamed from him, and he was shaken with grief, but she noted nought of this, and watched the wonder of the light, and its increasing, and quivering, and lengthening; and the light was as an arrow of beams and as a globe of radiance. Desire for the Jewel waxed in her, and she had no sight but for it alone, crying, “ ’Tis a Jewel exceeding in preciousness all jewels that are, and for the possessing it would I forfeit all that is.”

So he said sorrowfully, “Our love, O Bhanavar? and our hopes of espousal?”

But she cried, “No question of that! Prove now thy passion for me, O warrior! and win for me that Jewel.”

Then he pleaded with her, and exclaimed, “Urge not this! The winning of the Jewel is worth my life; and my life, O Bhanavar⁠—surely its breath is but the love of thee.”

So she said, “Thou fearest a risk?”

And he replied, “Little fear I; my life is thine to cast away. This Jewel it is evil to have, and evil followeth the soul that hath it.”

Upon that she cried, “A trick to cheat me of the Jewel! thy love is wanting at the proof.”

And she taunted the youth her betrothed, and turned from him, and hardened at his tenderness, and made her sweet shape as a thorn to his caressing, and his heart was charged with anguish for her. So at the last, when he had wept a space in silence, he cried, “Thou hast willed it; the Jewel shall be thine, O my soul!”

Then said he, “Thou hast willed it, O Bhanavar! and my life is as a grain of sand weighed against thy wishes; Allah is my witness! Meet me therefore here, O my beloved, at the end of one quarter-moon, even beneath the shadow of this palm-tree, by the lake, and at this hour, and I will deliver into thy hands the Jewel. So farewell! Wind me once about with thine arms, that I may take comfort from thee.”

When their kiss was over the youth led her silently to the brook of their