The Shaving of Shagpat; an Arabian entertainment. Complete. George Meredith

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      On a night, when the singing-girls had left them, the youth could contain himself no more, and caught the two hands of Bhanavar in his, saying, ‘This that is in my soul for thee thou knowest, O Bhanavar! and ‘tis spoken when I move and when I breathe, O my loved one! Tell me then the cause of thy shunning me whenever I would speak of it, and be plain with thee.’

      For a moment Bhanavar sought to release herself from his hold, but the love in his eyes entangled her soul as in a net, and she sank forward to him, and sighed under his chin, ‘‘Twas indeed my very love of thee that made me.’

      The twain embraced and kissed a long kiss, and leaned sideways together, and Bhanavar said, ‘Hear me, what I am.’

      Then she related the story of the Serpent and the Jewel, and of the death of her betrothed. When it was ended, Almeryl cried, ‘And was this all?—this that severed us?’ And he said, ‘Hear what I am.’

      So he told Bhanavar how Rukrooth, the mother of Ruark, had sent messengers to the Prince his father, warning him of the passage of Ruark through the mountains with one a Queen of Serpents, a sorceress, that had bewitched him and enthralled him in a mighty love for her, to the ruin of Ruark; and how the Chief was on his way with her to demand her in marriage at the hands of her parents; and the words of Rukrooth were, ‘By the service that was between thee and my husband, and by the death he died, O Prince, rescue the Chief my son from this damsel, and entrap her from him, and have her sent even to the city of the inland sea, for no less a distance than that keepeth Ruark from her.’

      And Almeryl continued, ‘I questioned the messengers myself, and they told me the marvel of thy loveliness and the peril to him that looked on it, so I swore there was no power should keep me from a sight of thee, O my loved one! my prize! my life! my sleek antelope of the hills! Surely when my father appointed the warriors to lie in wait for thy coming, I slipped among them, so that they thought it ordered by him I should head them. The rest is known to thee, O my fountain of blissfulness! but the treachery to Ruark was the treachery of Ebn Asrac, not of such warriors as we; and I would have fallen on Ebn Asrac, had not Ruark so routed that man without faith. ‘Twas all as I have said, blessed be Allah and his decrees!’

      Bhanavar gazed on her beloved, and the bridal dew overflowed her underlids, and she loosed her hair to let it flow, part over her shoulders, part over his, and in sighs that were the measure of music she sang:

      Almeryl strained her to him, and responded:

      And he fell playfully into a new metre, singing:

      Then she kissed him for that song, and sang:

      Almeryl stretched his arm to the lattice, and drew it open, letting in the soft night wind, and the sound of the fountain and the bulbul and the beam of the stars, and versed to her in the languor of deep love:

      So did these two lovers lute and sing in the stillness of the night, pouring into each other’s ears melodies from the new sea of fancy and feeling that flowed through them.

      Ere they ceased their sweet interchange of tenderness, which was СКАЧАТЬ