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