By the morning light Bhanavar looked abroad for the Chief, and he was
nowhere by. A pang of violent hope struck through her, and she pressed
her bosom, praying he might have left her, and climbed the clefts and
ledges of the mountain to search over the fair expanse of pasture beyond,
for a trace of him departing. The sun was on the heads of the heavy
flowers, and a flood of gold down the gorges, and a delicate rose hue on
the distant peaks and upper dells of snow, which were as a crown to the
scene she surveyed; but no sight of Ruark had she. And now she was
beginning to rejoice, but on a sudden her eye caught far to east a
glimpse of something in motion across an even slope of the lower hills
leaning to the valley; and it was a herd that rushed forward, like a
black torrent of the mountains flinging foam this way and that, and after
the herd and at the sides of the herd she distinguished the white cloaks
and scarfs and glittering steel of the Arabs of Ruark. Presently she saw
a horseman break from the rest, and race in a line toward her. She knew
this one for Ruark, and sighed and descended slowly to meet him. The
greeting of the Chief was sharp, his manner wild, and he said little ere
he said, 'I will see thee under the light of the Jewel, so tie it in a
band and set it on thy brow, Bhanavar!'

Her mouth was open to intercede with his desire, but his forehead became
black as night, and he shouted in the thunder of his lion-voice, 'Do
this!'

She took the Jewel from its warm bed in her bosom, and held it, and got
together a band of green weeds, and set it in the middle of the band, and
tied the band on her brow, and lifted her countenance to the Chief.
Ruark stood back from her and gazed on her; and he would have veiled his
sight from her, but his hand fell. Then the might of her loveliness