“Get thee hence,” commanded Solomon. “Tell the guard on duty to watch thee.”
Soon people with lights commenced running through the innumerable rooms of the palace. All the chambers were illuminated. The leeches came; the friends and the military officers of the king gathered.
The chief leech said:
“King, neither science nor God will now avail. She will die the instant we draw out the sword left in her breast.”
But at this moment Sulamith came to and said with a calm smile:
“I would drink.”
And when she had drunk, her eyes rested with a tender, beautiful smile upon the king, nor did she again take them away, the while he stood upon his knees before her couch, all naked, even as she, without perceiving that his knees were laved in her blood, nor that his hands were encrimsoned with the scarlet of her blood.
Thus, with difficulty, gazing upon her beloved and smiling gently, did the beautiful Sulamith speak:
“I thank thee, my king, for all things: for thy love, for thy beauty, for thy wisdom, to which thou didst allow me to set my lips, as to a sweet well of living waters. Let me to kiss thy hands; take them not away from my mouth till such time when the last breath shall have fled from me. Never has there been, nor ever shall there be, a woman happier than I. I thank thee, my king, my beloved, my fair. Think ever and anon upon thy slave, upon thy Sulamith, scorched of the sun.”
And the king made answer to her, in a deep, slow voice: