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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ayesha, by H. Rider Haggard
+#38 in our series by H. Rider Haggard
+
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+Title: Ayesha
+       The Return of She
+
+Author: H. Rider Haggard
+
+Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5228]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on June 9, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AYESHA ***
+
+
+
+
+Etext prepared by David Moynihan,
+                  Dagny, dagnypg@yahoo.com
+              and John Bickers, jbickers@ihug.co.nz
+
+
+
+
+AYESHA: THE RETURN OF SHE
+By H. Rider Haggard
+
+First Published 1905.
+
+
+
+                                AYESHA
+
+                          THE RETURN OF SHE
+
+                                  BY
+
+                           H. RIDER HAGGARD
+
+
+
+ "Here ends this history so far as it concerns science and the
+  outside world. What its end will be as regards Leo and myself is
+  more than I can guess. But we feel that it is not reached. . . .
+  Often I sit alone at night, staring with the eyes of my mind into
+  the blackness of unborn time, and wondering in what shape and form
+  the great drama will be finally developed, and where the scene of
+  its next act will be laid. And when, ultimately, that /final/
+  development occurs, as I have no doubt it must and will occur, in
+  obedience to a fate that never swerves and a purpose which cannot
+  be altered, what will be the part played therein by that beautiful
+  Egyptian Amenar-tas, the Princess of the royal house of the
+  Pharaohs, for the love of whom the priest Kallikrates broke his
+  vows to Isis, and, pursued by the vengeance of the outraged
+  goddess, fled down the coast of Lybia to meet his doom at Kor?"--
+  /She/, Silver Library Edition, p. 277.
+
+
+
+                              DEDICATION
+
+  My dear Lang,
+
+  The appointed years--alas! how many of them--are gone by, leaving
+  Ayesha lovely and loving and ourselves alive. As it was promised
+  in the Caves of Kor /She/ has returned again.
+
+  To you therefore who accepted the first, I offer this further
+  history of one of the various incarnations of that Immortal.
+
+  My hope is that after you have read her record, notwithstanding
+  her subtleties and sins and the shortcomings of her chronicler (no
+  easy office!) you may continue to wear your chain of "loyalty to
+  our lady Ayesha." Such, I confess, is still the fate of your old
+  friend
+
+  H. RIDER HAGGARD.
+
+  DITCHINGHAM, 1905.
+
+
+
+                            AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+  Not with a view of conciliating those readers who on principle
+  object to sequels, but as a matter of fact, the Author wishes to
+  say that he does not so regard this book.
+
+  Rather does he venture to ask that it should be considered as the
+  conclusion of an imaginative tragedy (if he may so call it)
+  whereof one half has been already published.
+
+  This conclusion it was always his desire to write should he be
+  destined to live through those many years which, in obedience to
+  his original design, must be allowed to lapse between the events
+  of the first and second parts of the romance.
+
+  In response to many enquiries he may add that the name Ayesha,
+  which since the days of the prophet Mahomet, who had a wife so
+  called, and perhaps before them, has been common in the East,
+  should be pronounced /Assha/.
+
+
+
+                             INTRODUCTION
+
+Verily and indeed it is the unexpected that happens! Probably if there
+was one person upon the earth from whom the Editor of this, and of a
+certain previous history, did not expect to hear again, that person
+was Ludwig Horace Holly. This, too, for a good reason; he believed him
+to have taken his departure from the earth.
+
+When Mr. Holly last wrote, many, many years ago, it was to transmit
+the manuscript of /She/, and to announce that he and his ward, Leo
+Vincey, the beloved of the divine Ayesha, were about to travel to
+Central Asia in the hope, I suppose, that there she would fulfil her
+promise and appear to them again.
+
+Often I have wondered, idly enough, what happened to them there;
+whether they were dead, or perhaps droning their lives away as monks
+in some Thibetan Lamasery, or studying magic and practising asceticism
+under the tuition of the Eastern Masters trusting that thus they would
+build a bridge by which they might pass to the side of their adored
+Immortal.
+
+Now at length, when I had not thought of them for months, without a
+single warning sign, out of the blue as it were, comes the answer to
+these wonderings!
+
+To think--only to think--that I, the Editor aforesaid, from its
+appearance suspecting something quite familiar and without interest,
+pushed aside that dingy, unregistered, brown-paper parcel directed in
+an unknown hand, and for two whole days let it lie forgotten. Indeed
+there it might be lying now, had not another person been moved to
+curiosity, and opening it, found within a bundle of manuscript badly
+burned upon the back, and with this two letters addressed to myself.
+
+Although so great a time had passed since I saw it, and it was shaky
+now because of the author's age or sickness, I knew the writing at
+once--nobody ever made an "H" with that peculiar twirl under it except
+Mr. Holly. I tore open the sealed envelope, and sure enough the first
+thing my eye fell upon was the signature, /L. H. Holly/. It is long
+since I read anything so eagerly as I did that letter. Here it is:--
+
+
+ "My dear sir,--I have ascertained that you still live, and strange
+  to say I still live also--for a little while.
+
+ "As soon as I came into touch with civilization again I found a
+  copy of your book /She/, or rather of my book, and read it--first
+  of all in a Hindostani translation. My host--he was a minister of
+  some religious body, a man of worthy but prosaic mind--expressed
+  surprise that a 'wild romance' should absorb me so much. I
+  answered that those who have wide experience of the hard facts of
+  life often find interest in romance. Had he known what were the
+  hard facts to which I alluded, I wonder what that excellent person
+  would have said?
+
+ "I see that you carried out your part of the business well and
+  faithfully. Every instruction has been obeyed, nothing has been
+  added or taken away. Therefore, to you, to whom some twenty years
+  ago I entrusted the beginning of the history, I wish to entrust
+  its end also. You were the first to learn of /She-Who-Must-Be-
+  Obeyed/, who from century to century sat alone, clothed with
+  unchanging loveliness in the sepulchres of Kor, waiting till her
+  lost love was born again, and Destiny brought him back to her.
+
+ "It is right, therefore, that you should be the first to learn also
+  of Ayesha, Hesea and Spirit of the Mountain, the priestess of that
+  Oracle which since the time of Alexander the Great has reigned
+  between the flaming pillars in the Sanctuary, the last holder of
+  the sceptre of Hes or Isis upon the earth. It is right also that
+  to you first among men I should reveal the mystic consummation of
+  the wondrous tragedy which began at Kor, or perchance far earlier
+  in Egypt and elsewhere.
+
+ "I am very ill; I have struggled back to this old house of mine to
+  die, and my end is at hand. I have asked the doctor here, after
+  all is over, to send you the Record, that is unless I change my
+  mind and burn it first. You will also receive, if you receive
+  anything at all, a case containing several rough sketches which
+  may be of use to you, and a /sistrum/, the instrument that has
+  been always used in the worship of the Nature goddesses of the old
+  Egyptians, Isis and Hathor, which you will see is as beautiful as
+  it is ancient. I give it to you for two reasons; as a token of my
+  gratitude and regard, and as the only piece of evidence that is
+  left to me of the literal truth of what I have written in the
+  accompanying manuscript, where you will find it often mentioned.
+  Perhaps also you will value it as a souvenir of, I suppose, the
+  strangest and loveliest being who ever was, or rather, is. It was
+  her sceptre, the rod of her power, with which I saw her salute the
+  Shadows in the Sanctuary, and her gift to me.
+
+ "It has virtues also; some part of Ayesha's might yet haunts the
+  symbol to which even spirits bowed, but if you should discover
+  them, beware how they are used.
+
+ "I have neither the strength nor the will to write more. The Record
+  must speak for itself. Do with it what you like, and believe it or
+  not as you like. I care nothing who know that it is true.
+
+ "Who and what was Ayesha, nay, what /is/ Ayesha? An incarnate
+  essence, a materialised spirit of Nature the unforeseeing, the
+  lovely, the cruel and the immortal; ensouled alone, redeemable
+  only by Humanity and its piteous sacrifice? Say you! I have done
+  with speculations who depart to solve these mysteries.
+
+ "/I/ wish you happiness and good fortune. Farewell to you and to
+  all.
+
+ "L. Horace Holly."
+
+
+I laid the letter down, and, filled with sensations that it is useless
+to attempt to analyse or describe, opened the second envelope, of
+which I also print the contents, omitting only certain irrelevant
+portions, and the name of the writer as, it will be noted, he requests
+me to do.
+
+This epistle, that was dated from a remote place upon the shores of
+Cumberland, ran as follows:--
+
+
+ "Dear sir,--As the doctor who attended Mr. Holly in his last
+  illness I am obliged, in obedience to a promise that I made to
+  him, to become an intermediary in a some what strange business,
+  although in truth it is one of which I know very little, however
+  much it may have interested me. Still I do so only on the strict
+  understanding that no mention is to be made of my name in
+  connexion with the matter, or of the locality in which I practise.
+
+ "About ten days ago I was called in to see Mr. Holly at an old
+  house upon the Cliff that for many years remained untenanted
+  except by the caretakers, which house was his property, and had
+  been in his family for generations. The housekeeper who summoned
+  me told me that her master had but just returned from abroad,
+  somewhere in Asia, she said, and that he was very ill with his
+  heart--dying, she believed; both of which suppositions proved to
+  be accurate.
+
+ "I found the patient sitting up in bed (to ease his heart), and a
+  strange-looking old man he was. He had dark eyes, small but full
+  of fire and intelligence, a magnificent and snowy-white beard that
+  covered a chest of extraordinary breadth, and hair also white,
+  which encroached upon his forehead and face so much that it met
+  the whiskers upon his cheeks. His arms were remarkable for their
+  length and strength, though one of them seemed to have been much
+  torn by some animal. He told me that a dog had done this, but if
+  so it must have been a dog of unusual power. He was a very ugly
+  man, and yet, forgive the bull, beautiful. I cannot describe what
+  I mean better than by saying that his face was not like the face
+  of any ordinary mortal whom I have met in my limited experience.
+  Were I an artist who wished to portray a wise and benevolent, but
+  rather grotesque spirit, I should take that countenance as a
+  model.
+
+ "Mr. Holly was somewhat vexed at my being called in, which had been
+  done without his knowledge. Soon we became friendly enough,
+  however, and he expressed gratitude for the relief that I was able
+  to give him, though I could not hope to do more. At different
+  times he talked a good deal of the various countries in which he
+  had travelled, apparently for very many years, upon some strange
+  quest that he never clearly denned to me. Twice also he became
+  light-headed, and spoke, for the most part in languages that I
+  identified as Greek and Arabic; occasionally in English also, when
+  he appeared to be addressing himself to a being who was the object
+  of his veneration, I might almost say of his worship. What he said
+  then, however, I prefer not to repeat, for I heard it in my
+  professional capacity.
+
+ "One day he pointed to a rough box made of some foreign wood (the
+  same that I have now duly despatched to you by train), and, giving
+  me your name and address, said that without fail it was to be
+  forwarded to you after his death. Also he asked me to do up a
+  manuscript, which, like the box, was to be sent to you.
+
+ "He saw me looking at the last sheets, which had been burned away,
+  and said (I repeat his exact words)--
+
+ "'Yes, yes, that can't be helped now, it must go as it is. You see
+  I made up my mind to destroy it after all, and it was already on
+  the fire when the command came--the clear, unmistakable command--
+  and I snatched it off again.'
+
+ "What Mr. Holly meant by this 'command' I do not know, for he would
+  speak no more of the matter.
+
+ "I pass on to the last scene. One night about eleven o'clock,
+  knowing that my patient's end was near, I went up to see him,
+  proposing to inject some strychnine to keep the heart going a
+  little longer. Before I reached the house I met the caretaker
+  coming to seek me in a great fright, and asked her if her master
+  was dead. She answered No; but he was /gone/--had got out of bed
+  and, just as he was, barefooted, left the house, and was last seen
+  by her grandson among the very Scotch firs where we were talking.
+  The lad, who was terrified out of his wits, for he thought that he
+  beheld a ghost, had told her so.
+
+ "The moonlight was very brilliant that night, especially as fresh
+  snow had fallen, which reflected its rays. I was on foot, and
+  began to search among the firs, till presently just outside of
+  them I found the track of naked feet in the snow. Of course I
+  followed, calling to the housekeeper to go and wake her husband,
+  for no one else lives near by. The spoor proved very easy to trace
+  across the clean sheet of snow. It ran up the slope of a hill
+  behind the house.
+
+ "Now, on the crest of this hill is an ancient monument of upright
+  monoliths set there by some primeval people, known locally as the
+  Devil's Ring--a sort of miniature Stonehenge in fact. I had seen
+  it several times, and happened to have been present not long ago
+  at a meeting of an archaeological society when its origin and
+  purpose were discussed. I remember that one learned but somewhat
+  eccentric gentleman read a short paper upon a rude, hooded bust
+  and head that are cut within the chamber of a tall, flat-topped
+  cromlech, or dolmen, which stands alone in the centre of the ring.
+
+ "He said that it was a representation of the Egyptian goddess,
+  Isis, and that this place had once been sacred to some form of her
+  worship, or at any rate to that of a Nature goddess with like
+  attributes, a suggestion which the other learned gentlemen treated
+  as absurd. They declared that Isis had never travelled into
+  Britain, though for my part I do not see why the Phoenicians, or
+  even the Romans, who adopted her cult, more or less, should not
+  have brought it here. But I know nothing of such matters and will
+  not discuss them.
+
+ "I remembered also that Mr. Holly was acquainted with this place,
+  for he had mentioned it to me on the previous day, asking if the
+  stones were still uninjured as they used to be when he was young.
+  He added also, and the remark struck me, that yonder was where he
+  would wish to die. When I answered that I feared he would never
+  take so long a walk again, I noted that he smiled a little.
+
+ "Well, this conversation gave me a clue, and without troubling more
+  about the footprints I went on as fast as I could to the Ring,
+  half a mile or so away. Presently I reached it, and there--yes,
+  there--standing by the cromlech, bareheaded, and clothed in his
+  night-things only, stood Mr. Holly in the snow, the strangest
+  figure, I think, that ever I beheld.
+
+ "Indeed never shall I forget that wild scene. The circle of rough,
+  single stones pointing upwards to the star-strewn sky, intensely
+  lonely and intensely solemn: the tall trilithon towering above
+  them in the centre, its shadow, thrown by the bright moon behind
+  it, lying long and black upon the dazzling sheet of snow, and,
+  standing clear of this shadow so that I could distinguish his
+  every motion, and even the rapt look upon his dying face, the
+  white-draped figure of Mr. Holly. He appeared to be uttering some
+  invocation--in Arabic, I think--for long before I reached him I
+  could catch the tones of his full, sonorous voice, and see his
+  waving, outstretched arms. In his right hand he held the looped
+  sceptre which, by his express wish I send to you with the
+  drawings. I could see the flash of the jewels strung upon the
+  wires, and in the great stillness, hear the tinkling of its golden
+  bells.
+
+ "Presently, too, I seemed to become aware of another presence, and
+  now you will understand why I desire and must ask that my identity
+  should be suppressed. Naturally enough I do not wish to be mixed
+  up with a superstitious tale which is, on the face of it,
+  impossible and absurd. Yet under all the circumstances I think it
+  right to tell you that I saw, or thought I saw, something gather
+  in the shadow of the central dolmen, or emerge from its rude
+  chamber--I know not which for certain--something bright and
+  glorious which gradually took the form of a woman upon whose
+  forehead burned a star-like fire.
+
+ "At any rate the vision or reflection, or whatever it was, startled
+  me so much that I came to a halt under the lee of one of the
+  monoliths, and found myself unable even to call to the distraught
+  man whom I pursued.
+
+ "Whilst I stood thus it became clear to me that Mr. Holly also saw
+  something. At least he turned towards the Radiance in the shadow,
+  uttered one cry; a wild, glad cry, and stepped forward; then
+  seemed to fall /through it/ on to his face.
+
+ "When I reached the spot the light had vanished, and all I found
+  was Mr. Holly, his arms still outstretched, and the sceptre
+  gripped tightly in his hand, lying quite dead in the shadow of the
+  trilithon."
+
+
+The rest of the doctor's letter need not be quoted as it deals only
+with certain very improbable explanations of the origin of this figure
+of light, the details of the removal of Holly's body, and of how he
+managed to satisfy the coroner that no inquest was necessary.
+
+The box of which he speaks arrived safely. Of the drawings in it I
+need say nothing, and of the /sistrum/ or sceptre only a few words. It
+was fashioned of crystal to the well-known shape of the /Crux-ansata/,
+or the emblem of life of the Egyptians; the rod, the cross and the
+loop combined in one. From side to side of this loop ran golden wires,
+and on these were strung gems of three colours, glittering diamonds,
+sea-blue sapphires, and blood-red rubies, while to the fourth wire,
+that at the top, hung four little golden bells.
+
+When I took hold of it first my arm shook slightly with excitement,
+and those bells began to sound; a sweet, faint music like to that of
+chimes heard far away at night in the silence of the sea. I thought
+too, but perhaps this was fancy, that a thrill passed from the
+hallowed and beautiful thing into my body.
+
+On the mystery itself, as it is recorded in the manuscript, I make no
+comment. Of it and its inner significations every reader must form his
+or her own judgment. One thing alone is clear to me--on the hypothesis
+that Mr. Holly tells the truth as to what he and Leo Vincey saw and
+experienced, which I at least believe--that though sundry
+interpretations of this mystery were advanced by Ayesha and others,
+none of them are quite satisfactory.
+
+Indeed, like Mr. Holly, I incline to the theory that She, if I may
+still call her by that name although it is seldom given to her in
+these pages, put forward some of them, such as the vague Isis-myth,
+and the wondrous picture-story of the Mountain-fire, as mere veils to
+hide the truth which it was her purpose to reveal at last in that song
+she never sang.
+
+The Editor.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                AYESHA
+
+            The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I
+
+                           THE DOUBLE SIGN
+
+Hard on twenty years have gone by since that night of Leo's vision--
+the most awful years, perhaps, which were ever endured by men--twenty
+years of search and hardship ending in soul-shaking wonder and
+amazement.
+
+My death is very near to me, and of this I am glad, for I desire to
+pursue the quest in other realms, as it has been promised to me that I
+shall do. I desire to learn the beginning and the end of the spiritual
+drama of which it has been my strange lot to read some pages upon
+earth.
+
+I, Ludwig Horace Holly, have been very ill; they carried me, more dead
+than alive, down those mountains whose lowest slopes I can see from my
+window, for I write this on the northern frontiers of India. Indeed
+any other man had long since perished, but Destiny kept my breath in
+me, perhaps that a record might remain. I, must bide here a month or
+two till I am strong enough to travel homewards, for I have a fancy to
+die in the place where I was born. So while I have strength I will put
+the story down, or at least those parts of it that are most essential,
+for much can, or at any rate must, be omitted. I shrink from
+attempting too long a book, though my notes and memory would furnish
+me with sufficient material for volumes.
+
+I will begin with the Vision.
+
+After Leo Vincey and I came back from Africa in 1885, desiring
+solitude, which indeed we needed sorely to recover from the fearful
+shock we had experienced, and to give us time and opportunity to
+think, we went to an old house upon the shores of Cumberland that has
+belonged to my family for many generations. This house, unless
+somebody has taken it believing me to be dead, is still my property
+and thither I travel to die.
+
+Those whose eyes read the words I write, if any should ever read them,
+may ask--What shock?
+
+Well, I am Horace Holly, and my companion, my beloved friend, my son
+in the spirit whom I reared from infancy was--nay, is--Leo Vincey.
+
+We are those men who, following an ancient clue, travelled to the
+Caves of Kor in Central Africa, and there discovered her whom we
+sought, the immortal /She-who-must-be-obeyed/. In Leo she found her
+love, that re-born Kallikrates, the Grecian priest of Isis whom some
+two thousand years before she had slain in her jealous rage, thus
+executing on him the judgment of the angry goddess. In her also I
+found the divinity whom I was doomed to worship from afar, not with
+the flesh, for that is all lost and gone from me, but, what is sorer
+still, because its burden is undying, with the will and soul which
+animate a man throughout the countless eons of his being. The flesh
+dies, or at least it changes, and its passions pass, but that other
+passion of the spirit--that longing for oneness--is undying as itself.
+
+What crime have I committed that this sore punishment should be laid
+upon me? Yet, in truth, is it a punishment? May it not prove to be but
+that black and terrible Gate which leads to the joyous palace of
+Rewards? She swore that I should ever be her friend and his and dwell
+with them eternally, and I believe her.
+
+For how many winters did we wander among the icy hills and deserts!
+Still, at length, the Messenger came and led us to the Mountain, and
+on the Mountain we found the Shrine, and in the Shrine the Spirit. May
+not these things be an allegory prepared for our instruction? I will
+take comfort. I will hope that it is so. Nay, I am sure that it is so.
+
+It will be remembered that in Kor we found the immortal woman. There
+before the flashing rays and vapours of the Pillar of Life she
+declared her mystic love, and then in our very sight was swept to a
+doom so horrible that even now, after all which has been and gone, I
+shiver at its recollection. Yet what were Ayesha's last words?
+"/Forget me not . . . have pity on my shame. I die not. I shall come
+again and shall once more be beautiful. I swear it--it is true./"
+
+Well, I cannot set out that history afresh. Moreover it is written;
+the man whom I trusted in the matter did not fail me, and the book he
+made of it seems to be known throughout the world, for I have found it
+here in English, yes, and read it first translated into Hindostani. To
+it then I refer the curious.
+
+In that house upon the desolate sea-shore of Cumberland, we dwelt a
+year, mourning the lost, seeking an avenue by which it might be found
+again and discovering none. Here our strength came back to us, and
+Leo's hair, that had been whitened in the horror of the Caves, grew
+again from grey to golden. His beauty returned to him also, so that
+his face was as it had been, only purified and saddened.
+
+Well I remember that night--and the hour of illumination. We were
+heart-broken, we were in despair. We sought signs and could find none.
+The dead remained dead to us and no answer came to all our crying.
+
+It was a sullen August evening, and after we had dined we walked upon
+the shore, listening to the slow surge of the waves and watching the
+lightning flicker from the bosom of a distant cloud. In silence we
+walked, till at last Leo groaned--it was more of a sob than a groan--
+and clasped my arm.
+
+"I can bear it no longer, Horace," he said--for so he called me
+now--"I am in torment. The desire to see Ayesha once more saps my
+brain. Without hope I shall go quite mad. And I am strong, I may live
+another fifty years."
+
+"What then can you do?" I asked.
+
+"I can take a short road to knowledge--or to peace," he answered
+solemnly, "I can die, and die I will--yes, tonight."
+
+I turned upon him angrily, for his words filled me with fear.
+
+"Leo, you are a coward!" I said. "Cannot you bear your part of pain as
+--others do?"
+
+"You mean as you do, Horace," he answered with a dreary laugh, "for on
+you also the curse lies--with less cause. Well, you are stronger than
+I am, and more tough; perhaps because you have lived longer. No, I
+cannot bear it. I will die."
+
+"It is a crime," I said, "the greatest insult you can offer to the
+Power that made you, to cast back its gift of life as a thing outworn,
+contemptible and despised. A crime, I say, which will bring with it
+worse punishment than any you can dream; perhaps even the punishment
+of everlasting separation."
+
+"Does a man stretched in some torture-den commit a crime if he
+snatches a knife and kills himself, Horace? Perhaps; but surely that
+sin should find forgiveness--if torn flesh and quivering nerves may
+plead for mercy. I am such a man, and I will use that knife and take
+my chance. She is dead, and in death at least I shall be nearer her."
+
+"Why so, Leo? For aught you know Ayesha may be living."
+
+"No; for then she would have given me some sign. My mind is made up,
+so talk no more, or, if talk we must, let it be of other things."
+
+Then I pleaded with him, though with little hope, for I saw that what
+I had feared for long was come to pass. Leo was mad: shock and sorrow
+had destroyed his reason. Were it not so, he, in his own way a very
+religious man, one who held, as I knew, strict opinions on such
+matters, would never have purposed to commit the wickedness of
+suicide.
+
+"Leo," I said, "are you so heartless that you would leave me here
+alone? Do you pay me thus for all my love and care, and wish to drive
+me to my death? Do so if you will, and my blood be on your head."
+
+"Your blood! Why your blood, Horace?"
+
+"Because that road is broad and two can travel it. We have lived long
+years together and together endured much; I am sure that we shall not
+be long parted."
+
+Then the tables were turned and he grew afraid for me. But I only
+answered, "If you die I tell you that I shall die also. It will
+certainly kill me."
+
+So Leo gave way. "Well," he exclaimed suddenly, "I promise you it
+shall not be to-night. Let us give life another chance."
+
+"Good," I answered; but I went to my bed full of fear. For I was
+certain that this desire of death, having once taken hold of him,
+would grow and grow, until at length it became too strong, and then--
+then I should wither and die who could not live on alone. In my
+despair I threw out my soul towards that of her who was departed.
+
+"Ayesha!" I cried, "if you have any power, if in any way it is
+permitted, show that you still live, and save your lover from this sin
+and me from a broken heart. Have pity on his sorrow and breathe hope
+into his spirit, for without hope Leo cannot live, and without him I
+shall not live."
+
+Then, worn out, I slept.
+
+I was aroused by the voice of Leo speaking to me in low, excited tones
+through the darkness.
+
+"Horace," he said, "Horace, my friend, my father, listen!"
+
+In an instant I was wide awake, every nerve and fibre of me, for the
+tones of his voice told me that something had happened which bore upon
+our destinies.
+
+"Let me light a candle first," I said.
+
+"Never mind the candle, Horace; I would rather speak in the dark. I
+went to sleep, and I dreamed the most vivid dream that ever came to
+me. I seemed to stand under the vault of heaven, it was black, black,
+not a star shone in it, and a great loneliness possessed me. Then
+suddenly high up in the vault, miles and miles away, I saw a little
+light and thought that a planet had appeared to keep me company. The
+light began to descend slowly, like a floating flake of fire. Down it
+sank, and down and down, till it was but just above me, and I
+perceived that it was shaped like a tongue or fan of flame. At the
+height of my head from the ground it stopped and stood steady, and by
+its ghostly radiance I saw that beneath was the shape of a woman and
+that the flame burned upon her forehead. The radiance gathered
+strength and now I saw the woman.
+
+"Horace, it was Ayesha herself, her eyes, her lovely face, her cloudy
+hair, and she looked at me sadly, reproachfully, I thought, as one
+might who says, 'Why did you doubt?'
+
+"I tried to speak to her but my lips were dumb. I tried to advance and
+to embrace her, my arms would not move. There was a barrier between
+us. She lifted her hand and beckoned as though bidding me to follow
+her.
+
+"Then she glided away, and, Horace, my spirit seemed to loose itself
+from the body and to be given the power to follow. We passed swiftly
+eastward, over lands and seas, and--I knew the road. At one point she
+paused and I looked downwards. Beneath, shining in the moonlight,
+appeared the ruined palaces of Kor, and there not far away was the
+gulf we trod together.
+
+"Onward above the marshes, and now we stood upon the Ethiopian's Head,
+and gathered round, watching us earnestly, were the faces of the
+Arabs, our companions who drowned in the sea beneath. Job was among
+them also, and he smiled at me sadly and shook his head, as though he
+wished to accompany us and could not.
+
+"Across the sea again, across the sandy deserts, across more sea, and
+the shores of India lay beneath us. Then northward, ever northward,
+above the plains, till we reached a place of mountains capped with
+eternal snow. We passed them and stayed for an instant above a
+building set upon the brow of a plateau. It was a monastery, for old
+monks droned prayers upon its terrace. I shall know it again, for it
+is built in the shape of a half-moon and in front of it sits the
+gigantic, ruined statue of a god who gazes everlastingly across the
+desert. I knew, how I cannot say, that now we were far past the
+furthest borders of Thibet and that in front of us lay untrodden
+lands. More mountains stretched beyond that desert, a sea of snowy
+peaks, hundreds and hundreds of them.
+
+"Near to the monastery, jutting out into the plain like some rocky
+headland, rose a solitary hill, higher than all behind. We stood upon
+its snowy crest and waited, till presently, above the mountains and
+the desert at our feet shot a sudden beam of light that beat upon us
+like some signal flashed across the sea. On we went, floating down the
+beam--on over the desert and the mountains, across a great flat land
+beyond, in which were many villages and a city on a mound, till we lit
+upon a towering peak. Then I saw that this peak was loop-shaped like
+the symbol of Life of the Egyptians--the /crux-ansata/--and supported
+by a lava stem hundreds of feet in height. Also I saw that the fire
+which shone through it rose from the crater of a volcano beyond. Upon
+the very crest of this loop we rested a while, till the Shadow of
+Ayesha pointed downward with its hand, smiled and vanished. Then I
+awoke.
+
+"Horace, I tell you that the sign has come to us."
+
+His voice died away in the darkness, but I sat still, brooding over
+what I had heard. Leo groped his way to me and, seizing my arm, shook
+it.
+
+"Are you asleep?" he asked angrily. "Speak, man, speak!"
+
+"No," I answered, "never was I more awake. Give me time."
+
+Then I rose, and going to the open window, drew up the blind and stood
+there staring at the sky, which grew pearl-hued with the first faint
+tinge of dawn. Leo came also and leant upon the window-sill, and I
+could feel that his body was trembling as though with cold. Clearly he
+was much moved.
+
+"You talk of a sign," I said to him, "but in your sign I see nothing
+but a wild dream."
+
+"It was no dream," he broke in fiercely; "it was a vision."
+
+"A vision then if you will, but there are visions true and false, and
+how can we know that this is true? Listen, Leo. What is there in all
+that wonderful tale which could not have been fashioned in your own
+brain, distraught as it is almost to madness with your sorrow and your
+longings? You dreamed that you were alone in the vast universe. Well,
+is not every living creature thus alone? You dreamed that the shadowy
+shape of Ayesha came to you. Has it ever left your side? You dreamed
+that she led you over sea and land, past places haunted by your
+memory, above the mysterious mountains of the Unknown to an
+undiscovered peak. Does she not thus lead you through life to that
+peak which lies beyond the Gates of Death? You dreamed----"
+
+"Oh! no more of it," he exclaimed. "What I saw, I saw, and that I
+shall follow. Think as you will, Horace, and do what you will.
+To-morrow I start for India, with you if you choose to come; if not,
+without you."
+
+"You speak roughly, Leo," I said. "You forget that /I/ have had no
+sign, and that the nightmare of a man so near to insanity that but a
+few hours ago he was determined upon suicide, will be a poor staff to
+lean on when we are perishing in the snows of Central Asia. A mixed
+vision, this of yours, Leo, with its mountain peak shaped like a
+/crux-ansata/ and the rest. Do you suggest that Ayesha is re-
+incarnated in Central Asia--as a female Grand Lama or something of
+that sort?"
+
+"I never thought of it, but why not?" asked Leo quietly. "Do you
+remember a certain scene in the Caves of Kor yonder, when the living
+looked upon the dead, and dead and living were the same? And do you
+remember what Ayesha swore, that she would come again--yes, to this
+world; and how could that be except by re-birth, or, what is the same
+thing, by the transmigration of the spirit?"
+
+I did not answer this argument. I was struggling with myself.
+
+"No sign has come to me," I said, "and yet I have had a part in the
+play, humble enough, I admit, and I believe that I have still a part."
+
+"No," he said, "no sign has come to you. I wish that it had. Oh! how I
+wish you could be convinced as I am, Horace!"
+
+Then we were silent for a long while, silent, with our eyes fixed upon
+the sky.
+
+It was a stormy dawn. Clouds in fantastic masses hung upon the ocean.
+One of them was like a great mountain, and we watched it idly. It
+changed its shape, the crest of it grew hollow like a crater. From
+this crater sprang a projecting cloud, a rough pillar with a knob or
+lump resting on its top. Suddenly the rays of the risen sun struck
+upon this mountain and the column and they turned white like snow.
+Then as though melted by those fiery arrows, the centre of the
+excrescence above the pillar thinned out and vanished, leaving an
+enormous loop of inky cloud.
+
+"Look," said Leo in a low, frightened voice, "that is the shape of the
+mountain which I saw in my vision. There upon it is the black loop,
+and there through it shines the fire. /It would seem that the sign is
+for both of us, Horace./"
+
+I looked and looked again till presently the vast loop vanished into
+the blue of heaven. Then I turned and said--"I will come with you to
+Central Asia, Leo."
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II
+
+                             THE LAMASERY
+
+Sixteen years had passed since that night vigil in the old Cumberland
+house, and, behold! we two, Leo and I, were still travelling, still
+searching for that mountain peak shaped like the Symbol of Life which
+never, never could be found.
+
+Our adventures would fill volumes, but of what use is it to record
+them. Many of a similar nature are already written of in books; those
+that we endured were more prolonged, that is all. Five years we spent
+in Thibet, for the most part as guests of various monasteries, where
+we studied the law and traditions of the Lamas. Here we were once
+sentenced to death in punishment for having visited a forbidden city,
+but escaped through the kindness of a Chinese official.
+
+Leaving Thibet, we wandered east and west and north, thousands and
+thousands of miles, sojourning amongst many tribes in Chinese
+territory and elsewhere, learning many tongues, enduring much
+hardship. Thus we would hear a legend of a place, say nine hundred
+miles away, and spend two years in reaching it, to find when we came
+there, nothing.
+
+And so the time went on. Yet never once did we think of giving up the
+quest and returning, since, before we started, we had sworn an oath
+that we would achieve or die. Indeed we ought to have died a score of
+times, yet always were preserved, most mysteriously preserved.
+
+Now we were in country where, so far as I could learn, no European had
+ever set a foot. In a part of the vast land called Turkestan there is
+a great lake named Balhkash, of which we visited the shores. Two
+hundred miles or so to the westward is a range of mighty mountains
+marked on the maps as Arkarty-Tau, on which we spent a year, and five
+hundred or so to the eastward are other mountains called Cherga,
+whither we journeyed at last, having explored the triple ranges of the
+Tau.
+
+Here it was that at last our true adventures began. On one of the
+spurs of these awful Cherga mountains--it is unmarked on any map--we
+well-nigh perished of starvation. The winter was coming on and we
+could find no game. The last traveller we had met, hundreds of miles
+south, told us that on that range was a monastery inhabited by Lamas
+of surpassing holiness. He said that they dwelt in this wild land,
+over which no power claimed dominion and where no tribes lived, to
+acquire "merit," with no other company than that of their own pious
+contemplations. We did not believe in its existence, still we were
+searching for that monastery, driven onward by the blind fatalism
+which was our only guide through all these endless wanderings. As we
+were starving and could find no "argals," that is fuel with which to
+make a fire, we walked all night by the light of the moon, driving
+between us a single yak--for now we had no attendant, the last having
+died a year before.
+
+He was a noble beast, that yak, and had the best constitution of any
+animal I ever knew, though now, like his masters, he was near his end.
+Not that he was over-laden, for a few rifle cartridges, about a
+hundred and fifty, the remnant of a store which we had fortunately
+been able to buy from a caravan two years before, some money in gold
+and silver, a little tea and a bundle of skin rugs and sheepskin
+garments were his burden. On, on we trudged across a plateau of snow,
+having the great mountains on our right, till at length the yak gave a
+sigh and stopped. So we stopped also, because we must, and wrapping
+ourselves in the skin rugs, sat down in the snow to wait for daylight.
+
+"We shall have to kill him and eat his flesh raw," I said, patting the
+poor yak that lay patiently at our side.
+
+"Perhaps we may find game in the morning," answered Leo, still
+hopeful.
+
+"And perhaps we may not, in which case we must die."
+
+"Very good," he replied, "then let us die. It is the last resource of
+failure. We shall have done our best."
+
+"Certainly, Leo, we shall have done our best, if sixteen years of
+tramping over mountains and through eternal snows in pursuit of a
+dream of the night can be called best."
+
+"You know what I believe," he answered stubbornly, and there was
+silence between us, for here arguments did not avail. Also even then I
+could not think that all our toils and sufferings would be in vain.
+
+The dawn came, and by its light we looked at one another anxiously,
+each of us desiring to see what strength was left to his companion.
+Wild creatures we should have seemed to the eyes of any civilized
+person. Leo was now over forty years of age, and certainly his
+maturity had fulfilled the promise of his youth, for a more
+magnificent man I never knew. Very tall, although he seemed spare to
+the eye, his girth matched his height, and those many years of desert
+life had turned his muscles to steel. His hair had grown long, like my
+own, for it was a protection from sun and cold, and hung upon his
+neck, a curling, golden mane, as his great beard hung upon his breast,
+spreading outwards almost to the massive shoulders. The face, too--
+what could be seen of it--was beautiful though burnt brown with
+weather; refined and full of thought, sombre almost, and in it, clear
+as crystal, steady as stars, shone his large grey eyes.
+
+And I--I was what I have always been--ugly and hirsute, iron-grey now
+also, but in spite of my sixty odd years, still wonderfully strong,
+for my strength seemed to increase with time, and my health was
+perfect. In fact, during all this period of rough travels, although
+now and again we had met with accidents which laid us up for awhile,
+neither of us had known a day of sickness. Hardship seemed to have
+turned our constitutions to iron and made them impervious to every
+human ailment. Or was this because we alone amongst living men had
+once inhaled the breath of the Essence of Life?
+
+Our fears relieved--for notwithstanding our foodless night, as yet
+neither of us showed any signs of exhaustion--we turned to contemplate
+the landscape. At our feet beyond a little belt of fertile soil, began
+a great desert of the sort with which we were familiar--sandy, salt-
+encrusted, treeless, waterless, and here and there streaked with the
+first snows of winter. Beyond it, eighty or a hundred miles away--in
+that lucent atmosphere it was impossible to say how far exactly--rose
+more mountains, a veritable sea of them, of which the white peaks
+soared upwards by scores.
+
+As the golden rays of the rising sun touched their snows to splendour,
+I saw Leo's eyes become troubled. Swiftly he turned and looked along
+the edge of the desert.
+
+"See there!" he said, pointing to something dim and enormous.
+Presently the light reached it also. It was a mighty mountain not more
+than ten miles away, that stood out by itself among the sands. Then he
+turned once more, and with his back to the desert stared at the slope
+of the hills, along the base of which we had been travelling. As yet
+they were in gloom, for the sun was behind them, but presently light
+began to flow over their crests like a flood. Down it crept, lower,
+and yet lower, till it reached a little plateau not three hundred
+yards above us. There, on the edge of the plateau, looking out
+solemnly across the waste, sat a great ruined idol, a colossal Buddha,
+while to the rear of the idol, built of yellow stone, appeared the low
+crescent-shaped mass of a monastery.
+
+"At last!" cried Leo, "oh, Heaven! at last!" and, flinging himself
+down, he buried his face in the snow as though to hide it there, lest
+I should read something written on it which he did not desire that
+even I should see.
+
+I let him lie a space, understanding what was passing in his heart,
+and indeed in mine also. Then going to the yak that, poor brute, had
+no share in these joyous emotions but only lowed and looked round with
+hungry eyes, I piled the sheepskin rugs on to its back. This done, I
+laid my hand on Leo's shoulder, saying, in the most matter-of-fact
+voice I could command--
+
+"Come. If that place is not deserted, we may find food and shelter
+there, and it is beginning to storm again."
+
+He rose without a word, brushed the snow from his beard and garments
+and came to help me to lift the yak to its feet, for the worn-out
+beast was too stiff and weak to rise of itself. Glancing at him
+covertly, I saw on Leo's face a very strange and happy look; a great
+peace appeared to possess him.
+
+We plunged upwards through the snow slope, dragging the yak with us,
+to the terrace whereon the monastery was built. Nobody seemed to be
+about there, nor could I discern any footprints. Was the place but a
+ruin? We had found many such; indeed this ancient land is full of
+buildings that had once served as the homes of men, learned and pious
+enough after their own fashion, who lived and died hundreds, or even
+thousands, of years ago, long before our Western civilization came
+into being.
+
+My heart, also my stomach, which was starving, sank at the thought,
+but while I gazed doubtfully, a little coil of blue smoke sprang from
+a chimney, and never, I think, did I see a more joyful sight. In the
+centre of the edifice was a large building, evidently the temple, but
+nearer to us I saw a small door, almost above which the smoke
+appeared. To this door I went and knocked, calling aloud--
+
+"Open! open, holy Lamas. Strangers seek your charity." After awhile
+there was a sound of shuffling feet and the door creaked upon its
+hinges, revealing an old, old man, clad in tattered, yellow garments.
+
+"Who is it? Who is it?" he exclaimed, blinking at me through a pair of
+horn spectacles. "Who comes to disturb our solitude, the solitude of
+the holy Lamas of the Mountains?"
+
+"Travellers, Sacred One, who have had enough of solitude," I answered
+in his own dialect, with which I was well acquainted. "Travellers who
+are starving and who ask your charity, which," I added, "by the Rule
+you cannot refuse."
+
+He stared at us through his horn spectacles, and, able to make nothing
+of our faces, let his glance fall to our garments which were as ragged
+as his own, and of much the same pattern. Indeed, they were those of
+Thibetan monks, including a kind of quilted petticoat and an outer
+vestment not unlike an Eastern burnous. We had adopted them because we
+had no others. Also they protected us from the rigours of the climate
+and from remark, had there been any to remark upon them.
+
+"Are you Lamas?" he asked doubtfully, "and if so, of what monastery?"
+
+"Lamas sure enough," I answered, "who belong to a monastery called the
+World, where, alas! one grows hungry."
+
+The reply seemed to please him, for he chuckled a little, then shook
+his head, saying--
+
+"It is against our custom to admit strangers unless they be of our own
+faith, which I am sure you are not."
+
+"And much more is it against your Rule, holy Khubilghan," for so these
+abbots are entitled, "to suffer strangers to starve"; and I quoted a
+well-known passage from the sayings of Buddha which fitted the point
+precisely.
+
+"I perceive that you are instructed in the Books," he exclaimed with
+wonder on his yellow, wrinkled face, "and to such we cannot refuse
+shelter. Come in, brethren of the monastery called the World. But
+stay, there is the yak, who also has claims upon our charity," and,
+turning, he struck upon a gong or bell which hung within the door.
+
+At the sound another man appeared, more wrinkled and to all appearance
+older than the first, who stared at us open-mouthed.
+
+"Brother," said the abbot, "shut that great mouth of yours lest an
+evil spirit should fly down it; take this poor yak and give it fodder
+with the other cattle."
+
+So we unstrapped our belongings from the back of the beast, and the
+old fellow whose grandiloquent title was "Master of the Herds," led it
+away.
+
+When it had gone, not too willingly--for our faithful friend disliked
+parting from us and distrusted this new guide--the abbot, who was
+named Kou-en, led us into the living room or rather the kitchen of the
+monastery, for it served both purposes. Here we found the rest of the
+monks, about twelve in all, gathered round the fire of which we had
+seen the smoke, and engaged, one of them in preparing the morning
+meal, and the rest in warming themselves.
+
+They were all old men; the youngest could not have been less than
+sixty-five. To these we were solemnly introduced as "Brethren of the
+Monastery called the World, where folk grow hungry," for the abbot
+Kou-en could not make up his mind to part from this little joke.
+
+They stared at us, they rubbed their thin hands, they bowed and wished
+us well and evidently were delighted at our arrival. This was not
+strange, however, seeing that ours were the first new faces which they
+had seen for four long years.
+
+Nor did they stop at words, for while they made water hot for us to
+wash in, two of them went to prepare a room--and others drew off our
+rough hide boots and thick outer garments and brought us slippers for
+our feet. Then they led us to the guest chamber, which they informed
+us was a "propitious place," for once it had been slept in by a noted
+saint. Here a fire was lit, and, wonder of wonders! clean garments,
+including linen, all of them ancient and faded, but of good quality,
+were brought for us to put on.
+
+So we washed--yes, actually washed all over--and having arrayed
+ourselves in the robes, which were somewhat small for Leo, struck the
+bell that hung in the room and were conducted by a monk who answered
+it, back to the kitchen, where the meal was now served. It consisted
+of a kind of porridge, to which was added new milk brought in by the
+"Master of the Herds," dried fish from a lake, and buttered tea, the
+last two luxuries produced in our special honour. Never had food
+tasted more delicious to us, and, I may add, never did we eat more.
+Indeed, at last I was obliged to request Leo to stop, for I saw the
+monks staring at him and heard the old abbot chuckling to himself.
+
+"Oho! The Monastery of the World, where folk grow /hungry/," to which
+another monk, who was called the "Master of the Provisions," replied
+uneasily, that if we went on like this, their store of food would
+scarcely last the winter. So we finished at length, feeling, as some
+book of maxims which I can remember in my youth said all polite people
+should do--that we could eat more, and much impressed our hosts by
+chanting a long Buddhist grace.
+
+"Their feet are in the Path! Their feet are in the Path!" they said,
+astonished.
+
+"Yes," replied Leo, "they have been in it for sixteen years of our
+present incarnation. But we are only beginners, for you, holy Ones,
+know how star-high, how ocean-wide and how desert-long is that path.
+Indeed it is to be instructed as to the right way of walking therein
+that we have been miraculously directed by a dream to seek you out, as
+the most pious, the most saintly and the most learned of all the Lamas
+in these parts."
+
+"Yes, certainly we are that," answered the abbot Kou-en, "seeing that
+there is no other monastery within five months' journey," and again he
+chuckled, "though, alas!" he added with a pathetic little sigh, "our
+numbers grow few."
+
+After this we asked leave to retire to our chamber in order to rest,
+and there, upon very good imitations of beds, we slept solidly for
+four and twenty hours, rising at last perfectly refreshed and well.
+
+Such was our introduction to the Monastery of the Mountains--for it
+had no other name--where we were destined to spend the next six months
+of our lives. Within a few days--for they were not long in giving us
+their complete confidence--those good-hearted and simple old monks
+told us all their history.
+
+It seemed that of old time there was a Lamasery here, in which dwelt
+several hundred brethren. This, indeed, was obviously true, for the
+place was enormous, although for the most part ruined, and, as the
+weather-worn statue of Buddha showed, very ancient. The story ran,
+according to the old abbot, that two centuries or so before, the monks
+had been killed out by some fierce tribe who lived beyond the desert
+and across the distant mountains, which tribe were heretics and
+worshippers of fire. Only a few of them escaped to bring the sad news
+to other communities, and for five generations no attempt was made to
+re-occupy the place.
+
+At length it was revealed to him, our friend Kou-en, when a young man,
+that he was a re-incarnation of one of the old monks of this
+monastery, who also was named Kou-en, and that it was his duty during
+his present life to return thither, as by so doing he would win much
+merit and receive many wonderful revelations. So he gathered a band of
+zealots and, with the blessing and consent of his superiors, they
+started out, and after many hardships and losses found and took
+possession of the place, repairing it sufficiently for their needs.
+
+This happened about fifty years before, and here they had dwelt ever
+since, only communicating occasionally with the outside world. At
+first their numbers were recruited from time to time by new brethren,
+but at length these ceased to come, with the result that the community
+was dying out.
+
+"And what then?" I asked.
+
+"And then," the abbot answered, "nothing. /We/ have acquired much
+merit; we have been blest with many revelations, and, after the repose
+we have earned in Devachan, our lots in future existences will be
+easier. What more can we ask or desire, removed as we are from all the
+temptations of the world?"
+
+For the rest, in the intervals of their endless prayers, and still
+more endless contemplations, they were husbandmen, cultivating the
+soil, which was fertile at the foot of the mountain, and tending their
+herd of yaks. Thus they wore away their blameless lives until at last
+they died of old age, and, as they believed--and who shall say that
+they were wrong--the eternal round repeated itself elsewhere.
+
+Immediately after, indeed on the very day of our arrival at the
+monastery the winter began in earnest with bitter cold and snowstorms
+so heavy and frequent that all the desert was covered deep. Very soon
+it became obvious to us that here we must stay until the spring, since
+to attempt to move in any direction would be to perish. With some
+misgivings we explained this to the abbot Kou-en, offering to remove
+to one of the empty rooms in the ruined part of the building,
+supporting ourselves with fish that we could catch by cutting a hole
+in the ice of the lake above the monastery, and if we were able to
+find any, on game, which we might trap or shoot in the scrub-like
+forest of stunted pines and junipers that grew around its border. But
+he would listen to no such thing. We had been sent to be their guests,
+he said, and their guests we should remain for so long as might be
+convenient to us. Would we lay upon them the burden of the sin of
+inhospitality? Besides, he remarked with his chuckle--
+
+"We who dwell alone like to hear about that other great monastery
+called the World, where the monks are not so favoured as we who are
+set in this blessed situation, and where folk even go hungry in body,
+and," he added, "in soul."
+
+Indeed, as we soon found out, the dear old man's object was to keep
+our feet in the Path until we reached the goal of Truth, or, in other
+words, became excellent Lamas like himself and his flock.
+
+So we walked in the Path, as we had done in many another Lamasery, and
+assisted at the long prayers in the ruined temple and studied the
+/Kandjur/, or "Translation of the Words" of Buddha, which is their
+bible and a very long one, and generally showed that our "minds were
+open." Also we expounded to them the doctrines of our own faith, and
+greatly delighted were they to find so many points of similarity
+between it and theirs. Indeed, I am not certain but that if we could
+have stopped there long enough, say ten years, we might have persuaded
+some of them to accept a new revelation of which we were the prophets.
+Further, in spare hours we told them many tales of "the Monastery
+called the World," and it was really delightful, and in a sense
+piteous, to see the joy with which they listened to these stories of
+wondrous countries and new races of men; they who knew only of Russia
+and China and some semi-savage tribes, inhabitants of the mountains
+and the deserts.
+
+"It is right for us to learn all this," they declared, "for, who
+knows, perhaps in future incarnations we may become inhabitants of
+these places."
+
+But though the time passed thus in comfort and indeed, compared to
+many of our experiences, in luxury, oh! our hearts were hungry, for in
+them burned the consuming fire of our quest. We felt that we were on
+the threshold--yes, we knew it, we knew it, and yet our wretched
+physical limitations made it impossible for us to advance by a single
+step. On the desert beneath fell the snow, moreover great winds arose
+suddenly that drove those snows like dust, piling them in heaps as
+high as trees, beneath which any unfortunate traveller would be
+buried. Here we must wait, there was nothing else to be done.
+
+One alleviation we found, and only one. In a ruined room of the
+monastery was a library of many volumes, placed there, doubtless, by
+the monks who were massacred in times bygone. These had been more or
+less cared for and re-arranged by their successors, who gave us
+liberty to examine them as often as we pleased. Truly it was a strange
+collection, and I should imagine of priceless value, for among them
+were to be found Buddhistic, Sivaistic and Shamanistic writings that
+we had never before seen or heard of, together with the lives of a
+multitude of Bodhisatvas, or distinguished saints, written in various
+tongues, some of which we did not understand.
+
+What proved more interesting to us, however, was a diary in many tomes
+that for generations had been kept by the Khubilghans or abbots of the
+old Lamasery, in which every event of importance was recorded in great
+detail. Turning over the pages of one of the last volumes of this
+diary, written apparently about two hundred and fifty years earlier,
+and shortly before the destruction of the monastery, we came upon an
+entry of which the following--for I can only quote from memory--is the
+substance--
+
+
+ "In the summer of this year, after a very great sandstorm, a
+  brother (the name was given, but I forget it) found in the desert
+  a man of the people who dwell beyond the Far Mountains, of whom
+  rumours have reached this Lamasery from time to time. He was
+  living, but beside him were the bodies of two of his companions
+  who had been overwhelmed by sand and thirst. He was very fierce
+  looking. He refused to say how he came into the desert, telling us
+  only that he had followed the road known to the ancients before
+  communication between his people and the outer world ceased. We
+  gathered, however, that his brethren with whom he fled had
+  committed some crime for which they had been condemned to die, and
+  that he had accompanied them in their flight. He told us that
+  there was a fine country beyond the mountains, fertile, but
+  plagued with droughts and earthquakes, which latter, indeed, we
+  often feel here.
+
+ "The people of that country were, he said, warlike and very
+  numerous but followed agriculture. They had always lived there,
+  though ruled by Khans who were descendants of the Greek king
+  called Alexander, who conquered much country to the south-west of
+  us. This may be true, as our records tell us that about two
+  thousand years ago an army sent by that invader penetrated to
+  these parts, though of his being with them nothing is said.
+
+ "The stranger-man told us also that his people worship a priestess
+  called Hes or the Hesea, who is said to reign from generation to
+  generation. She lives in a great mountain, apart, and is feared
+  and adored by all, but is not the queen of the country, in the
+  government of which she seldom interferes. To her, however,
+  sacrifices are offered, and he who incurs her vengeance dies, so
+  that even the chiefs of that land are afraid of her. Still their
+  subjects often fight, for they hate each other.
+
+ "We answered that he lied when he said that this woman was immortal
+  --for that was what we supposed he meant--since nothing is
+  immortal; also we laughed at his tale of her power. This made the
+  man very angry. Indeed he declared that our Buddha was not so
+  strong as this priestess, and that she would show it by being
+  avenged upon us.
+
+ "After this we gave him food and turned him out of the Lamasery,
+  and he went, saying that when he returned we should learn who
+  spoke the truth. We do not know what became of him, and he refused
+  to reveal to us the road to his country, which lies beyond the
+  desert and the Far Mountains. We think that perhaps he was an evil
+  spirit sent to frighten us, in which he did not succeed."
+
+
+Such is a /precis/ of this strange entry, the discovery of which,
+vague as it was, thrilled us with hope and excitement. Nothing more
+appeared about the man or his country, but within a little over a year
+from that date the diary of the abbot came to a sudden end without any
+indication that unusual events had occured or were expected.
+
+Indeed, the last item written in the parchment book mentioned the
+preparation of certain new lands to be used for the sowing of grain in
+future seasons, which suggested that the brethren neither feared nor
+expected disturbance. We wondered whether the man from beyond the
+mountains was as good as his word and had brought down the vengeance
+of that priestess called the Hesea upon the community which sheltered
+him. Also we wondered--ah! how we wondered--who and what this Hesea
+might be.
+
+On the day following this discovery we prayed the abbot, Kou-en, to
+accompany us to the library, and having read him the passage, asked if
+he knew anything of the matter. He swayed his wise old head, which
+always reminded me of that of a tortoise, and answered--
+
+"A little. Very little, and that mostly about the army of the Greek
+king who is mentioned in the writing."
+
+We inquired what he could possibly know of this matter, whereon Kou-en
+replied calmly--
+
+"In those days when the faith of the Holy One was still young, I dwelt
+as a humble brother in this very monastery, which was one of the first
+built, and I saw the army pass, that is all. That," he added
+meditatively, "was in my fiftieth incarnation of this present Round--
+no, I am thinking of another army--in my seventy-third."[*]
+
+[*] As students of their lives and literature will be aware, it is
+    common for Buddhist priests to state positively that they remember
+    events which occurred during their previous incarnations.--ed.
+
+Here Leo began a great laugh, but I managed to kick him beneath the
+table and he turned it into a sneeze. This was fortunate, as such
+ribald merriment would have hurt the old man's feelings terribly.
+After all, also, as Leo himself had once said, surely we were not the
+people to mock at the theory of re-incarnation, which, by the way, is
+the first article of faith among nearly one quarter of the human race,
+and this not the most foolish quarter.
+
+"How can that be--I ask for instruction, learned One--seeing that
+memory perishes with death?"
+
+"Ah!" he answered, "Brother Holly, it may seem to do so, but
+oftentimes it comes back again, especially to those who are far
+advanced upon the Path. For instance, until you read this passage I
+had forgotten all about that army, but now I see it passing, passing,
+and myself with other monks standing by the statue of the big Buddha
+in front yonder, and watching it go by. It was not a very large army,
+for most of the soldiers had died, or been killed, and it was being
+pursued by the wild people who lived south of us in those days, so
+that it was in a great hurry to put the desert between it and them.
+The general of the army was a swarthy man--I wish that I could
+remember his name, but I cannot.
+
+"Well," he went on, "that general came up to the Lamasery and demanded
+a sleeping place for his wife and children, also provisions and
+medicines, and guides across the desert. The abbot of that day told
+him it was against our law to admit a woman under our roof, to which
+he answered that if we did not, we should have no roof left, for he
+would burn the place and kill every one of us with the sword. Now, as
+you know, to be killed by violence means that we must pass sundry
+incarnations in the forms of animals, a horrible thing, so we chose
+the lesser evil and gave way, and afterwards obtained absolution for
+our sins from the Great Lama. Myself I did not see this queen, but I
+saw the priestess of their worship--alas! alas!" and Kou-en beat his
+breast.
+
+"Why alas?" I asked, as unconcernedly as I could, for this story
+interested me strangely.
+
+"Why? Oh! because I may have forgotten the army, but I have never
+forgotten that priestess, and she has been a great hindrance to me
+through many ages, delaying me upon my journey to the Other Side, to
+the Shore of Salvation. I, as a humble Lama, was engaged in preparing
+her apartment when she entered and threw aside her veil; yes, and
+perceiving a young man, spoke to me, asking many questions, and even
+if I was not glad to look again upon a woman."
+
+"What--what was she like?" said Leo, anxiously.
+
+"What was she like? Oh! She was all loveliness in one shape; she was
+like the dawn upon the snows; she was like the evening star above the
+mountains; she was like the first flower of the spring. Brother, ask
+me not what she was like, nay, I will say no more. Oh! my sin, my sin.
+I am slipping backward and you draw my black shame out into the light
+of day. Nay, I will confess it that you may know how vile a thing I am
+--I whom perhaps you have thought holy--like yourselves. That woman,
+if woman she were, lit a fire in my heart which will not burn out, oh!
+and more, more," and Kou-en rocked himself to and fro upon his stool
+while tears of contrition trickled from beneath his horn spectacles,
+"/she made me worship her!/ For first she asked me of my faith and
+listened eagerly as I expounded it, hoping that the light would come
+into her heart; then, after I had finished she said--
+
+"'So your Path is Renunciation and your Nirvana a most excellent
+Nothingness which some would think it scarce worth while to strive so
+hard to reach. Now /I/ will show you a more joyous way and a goddess
+more worthy of your worship.'
+
+"'What way, and what goddess?' I asked of her.
+
+"'The way of Love and Life!" she answered, 'that makes all the world
+to be, that made /you/, O seeker of Nirvana, and the goddess called
+Nature!'
+
+"Again I asked where is that goddess, and behold! she drew herself up,
+looking most royal, and touching her ivory breast, she said, 'I am
+She. Now kneel you down and do me homage!'
+
+"My brethren, I knelt, yes, I kissed her foot, and then I fled away
+shamed and broken-hearted, and as I went she laughed, and cried:
+'Remember me when you reach Devachan, O servant of the Budda-saint,
+for though I change, I do not die, and even there I shall be with you
+who once gave me worship!'
+
+"And it is so, my brethren, it is so; for though I obtained absolution
+for my sin and have suffered much for it through this, my next
+incarnation, yet I cannot be rid of her, and for me the Utter Peace is
+far, far away," and Kou-en placed his withered hands before his face
+and sobbed outright.
+
+A ridiculous sight, truly, to see a holy Khublighan well on the wrong
+side of eighty, weeping like a child over a dream of a beautiful woman
+which he imagined he had once dreamt in his last life more than two
+thousand years ago. So the reader will say. But I, Holly, for reasons
+of my own, felt deep sympathy with that poor old man, and Leo was also
+sympathetic. We patted him on the back; we assured him that he was the
+victim of some evil hallucination which could never be brought up
+against him in this or any future existence, since, if sin there were,
+it must have been forgiven long ago, and so forth. When his calm was
+somewhat restored we tried also to extract further information from
+him, but with poor results, so far as the priestess was concerned.
+
+He said that he did not know to what religion she belonged, and did
+not care, but thought that it must be an evil one. She went away the
+next morning with the army, and he never saw or heard of her any more,
+though it came into his mind that he was obliged to be locked in his
+cell for eight days to prevent himself from following her. Yes, he had
+heard one thing, for the abbot of that day had told the brethren. This
+priestess was the real general of the army, not the king or the queen,
+the latter of whom hated her. It was by her will that they pushed on
+northwards across the desert to some country beyond the mountains,
+where she desired to establish herself and her worship.
+
+We asked if there really was any country beyond the mountains, and
+Kou-en answered wearily that he believed so. Either in this or in a
+previous life he had heard that people lived there who worshipped
+fire. Certainly also it was true that about thirty years ago a brother
+who had climbed the great peak yonder to spend some days in solitary
+meditation, returned and reported that he had seen a marvellous thing,
+namely, a shaft of fire burning in the heavens beyond those same
+mountains, though whether this were a vision, or what, he could not
+say. He recalled, however, that about that time they had felt a great
+earthquake.
+
+Then the memory of that fancied transgression again began to afflict
+Kou-en's innocent old heart, and he crept away lamenting and was seen
+no more for a week. Nor would he ever speak again to us of this
+matter.
+
+But we spoke of it much with hope and wonder, and made up our minds
+that we would at once ascend this mountain.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III
+
+                           THE BEACON LIGHT
+
+A week later came our opportunity of making this ascent of the
+mountain, for now in mid-winter it ceased storming, and hard frost set
+in, which made it possible to walk upon the surface of the snow.
+Learning from the monks that at this season /ovis poli/ and other
+kinds of big-horned sheep and game descended from the hills to take
+refuge in certain valleys, where they scraped away the snow to find
+food, we announced that we were going out to hunt. The excuse we gave
+was that we were suffering from confinement and needed exercise,
+having by the teaching of our religion no scruples about killing game.
+
+Our hosts replied that the adventure was dangerous, as the weather
+might change at any moment. They told us, however, that on the slopes
+of this very mountain which we desired to climb, there was a large
+natural cave where, if need be, we could take shelter, and to this
+cave one of them, somewhat younger and more active than the rest,
+offered to guide us. So, having manufactured a rougri tent from skins,
+and laden our old yak, now in the best of condition, with food and
+garments, on one still morning we started as soon as it was light.
+Under the guidance of the monk, who, notwithstanding his years, walked
+very well, we reached the northern slope of the peak before mid-day.
+Here, as he had said, we found a great cave of which the opening was
+protected by an over-hanging ledge of rock. Evidently this cave was
+the favourite place of shelter for game at certain seasons of the
+year, since in it were heaped vast accumulations of their droppings,
+which removed any fear of a lack of fuel.
+
+The rest of that short day we spent in setting up our tent in the
+cave, in front of which we lit a large fire, and in a survey of the
+slopes of the mountain, for we told the monk that we were searching
+for the tracks of wild sheep. Indeed, as it happened, on our way back
+to the cave we came across a small herd of ewes feeding upon the
+mosses in a sheltered spot where in summer a streamlet ran. Of these
+we were so fortunate as to kill two, for no sportsman had ever come
+here, and they were tame enough, poor things. As meat would keep for
+ever in that temperature, we had now sufficient food to last us for a
+fortnight, and dragging the animals down the snow slopes to the cave,
+we skinned them by the dying light.
+
+That evening we supped upon fresh mutton, a great luxury, which the
+monk enjoyed as much as we did, since, whatever might be his views as
+to taking life, he liked mutton. Then we turned into the tent and
+huddled ourselves together for warmth, as the temperature must have
+been some degrees below zero. The old monk rested well enough, but
+neither Leo nor I slept over much, for wonder as to what we might see
+from the top of that mountain banished sleep.
+
+Next morning at the dawn, the weather being still favourable, our
+companion returned to the monastery, whither we said we would follow
+him in a day or two.
+
+Now at last we were alone, and without wasting an instant began our
+ascent of the peak. It was many thousand feet high and in certain
+places steep enough, but the deep, frozen snow made climbing easy, so
+that by midday we reached the top. Hence the view was magnificent.
+Beneath us stretched the desert, and beyond it a broad belt of
+fantastically shaped, snow-clad mountains, hundreds and hundreds of
+them; in front, to the right, to the left, as far as the eye could
+reach.
+
+"They are just as I saw them in my dream so many years ago," muttered
+Leo; "the same, the very same."
+
+"And where was the fiery light?" I asked.
+
+"Yonder, I think;" and he pointed north by east.
+
+"Well, it is not there now," I answered, "and this place is cold."
+
+So, since it was dangerous to linger, lest the darkness should
+overtake us on our return journey, we descended the peak again,
+reaching the cave about sunset. The next four days we spent in the
+same way. Every morning we crawled up those wearisome banks of snow,
+and every afternoon we slid and tobogganed down them again, till I
+grew heartily tired of the exercise.
+
+On the fourth night, instead of coming to sleep in the tent Leo sat
+himself down at the entrance to the cave. I asked him why he did this,
+but he answered impatiently, because he wished it, so I left him
+alone. I could see, indeed, that he was in a strange and irritable
+mood, for the failure of our search oppressed him. Moreover, we knew,
+both of us, that it could not be much prolonged, since the weather
+might break at any moment, when ascents of the mountain would become
+impossible.
+
+In the middle of the night I was awakened by Leo shaking me and
+saying--
+
+"Come here, Horace, I have something to show you."
+
+Reluctantly enough I crept from between the rugs and out of the tent.
+To dress there was no need, for we slept in all our garments. He led
+me to the mouth of the cave and pointed northward. I looked. The night
+was very dark; but far, far away appeared a faint patch of light upon
+the sky, such as might be caused by the reflection of a distant fire.
+
+"What do you make of it?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"Nothing in particular," I answered, "it may be anything. The moon--
+no, there is none, dawn--no, it is too northerly, and it does not
+break for three hours. Something burning, a house, or a funeral pyre,
+but how can there be such things here? I give it up."
+
+"I think it is a reflection, and that if we were on the peak we should
+see the light which throws it," said Leo slowly.
+
+"Yes, but we are not, and cannot get there in the dark."
+
+"Then, Horace, we must spend a night there."
+
+"It will be our last in this incarnation," I answered with a laugh,
+"that is if it comes on to snow."
+
+"We must risk it, or I will risk it. Look, the light has faded;" and
+there at least he was right, for undoubtedly it had. The night was as
+black as pitch.
+
+"Let's talk it over to-morrow," I said, and went back to the tent, for
+I was sleepy and incredulous, but Leo sat on by the mouth of the cave.
+
+At dawn I awoke and found breakfast already cooked.
+
+"I must start early," Leo explained.
+
+"Are you mad?" I asked. "How can we camp on that place?"
+
+"I don't know, but I am going. I must go, Horace."
+
+"Which means that we both must go. But how about the yak?"
+
+"Where we can climb, it can follow," he answered.
+
+So we strapped the tent and other baggage, including a good supply of
+cooked meat, upon the beast's back, and started. The tramp was long
+since we were obliged to make some detours to avoid slopes of frozen
+snow in which, on our previous ascents, we had cut footholds with an
+axe, for up these the laden animal could not clamber. Reaching the
+summit at length, we dug a hole, and there pitched the tent, piling
+the excavated snow about its sides. By this time it began to grow
+dark, and having descended into the tent, yak and all, we ate our food
+and waited.
+
+Oh! what cold was that. The frost was fearful, and at this height a
+wind blew whose icy breath passed through all our wrappings, and
+seemed to burn our flesh beneath as though with hot irons. It was
+fortunate that we had brought the yak, for without the warmth from its
+shaggy body I believe that we should have perished, even in our tent.
+For some hours we watched, as indeed we must, since to sleep might
+mean to die, yet saw nothing save the lonely stars, and heard nothing
+in that awful silence, for here even the wind made no noise as it slid
+across the snows. Accustomed as I was to such exposure, my faculties
+began to grow numb and my eyes to shut, when suddenly Leo said--
+
+"Look, below the red star!"
+
+I looked, and there high in the sky was the same curious glow which we
+had seen upon the previous night. There was more than this indeed, for
+beneath it, almost on a line with us and just above the crests of the
+intervening peaks, appeared a faint sheet of fire and revealed against
+it, something black. Whilst we watched, the fire widened, spread
+upwards and grew in power and intensity. Now against its flaming
+background the black object became clearly visible, and lo! it was the
+top of a soaring pillar surmounted by a loop. Yes, we could see its
+every outline. It was the /crux ansata/, the Symbol of Life itself.
+
+The symbol vanished, the fire sank. Again it blazed up more fiercely
+than before and the loop appeared afresh, then once more disappeared.
+A third time the fire shone, and with such intensity, that no
+lightning could surpass its brilliance. All around the heavens were
+lit up, and, through the black needle-shaped eye of the symbol, as
+from the flare of a beacon, or the search-light of a ship, one fierce
+ray shot across the sea of mountain tops and the spaces of the desert,
+straight as an arrow to the lofty peak on which we lay. Yes, it lit
+upon the snow, staining it red, and upon the wild, white faces of us
+who watched, though to the right and left of us spread thick darkness.
+My compass lay before me on the snow, and I could even see its needle;
+and beyond us the shape of a white fox that had crept near, scenting
+food. Then it was gone as swiftly as it came. Gone too were the symbol
+and the veil of flame behind it, only the glow lingered a little on
+the distant sky.
+
+For awhile there was silence between us, then Leo said--
+
+"Do you remember, Horace, when we lay upon the Rocking Stone where
+/her/ cloak fell upon me--" as he said the words the breath caught in
+his throat--"how the ray of light was sent to us in farewell, and to
+show us a path of escape from the Place of Death? Now I think that it
+has been sent again in greeting to point out the path to the Place of
+Life where Ayesha dwells, whom we have lost awhile."
+
+"It may be so," I answered shortly, for the matter was beyond speech
+or argument, beyond wonder even. But I knew then, as I know now that
+we were players in some mighty, predestined drama; that our parts were
+written and we must speak them, as our path was prepared and we must
+tread it to the end unknown. Fear and doubt were left behind, hope was
+sunk in certainty; the fore-shadowing visions of the night had found
+an actual fulfilment and the pitiful seed of the promise of her who
+died, growing unseen through all the cruel, empty years, had come to
+harvest.
+
+No, we feared no more, not even when with the dawn rose the roaring
+wind, through which we struggled down the mountain slopes, as it would
+seem in peril of our lives at every step; not even as hour by hour we
+fought our way onwards through the whirling snow-storm, that made us
+deaf and blind. For we knew that those lives were charmed. We could
+not see or hear, yet we were led. Clinging to the yak, we struggled
+downward and homewards, till at length out of the turmoil and the
+gloom its instinct brought us unharmed to the door of the monastery,
+where the old abbot embraced us in his joy, and the monks put up
+prayers of thanks. For they were sure that we must be dead. Through
+such a storm, they said, no man had ever lived before.
+
+It was still mid-winter, and oh! the awful weariness of those months
+of waiting. In our hands was the key, yonder amongst those mountains
+lay the door, but not yet might we set that key within its lock. For
+between us and these stretched the great desert, where the snow rolled
+like billows, and until that snow melted we dared not attempt its
+passage. So we sat in the monastery, and schooled our hearts to
+patience.
+
+Still even to these frozen wilds of Central Asia spring comes at last.
+One evening the air felt warm, and that night there were only a few
+degrees of frost. The next the clouds banked up, and in the morning
+not snow was falling from them, but rain, and we found the old monks
+preparing their instruments of husbandry, as they said that the season
+of sowing was at hand. For three days it rained, while the snows
+melted before our eyes. On the fourth torrents of water were rushing
+down the mountain and the desert was once more brown and bare, though
+not for long, for within another week it was carpeted with flowers.
+Then we knew that the time had come to start.
+
+"But whither go you? Whither go you?" asked the old abbot in dismay.
+"Are you not happy here? Do you not make great strides along the Path,
+as may be known by your pious conversation? Is not everything that we
+have your own? Oh! why would you leave us?"
+
+"We are wanderers," we answered, "and when we see mountains in front
+of us we must cross them."
+
+Kou-en looked at us shrewdly, then asked--
+
+"What do you seek beyond the mountains? And, my brethren, what merit
+is gathered by hiding the truth from an old man, for such concealments
+are separated from falsehoods but by the length of a single
+barleycorn. Tell me, that at least my prayers may accompany you."
+
+"Holy abbot," I said, "awhile ago yonder in the library you made a
+certain confession to us."
+
+"Oh! remind me not of it," he said, holding up his hands. "Why do you
+wish to torment me?"
+
+"Far be the thought from us, most kind friend and virtuous man," I
+answered. "But, as it chances, your story is very much our own, and we
+think that we have experience of this same priestess."
+
+"Speak on," he said, much interested.
+
+So I told him the outlines of our tale; for an hour or more I told it
+while he sat opposite to us swaying his head like a tortoise and
+saying nothing. At length it was done.
+
+"Now," I added, "let the lamp of your wisdom shine upon our darkness.
+Do you not find this story wondrous, or do you perchance think that we
+are liars?"
+
+"Brethren of the great monastery called the World," Kou-en answered
+with his customary chuckle, "why should I think you liars who, from
+the moment my eyes fell upon you, knew you to be true men? Moreover,
+why should I hold this tale so very wondrous? You have but stumbled
+upon the fringe of a truth with which we have been acquainted for
+many, many ages.
+
+"Because in a vision she showed you this monastery, and led you to a
+spot beyond the mountains where she vanished, you hope that this woman
+whom you saw die is re-incarnated yonder. Why not? In this there is
+nothing impossible to those who are instructed in the truth, though
+the lengthening of her last life was strange and contrary to
+experience. Doubtless you will find her there as you expect, and
+doubtless her /khama/, or identity, is the same as that which in some
+earlier life of hers once brought me to sin.
+
+"Only be not mistaken, she is no immortal; nothing is immortal. She is
+but a being held back by her own pride, her own greatness if you will,
+upon the path towards Nirvana. That pride will be humbled, as already
+it has been humbled; that brow of majesty shall be sprinkled with the
+dust of change and death, that sinful spirit must be purified by
+sorrows and by separations. Brother Leo, if you win her, it will be
+but to lose, and then the ladder must be reclimbed. Brother Holly, for
+you as for me loss is our only gain, since thereby we are spared much
+woe. Oh! bide here and pray with me. Why dash yourselves against a
+rock? Why labour to pour water into a broken jar whence it must sink
+into the sands of profitless experience, and there be wasted, whilst
+you remain athirst?"
+
+"Water makes the sand fertile," I answered. "Where water falls, life
+comes, and sorrow is the seed of joy."
+
+"Love is the law of life," broke in Leo; "without love there is no
+life. I seek love that I may live. I believe that all these things are
+ordained to an end which we do not know. Fate draws me on--I fulfil my
+fate----"
+
+"And do but delay your freedom. Yet I will not argue with you,
+brother, who must follow your own road. See now, what has this woman,
+this priestess of a false faith if she be so still, brought you in the
+past? Once in another life, or so I understand your story, you were
+sworn to a certain nature-goddess, who was named Isis, were you not,
+and to her alone? Then a woman tempted you, and you fled with her
+afar. And there what found you? The betrayed and avenging goddess who
+slew you, or if not the goddess, one who had drunk of her wisdom and
+was the minister of her vengeance. Having that wisdom this minister--
+woman or evil spirit--refused to die because she had learned to love
+you, but waited knowing that in your next life she would find you
+again, as indeed she would have done more swiftly in Devachan had she
+died without living on alone in so much misery. And she found you, and
+she died, or seemed to die, and now she is re-born, as she must be,
+and doubtless you will meet once more, and again there must come
+misery. Oh! my friends, go not across the mountains; bide here with me
+and lament your sins."
+
+"Nay," answered Leo, "we are sworn to a tryst, and we do not break our
+word."
+
+"Then, brethren, go keep your tryst, and when you have reaped its
+harvest think upon my sayings, for I am sure that the wine you crush
+from the vintage of your desire will run red like blood, and that in
+its drinking you shall find neither forgetfulness nor peace. Made
+blind by a passion of which well I know the sting and power, you seek
+to add a fair-faced evil to your lives, thinking that from this unity
+there shall be born all knowledge and great joy.
+
+"Rather should you desire to live alone in holiness until at length
+your separate lives are merged and lost in the Good Unspeakable, the
+eternal bliss that lies in the last Nothingness. Ah! you do not
+believe me now; you shake your heads and smile; yet a day will dawn,
+it may be after many incarnations, when you shall bow them in the dust
+and weep, saying to me, 'Brother Kou-en, yours were the words of
+wisdom, ours the deeds of foolishness;'" and with a deep sigh the old
+man turned and left us.
+
+"A cheerful faith, truly," said Leo, looking after him, "to dwell
+through aeons in monotonous misery in order that consciousness may be
+swallowed up at last in some void and formless abstraction called the
+'Utter Peace.' I would rather take my share of a bad world and keep my
+hope of a better. Also I do not think that he knows anything of Ayesha
+and her destiny."
+
+"So would I," I answered, "though perhaps he is right after all. Who
+can tell? Moreover, what is the use of reasoning? Leo, we have no
+choice; we follow our fate. To what that fate may lead us we shall
+learn in due season."
+
+Then we went to rest, for it was late, though I found little sleep
+that night. The warnings of the ancient abbot, good and learned man as
+he was, full also of ripe experience and of the foresighted wisdom
+that is given to such as he, oppressed me deeply. He promised us
+sorrow and bloodshed beyond the mountains, ending in death and
+rebirths full of misery. Well, it might be so, but no approaching
+sufferings could stay our feet. And even if they could, they should
+not, since to see her face again I was ready to brave them all. And if
+this was my case what must be that of Leo!
+
+A strange theory that of Kou-en's, that Ayesha was the goddess in old
+Egypt to whom Kallikrates was priest, or at the least her
+representative. That the royal Amenartas, with whom he fled, seduced
+him from the goddess to whom he was sworn. That this goddess incarnate
+in Ayesha--or using the woman Ayesha and her passions as her
+instruments--was avenged upon them both at Kor, and that there in an
+after age the bolt she shot fell back upon her own head.
+
+Well, I had often thought as much myself. Only I was sure that /She/
+herself could be no actual divinity, though she might be a
+manifestation of one, a priestess, a messenger, charged to work its
+will, to avenge or to reward, and yet herself a human soul, with hopes
+and passions to be satisfied, and a destiny to fulfil. In truth,
+writing now, when all is past and done with, I find much to confirm me
+in, and little to turn me from that theory, since life and powers of a
+quality which are more than human do not alone suffice to make a soul
+divine. On the other hand, however, it must be borne in mind that on
+one occasion at any rate, Ayesha did undoubtedly suggest that in the
+beginning she was "a daughter of Heaven," and that there were others,
+notably the old Shaman Simbri, who seemed to take it for granted that
+her origin was supernatural. But of all these things I hope to speak
+in their season.
+
+Meanwhile what lay beyond the mountains? Should we find her there who
+held the sceptre and upon earth wielded the power of the outraged
+Isis, and with her, that other woman who wrought the wrong? And if so,
+would the dread, inhuman struggle reach its climax around the person
+of the sinful priest? In a few months, a few days even, we might begin
+to know.
+
+Thrilled by this thought at length I fell asleep.
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV
+
+                            THE AVALANCHE
+
+On the morning of the second day from that night the sunrise found us
+already on our path across the desert. There, nearly a mile behind us,
+we could see the ruined statue of Buddha seated in front of the
+ancient monastery, and in that clear atmosphere could even distinguish
+the bent form of our friend, the old abbot, Kou-en, leaning against it
+until we were quite lost to sight. All the monks had wept when we
+parted from them, and Kou-en even more bitterly than the rest, for he
+had learned to love us.
+
+"I am grieved," he said, "much grieved, which indeed I should not be,
+for such emotion partakes of sin. Yet I find comfort, for I know well
+that although I must soon leave this present life, yet we shall meet
+again in many future incarnations, and after you have put away these
+follies, together tread the path to perfect peace. Now take with you
+my blessings and my prayers and begone, forgetting not that should you
+live to return"--and he shook his head, doubtfully--"here you will be
+ever welcome."
+
+So we embraced him and went sorrowfully.
+
+It will be remembered that when the mysterious light fell upon us on
+the peak I had my compass with me and was able roughly to take its
+bearings. For lack of any better guide we now followed these bearings,
+travelling almost due north-east, for in that direction had shone the
+fire. All day in the most beautiful weather we marched across the
+flower-strewn desert, seeing nothing except bunches of game and one or
+two herds of wild asses which had come down from the mountains to feed
+upon the new grass. As evening approached we shot an antelope and made
+our camp--for we had brought the yak and a tent with us--among some
+tamarisk scrub, of which the dry stems furnished us with fuel. Nor did
+we lack for water, since by scraping in the sand soaked with melted
+snow, we found plenty of fair quality. So that night we supped in
+luxury upon tea and antelope meat, which indeed we were glad to have,
+as it spared our little store of dried provisions.
+
+The next morning we ascertained our position as well as we could, and
+estimated that we had crossed about a quarter of the desert, a guess
+which proved very accurate, for on the evening of the fourth day of
+our journey we reached the bottom slopes of the opposing mountains,
+without having experienced either accident or fatigue. As Leo said,
+things were "going like clockwork," but I reminded him that a good
+start often meant a bad finish. Nor was I wrong, for now came our
+hardships. To begin with, the mountains proved to be exceeding high;
+it took us two days to climb their lower slopes. Also the heat of the
+sun had softened the snow, which made walking through it laborious,
+whilst, accustomed though we were to such conditions through long
+years of travelling, its continual glitter affected our eyes.
+
+The morning of the seventh day found us in the mouth of a defile which
+wound away into the heart of the mountains. As it seemed the only
+possible path, we followed it, and were much cheered to discover that
+here must once have run a road. Not that we could see any road,
+indeed, for everything was buried in snow. But that one lay beneath
+our feet we were certain, since, although we marched along the edge of
+precipices, our path, however steep, was always flat; moreover, the
+rock upon one side of it had often been scarped by the hand of man. Of
+this there could be no doubt, for as the snow did not cling here, we
+saw the tool marks upon its bare surface.
+
+Also we came to several places where galleries had been built out from
+the mountain side, by means of beams let into it, as is still a common
+practice in Thibet. These beams of course had long since rotted away,
+leaving a gulf between us and the continuation of the path. When we
+met with such gaps we were forced to go back and make a detour round
+or over some mountain; but although much delayed thereby, as it
+happened, we always managed to regain the road, if not without
+difficulty and danger.
+
+What tried us more--for here our skill and experience as mountaineers
+could not help us--was the cold at night, obliged as we were to camp
+in the severe frost at a great altitude, and to endure through the
+long hours of darkness penetrating and icy winds, which soughed
+ceaselessly down the pass.
+
+At length on the tenth day we reached the end of the defile, and as
+night was falling, camped there in the most bitter cold. Those were
+miserable hours, for now we had no fuel with which to boil water, and
+must satisfy our thirst by eating frozen snow, while our eyes smarted
+so sorely that we could not sleep, and notwithstanding all our wraps
+and the warmth that we gathered from the yak in the little tent, the
+cold caused our teeth to chatter like castanets.
+
+The dawn came, and, after it, the sunrise. We crept from the tent, and
+leaving it standing awhile, dragged our stiffened limbs a hundred
+yards or so to a spot where the defile took a turn, in order that we
+might thaw in the rays of the sun, which at that hour could not reach
+us where we had camped.
+
+Leo was round it first, and I heard him utter an exclamation. In a few
+seconds I reached his side, and lo! before us lay our Promised Land.
+
+Far beneath us, ten thousand feet at least--for it must be remembered
+that we viewed it from the top of a mountain--it stretched away and
+away till its distances met the horizon. In character it was quite
+flat, an alluvial plain that probably, in some primeval age, had been
+the bottom of one of the vast lakes of which a number exist in Central
+Asia, most of them now in process of desiccation. One object only
+relieved this dreary flatness, a single, snow-clad, and gigantic
+mountain, of which even at that distance--for it was very far from us
+--we could clearly see the outline. Indeed we could see more, for from
+its rounded crest rose a great plume of smoke, showing that it was an
+active volcano, and on the hither lip of the crater an enormous pillar
+of rock, whereof the top was formed to the shape of a loop.
+
+Yes, there it stood before us, that symbol of our vision which we had
+sought these many years, and at the sight of it our hearts beat fast
+and our breath came quickly. We noted at once that although we had not
+seen it during our passage of the mountains, since the peaks ahead and
+the rocky sides of the defile hid it from view, so great was its
+height that it overtopped the tallest of them. This made it clear to
+us how it came to be possible that the ray of light passing through
+the loop could fall upon the highest snows of that towering pinnacle
+which we had climbed upon the further side of the desert.
+
+Also now we were certain of the cause of that ray, for the smoke
+behind the loop explained this mystery. Doubtless, at times when the
+volcano was awake, that smoke must be replaced by flame, emitting
+light of fearful intensity, and this light it was that reached us,
+concentrated and directed by the loop.
+
+For the rest we thought that about thirty miles away we could make out
+a white-roofed town set upon a mound, situated among trees upon the
+banks of a wide river, which flowed across the plain. Also it was
+evident that this country had a large population who cultivated the
+soil, for by the aid of a pair of field glasses, one of our few
+remaining and most cherished possessions, we could see the green of
+springing crops pierced by irrigation canals and the lines of trees
+that marked the limits of the fields.
+
+Yes, there before us stretched the Promised Land, and there rose the
+mystic Mount, so that all we had to do was to march down the snow
+slopes and enter it where we would.
+
+Thus we thought in our folly, little guessing what lay before us, what
+terrors and weary suffering we must endure before we stood at length
+beneath the shadow of the Symbol of Life.
+
+Our fatigues forgotten, we returned to the tent, hastily swallowed
+some of our dried food, which we washed down with lumps of snow that
+gave us toothache and chilled us inside, but which thirst compelled us
+to eat, dragged the poor yak to its feet, loaded it up, and started.
+
+All this while, so great was our haste and so occupied were each of us
+with our own thoughts that, if my memory serves me, we scarcely
+interchanged a word. Down the snow slopes we marched swiftly and
+without hesitation, for here the road was marked for us by means of
+pillars of rock set opposite to one another at intervals. These
+pillars we observed with satisfaction, for they told us that we were
+still upon a highway which led to the Promised Land.
+
+Yet, as we could not help noting, it was one which seemed to have gone
+out of use, since with the exception of a few wild-sheep tracks and
+the spoor of some bears and mountain foxes, not a single sign of beast
+or man could we discover. This, however, was to be explained, we
+reflected, by the fact that doubtless the road was only used in the
+summer season. Or perhaps the inhabitants of the country were now
+stay-at-home people who never travelled it at all.
+
+Those slopes were longer than we thought; indeed, when darkness closed
+in we had not reached the foot of them. So we were obliged to spend
+another night in the snow, pitching our tent in the shelter of an
+over-hanging rock. As we had descended many thousand feet, the
+temperature proved, fortunately, a little milder; indeed, I do not
+think that there were more than eighteen or twenty degrees of frost
+that night. Also here and there the heat of the sun had melted the
+snow in secluded places, so that we were able to find water to drink,
+while the yak could fill its poor old stomach with dead-looking
+mountain mosses, which it seemed to think better than nothing.
+
+Again, the still dawn came, throwing its red garment over the
+lonesome, endless mountains, and we dragged ourselves to our numbed
+feet, ate some of our remaining food, and started onwards. Now we
+could no longer see the country beneath, for it and even the towering
+volcano were hidden from us by an intervening ridge that seemed to be
+pierced by a single narrow gulley, towards which we headed. Indeed, as
+the pillars showed us, thither ran the buried road. By mid-day it
+appeared quite close to us, and we tramped on in feverish haste. As it
+chanced, however, there was no need to hurry, for an hour later we
+learned the truth.
+
+Between us and the mouth of the gulley rose, or rather sank, a sheer
+precipice that was apparently three or four hundred feet in depth, and
+at its foot we could hear the sound of water.
+
+Right to the edge of this precipice ran the path, for one of the stone
+pillars stood upon its extreme brink, and yet how could a road descend
+such a place as that? We stared aghast; then a possible solution
+occurred to us.
+
+"Don't you see," said Leo, with a hollow laugh, "the gulf has opened
+since this track was used: volcanic action probably."
+
+"Perhaps, or perhaps there was a wooden bridge or stairway which has
+rotted. It does not matter. We must find another path, that is all," I
+answered as cheerfully as I could.
+
+"Yes, and soon," he said, "if we do not wish to stop here for ever."
+
+So we turned to the right and marched along the edge of the precipice
+till, a mile or so away, we came to a small glacier, of which the
+surface was sprinkled with large stones frozen into its substance.
+This glacier hung down the face of the cliff like a petrified
+waterfall, but whether or no it reached the foot we could not
+discover. At any rate, to think of attempting its descent seemed out
+of the question. From this point onwards we could see that the
+precipice increased in depth and far as the eye could reach was
+absolutely sheer.
+
+So we went back again and searched to the left of our road. Here the
+mountains receded, so that above us rose a mighty, dazzling slope of
+snow and below us lay that same pitiless, unclimbable gulf. As the
+light began to fade we perceived, half a mile or more in front a bare-
+topped hillock of rock, which stood on the verge of the precipice, and
+hurried to it, thinking that from its crest we might be able to
+discover a way of descent.
+
+When at length we had struggled to the top, it was about a hundred and
+fifty feet high; what we did discover was that, here also, as beyond
+the glacier, the gulf was infinitely deeper than at the spot where the
+road ended, so deep indeed that we could not see its bottom, although
+from it came the sound of roaring water. Moreover, it was quite half a
+mile in width.
+
+Whilst we stared round us the sinking sun vanished behind a mountain
+and, the sky being heavy, the light went out like that of a candle.
+Now the ascent of this hillock had proved so steep, especially at one
+place, where we were obliged to climb a sort of rock ladder, that we
+scarcely cared to attempt to struggle down it again in that gloom.
+Therefore, remembering that there was little to choose between the top
+of this knoll and the snow plain at its foot in the matter of
+temperature or other conveniences, and being quite exhausted, we
+determined to spend the night upon it, thereby, as we were to learn,
+saving our lives.
+
+Unloading the yak, we pitched our tent under the lee of the topmost
+knob of rock and ate a couple of handfuls of dried fish and corn-cake.
+This was the last of the food that we had brought with us from the
+Lamasery, and we reflected with dismay that unless we could shoot
+something, our commissariat was now represented by the carcass of our
+old friend the yak. Then we wrapped ourselves up in our thick rugs and
+fur garments and forgot our miseries in sleep.
+
+It cannot have been long before daylight when we were awakened by a
+sudden and terrific sound like the boom of a great cannon, followed by
+thousands of other sounds, which might be compared to the fusillade of
+musketry.
+
+"Great Heaven! What is that?" I said.
+
+We crawled from the tent, but as yet could see nothing, whilst the yak
+began to low in a terrified manner. But if we could not see we could
+hear and feel. The booming and cracking had ceased, and was followed
+by a soft, grinding noise, the most sickening sound, I think, to which
+I ever listened. This was accompanied by a strange, steady, unnatural
+wind, which seemed to press upon us as water presses. Then the dawn
+broke and we saw.
+
+The mountain-side was moving down upon us in a vast avalanche of snow.
+
+Oh! what a sight was that. On from the crest of the precipitous slopes
+above, two miles and more away, it came, a living thing, rolling,
+sliding, gliding; piling itself in long, leaping waves, hollowing
+itself into cavernous valleys, like a tempest-driven sea, whilst above
+its surface hung a powdery cloud of frozen spray.
+
+As we watched, clinging to each other terrified, the first of these
+waves struck our hill, causing the mighty mass of solid rock to quiver
+like a yacht beneath the impact of an ocean roller, or an aspen in a
+sudden rush of wind. It struck and slowly separated, then with a
+majestic motion flowed like water over the edge of the precipice on
+either side, and fell with a thudding sound into the unmeasured depths
+beneath. And this was but a little thing, a mere forerunner, for after
+it, with a slow, serpentine movement, rolled the body of the
+avalanche.
+
+It came in combers, it came in level floods. It piled itself against
+our hill, yes, to within fifty feet of the head of it, till we thought
+that even that rooted rock must be torn from its foundations and
+hurled like a pebble to the deeps beneath. And the turmoil of it all!
+The screaming of the blast caused by the compression of the air, the
+dull, continuous thudding of the fall of millions of tons of snow as
+they rushed through space and ended their journey in the gulf.
+
+Nor was this the worst of it, for as the deep snows above thinned,
+great boulders that had been buried beneath them, perhaps for
+centuries, were loosened from their resting-places and began to
+thunder down the hill. At first they moved slowly, throwing up the
+hard snow around them as the prow of a ship throws foam. Then
+gathering momentum, they sprang into the air with leaps such as those
+of shells ricocheting upon water, till in the end, singing and
+hurtling, many of them rushed past and even over us to vanish far
+beyond. Some indeed struck our little mountain with the force of shot
+fired from the great guns of a battle-ship, and shattered there, or if
+they fell upon its side, tore away tons of rock and passed with them
+into the chasm like a meteor surrounded by its satellites. Indeed, no
+bombardment devised and directed by man could have been half so
+terrible or, had there been anything to destroy, half so destructive.
+
+The scene was appalling in its unchained and resistless might evolved
+suddenly from the completest calm. There in the lap of the quiet
+mountains, looked down upon by the peaceful, tender sky, the powers
+hidden in the breast of Nature were suddenly set free, and,
+companioned by whirlwinds and all the terrifying majesty of sound,
+loosed upon the heads of us two human atoms.
+
+At the first rush of snow we had leapt back behind our protecting peak
+and, lying at full length upon the ground, gripped it and clung there,
+fearing lest the wind should whirl us to the abyss. Long ago our tent
+had gone like a dead leaf in an autumn gale, and at times it seemed as
+if we must follow.
+
+The boulders hurtled over and past us; one of them, fell full upon the
+little peak, shattering its crest and bursting into fragments, which
+fled away, each singing its own wild song. We were not touched, but
+when we looked behind us it was to see the yak, which had risen in its
+terror, lying dead and headless. Then in our fear we lay still,
+waiting for the end, and wondering dimly whether we should be buried
+in the surging snow or swept away with the hill, or crushed by the
+flying rocks, or lifted and lost in the hurricane.
+
+How long did it last? We never knew. It may have been ten minutes or
+two hours, for in such a scene time loses its proportion. Only we
+became aware that the wind had fallen, while the noise of grinding
+snow and hurtling boulders ceased. Very cautiously we gained our feet
+and looked.
+
+In front of us was sheer mountain side, for a depth of over two miles,
+the width of about a thousand yards, which had been covered with many
+feet of snow, was now bare rock. Piled up against the face of our
+hill, almost to its summit, lay a tongue of snow, pressed to the
+consistency of ice and spotted with boulders that had lodged there.
+The peak itself was torn and shattered, so that it revealed great
+gleaming surfaces and pits, in which glittered mica, or some other
+mineral. The vast gulf behind was half filled with the avalanche and
+its debris. But for the rest, it seemed as though nothing had
+happened, for the sun shone sweetly overhead and the solemn snows
+reflected its rays from the sides of a hundred hills. And we had
+endured it all and were still alive; yes, and unhurt.
+
+But what a position was ours! We dared not attempt to descend the
+mount, lest we should sink into the loose snow and be buried there.
+Moreover, all along the breadth of the path of the avalanche boulders
+from time to time still thundered down the rocky slope, and with them
+came patches of snow that had been left behind by the big slide, small
+in themselves, it is true, but each of them large enough to kill a
+hundred men. It was obvious, therefore, that until these conditions
+changed, or death released us, we must abide where we were upon the
+crest of the hillock.
+
+So there we sat, foodless and frightened, wondering what our old
+friend Kou-en would say if he could see us now. By degrees hunger
+mastered all our other sensations and we began to turn longing eyes
+upon the headless body of the yak.
+
+"Let's skin him," said Leo, "it will be something to do, and we shall
+want his hide to-night."
+
+So with affection, and even reverence, we performed this office for
+the dead companion of our journeyings, rejoicing the while that it was
+not we who had brought him to his end. Indeed, long residence among
+peoples who believed fully that the souls of men could pass into, or
+were risen from, the bodies of animals, had made us a little
+superstitious on this matter. It would be scarcely pleasant, we
+reflected, in some future incarnation, to find our faithful friend
+clad in human form and to hear him bitterly reproach us for his
+murder.
+
+Being dead, however, these arguments did not apply to eating him, as we
+were sure he would himself acknowledge. So we cut off little bits of his
+flesh and, rolling them in snow till they looked as though they were
+nicely floured, hunger compelling us, swallowed them at a gulp. It was a
+disgusting meal and we felt like cannibals: but what could we do?
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V
+
+                             THE GLACIER
+
+Even that day came to an end at last, and after a few more lumps of
+yak, our tent being gone, we drew his hide over us and rested as best
+we could, knowing that at least we had no more avalanches to fear.
+That night it froze sharply, so that had it not been for the yak's
+hide and the other rugs and garments, which fortunately we were
+wearing when the snow-slide began, it would, I think, have gone hard
+with us. As it was, we suffered a great deal.
+
+"Horace," said Leo at the dawn, "I am going to leave this. If we have
+to die, I would rather do so moving; but I don't believe that we shall
+die."
+
+"Very well," I said, "let us start. If the snow won't bear us now, it
+never will."
+
+So we tied up our rugs and the yak's hide in two bundles and, having
+cut off some more of the frozen meat, began our descent. Now, although
+the mount was under two hundred feet high, its base, fortunately for
+us--for otherwise it must have been swept away by the mighty pressure
+of the avalanche--was broad, so that there was a long expanse of
+piled-up snow between us and the level ground.
+
+Since, owing to the overhanging conformation of the place, it was
+quite impossible for us to descend in front where pressure had made
+the snow hard as stone, we were obliged to risk a march over the
+looser material upon its flank. As there was nothing to be gained by
+waiting, off we went, Leo leading and step by step trying the snow. To
+our joy we discovered that the sharp night frost had so hardened its
+surface that it would support us. About half way down, however, where
+the pressure had been less, it became much softer, so that we were
+forced to lie upon our faces, which enabled us to distribute our
+weight over a larger surface, and thus slither gently down the hill.
+
+All went well until we were within twenty paces of the bottom, where
+we must cross a soft mound formed of the powdery dust thrown off by
+the avalanche in its rush. Leo slipped over safely, but I, following a
+yard or two to his right, of a sudden felt the hard crust yield
+beneath me. An ill-judged but quite natural flounder and wriggle, such
+as a newly-landed flat-fish gives upon the sand, completed the
+mischief, and with one piercing but swiftly stifled yell, I vanished.
+
+Any one who has ever sunk in deep water will know that the sensation
+is not pleasant, but I can assure him that to go through the same
+experience in soft snow is infinitely worse; mud alone could surpass
+its terrors. Down I went, and down, till at length I seemed to reach a
+rock which alone saved me from disappearing for ever. Now I felt the
+snow closing above me and with it came darkness and a sense of
+suffocation. So soft was the drift, however, that before I was
+overcome I contrived with my arms to thrust away the powdery dust from
+about my head, thus forming a little hollow into which air filtered
+slowly. Getting my hands upon the stone, I strove to rise, but could
+not, the weight upon me was too great.
+
+Then I abandoned hope and prepared to die. The process proved not
+altogether unpleasant. I did not see visions from my past life as
+drowning men are supposed to do, but--and this shows how strong was
+her empire over me--my mind flew back to Ayesha. I seemed to behold
+her and a man at her side, standing over me in some dark, rocky gulf.
+She was wrapped in a long travelling cloak, and her lovely eyes were
+wild with fear. I rose to salute her, and make report, but she cried
+in a fierce, concentrated voice--
+
+"What evil thing has happened here? Thou livest; then where is my lord
+Leo? Speak, man, and say where thou hast hid my lord--or die."
+
+The vision was extraordinarily real and vivid, I remember, and,
+considered in connection with a certain subsequent event, in all ways
+most remarkable, but it passed as swiftly as it came.
+
+Then my senses left me.
+
+I saw a light again. I heard a voice, that of Leo. "Horace," he cried,
+"Horace, hold fast to the stock of the rifle." Something was thrust
+against my outstretched hand. I gripped it despairingly, and there
+came a strain. It was useless, I did not move. Then, bethinking me, I
+drew up my legs and by chance or the mercy of Heaven, I know not, got
+my feet against a ridge of the rock on which I was lying. Again I felt
+the strain, and thrust with all my might. Of a sudden the snow gave,
+and out of that hole I shot like a fox from its earth.
+
+I struck something. It was Leo straining at the gun, and I knocked him
+backwards. Then down the steep slope we rolled, landing at length upon
+the very edge of the precipice. I sat up, drawing in the air with
+great gasps, and oh! how sweet it was. My eyes fell upon my hand, and
+I saw that the veins stood out on the back of it, black as ink and
+large as cords. Clearly I must have been near my end.
+
+"How long was I in there?" I gasped to Leo, who sat at my side, wiping
+off the sweat that ran from his face in streams.
+
+"Don't know. Nearly twenty minutes, I should think."
+
+"Twenty minutes! It seemed like twenty centuries. How did you get me
+out? You could not stand upon the drift dust."
+
+"No; I lay upon the yak skin where the snow was harder and tunnelled
+towards you through the powdery stuff with my hands, for I knew where
+you had sunk and it was not far off. At last I saw your finger tips;
+they were so blue that for a few seconds I took them for rock, but
+thrust the butt of the rifle against them. Luckily you still had life
+enough to catch hold of it, and you know the rest. Were we not both
+very strong, it could never have been done."
+
+"Thank you, old fellow," I said simply.
+
+"Why should you thank me?" he asked with one of his quick smiles. "Do
+you suppose that I wished to continue this journey alone? Come, if you
+have got your breath, let us be getting on. You have been sleeping in
+a cold bed and want exercise. Look, my rifle is broken and yours is
+lost in the snow. Well, it will save us the trouble of carrying the
+cartridges," and he laughed drearily.
+
+Then we began our march, heading for the spot where the road ended
+four miles or so away, for to go forward seemed useless. In due course
+we reached it safely. Once a mass of snow as large as a church swept
+down just in front of us, and once a great boulder loosened from the
+mountain rushed at us suddenly like an attacking lion, or the stones
+thrown by Polyphemus at the ship of Odysseus, and, leaping over our
+heads, vanished with an angry scream into the depths beneath. But we
+took little heed of these things: our nerves were deadened, and no
+danger seemed to affect them.
+
+There was the end of the road, and there were our own footprints and
+the impress of the yak's hoofs in the snow. The sight of them affected
+me, for it seemed strange that we should have lived to look upon them
+again. We stared over the edge of the precipice. Yes, it was sheer and
+absolutely unclimbable.
+
+"Come to the glacier," said Leo.
+
+So we went on to it, and scrambling a little way down its root, made
+an examination. Here, so far as we could judge, the cliff was about
+four hundred feet deep. But whether or no the tongue of ice reached to
+the foot of it we were unable to tell, since about two thirds of the
+way down it arched inwards, like the end of a bent bow, and the
+conformation of the overhanging rocks on either side was such that we
+could not see where it terminated. We climbed back again and sat down,
+and despair took hold of us, bitter, black despair.
+
+"What are we to do?" I asked. "In front of us death. Behind us death,
+for how can we recross those mountains without food or guns to shoot
+it with? Here death, for we must sit and starve. We have striven and
+failed. Leo, our end is at hand. Only a miracle can save us."
+
+"A miracle," he answered. "Well, what was it that led us to the top of
+the mount so that we were able to escape the avalanche? And what was
+it which put that rock in your way as you sank into the bed of dust,
+and gave me wit and strength to dig you out of your grave of snow? And
+what is it that has preserved us through seventeen years of dangers
+such as few men have known and lived? Some directing Power. Some
+Destiny that will accomplish itself in us. Why should the Power cease
+to guide? Why should the Destiny be baulked at last?"
+
+He paused, then added fiercely, "I tell you, Horace, that even if we
+had guns, food, and yaks, I would not turn back upon our spoor, since
+to do so would prove me a coward and unworthy of her. I will go on."
+
+"How?" I asked.
+
+"By that road," and he pointed to the glacier.
+
+"It is a road to death!"
+
+"Well, if so, Horace, it would seem that in this land men find life in
+death, or so they believe. If we die now, we shall die travelling our
+path, and in the country where we perish we may be born again. At
+least I am determined, so you must choose."
+
+"I have chosen long ago. Leo, we began this journey together and we
+will end it together. Perhaps Ayesha knows and will help us," and I
+laughed drearily. "If not--come, we are wasting time."
+
+Then we took counsel, and the end of it was that we cut a skin rug and
+the yak's tough hide into strips and knotted these together into two
+serviceable ropes, which we fastened about our middles, leaving one
+end loose, for we thought that they might help us in our descent.
+
+Next we bound fragments of another skin rug about our legs and knees
+to protect them from the chafing of the ice and rocks, and for the
+same reason put on our thick leather gloves. This done, we took the
+remainder of our gear and heavy robes and, having placed stones in
+them, threw them over the brink of the precipice, trusting to find
+them again, should we ever reach its foot. Now our preparations were
+complete, and it was time for us to start upon perhaps one of the most
+desperate journeys ever undertaken by men of their own will.
+
+Yet we stayed a little, looking at each other in piteous fashion, for
+we could not speak. Only we embraced, and I confess, I think I wept a
+little. It all seemed so sad and hopeless, these longings endured
+through many years, these perpetual, weary travellings, and now--the
+end. I could not bear to think of that splendid man, my ward, my most
+dear friend, the companion of my life, who stood before me so full of
+beauty and of vigour, but who must within a few short minutes be
+turned into a heap of quivering, mangled flesh. For myself it did not
+matter. I was old, it was time that I should die. I had lived
+innocently, if it were innocent to follow this lovely image, this
+Siren of the caves, who lured us on to doom.
+
+No, I don't think that I thought of myself then, but I thought a great
+deal of Leo, and when I saw his determined face and flashing eyes as
+he nerved himself to the last endeavour, I was proud of him. So in
+broken accents I blessed him and wished him well through all the
+aeons, praying that I might be his companion to the end of time. In
+few words and short he thanked me and gave me back my blessing. Then
+he muttered--
+
+"Come."
+
+So side by side we began the terrible descent. At first it was easy
+enough, although a slip would have hurled us to eternity. But we were
+strong and skilful, accustomed to such places moreover, and made none.
+About a quarter of the way down we paused, standing upon a great
+boulder that was embedded in the ice, and, turning round cautiously,
+leaned our backs against the glacier and looked about us. Truly it was
+a horrible place, almost sheer, nor did we learn much, for beneath us,
+a hundred and twenty feet or more, the projecting bend cut off our
+view of what lay below.
+
+So, feeling that our nerves would not bear a prolonged contemplation
+of that dizzy gulf, once more we set our faces to the ice and
+proceeded on the downward climb. Now matters were more difficult, for
+the stones were fewer and once or twice we must slide to reach them,
+not knowing if we should ever stop again. But the ropes which we threw
+over the angles of the rocks, or salient points of ice, letting
+ourselves down by their help and drawing them after us when we reached
+the next foothold, saved us from disaster.
+
+Thus at length we came to the bend, which was more than half way down
+the precipice, being, so far as I could judge, about two hundred and
+fifty feet from its lip, and say one hundred and fifty from the
+darksome bottom of the narrow gulf. Here were no stones, but only some
+rough ice, on which we sat to rest.
+
+"We must look," said Leo presently.
+
+But the question was, how to do this. Indeed, there was only one way,
+to hang over the bend and discover what lay below. We read each
+other's thought without the need of words, and I made a motion as
+though I would start.
+
+"No," said Leo, "I am younger and stronger than you. Come, help me,"
+and he began to fasten the end of his rope to a strong, projecting
+point of ice. "Now," he said, "hold my ankles."
+
+It seemed an insanity, but there was nothing else to be done, so,
+fixing my heels in a niche, I grasped them and slowly he slid forward
+till his body vanished to the middle. What he saw does not matter, for
+I saw it all afterwards, but what happened was that suddenly all his
+great weight came upon my arms with such a jerk that his ankles were
+torn from my grip.
+
+Or, who knows! perhaps in my terror I loosed them, obeying the natural
+impulse which prompts a man to save his own life. If so, may I be
+forgiven, but had I held on, I must have been jerked into the abyss.
+Then the rope ran out and remained taut.
+
+"Leo!" I screamed, "Leo!" and I heard a muffled voice saying, as I
+thought, "Come." What it really said was--"Don't come." But indeed--
+and may it go to my credit--I did not pause to think, but face
+outwards, just as I was sitting, began to slide and scramble down the
+ice.
+
+In two seconds I had reached the curve, in three I was over it.
+Beneath was what I can only describe as a great icicle broken off
+short, and separated from the cliff by about four yards of space. This
+icicle was not more than fifteen feet in length and sloped outwards,
+so that my descent was not sheer. Moreover, at the end of it the
+trickling of water, or some such accident, had worn away the ice,
+leaving a little ledge as broad, perhaps, as a man's hand. There were
+roughnesses on the surface below the curve, upon which my clothing
+caught, also I gripped them desperately with my fingers. Thus it came
+about that I slid down quite gently and, my heels landing upon the
+little ledge, remained almost upright, with outstretched arms--like a
+person crucified to a cross of ice.
+
+Then I saw everything, and the sight curdled the blood within my
+veins. Hanging to the rope, four or five feet below the broken point,
+was Leo, out of reach of it, and out of reach of the cliff; as he hung
+turning slowly round and round, much as--for in a dreadful,
+inconsequent fashion the absurd similarity struck me even then--a
+joint turns before the fire. Below yawned the black gulf, and at the
+bottom of it, far, far beneath, appeared a faint, white sheet of snow.
+That is what I saw.
+
+Think of it! Think of it! I crucified upon the ice, my heels resting
+upon a little ledge; my fingers grasping excrescences on which a bird
+could scarcely have found a foothold; round and below me dizzy space.
+To climb back whence I came was impossible, to stir even was
+impossible, since one slip and I must be gone.
+
+And below me, hung like a spider to its cord, Leo turning slowly round
+and round!
+
+I could see that rope of green hide stretch beneath his weight and the
+double knots in it slip and tighten, and I remember wondering which
+would give first, the hide or the knots, or whether it would hold till
+he dropped from the noose limb by limb.
+
+Oh! I have been in many a perilous place, I who sprang from the
+Swaying Stone to the point of the Trembling Spur, and missed my aim,
+but never, never in such a one as this. Agony took hold of me; a cold
+sweat burst from every pore. I could feel it running down my face like
+tears; my hair bristled upon my head. And below, in utter silence, Leo
+turned round and round, and each time he turned his up-cast eyes met
+mine with a look that was horrible to see.
+
+The silence was the worst of it, the silence and the helplessness. If
+he had cried out, if he had struggled, it would have been better. But
+to know that he was alive there, with every nerve and perception at
+its utmost stretch. Oh! my God! Oh! my God!
+
+My limbs began to ache, and yet I dared not stir a muscle. They ached
+horribly, or so I thought, and beneath this torture, mental and
+physical, my mind gave.
+
+I remembered things: remembered how, as a child, I had climbed a tree
+and reached a place whence I could move neither up nor down, and what
+I suffered then. Remembered how once in Egypt a foolhardy friend of
+mine had ascended the Second Pyramid alone, and become thus crucified
+upon its shining cap, where he remained for a whole half hour with
+four hundred feet of space beneath him. I could see him now stretching
+his stockinged foot downwards in a vain attempt to reach the next
+crack, and drawing it back again; could see his tortured face, a white
+blot upon the red granite.
+
+Then that face vanished and blackness gathered round me, and in the
+blackness visions: of the living, resistless avalanche, of the snow-
+grave into which I had sunk--oh! years and years ago; of Ayesha
+demanding Leo's life at my hands. Blackness and silence, through which
+I could only hear the cracking of my muscles.
+
+Suddenly in the blackness a flash, and in the silence a sound. The
+flash was the flash of a knife which Leo had drawn. He was hacking at
+the cord with it fiercely, fiercely, to make an end. And the sound was
+that of the noise he made, a ghastly noise, half shout of defiance and
+half yell of terror, as at the third stroke it parted.
+
+I saw it part. The tough hide was half cut through, and its severed
+portion curled upwards and downwards like the upper and lower lips of
+an angry dog, whilst that which was unsevered stretched out slowly,
+slowly, till it grew quite thin. Then it snapped, so that the rope
+flew upwards and struck me across the face like the lash of a whip.
+
+Another instant and I heard a crackling, thudding sound. Leo had
+struck the ground below. Leo was dead, a mangled mass of flesh and
+bone as I had pictured him. I could not bear it. My nerve and human
+dignity came back. I would not wait until, my strength exhausted, I
+slid from my perch as a wounded bird falls from a tree. No, I would
+follow him at once, of my own act.
+
+I let my arms fall against my sides, and rejoiced in the relief from
+pain that the movement gave me. Then balanced upon my heels, I stood
+upright, took my last look at the sky, muttered my last prayer. For an
+instant I remained thus poised.
+
+Shouting, "I come," I raised my hands above my head and dived as a
+bather dives, dived into the black gulf beneath.
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI
+
+                             IN THE GATE
+
+Oh! that rush through space! Folk falling thus are supposed to lose
+consciousness, but I can assert that this is not true. Never were my
+wits and perceptions more lively than while I travelled from that
+broken glacier to the ground, and never did a short journey seem to
+take a longer time. I saw the white floor, like some living thing,
+leaping up through empty air to meet me, then--/finis!/
+
+Crash! Why, what was this? I still lived. I was in water, for I could
+feel its chill, and going down, down, till I thought I should never
+rise again. But rise I did, though my lungs were nigh to bursting
+first. As I floated up towards the top I remembered the crash, which
+told me that I had passed through ice. Therefore I should meet ice at
+the surface again. Oh! to think that after surviving so much I must be
+drowned like a kitten and beneath a sheet of ice. My hands touched it.
+There it was above me shining white like glass. Heaven be praised! My
+head broke through; in this low and sheltered gorge it was but a film
+no thicker than a penny formed by the light frost of the previous
+night. So I rose from the deep and stared about me, treading water
+with my feet.
+
+Then I saw the gladdest sight that ever my eyes beheld, for on the
+right, not ten yards away, the water running from his hair and beard,
+was Leo. Leo alive, for he broke the thin ice with his arms as he
+struggled towards the shore from the deep river.[*] He saw me also,
+and his grey eyes seemed to start out of his head.
+
+[*] Usually, as we learned afterwards, the river at this spot was
+    quite shallow; only a foot or two in depth. It was the avalanche
+    that by damming it with fallen heaps of snow had raised its level
+    very many feet. Therefore, to this avalanche, which had threatened
+    to destroy us, we in reality owed our lives, for had the stream
+    stood only at its normal height we must have been dashed to pieces
+    upon the stones.--L. H. H.
+
+"Still living, both of us, and the precipice passed!" he shouted in a
+ringing, exultant voice. "I told you we were led."
+
+"Aye, but whither?" I answered as I too fought my way through the film
+of ice.
+
+Then it was I became aware that we were no longer alone, for on the
+bank of the river, some thirty yards from us, stood two figures, a man
+leaning upon a long staff and a woman. He was a very old man, for his
+eyes were horny, his snow-white hair and beard hung upon the bent
+breast and shoulders, and his sardonic, wrinkled features were yellow
+as wax. They might have been those of a death mask cut in marble.
+There, clad in an ample, monkish robe, and leaning upon the staff, he
+stood still as a statue and watched us. I noted it all, every detail,
+although at the time I did not know that I was doing so, as we broke
+our way through the ice towards them and afterwards the picture came
+back to me. Also I saw that the woman, who was very tall, pointed to
+us.
+
+Nearer the bank, or rather to the rock edge of the river, its surface
+was free of ice, for here the stream ran very swiftly. Seeing this, we
+drew close together and swam on side by side to help each other if
+need were. There was much need, for in the fringe of the torrent the
+strength that had served me so long seemed to desert me, and I became
+helpless; numbed, too, with the biting coldness of the water. Indeed,
+had not Leo grasped my clothes I think that I should have been swept
+away by the current to perish. Thus aided I fought on a while, till he
+said--
+
+"I am going under. Hold to the rope end."
+
+So I gripped the strip of yak's hide that was still fast about him,
+and, his hand thus freed, Leo made a last splendid effort to keep us
+both, cumbered as we were with the thick, soaked garments that dragged
+us down like lead, from being sucked beneath the surface. Moreover, he
+succeeded where any other swimmer of less strength must have failed.
+Still, I believe that we should have drowned, since here the water ran
+like a mill-race, had not the man upon the shore, seeing our plight
+and urged thereto by the woman, run with surprising swiftness in one
+so aged, to a point of rock that jutted some yards into the stream,
+past which we were being swept, and seating himself, stretched out his
+long stick towards us.
+
+With a desperate endeavour, Leo grasped it as we went by, rolling over
+and over each other, and held on. Round we swung into the eddy, found
+our feet, were knocked down again, rubbed and pounded on the rocks.
+But still gripping that staff of salvation, to his end of which the
+old man clung like a limpet to a stone, while the woman clung to him,
+we recovered ourselves, and, sheltered somewhat by the rock,
+floundered towards the shore. Lying on his face--for we were still in
+great danger--the man extended his arm. We could not reach it; and
+worse, suddenly the staff was torn from him; we were being swept away.
+
+Then it was that the woman did a noble thing, for springing into the
+water--yes, up to her armpits--and holding fast to the old man by her
+left hand, with the right she seized Leo's hair and dragged him
+shorewards. Now he found his feet for a moment, and throwing one arm
+about her slender form, steadied himself thus, while with the other he
+supported me. Next followed a long confused struggle, but the end of
+it was that three of us, the old man, Leo and I, rolled in a heap upon
+the bank and lay there gasping.
+
+Presently I looked up. The woman stood over us, water streaming from
+her garments, staring like one in a dream at Leo's face, smothered as
+it was with blood running from a deep cut in his head. Even then I
+noticed how stately and beautiful she was. Now she seemed to awake
+and, glancing at the robes that clung to her splendid shape, said
+something to her companion, then turned and ran towards the cliff.
+
+As we lay before him, utterly exhausted, the old man, who had risen,
+contemplated us solemnly with his dim eyes. He spoke, but we did not
+understand. Again he tried another language and without success. A
+third time and our ears were opened, for the tongue he used was Greek;
+yes, there in Central Asia he addressed us in Greek, not very pure, it
+is true, but still Greek.
+
+"Are you wizards," he said, "that you have lived to reach this land?"
+
+"Nay," I answered in the same tongue, though in broken words--since of
+Greek I had thought little for many a year--"for then we should have
+come otherwise," and I pointed to our hurts and the precipice behind
+us.
+
+"They know the ancient speech; it is as we were told from the
+Mountain," he muttered to himself. Then he asked--
+
+"Strangers, what seek you?"
+
+Now I grew cunning and did not answer, fearing lest, should he learn
+the truth, he would thrust us back into the river. But Leo had no such
+caution, or rather all reason had left him; he was light-headed.
+
+"We seek," he stuttered out--his Greek, which had always been feeble,
+now was simply barbarous and mixed with various Thibetan dialects--"we
+seek the land of the Fire Mountain that is crowned with the Sign of
+Life."
+
+The man stared at us. "So you know," he said, then broke off and
+added, "and /whom/ do you seek?"
+
+"Her," answered Leo wildly, "the Queen." I think that he meant to say
+the priestess, or the goddess, but could only think of the Greek for
+Queen, or rather something resembling it. Or perhaps it was because
+the woman who had gone looked like a queen.
+
+"Oh!" said the man, "you seek a queen--then you /are/ those for whom
+we were bidden to watch. Nay, how can I be sure?"
+
+"Is this a time to put questions?" I gasped angrily. "Answer me one
+rather: who are you?"
+
+"I? Strangers, my title is Guardian of the Gate, and the lady who was
+with me is the Khania of Kaloon."
+
+At this point Leo began to faint.
+
+"That man is sick," said the Guardian, "and now that you have got your
+breath again, you must have shelter, both of you, and at once. Come,
+help me."
+
+So, supporting Leo on either side, we dragged ourselves away from that
+accursed cliff and Styx-like river up a narrow, winding gorge.
+Presently it opened out, and there, stretching across the glade, we
+saw the Gate. Of this all I observed then, for my memory of the
+details of this scene and of the conversation that passed is very weak
+and blurred, was that it seemed to be a mighty wall of rock in which a
+pathway had been hollowed where doubtless once passed the road. On one
+side of this passage was a stair, which we began to ascend with great
+difficulty, for Leo was now almost senseless and scarcely moved his
+legs. Indeed at the head of the first flight he sank down in a heap,
+nor did our strength suffice to lift him.
+
+While I wondered feebly what was to be done, I heard footsteps, and
+looking up, saw the woman who had saved him descending the stair, and
+after her two robed men with a Tartar cast of countenance, very
+impassive; small eyes and yellowish skin. Even the sight of us did not
+appear to move them to astonishment. She spoke some words to them,
+whereon they lifted Leo's heavy frame, apparently with ease, and
+carried him up the steps.
+
+We followed, and reached a room that seemed to be hewn from the rock
+above the gateway, where the woman called Khania left us. From it we
+passed through other rooms, one of them a kind of kitchen, in which a
+fire burned, till we came to a large chamber, evidently a sleeping
+place, for in it were wooden bedsteads, mattresses and rugs. Here Leo
+was laid down, and with the assistance of one of his servants, the old
+Guardian undressed him, at the same time motioning me to take off my
+own garments. This I did gladly enough for the first time during many
+days, though with great pain and difficulty, to find that I was a mass
+of wounds and bruises.
+
+Presently our host blew upon a whistle, and the other servant appeared
+bringing hot water in a jar, with which we were washed over. Then the
+Guardian dressed our hurts with some soothing ointment, and wrapped us
+round with blankets. After this broth was brought, into which he mixed
+medicine, and giving me a portion to drink where I lay upon one of the
+beds, he took Leo's head upon his knee and poured the rest of it down
+his throat. Instantly a wonderful warmth ran through me, and my aching
+brain began to swim. Then I remembered no more.
+
+After this we were very, very ill. What may be the exact medical
+definition of our sickness I do not know, but in effect it was such as
+follows loss of blood, extreme exhaustion of body, paralysing shock to
+the nerves and extensive cuts and contusions. These taken together
+produced a long period of semi-unconsciousness, followed by another
+period of fever and delirium. All that I can recall of those weeks
+while we remained the guests of the Guardian of the Gate, may be
+summed up in one word--dreams, that is until at last I recovered my
+senses.
+
+The dreams themselves are forgotten, which is perhaps as well, since
+they were very confused, and for the most part awful; a hotch-potch of
+nightmares, reflected without doubt from vivid memories of our recent
+and fearsome sufferings. At times I would wake up from them a little,
+I suppose when food was administered to me, and receive impressions of
+whatever was passing in the place. Thus I can recollect that yellow-
+faced old Guardian standing over me like a ghost in the moonlight,
+stroking his long beard, his eyes fixed upon my face, as though he
+would search out the secrets of my soul.
+
+"They are the men," he muttered to himself, "without doubt they are
+the men," then walked to the window and looked up long and earnestly,
+like one who studies the stars.
+
+After this I remember a disturbance in the room, and dominating it, as
+it were, the rich sound of a woman's voice and the rustle of a woman's
+silks sweeping the stone floor. I opened my eyes and saw that it was
+she who had helped to rescue us, who /had/ rescued us in fact, a tall
+and noble-looking lady with a beauteous, weary face and liquid eyes
+which seemed to burn. From the heavy cloak she wore I thought that she
+must have just returned from a journey.
+
+She stood above me and looked at me, then turned away with a gesture
+of indifference, if not of disgust, speaking to the Guardian in a low
+voice. By way of answer he bowed, pointing to the other bed where Leo
+lay, asleep, and thither she passed with slow, imperious movements. I
+saw her bend down and lift the corner of a wrapping which covered his
+wounded head, and heard her utter some smothered words before she
+turned round to the Guardian as though to question him further.
+
+But he had gone, and being alone, for she thought me senseless, she
+drew a rough stool to the side of the bed, and seating herself studied
+Leo, who lay thereon, with an earnestness that was almost terrible,
+for her soul seemed to be concentrated in her eyes, and to find
+expression through them. Long she gazed thus, then rose and began to
+walk swiftly up and down the chamber, pressing her hands now to her
+bosom and now to her brow, a certain passionate perplexity stamped
+upon her face, as though she struggled to remember something and could
+not.
+
+"Where and when?" she whispered. "Oh! where and when?"
+
+Of the end of that scene I know nothing, for although I fought hard
+against it, oblivion mastered me. After this I became aware that the
+regal-looking woman called Khania, was always in the room, and that
+she seemed to be nursing Leo with great care and tenderness. Sometimes
+even she nursed me when Leo did not need attention, and she had
+nothing else to do, or so her manner seemed to suggest. It was as
+though I excited her curiosity, and she wished me to recover that it
+might be satisfied.
+
+Again I awoke, how long afterwards I cannot say. It was night, and the
+room was lighted by the moon only, now shining in a clear sky. Its
+steady rays entering at the window-place fell on Leo's bed, and by
+them I saw that the dark, imperial woman was watching at his side.
+Some sense of her presence must have communicated itself to him, for
+he began to mutter in his sleep, now in English, now in Arabic. She
+became intensely interested; as her every movement showed. Then rising
+suddenly she glided across the room on tiptoe to look at me. Seeing
+her coming I feigned to be asleep, and so well that she was deceived.
+
+For I was also interested. Who was this lady whom the Guardian had
+called the Khania of Kaloon? Could it be she whom we sought? Why not?
+And yet if I saw Ayesha, surely I should know her, surely there would
+be no room for doubt.
+
+Back she went again to the bed, kneeling down beside Leo, and in the
+intense silence which followed--for he had ceased his mutterings--I
+thought that I could hear the beating of her heart. Now she began to
+speak, very low and in that same bastard Greek tongue, mixed here and
+there with Mongolian words such as are common to the dialects of
+Central Asia. I could not hear or understand all she said, but some
+sentences I did understand, and they frightened me not a little.
+
+"Man of my dreams," she murmured, "whence come you? Who are you? Why
+did the Hesea bid me to meet you?" Then some sentences I could not
+catch. "You sleep; in sleep the eyes are opened. Answer, I bid you;
+say what is the bond between you and me? Why have I dreamt of you? Why
+do I know you? Why----?" and the sweet, rich voice died slowly from a
+whisper into silence, as though she were ashamed to utter what was on
+her tongue.
+
+As she bent over him a lock of her hair broke loose from its jewelled
+fillet and fell across his face. At its touch Leo seemed to wake, for
+he lifted his gaunt, white hand and touched the hair, then said in
+English--
+
+"Where am I? Oh! I remember;" and their eyes met as he strove to lift
+himself and could not. Then he spoke again in his broken, stumbling
+Greek, "You are the lady who saved me from the water. Say, are you
+also that queen whom I have sought so long and endured so much to
+find?"
+
+"I know not," she answered in a voice as sweet as honey, a low,
+trembling voice; "but true it is I am a queen--if a Khania be a
+queen."
+
+"Say, then, Queen, do you remember me?"
+
+"We have met in dreams," she answered, "I think that we have met in a
+past that is far away. Yes; I knew it when first I saw you there by
+the river. Stranger with the well remembered face, tell me, I pray
+you, how you are named?"
+
+"Leo Vincey."
+
+She shook her head, whispering--
+
+"I know not the name, yet you I know."
+
+"You know me! How do you know me?" he said heavily, and seemed to sink
+again into slumber or swoon.
+
+She watched him for a while very intently. Then as though some force
+that she could not resist drew her, I saw her bend down her head over
+his sleeping face. Yes; and I saw her kiss him swiftly on the lips,
+then spring back crimson to the hair, as though overwhelmed with shame
+at this victory of her mad passion.
+
+Now it was that she discovered me.
+
+Bewildered, fascinated, amazed, I had raised myself upon my bed, not
+knowing it; I suppose that I might see and hear the better. It was
+wrong, doubtless, but no common curiosity over-mastered me, who had my
+share in all this story. More, it was foolish, but illness and wonder
+had killed my reason.
+
+Yes, she saw me watching them, and such fury seemed to take hold of
+her that I thought my hour had come.
+
+"Man, have you dared----?" she said in an intense whisper, and
+snatching at her girdle. Now in her hand shone a knife, and I knew
+that it was destined for my heart. Then in this sore danger my wit
+came back to me and as she advanced I stretched out my shaking hand,
+saying--
+
+"Oh! of your pity, give me to drink. The fever burns me, it burns,"
+and I looked round like one bewildered who sees not, repeating, "Give
+me drink, you who are called Guardian," and I fell back exhausted.
+
+She stopped like a hawk in its stoop, and swiftly sheathed the dagger.
+Then taking a bowl of milk that stood on a table near her, she held it
+to my lips, searching my face the while with her flaming eyes, for
+indeed passion, rage, and fear had lit them till they seemed to flame.
+I drank the milk in great gulps, though never in my life did I find it
+more hard to swallow.
+
+"You tremble," she said; "have dreams haunted you?"
+
+"Aye, friend," I answered, "dreams of that fearsome precipice and of
+the last leap."
+
+"Aught else?" she asked.
+
+"Nay; is it not enough? Oh! what a journey to have taken to befriend a
+queen."
+
+"To befriend a queen," she repeated puzzled. "What means the man? You
+swear you have had no other dreams?"
+
+"Aye, I swear by the Symbol of Life and the Mount of the Wavering
+Flame, and by yourself, O Queen from the ancient days."
+
+Then I sighed and pretended to swoon, for I could think of nothing
+else to do. As I closed my eyes I saw her face that had been red as
+dawn turn pale as eve, for my words and all which might lie behind
+them, had gone home. Moreover, she was in doubt, for I could hear her
+fingering the handle of the dagger. Then she spoke aloud, words for my
+ears if they still were open.
+
+"I am glad," she said, "that he dreamed no other dreams, since had he
+done so and babbled of them it would have been ill-omened, and I do
+not wish that one who has travelled far to visit us should be hurled
+to the death-dogs for burial; one, moreover, who although old and
+hideous, still has the air of a wise and silent man."
+
+Now while I shivered at these unpleasant hints--though what the
+"death-dogs" in which people were buried might be, I could not
+conceive--to my intense joy I heard the foot of the Guardian on the
+stairs, heard him too enter the room and saw him bow before the lady.
+
+"How go these sick men, niece?"[*] he said in his cold voice.
+
+[*] I found later that the Khania, Atene, was not Simbri's niece but
+    his great-niece, on the mother's side.--L. H. H.
+
+"They swoon, both of them," she answered.
+
+"Indeed, is it so? I thought otherwise. I thought they woke."
+
+"What have you heard, Shaman (i.e. wizard)?" she asked angrily.
+
+"I? Oh! I heard the grating of a dagger in its sheath and the distant
+baying of the death-hounds."
+
+"And what have you seen, Shaman?" she asked again, "looking through
+the Gate you guard?"
+
+"Strange sight, Khania, my niece. But--men awake from swoons."
+
+"Aye," she answered, "so while this one sleeps, bear him to another
+chamber, for he needs change, and the lord yonder needs more space and
+untainted air."
+
+The Guardian, whom she called "Shaman" or Magician, held a lamp in his
+hand, and by its light it was easy to see his face, which I watched
+out of the corner of my eye. I thought that it wore a very strange
+expression, one moreover that alarmed me somewhat. From the beginning
+I had misdoubted me of this old man, whose cast of countenance was
+vindictive as it was able; now I was afraid of him.
+
+"To which chamber, Khania?" he said with meaning.
+
+"I think," she answered slowly, "to one that is healthful, where he
+will recover. The man has wisdom," she added as though in explanation,
+"moreover, having the word from the Mountain, to harm him would be
+dangerous. But why do you ask?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I tell you I heard the death-hounds bay, that is all. Yes, with you I
+think that he has wisdom, and the bee which seeks honey should suck
+the flower--before it fades! Also, as you say, there are commands with
+which it is ill to trifle, even if we cannot guess their meaning."
+
+Then going to the door he blew upon his whistle, and instantly I heard
+the feet of his servants upon the stairs. He gave them an order, and
+gently enough they lifted the mattress on which I lay and followed him
+down sundry passages and past some stairs into another chamber shaped
+like that we had left, but not so large, where they placed me upon a
+bed.
+
+The Guardian watched me awhile to see that I did not wake. Next he
+stretched out his hand and felt my heart and pulse; an examination the
+results of which seemed to /puzzle/ him, for he uttered a little
+exclamation and shook his head. After this he left the room, and I
+heard him bolt the door behind him. Then, being still very weak, I
+fell asleep in earnest.
+
+When I awoke it was broad daylight. My mind was clear and I felt
+better than I had done for many a day, signs by which I knew that the
+fever had left me and that I was on the high road to recovery. Now I
+remembered all the events of the previous night and was able to weigh
+them carefully. This, to be sure, I did for many reasons, among them
+that I knew I had been and still was, in great danger.
+
+I had seen and heard too much, and this woman called Khania guessed
+that I had seen and heard. Indeed, had it not been for my hints about
+the Symbol of Life and the Mount of Flame, after I had disarmed her
+first rage by my artifice, I felt sure that she would have ordered the
+old Guardian or Shaman to do me to death in this way or the other;
+sure also that he would not have hesitated to obey her. I had been
+spared partly because, for some unknown reason, she was afraid to kill
+me, and partly that she might learn how much I knew, although the
+"death-hounds had bayed," whatever that might mean. Well, up to the
+present I was safe, and for the rest I must take my chance. Moreover
+it was necessary to be cautious, and, if need were, to feign
+ignorance. So, dismissing the matter of my own fate from my mind, I
+fell to considering the scene which I had witnessed and what might be
+its purport.
+
+Was our quest at an end? Was this woman Ayesha? Leo had so dreamed,
+but he was still delirious, therefore here was little on which to
+lean. What seemed more to the point was that she herself evidently
+appeared to think that there existed some tie between her and this
+sick man. Why had she embraced him? I was sure that she could be no
+wanton, nor indeed would any woman indulge for its own sake in such
+folly with a stranger who hung between life and death. What she had
+done was done because irresistible impulse, born of knowledge, or at
+least of memories, drove her on, though mayhap the knowledge was
+imperfect and the memories were undefined. Who save Ayesha could have
+known anything of Leo in the past? None who lived upon the earth
+to-day.
+
+And yet, why not, if what Kou-en the abbot and tens of millions of his
+fellow-worshippers believed were true? If the souls of human beings
+were in fact strictly limited in number, and became the tenants of an
+endless succession of physical bodies which they change from time to
+time as we change our worn-out garments, why should not others have
+known him? For instance that daughter of the Pharaohs who "caused him
+through love to break the vows that he had vowed" knew a certain
+Kallikrates, a priest of "Isis whom the gods cherish and the demons
+obey;" even Amenartas, the mistress of magic.
+
+Oh! now a light seemed to break upon me, a wonderful light. What if
+Amenartas and this Khania, this woman with royalty stamped on every
+feature, should be the same? Would not that "magic of my own people
+that I have" of which she wrote upon the Sherd, enable her to pierce
+the darkness of the Past and recognize the priest whom she had
+bewitched to love her, snatching him out of the very hand of the
+goddess? What if it were not Ayesha, but Amenartas re-incarnate who
+ruled this hidden land and once more sought to make the man she loved
+break through his vows? If so, knowing the evil that must come, I
+shook even at its shadow. The truth must be learned, but how?
+
+Whilst I wondered the door opened, and the sardonic, inscrutable-old-
+faced man, whom this Khania had called Magician, and who called the
+Khania, niece, entered and stood before me.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII
+
+                           THE FIRST ORDEAL
+
+The shaman advanced to my side and asked me courteously how I fared.
+
+I answered, "Better. Far better, oh, my host--but how are you named?"
+
+"Simbri," he answered, "and, as I told you by the water, my title is
+Hereditary Guardian of the Gate. By profession I am the royal
+Physician in this land."
+
+"Did you say physician or magician?" I asked carelessly, as though I
+had not caught the word. He gave me a curious look.
+
+"I /said/ physician, and it is well for you and your companion that I
+have some skill in my art. Otherwise I think, perhaps, you would not
+have been alive to-day, O my guest--but how are /you/ named?"
+
+"Holly," I said.
+
+"O my guest, Holly."
+
+"Had it not been for the foresight that brought you and the lady
+Khania to the edge of yonder darksome river, certainly we should /not/
+have been alive, venerable Simbri, a foresight that seems to me to
+savour of magic in such a lonely place. That is why I thought you
+might have described yourself as a magician, though it is true that
+you may have been but fishing in those waters."
+
+"Certainly I was fishing, stranger Holly--for men, and I caught two."
+
+"Fishing by chance, host Simbri?"
+
+"Nay, by design, guest Holly. My trade of physician includes the study
+of future events, for I am the chief of the Shamans or Seers of this
+land, and, having been warned of your coming quite recently, I awaited
+your arrival."
+
+"Indeed, that is strange, most courteous also. So here physician and
+magician mean the same."
+
+"You say it," he answered with a grave bow; "but tell me, if you will,
+how did you find your way to a land whither visitors do not wander?"
+
+"Oh!" I answered, "perhaps we are but travellers, or perhaps we also
+have studied--medicine."
+
+"I think that you must have studied it deeply, since otherwise you
+would not have lived to cross those mountains in search of--now, what
+did you seek? Your companion, I think, spoke of a queen--yonder, on
+the banks of the torrent."
+
+"Did he? Did he, indeed? Well, that is strange since he seems to have
+found one, for surely that royal-looking lady, named Khania, who
+sprang into the stream and saved us, must be a queen."
+
+"A queen she is, and a great one, for in our land Khania means queen,
+though how, friend Holly, a man who has lain senseless can have
+learned this, I do not know. Nor do I know how you come to speak our
+language."
+
+"That is simple, for the tongue you talk is very ancient, and as it
+chances in my own country it has been my lot to study and to teach it.
+It is Greek, but although it is still spoken in the world, how it
+reached these mountains I cannot say."
+
+"I will tell you," he answered. "Many generations ago a great
+conqueror born of the nation that spoke this tongue fought his way
+through the country to the south of us. He was driven back, but a
+general of his of another race advanced and crossed the mountains, and
+overcame the people of this land, bringing with him his master's
+language and his own worship. Here he established his dynasty, and
+here it remains, for being ringed in with deserts and with pathless
+mountain snows, we hold no converse with the outer world."
+
+"Yes, I know something of that story; the conqueror was named
+Alexander, was he not?" I asked.
+
+"He was so named, and the name of the general was Rassen, a native of
+a country called Egypt, or so our records tell us. His descendants
+hold the throne to this day, and the Khania is of his blood."
+
+"Was the goddess whom he worshipped called Isis?"
+
+"Nay," he answered, "she was called Hes."
+
+"Which," I interrupted, "is but another title for Isis. Tell me, is
+her worship continued here? I ask because it is now dead in Egypt,
+which was its home."
+
+"There is a temple on the Mountain yonder," he replied indifferently,
+"and in it are priests and priestesses who practise some ancient cult.
+But the real god of this people now, as long before the day of Rassen
+their conqueror, is the fire that dwells in this same Mountain, which
+from time to time breaks out and slays them."
+
+"And does a goddess dwell in the fire?" I asked.
+
+Again he searched my face with his cold eyes, then answered--
+
+"Stranger Holly, I know nothing of any goddess. That Mountain is
+sacred, and to seek to learn its secrets is to die. Why do you ask
+such questions?"
+
+"Only because I am curious in the matter of old religions, and seeing
+the symbol of Life upon yonder peak, came hither to study yours, of
+which indeed a tradition still remains among the learned."
+
+"Then abandon that study, friend Holly, for the road to it runs
+through the paws of the death-hounds, and the spears of savages. Nor
+indeed is there anything to learn."
+
+"And what, Physician, are the death-hounds?"
+
+"Certain dogs to which, according to our ancient custom, all offenders
+against the law or the will of the Khan, are cast to be torn to
+pieces."
+
+"The will of the Khan! Has this Khania of yours a husband then?"
+
+"Aye," he answered, "her cousin, who was the ruler of half the land.
+Now they and the land are one. But you have talked enough; I am here
+to say that your food is ready," and he turned to leave the room.
+
+"One more question, friend Simbri. How came I to this chamber, and
+where is my companion?"
+
+"You were borne hither in your sleep, and see, the change has bettered
+you. Do you remember nothing?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing at all," I answered earnestly. "But what of my
+friend?"
+
+"He also is better. The Khania Atene nurses him."
+
+"Atene?" I said. "That is an old Egyptian name. It means the Disk of
+the Sun, and a woman who bore it thousands of years ago was famous for
+her beauty."
+
+"Well, and is not my niece Atene beautiful?"
+
+"How can I tell, O uncle of the Khania," I answered wearily, "who have
+scarcely seen her?"
+
+Then he departed, and presently his yellow-faced, silent servants
+brought me my food.
+
+Later in the morning the door opened again, and through it,
+unattended, came the Khania Atene, who shut and bolted it behind her.
+This action did not reassure me, still, rising in my bed, I saluted
+her as best I could, although at heart I was afraid. She seemed to
+read my doubts for she said--
+
+"Lie down, and have no fear. At present you will come by no harm from
+me. Now, tell me what is the man called Leo to you? Your son? Nay, it
+cannot be, since--forgive me--light is not born of darkness."
+
+"I have always thought that it was so born, Khania. Yet you are right;
+he is but my adopted son, and a man whom I love."
+
+"Say, what seek you here?" she asked.
+
+"We seek, Khania, whatsoever Fate shall bring us on yonder Mountain,
+that which is crowned with flame."
+
+Her face paled at the words, but she answered in a steady voice--
+
+"Then there you will find nothing but doom, if indeed you do not find
+it before you reach its slopes, which are guarded by savage men.
+Yonder is the College of Hes, and to violate its Sanctuary is death to
+any man, death in the ever-burning fire."
+
+"And who rules this college, Khania--a priestess?"
+
+"Yes, a priestess, whose face I have never seen, for she is so old
+that she veils herself from curious eyes."
+
+"Ah! she veils herself, does she?" I answered, as the blood went
+thrilling through my veins, I who remembered another who also was /so/
+old that she veiled herself from curious eyes. "Well, veiled or
+unveiled, we would visit her, trusting to find that we are welcome."
+
+"That you shall not do," she said, "for it is unlawful, and I will not
+have your blood upon my hands."
+
+"Which is the stronger," I asked of her, "you, Khania, or this
+priestess of the Mountain?"
+
+"I am the stronger, Holly, for so you are named, are you not? Look
+you, at my need I can summon sixty thousand men in war, while she has
+naught but her priests and the fierce, untrained tribes."
+
+"The sword is not the only power in the world," I answered. "Tell me,
+now, does this priestess ever visit the country of Kaloon?"
+
+"Never, never, for by the ancient pact, made after the last great
+struggle long centuries ago between the College and the people of the
+Plain, it was decreed and sworn to that should she set her foot across
+the river, this means war to the end between us, and rule for the
+victor over both. Likewise, save when unguarded they bear their dead
+to burial, or for some such high purpose, no Khan or Khania of Kaloon
+ascends the Mountain."
+
+"Which then is the true master--the Khan of Kaloon or the head of the
+College of Hes?" I asked again.
+
+"In matters spiritual, the priestess of Hes, who is our Oracle and the
+voice of Heaven. In matters temporal, the Khan of Kaloon."
+
+"The Khan. Ah! you are married, lady, are you not?"
+
+"Aye," she answered, her face flushing. "And I will tell you what you
+soon must learn, if you have not learned it already, I am the wife of
+a madman, and he is--hateful to me."
+
+"I /have/ earned the last already, Khania."
+
+She looked at me with her piercing eyes.
+
+"What! Did my uncle, the Shaman, he who is called Guardian, tell you?
+Nay, you saw, as I knew you saw, and it would have been best to slay
+you for, oh! what must you think of me?"
+
+I made no answer, for in truth I did not know what to think, also I
+feared lest further rash admissions should be followed by swift
+vengeance.
+
+"You must believe," she went on, "that I, who have ever hated men,
+that I--I swear that it is true--whose lips are purer than those
+mountain snows, I, the Khania of Kaloon, whom they name Heart-of-Ice,
+am but a shameless thing." And, covering her face with her hand, she
+moaned in the bitterness of her distress.
+
+"Nay," I said, "there may be reasons, explanations, if it pleases you
+to give them."
+
+"Wanderer, there are such reasons; and since you know so much, you
+shall learn them also. Like that husband of mine, I have become mad.
+When first I saw the face of your companion, as I dragged him from the
+river, madness entered me, and I--I----"
+
+"Loved him," I suggested. "Well, such things have happened before to
+people who were not mad."
+
+"Oh!" she went on, "it was more than love; I was possessed, and that
+night I knew not what I did. A Power drove me on; a Destiny compelled
+me, and to the end I am his, and his alone. Yes, I am his, and I swear
+that he shall be mine;" and with this wild declaration dangerous
+enough under the conditions, she turned and fled the room.
+
+She was gone, and after the struggle, for such it was, I sank back
+exhausted. How came it that this sudden passion had mastered her? Who
+and what was this Khania, I wondered again, and--this was more to the
+point, who and what would Leo believe her to be? If only I could be
+with him before he said words or did deeds impossible to recall.
+
+Three days went by, during which time I saw no more of the Khania,
+who, or so I was informed by Simbri, the Shaman, had returned to her
+city to make ready for us, her guests. I begged him to allow me to
+rejoin Leo, but he answered politely, though with much firmness, that
+my foster-son did better without me. Now, I grew suspicious, fearing
+lest some harm had come to Leo, though how to discover the truth I
+knew not. In my anxiety I tried to convey a note to him, written upon
+a leaf of a water-gained pocket-book, but the yellow-faced servant
+refused to touch it, and Simbri said drily that he would have naught
+to do with writings which he could not read. At length, on the third
+night I made up my mind that whatever the risk, with leave or without
+it, I would try to find him.
+
+By this time I could walk well, and indeed was almost strong again. So
+about midnight, when the moon was up, for I had no other light, I
+crept from my bed, threw on my garments, and taking a knife, which was
+the only weapon I possessed, opened the door of my room and started.
+
+Now, when I was carried from the rock-chamber where Leo and I had been
+together, I took note of the way. First, reckoning from my sleeping-
+place, there was a passage thirty paces long, for I had counted the
+footfalls of my bearers. Then came a turn to the left, and ten more
+paces of passage, and lastly near certain steps running to some place
+unknown, another sharp turn to the right which led to our old chamber.
+
+Down the long passage I walked stealthily, and although it was pitch
+dark, found the turn to the left, and followed it till I came to the
+second sharp turn to the right, that of the gallery from which rose
+the stairs. I crept round it only to retreat hastily enough, as well I
+might, for at the door of Leo's room, which she was in the act of
+locking on the outside, as I could see by the light of the lamp that
+she held in her hand, stood the Khania herself.
+
+My first thought was to fly back to my own chamber, but I abandoned
+it, feeling sure that I should be seen. Therefore I determined, if she
+discovered me, to face the matter out and say that I was trying to
+find Leo, and to learn how he fared. So I crouched against the wall,
+and waited with a beating heart. I heard her sweep down the passage,
+and--yes--begin to mount the stair.
+
+Now, what should I do? To try to reach Leo was useless, for she had
+locked the door with the key she held. Go back to bed? No, I would
+follow her, and if we met would make the same excuse. Thus I might get
+some tidings, or perhaps--a dagger thrust.
+
+So round the corner and up the steps I went, noiselessly as a snake.
+They were many and winding, like those of a church tower, but at
+length I came to the head of them, where was a little landing, and
+opening from it a door. It was a very ancient door; the light streamed
+through cracks where its panels had rotted, and from the room beyond
+came the sound of voices, those of the Shaman Simbri and the Khania.
+
+"Have you learned aught, my niece?" I heard him say, and also heard
+her answer---
+
+"A little. A very little."
+
+Then in my thirst for knowledge I grew bold, and stealing to the door,
+looked through one of the cracks in its wood. Opposite to me, in the
+full flood of light thrown by a hanging lamp, her hand resting on a
+table at which Simbri was seated, stood the Khania. Truly she was a
+beauteous sight, for she wore robes of royal purple, and on her brow a
+little coronet of gold, beneath which her curling hair streamed down
+her shapely neck and bosom. Seeing her I guessed at once that she had
+arrayed herself thus for some secret end, enhancing her loveliness by
+every art and grace that is known to woman. Simbri was looking at her
+earnestly, with fear and doubt written on even his cold, impassive
+features.
+
+"What passed between you, then?" he asked, peering at her.
+
+"I questioned him closely as to the reason of his coming to this land,
+and wrung from him the answer that it was to seek some beauteous woman
+--he would say no more. I asked him if she were more beauteous than
+/I/ am, and he replied with courtesy--nothing else, I think--that it
+would be hard to say, but that she had been different. Then I said
+that though it behooved me not to speak of such a matter, there was no
+lady in Kaloon whom men held to be so fair as I; moreover, that I was
+its ruler, and that I and no other had saved him from the water. Aye,
+and I added that my heart told me I was the woman whom he sought."
+
+"Have done, niece," said Simbri impatiently, "I would not hear of the
+arts you used--well enough, doubtless. What then?"
+
+"Then he said that it might be so, since he thought that this woman
+was born again, and studied me a while, asking me if I had ever
+'passed through fire.' To this I replied that the only fires I had
+passed were those of the spirit, and that I dwelt in them now. He
+said, 'Show me your hair,' and I placed a lock of it in his hand.
+Presently he let it fall, and from that satchel which he wears about
+his neck drew out another tress of hair--oh! Simbri, my uncle, the
+loveliest hair that ever eyes beheld, for it was soft as silk, and
+reached from my coronet to the ground. Moreover, no raven's wing in
+the sunshine ever shone as did that fragrant tress.
+
+"'Yours is beautiful,' he said, 'but see, they are not the same.'
+
+"'Mayhap,' I answered, 'since no woman ever wore such locks.'
+
+"'You are right,' he replied, 'for she whom I seek was more than a
+woman.'
+
+"And then--and then--though I tried him in many ways he would say no
+more, so, feeling hate against this Unknown rising in my heart, and
+fearing lest I should utter words that were best unsaid, I left him.
+Now I bid you, search the books which are open to your wisdom and tell
+me of this woman whom he seeks, who she is, and where she dwells. Oh!
+search them swiftly, that I may find her and--kill her if I can."
+
+"Aye, if you can," answered the Shaman, "and if she lives to kill. But
+say, where shall we begin our quest? Now, this letter from the
+Mountain that the head-priest Oros sent to your court a while ago?"--
+and he selected a parchment from a pile which lay upon the table and
+looked at her.
+
+"Read," she said, "I would hear it again."
+
+So he read: "From the Hesea of the House of Fire, to Atene, Khania of
+Kaloon.
+
+"My sister--Warning has reached me that two strangers of a western
+race journey to your land, seeking my Oracle, of which they would ask
+a question. On the first day of the next moon, I command that you and
+with you Simbri, your great-uncle, the wise Shaman, Guardian of the
+Gate, shall be watching the river in the gulf at the foot of the
+ancient road, for by that steep path the strangers travel. Aid them in
+all things and bring them safely to the Mountain, knowing that in this
+matter I shall hold him and you to account. Myself I will not meet
+them, since to do so would be to break the pact between our powers,
+which says that the Hesea of the Sanctuary visits not the territory of
+Kaloon, save in war. Also their coming is otherwise appointed."
+
+"It would seem," said Simbri, laying down the parchment, "that these
+are no chance wanderers, since Hes awaits them."
+
+"Aye, they are no chance wanderers, since my heart awaited one of them
+also. Yet the Hesea cannot be that woman, for reasons which are known
+to you."
+
+"There are many women on the Mountain," suggested the Shaman in a dry
+voice, "if indeed any woman has to do with this matter."
+
+"I at least have to do with it, and he shall not go to the Mountain."
+
+"Hes is powerful, my niece, and beneath these smooth words of hers
+lies a dreadful threat. I say that she is mighty from of old and has
+servants in the earth and air who warned her of the coming of these
+men, and will warn her of what befalls them. I know it, who hate her,
+and to your royal house of Rassen it has been known for many a
+generation. Therefore thwart her not lest ill befall us all, for she
+is a spirit and terrible. She says that it is appointed that they
+shall go----"
+
+"And /I/ say it is appointed that he shall not go. Let the other go if
+he desires."
+
+"Atene, be plain, what will you with the man called Leo--that he
+should become your lover?" asked the Shaman.
+
+She stared him straight in the eyes, and answered boldly--
+
+"Nay, I will that he should become my husband."
+
+"First he must will it too, who seems to have no mind that way. Also,
+how can a woman have two husbands?"
+
+She laid her hand upon his shoulder and said--
+
+"I have no husband. You know it well, Simbri. /I/ charge you by the
+close bond of blood between us, brew me another draught----"
+
+"That we may be bound yet closer in a bond of murder! Nay, Atene, I
+will not; already your sin lies heavy on my head. You are very fair;
+take the man in your own net, if you may, or let him be, which is
+better far."
+
+"I cannot let him be. Would that I were able. I must love him as I
+must hate the other whom he loves, yet some power hardens his heart
+against me. Oh! great Shaman, you that peep and mutter, you who can
+read the future and the past, tell me what you have learned from your
+stars and divinations."
+
+"Already I have sought through many a secret, toilsome hour and
+learned this, Atene," he answered. "You are right, the fate of yonder
+man is intertwined with yours, but between you and him there rises a
+mighty wall that my vision cannot pierce nor my familiars climb. Yet I
+am taught that in death you and he--aye, and I also, shall be very
+near together."
+
+"Then come death," she exclaimed with sullen pride, "for thence at
+least I'll pluck out my desire."
+
+"Be not so sure," he answered, "for I think that the Power follows us
+even down this dark gulf of death. I think also that I feel the
+sleepless eyes of Hes watching our secret souls."
+
+"Then blind them with the dust of illusions--as you can. To-morrow,
+also, saying nothing of their sex, send a messenger to the Mountain
+and tell the Hesea that two old strangers have arrived--mark you,
+/old/--but that they are very sick, that their limbs were broken in
+the river, and that when they have healed again, I will send them to
+ask the question of her Oracle--that is, some three moons hence.
+Perchance she may believe you, and be content to wait; or if she does
+not, at least no more words. I must sleep or my brain will burst. Give
+me that medicine which brings dreamless rest, for never did I need it
+more, who also feel eyes upon me," and she glanced towards the door.
+
+Then I left, and not too soon, for as I crept down the darksome passage,
+I heard it open behind me.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII
+
+                           THE DEATH-HOUNDS
+
+It may have been ten o'clock on the following morning, or a little
+past it, when the Shaman Simbri came into my room and asked me how I
+had slept.
+
+"Like a log," I answered, "like a log. A drugged man could not have
+rested more soundly."
+
+"Indeed, friend Holly, and yet you look fatigued."
+
+"My dreams troubled me somewhat," I answered. "I suffer from such
+things. But surely by your face, friend Simbri, you cannot have slept
+at all, for never yet have I seen you with so weary an air."
+
+"I am weary," he said, with a sigh. "Last night I spent up on my
+business--watching at the Gates."
+
+"What gates?" I asked. "Those by which we entered this kingdom, for,
+if so, I would rather watch than travel them."
+
+"The Gates of the Past and of the Future. Yes, those two which you
+entered, if you will; for did you not travel out of a wondrous Past
+towards a Future that you cannot /guess?/"
+
+"But both of which interest you," I suggested.
+
+"Perhaps," he answered, then added, "I come to tell you that within an
+hour you are to start for the city, whither the Khania has but now
+gone on to make ready for you."
+
+"Yes; only you told me that she had gone some days ago. Well, I am
+sound again and prepared to march, but say, how is my foster-son?"
+
+"He mends, he mends. But you shall see him for yourself. It is the
+Khania's will. Here come the slaves bearing your robes, and with them
+I leave you."
+
+So with their assistance I dressed myself, first in good, clean under-
+linen, then in wide woollen trousers and vest, and lastly in a fur-
+lined camel-hair robe dyed black that was very comfortable to wear,
+and in appearance not unlike a long overcoat. A flat cap of the same
+material and a pair of boots made of untanned hide completed my
+attire.
+
+Scarcely was I ready when the yellow-faced servants, with many bows,
+took me by the hand and led me down the passages and stairs of the
+Gate-house to its door. Here, to my great joy, I found Leo, looking
+pale and troubled, but otherwise as well as I could expect after his
+sickness. He was attired like myself, save that his garments were of a
+finer quality, and the overcoat was white, with a hood to it, added, I
+suppose, to protect the wound in his head from cold and the sun. This
+white dress I thought became him very well, also about it there was
+nothing grotesque or even remarkable. He sprang to me and seized my
+hand, asking how I fared and where I had been hidden away, a greeting
+of which, as I could see, the warmth was not lost upon Simbri, who
+stood by.
+
+I answered, well enough now that we were together again, and for the
+rest I would tell him later.
+
+Then they brought us palanquins, carried, each of them, by two ponies,
+one of which was harnessed ahead and the other behind between long
+shaft-like poles. In these we seated ourselves, and at a sign from
+Simbri slaves took the leading ponies by the bridle and we started,
+leaving behind us that grim old Gate-house through which we were the
+first strangers to pass for many a generation.
+
+For a mile or more our road ran down a winding, rocky gorge, till
+suddenly it took a turn, and the country of Kaloon lay stretched
+before us. At our feet was a river, probably the same with which we
+had made acquaintance in the gulf, where, fed by the mountain snows,
+it had its source. Here it flowed rapidly, but on the vast, alluvial
+lands beneath became a broad and gentle stream that wound its way
+through the limitless plains till it was lost in the blue of the
+distance.
+
+To the north, however, this smooth, monotonous expanse was broken by
+that Mountain which had guided us from afar, the House of Fire. It was
+a great distance from us, more than a hundred miles, I should say, yet
+even so a most majestic sight in that clear air. Many leagues from the
+base of its peak the ground began to rise in brown and rugged
+hillocks, from which sprang the holy Mountain itself, a white and
+dazzling point that soared full twenty thousand feet into the heavens.
+
+Yes, and there upon the nether lip of its crater stood the gigantic
+pillar, surmounted by a yet more gigantic loop of virgin rock, whereof
+the blackness stood out grimly against the blue of the sky beyond and
+the blinding snow beneath.
+
+We gazed at it with awe, as well we might, this beacon of our hopes
+that for aught we knew might also prove their monument, feeling even
+then that yonder our fate would declare itself. I noted further that
+all those with us did it reverence by bowing their heads as they
+caught sight of the peak, and by laying the first finger of the right
+hand across the first finger of the left, a gesture, as we afterwards
+discovered, designed to avert its evil influence. Yes, even Simbri
+bowed, a yielding to inherited superstition of which I should scarcely
+have suspected him.
+
+"Have you ever journeyed to that Mountain?" asked Leo of him.
+
+Simbri shook his head and answered evasively.
+
+"The people of the Plain do not set foot upon the Mountain. Among its
+slopes beyond the river which washes them, live hordes of brave and
+most savage men, with whom we are oftentimes at war; for when they are
+hungry they raid our cattle and our crops. Moreover, there, when the
+Mountain labours, run red streams of molten rock, and now and again
+hot ashes fall that slay the traveller."
+
+"Do the ashes ever fall in your country?" asked Leo.
+
+"They have been known to do so when the Spirit of the Mountain is
+angry, and that is why we fear her."
+
+"Who is this Spirit?" said Leo eagerly.
+
+"I do not know, lord," he answered with impatience. "Can men see a
+spirit?"
+
+"/You/ look as though you might, and had, not so long ago," replied
+Leo, fixing his gaze on the old man's waxen face and uneasy eyes. For
+now their horny calm was gone from the eyes of Simbri, which seemed as
+though they had beheld some sight that haunted him.
+
+"You do me too much honour, lord," he replied; "my skill and vision do
+not reach so far. But see, here is the landing-stage, where boats
+await us, for the rest of our journey is by water."
+
+These boats proved to be roomy and comfortable, having flat bows and
+sterns, since, although sometimes a sail was hoisted, they were
+designed for towing, not to be rowed with oars. Leo and I entered the
+largest of them, and to our joy were left alone except for the
+steersman.
+
+Behind us was another boat, in which were attendants and slaves, and
+some men who looked like soldiers, for they carried bows and swords.
+Now the ponies were taken from the palanquins, that were packed away,
+and ropes of green hide, fastened to iron rings in the prows of the
+boats, were fixed to the towing tackle with which the animals had been
+reharnessed. Then we started, the ponies, two arranged tandem fashion
+to each punt, trotting along a well-made towing path that was
+furnished with wooden bridges wherever canals or tributary streams
+entered the main river.
+
+"Thank Heaven," said Leo, "we are together again at last! Do you
+remember, Horace, that when we entered the land of Kor it was thus, in
+a boat? The tale repeats itself."
+
+"I can quite believe it," I answered. "I can believe anything. Leo, I
+say that we are but gnats meshed in a web, and yonder Khania is the
+spider and Simbri the Shaman guards the net. But tell me all you
+remember of what has happened to you, and be quick, for I do not know
+how long they may leave us alone."
+
+"Well," he said, "of course I remember our arrival at that Gate after
+the lady and the old man had pulled us out of the river, and, Horace,
+talking of spiders reminds me of hanging at the end of that string of
+yak's hide. Not that I need much reminding, for I am not likely to
+forget it. Do you know I cut the rope because I felt that I was going
+mad, and wished to die sane. What happened to you? Did you slip?"
+
+"No; I jumped after you. It seemed best to end together, so that we
+might begin again together."
+
+"Brave old Horace!" he said affectionately, the tears starting to his
+grey eyes.
+
+"Well, never mind all that," I broke in; "you see you were right when
+you said that we should get through, and we have. Now for your tale."
+
+"It is interesting, but not very long," he answered, colouring. "I
+went to sleep, and when I woke it was to find a beautiful woman
+leaning over me, and Horace--at first I thought that it was--you know
+who, and that she kissed me; but perhaps it was all a dream."
+
+"It was no dream," I answered. "I saw it."
+
+"I am sorry to hear it--very sorry. At any rate there was the
+beautiful woman--the Khania--for I saw her plenty of times afterwards,
+and talked to her in my best modern Greek--by the way, Ayesha knew the
+old Greek; that's curious."
+
+"She knew several of the ancient tongues, and so did other people. Go
+on."
+
+"Well, she nursed me very kindly, but, so far as I know, until last
+night there was nothing more affectionate, and I had sense enough to
+refuse to talk about our somewhat eventful past. I pretended not to
+understand, said that we were explorers, etc., and kept asking her
+where you were, for I forgot to say I found that you had gone. I think
+that she grew rather angry with me, for she wanted to know something,
+and, as you can guess, I wanted to know a good deal. But I could get
+nothing out of her except that she was the Khania--a person in
+authority. There was no doubt about that, for when one of those slaves
+or servants came in and interrupted her while she was trying to draw
+the facts out of me, she called to some of her people to throw him out
+of the window, and he only saved himself by going down the stairs very
+quickly.
+
+"Well, I could make nothing of her, and she could make little of me,
+though why she should be so tenderly interested in a stranger, I don't
+know--unless, unless--oh! who is she, Horace?"
+
+"If you will go on I will tell you what I think presently. One tale at
+a time."
+
+"Very good. I got quite well and strong, comparatively speaking, till
+the climax last night, which upset me again. After that old prophet,
+Simbri, had brought me my supper, just as I was thinking of going to
+sleep, the Khania came in alone, dressed like a queen. I can tell you
+she looked really royal, like a princess in a fairy book, with a crown
+on, and her chestnut black hair flowing round her.
+
+"Well, Horace, then she began to make love to me in a refined sort of
+way, or so I thought, looked at me and sighed, saying that we had
+known each other in the past--very well indeed I gathered--and
+implying that she wished to continue our friendship. I fenced with her
+as best I could; but a man feels fairly helpless lying on his back
+with a very handsome and very imperial-looking lady standing over him
+and paying him compliments.
+
+"The end of it was that, driven to it by her questions and to stop
+that sort of thing, I told her that I was looking for my wife, whom I
+had lost, for, after all, Ayesha is my wife, Horace. She smiled and
+suggested that I need /not/ look far; in short, that the lost wife was
+already found--in herself, who had come to save me from death in the
+river. Indeed, she spoke with such conviction that I grew sure that
+she was not merely amusing herself, and felt very much inclined to
+believe her, for, after all, Ayesha may be changed now.
+
+"Then while I was at my wits' end I remembered the lock of hair--all
+that remains to us of /her/," and Leo touched his breast. "I drew it
+out and compared it with the Khania's, and at the sight of it she
+became quite different, jealous, I suppose, for it is longer than
+hers, and not in the least like.
+
+"Horace, I tell you that the touch of that lock of hair--for she did
+touch it--appeared to act upon her nature like nitric acid upon sham
+gold. It turned it black; all the bad in her came out. In her anger
+her voice sounded coarse; yes, she grew almost vulgar, and, as you
+know, when Ayesha was in a rage she might be wicked as we understand
+it, and was certainly terrible, but she was never either coarse or
+vulgar, any more than lightning is.
+
+"Well, from that moment I was sure that whoever this Khania may be,
+she had nothing to do with Ayesha; they are so different that they
+never could have been the same--like the hair. So I lay quiet and let
+her talk, and coax, and threaten on, until at length she drew herself
+up and marched from the room, and I heard her lock the door behind
+her. That's all I have to tell you, and quite enough too, for I don't
+think that the Khania has done with me, and, to say the truth, I am
+afraid of her."
+
+"Yes," I said, "quite enough. Now sit still, and don't start or talk
+loud, for that steersman is probably a spy, and I can feel old
+Simbri's eyes fixed upon our backs. Don't interrupt either, for our
+time alone may be short."
+
+Then I set to work and told him everything I knew, while he listened
+in blank astonishment.
+
+"Great Heavens! what a tale," he exclaimed as I finished. "Now, who is
+this Hesea who sent the letter from the Mountain? And who, who is the
+Khania?"
+
+"Who does your instinct tell you that she is, Leo?"
+
+"Amenartas?" he whispered doubtfully. "The woman who wrote the
+/Sherd/, whom Ayesha said was the Egyptian princess--my wife two
+thousand years ago? Amenartas re-born?"
+
+I nodded. "I think so. Why not? As I have told you again and again, I
+have always been certain of one thing, that if we were allowed to see
+the next act of the piece, we should find Amenartas, or rather the
+spirit of Amenartas, playing a leading part in it; you will remember I
+wrote as much in that record.
+
+"If the old Buddhist monk Kou-en could remember /his/ past, as
+thousands of them swear that they do, and be sure of his identity
+continued from that past, why should not this woman, with so much at
+stake, helped as she is by the wizardry of the Shaman, her uncle,
+faintly remember hers?
+
+"At any rate, Leo, why should she not still be sufficiently under its
+influence to cause her, without any fault or seeking of her own, to
+fall madly in love at first sight with a man whom, after all, she has
+always loved?"
+
+"The argument seems sound enough, Horace, and if so I am sorry for the
+Khania, who hasn't much choice in the matter--been forced into it, so
+to speak."
+
+"Yes, but meanwhile your foot is in a trap again. Guard yourself, Leo,
+guard yourself. I believe that this is a trial sent to you, and
+doubtless there will be more to follow. But I believe also that it
+would be better for you to die than to make any mistake."
+
+"I know it well," he answered; "and you need not be afraid. Whatever
+this Khania may have been to me in the past--if she was anything at
+all--that story is done with. I seek Ayesha, and Ayesha alone, and
+Venus herself shall not tempt me from her."
+
+Then we began to speak with hope and fear of that mysterious Hesea who
+had sent the letter from the Mountain, commanding the Shaman Simbri to
+meet us: the priestess or spirit whom he declared was "mighty from of
+old" and had "servants in the earth and air."
+
+Presently the prow of our barge bumped against the bank of the river,
+and looking round I saw that Simbri had left the boat in which he sat
+and was preparing to enter ours. This he did, and, placing himself
+gravely on a seat in front of us, explained that nightfall was coming
+on, and he wished to give us his company and protection through the
+dark.
+
+"And to see that we do not give him the slip in it," muttered Leo.
+
+Then the drivers whipped up their ponies, and we went on again.
+
+"Look behind you," said Simbri presently, "and you will see the city
+where you will sleep to-night."
+
+We turned ourselves, and there, about ten miles away, perceived a
+flat-roofed town of considerable, though not of very great size. Its
+position was good, for it was set upon a large island that stood a
+hundred feet or more above the level of the plain, the river dividing
+into two branches at the foot of it, and, as we discovered afterwards,
+uniting again beyond.
+
+The vast mound upon which this city was built had the appearance of
+being artificial, but very possibly the soil whereof it was formed had
+been washed up in past ages during times of flood, so that from a
+mudbank in the centre of the broad river it grew by degrees to its
+present proportions. With the exception of a columned and towered
+edifice that crowned the city and seemed to be encircled by gardens,
+we could see no great buildings in the place.
+
+"How is the city named?" asked Leo of Simbri.
+
+"Kaloon," he answered, "as was all this land even when my fore-
+fathers, the conquerors, marched across the mountains and took it more
+than two thousand years ago. They kept the ancient title, but the
+territory of the Mountain they called Hes, because they said that the
+loop upon yonder peak was the symbol of a goddess of this name whom
+their general worshipped."
+
+"Priestesses still live there, do they not?" said Leo, trying in his
+turn to extract the truth.
+
+"Yes, and priests also. The College of them was established by the
+conquerors, who subdued all the land. Or rather, it took the place of
+another College of those who fashioned the Sanctuary and the Temple,
+whose god was the fire in the Mountain, as it is that of the people of
+Kaloon to-day."
+
+"Then who is worshipped there now?"
+
+"The goddess Hes, it is said; but we know little of the matter, for
+between us and the Mountain folk there has been enmity for ages. They
+kill us and we kill them, for they are jealous of their shrine, which
+none may visit save by permission, to consult the Oracle and to make
+prayer or offering in times of calamity, when a Khan dies, or the
+waters of the river sink and the crops fail, or when ashes fall and
+earthquakes shake the land, or great sickness comes. Otherwise, unless
+they attack us, we leave them alone, for though every man is trained
+to arms, and can fight if need be, we are a peaceful folk, who
+cultivate the soil from generation to generation, and thus grow rich.
+Look round you. Is it not a scene of peace?"
+
+We stood up in the boat and gazed about us at the pastoral prospect.
+Everywhere appeared herds of cattle feeding upon meadow lands, or
+troops of mules and horses, or square fields sown with corn and
+outlined by trees. Village folk, also, clad in long, grey gowns, were
+labouring on the land, or, their day's toil finished, driving their
+beasts homewards along roads built upon the banks of the irrigation
+dykes, towards the hamlets that were placed on rising knolls amidst
+tall poplar groves.
+
+In its sharp contrast with the arid deserts and fearful mountains
+amongst which we had wandered for so many years, this country struck
+us as most charming, and indeed, seen by the red light of the sinking
+sun on that spring day, even as beautiful with the same kind of beauty
+which is to be found in Holland. One could understand too that these
+landowners and peasant-farmers would by choice be men of peace, and
+what a temptation their wealth must offer to the hungry, half-savage
+tribes of the mountains.
+
+Also it was easy to guess when the survivors of Alexander's legions
+under their Egyptian general burst through the iron band of snow-clad
+hills and saw this sweet country, with its homes, its herds, and its
+ripening grass, that they must have cried with one voice, "We will
+march and fight and toil no more. Here we will sit us down to live and
+die." Thus doubtless they did, taking them wives from among the women
+of the people of the land which they had conquered--perhaps after a
+single battle.
+
+Now as the light faded the wreaths of smoke which hung over the
+distant Fire-mountain began to glow luridly. Redder and more angry did
+they become while the darkness gathered, till at length they seemed to
+be charged with pulsing sheets of flame propelled from the womb of the
+volcano, which threw piercing beams of light through the eye of the
+giant loop that crowned its brow. Far, far fled those beams, making a
+bright path across the land, and striking the white crests of the
+bordering wall of mountains. High in the air ran that path, over the
+dim roofs of the city of Kaloon, over the river, yes, straight above
+us, over the mountains, and doubtless--though there we could not
+follow them--across the desert to that high eminence on its farther
+side where we had lain bathed in their radiance. It was a wondrous and
+most impressive sight, one too that filled our companions with fear,
+for the steersmen in our boats and the drivers on the towing-path
+groaned aloud and began to utter prayers. "What do they say?" asked
+Leo of Simbri.
+
+"They say, lord, that the Spirit of the Mountain is angry, and passes
+down yonder flying light that is called the Road of Hes to work some
+evil to our land. Therefore they pray her not to destroy them."
+
+"Then does that light not always shine thus?" he asked again.
+
+"Nay, but seldom. Once about three months ago, and now to-night, but
+before that not for years. Let us pray that it portends no misfortune
+to Kaloon and its inhabitants."
+
+For some minutes this fearsome illumination continued, then it ceased
+as suddenly as it had begun, and there remained of it only the dull
+glow above the crest of the peak.
+
+Presently the moon rose, a white, shining ball, and by its rays we
+perceived that we drew near to the city. But there was still something
+left for us to see before we reached its shelter. While we sat quietly
+in the boat--for the silence was broken only by the lapping of the
+still waters against its sides and the occasional splash of the
+slackened tow-line upon their surface--we heard a distant sound as of
+a hunt in full cry.
+
+Nearer and nearer it came, its volume swelling every moment, till it
+was quite close at last. Now echoing from the trodden earth of the
+towing-path--not that on which our ponies travelled, but the other on
+the west bank of the river--was heard the beat of the hoofs of a horse
+galloping furiously. Presently it appeared, a fine, white animal, on
+the back of which sat a man. It passed us like a flash, but as he went
+by the man lifted himself and turned his head, so that we saw his face
+in the moonlight; saw also the agony of fear that was written on it
+and in his eyes.
+
+He had come out of the darkness. He was gone into the darkness, but
+after him swelled that awful music. Look! a dog appeared, a huge, red
+dog, that dropped its foaming muzzle to the ground as it galloped,
+then lifted it and uttered a deep-throated, bell-like bay. Others
+followed, and yet others: in all there must have been a hundred of
+them, every one baying as it took the scent.
+
+"/The death-hounds!/" I muttered, clasping Leo by the arm.
+
+"Yes," he answered, "they are running that poor devil. Here comes the
+huntsman."
+
+As he spoke there appeared a second figure, splendidly mounted, a
+cloak streaming from his shoulders, and in his hand a long whip, which
+he waved. He was big but loosely jointed, and as he passed he turned
+his face also, and we saw that it was that of a madman. There could be
+no doubt of it; insanity blazed in those hollow eyes and rang in that
+savage, screeching laugh.
+
+"The Khan! The Khan!" said Simbri, bowing, and I could see that he was
+afraid.
+
+Now he too was gone, and after him came his guards. I counted eight of
+them, all carrying whips, with which they flogged their horses.
+
+"What does this mean, friend Simbri?" I asked, as the sounds grew
+faint in the distance.
+
+"It means, friend Holly," he answered, "that the Khan does justice in
+his own fashion--hunting to death one that has angered him."
+
+"What then is his crime? And who is that poor man?"
+
+"He is a great lord of this land, one of the royal kinsmen, and the
+crime for which he has been condemned is that he told the Khania he
+loved her, and offered to make war upon her husband and kill him, if
+she would promise herself to him in marriage. But she hated the man,
+as she hates all men, and brought the matter before the Khan. That is
+all the story."
+
+"Happy is that prince who has so virtuous a wife!" I could not help
+saying unctuously, but with meaning, and the old wretch of a Shaman
+turned his head at my words and began to stroke his white beard.
+
+It was but a little while afterwards that once more we heard the
+baying of the death-hounds. Yes, they were heading straight for us,
+this time across country. Again the white horse and its rider
+appeared, utterly exhausted, both of them, for the poor beast could
+scarcely struggle on to the towing-path. As it gained it a great red
+hound with a black ear gripped its flank, and at the touch of the
+fangs it screamed aloud in terror as only a horse can. The rider
+sprang from its back, and, to our horror, ran to the river's edge,
+thinking evidently to take refuge in our boat. But before ever he
+reached the water the devilish brutes were upon him.
+
+What followed I will not describe, but never shall I forget the scene
+of those two heaps of worrying wolves, and of the maniac Khan, who
+yelled in his fiendish joy, and cheered on his death-hounds to finish
+their red work.
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX
+
+                         THE COURT OF KALOON
+
+Horrified, sick at heart, we continued our journey. No wonder that the
+Khania hated such a mad despot. And this woman was in love with Leo,
+and this lunatic Khan, her husband, was a victim to jealousy, which he
+avenged after the very unpleasant fashion that we had witnessed. Truly
+an agreeable prospect for all of us! Yet, I could not help reflecting,
+as an object lesson that horrid scene had its advantages.
+
+Now we reached the place where the river forked at the end of the
+island, and disembarked upon a quay. Here a guard of men commanded by
+some Household officer, was waiting to receive us. They led us through
+a gate in the high wall, for the town was fortified, up a narrow,
+stone-paved street which ran between houses apparently of the usual
+Central Asian type, and, so far as I could judge by moonlight, with no
+pretensions to architectural beauty, and not large in size.
+
+Clearly our arrival was expected and excited interest, for people were
+gathered in knots about the street to watch us pass; also at the
+windows of the houses and even on their flat roofs. At the top of the
+long street was a sort of market place, crossing which, accompanied by
+a curious crowd who made remarks about us that we could not
+understand, we reached a gate in an inner wall. Here we were
+challenged, but at a word from Simbri it opened, and we passed through
+to find ourselves in gardens. Following a road or drive, we came to a
+large, rambling house or palace, surmounted by high towers and very
+solidly built of stone in a heavy, bastard Egyptian style.
+
+Beyond its doorway we found ourselves in a courtyard surrounded by a
+kind of verandah from which short passages led to different rooms.
+Down one of these passages we were conducted by the officer to an
+apartment, or rather a suite, consisting of a sitting and two bed-
+chambers, which were panelled, richly furnished in rather barbaric
+fashion, and well-lighted with primitive oil lamps.
+
+Here Simbri left us, saying that the officer would wait in the outer
+room to conduct us to the dining-hall as soon as we were ready. Then
+we entered the bed-chambers, where we found servants, or slaves,
+quiet-mannered, obsequious men. These valets changed our foot-gear,
+and taking off our heavy travelling robes, replaced them with others
+fashioned like civilized frock-coats, but made of some white material
+and trimmed with a beautiful ermine fur.
+
+Having dressed us in these they bowed to show that our toilette was
+finished, and led us to the large outer room where the officer awaited
+us. He conducted us through several other rooms, all of them spacious
+and apparently unoccupied, to a great hall lit with many lamps and
+warmed--for the nights were still cold--with large peat fires. The
+roof of this hall was flat and supported by thick, stone columns with
+carved capitals, and its walls were hung with worked tapestries, that
+gave it an air of considerable comfort.
+
+At the head of the hall on a dais stood a long, narrow table, spread
+with a cloth and set with platters and cups of silver. Here we waited
+till butlers with wands appeared through some curtains which they
+drew. Then came a man beating a silver gong, and after him a dozen or
+more courtiers, all dressed in white robes like ourselves, followed by
+perhaps as many ladies, some of them young and good-looking, and for
+the most part of a fair type, with well-cut features, though others
+were rather yellow-skinned. They bowed to us and we to them.
+
+Then there was a pause while we studied one another, till a trumpet
+blew and heralded by footmen in a kind of yellow livery, two figures
+were seen advancing down the passage beyond the curtains, preceded by
+the Shaman Simbri and followed by other officers. They were the Khan
+and the Khania of Kaloon.
+
+No one looking at this Khan as he entered his dining-hall clad in
+festal white attire would have imagined him to be the same raving
+human brute whom we had just seen urging on his devilish hounds to
+tear a fellow-creature and a helpless horse to fragments and devour
+them. Now he seemed a heavy, loutish man, very strongly built and not
+ill-looking, but with shifty eyes, evidently a person of dulled
+intellect, whom one would have thought incapable of keen emotions of
+any kind. The Khania need not be described. She was as she had been in
+the chambers of the Gate, only more weary looking; indeed her eyes had
+a haunted air and it was easy to see that the events of the previous
+night had left their mark upon her mind. At the sight of us she
+flushed a little, then beckoned to us to advance, and said to her
+husband--
+
+"My lord, these are the strangers of whom I have told you."
+
+His dull eyes fell upon me first, and my appearance seemed to amuse
+him vaguely, at any rate he laughed rudely, saying in barbarous Greek
+mixed with words from the local patois--
+
+"What a curious old animal! I have never seen you before, have I?"
+
+"No, great Khan," I answered, "but I have seen you out hunting this
+night. Did you have good sport?"
+
+Instantly he became wide awake, and answered, rubbing his hands--
+
+"Excellent. He gave us a fine run, but my little dogs caught him at
+last, and then----" and he snapped his powerful jaws together.
+
+"Cease your brutal talk," broke in his wife fiercely, and he slunk
+away from her and in so doing stumbled against Leo, who was waiting to
+be presented to him.
+
+The sight of this great, golden-bearded man seemed to astonish him,
+for he stared at him, then asked--
+
+"Are you the Khania's other friend whom she went to see in the
+mountains of the Gate? Then I could not understand why she took so
+much trouble, but now I do. Well, be careful, or I shall have to hunt
+you also."
+
+Now Leo grew angry and was about to reply, but I laid my hand upon his
+arm and said in English--
+
+"Don't answer; the man is mad."
+
+"Bad, you mean," grumbled Leo; "and if he tries to set his cursed dogs
+on me, I will break his neck."
+
+Then the Khania motioned to Leo to take a seat beside her, placing me
+upon her other hand, between herself and her uncle, the Guardian,
+while the Khan shuffled to a chair a little way down the table, where
+he called two of the prettiest ladies to keep him company.
+
+Such was our introduction to the court of Kaloon. As for the meal that
+followed, it was very plentiful, but coarse, consisting for the most
+part of fish, mutton, and sweetmeats, all of them presented upon huge
+silver platters. Also much strong drink was served, a kind of spirit
+distilled from grain, of which nearly all present drank more than was
+good for them. After a few words to me about our journey, the Khania
+turned to Leo and talked to him for the rest of the evening, while I
+devoted myself to the old Shaman Simbri.
+
+Put briefly, the substance of what I learned from him then and
+afterwards was as follows--
+
+Trade was unknown to the people of Kaloon, for the reason that all
+communication with the south had been cut off for ages, the bridges
+that once existed over the chasm having been allowed to rot away.
+Their land, which was very large and densely inhabited, was ringed
+round with unclimbable mountains, except to the north, where stood the
+great Fire-peak. The slopes of this Peak and an unvisited expanse of
+country behind that ran up to the confines of a desert, were the home
+of ferocious mountain tribes, untamable Highlanders, who killed every
+stranger they caught. Consequently, although the precious and other
+metals were mined to a certain extent and manufactured into articles
+of use and ornament, money did not exist among the peoples either of
+the Plain or of the Mountain, all business being transacted on the
+principle of barter, and even the revenue collected in kind.
+
+Amongst the tens of thousands of the aborigines of Kaloon dwelt a mere
+handful of a ruling class, who were said to be--and probably were--
+descended from the conquerors that appeared in the time of Alexander.
+Their blood, however, was now much mixed with that of the first
+inhabitants, who, to judge from their appearance and the yellow hue of
+their descendants must have belonged to some branch of the great
+Tartar race. The government, if so it could be called, was, on the
+whole, of a mild though of a very despotic nature, and vested in an
+hereditary Khan or Khania, according as a man or a woman might be in
+the most direct descent.
+
+Of religions there were two, that of the people, who worshipped the
+Spirit of the Fire Mountain, and that of the rulers, who believed in
+magic, ghosts and divinations. Even this shadow of a religion, if so
+it can be called, was dying out, like its followers, for generation by
+generation, the white lords grew less in number or became absorbed in
+the bulk of the people.
+
+Still their rule was tolerated. I asked Simbri why, seeing that they
+were so few. He shrugged his shoulders and answered, because it suited
+the country of which the natives had no ambition. Moreover, the
+present Khania, our hostess, was the last of the direct line of
+rulers, her husband and cousin having less of the blood royal in his
+veins, and as such the people were attached to her.
+
+Also, as is commonly the case with bold and beautiful women, she was
+popular among them, especially as she was just and very liberal to the
+poor. These were many, as the country was over-populated, which
+accounted for its wonderful state of cultivation. Lastly they trusted
+to her skill and courage to defend them from the continual attacks of
+the Mountain tribes who raided their crops and herds. Their one
+grievance against her was that she had no child to whom the khanship
+could descend, which meant that after her death, as had happened after
+that of her father, there would be struggles for the succession.
+
+"Indeed," added Simbri, with meaning, and glancing at Leo, out of the
+corners of his eyes, "the folk say openly that it would be a good
+thing if the Khan, who oppresses them and whom they hate, should die,
+so that the Khania might take another husband while she is still
+young. Although he is mad, he knows this, and that is why he is so
+jealous of any lord who looks at her, as, friend Holly, you saw
+to-night. For should such an one gain her favour, Rassen thinks that
+it would mean his death."
+
+"Also he may be attached to his wife," I suggested, speaking in a
+whisper.
+
+"Perhaps so," answered Simbri; "but if so, she loves not him, nor any
+of these men," and he glanced round the hall.
+
+Certainly they did not look lovable, for by this time most of them
+were half drunk, while even the women seemed to have taken as much as
+was good for them. The Khan himself presented a sorry spectacle, for
+he was leaning back in his chair, shouting something about his
+hunting, in a thick voice. The arm of one of his pretty companions was
+round his neck, while the other gave him to drink from a gold cup;
+some of the contents of which had been spilt down his white robe.
+
+Just then Atene looked round and saw him and an expression of hatred
+and contempt gathered on her beautiful face.
+
+"See," I heard her say to Leo, "see the companion of my days, and
+learn what it is to be Khania of Kaloon."
+
+"Then why do you not cleanse your court?" he asked.
+
+"Because, lord, if I did so there would be no court left. Swine will
+to their mire and these men and women, who live in idleness upon the
+toil of the humble folk, will to their liquor and vile luxury. Well,
+the end is near, for it is killing them, and their children are but
+few; weakly also, for the ancient blood grows thin and stale. But you
+are weary and would rest. To-morrow we will ride together," and
+calling to an officer, she bade him conduct us to our rooms.
+
+So we rose, and, accompanied by Simbri, bowed to her and went, she
+standing and gazing after us, a royal and pathetic figure in the midst
+of all that dissolute revelry. The Khan rose also, and in his cunning
+fashion understood something of the meaning of it all.
+
+"You think us gay," he shouted; "and why should we not be who do not
+know how long we have to live? But you yellow-haired fellow, you must
+not let Atene look at you like that. I tell you she is my wife, and if
+you do, I shall certainly have to hunt you."
+
+At this drunken sally the courtiers roared with laughter, but taking
+Leo by the arm Simbri hurried him from the hall.
+
+"Friend," said Leo, when we were outside, "it seems to me that this
+Khan of yours threatens my life."
+
+"Have no fear, lord," answered the Guardian; "so long as the Khania
+does not threaten it you are safe. She is the real ruler of this land,
+and I stand next to her."
+
+"Then I pray you," said Leo, "keep me out of the way of that drunken
+man, for, look you, if I am attacked /I/ defend myself."
+
+"And who can blame you?" Simbri replied with one of his slow,
+mysterious smiles.
+
+Then we parted, and having placed both our beds in one chamber, slept
+soundly enough, for we were very tired, till we were awakened in the
+morning by the baying of those horrible death-hounds, being fed, I
+suppose, in a place nearby.
+
+Now in this city of Kaloon it was our weary destiny to dwell for three
+long months, one of the most hateful times, perhaps, that we ever
+passed in all our lives. Indeed, compared to it our endless wanderings
+amid the Central Asia snows and deserts were but pleasure pilgrimages,
+and our stay at the monastery beyond the mountains a sojourn in
+Paradise. To set out its record in full would be both tedious and
+useless, so I will only tell briefly of our principal adventures.
+
+On the morrow of our arrival the Khania Atene sent us two beautiful
+white horses of pure and ancient blood, and at noon we mounted them
+and went out to ride with her accompanied by a guard of soldiers.
+First she led us to the kennels where the death-hounds were kept,
+great flagged courts surrounded by iron bars, in which were narrow,
+locked gates. Never had I seen brutes so large and fierce; the
+mastiffs of Thibet were but as lap-dogs compared to them. They were
+red and black, smooth-coated and with a blood-hound head, and the
+moment they saw us they came ravening and leaping at the bars as an
+angry wave leaps against a rock.
+
+These hounds were in the charge of men of certain families, who had
+tended them for generations. They obeyed their keepers and the Khan
+readily enough, but no stranger might venture near them. Also these
+brutes were the executioners of the land, for to them all murderers
+and other criminals were thrown, and with them, as we had seen, the
+Khan hunted any who had incurred his displeasure. Moreover, they were
+used for a more innocent purpose, the chasing of certain great bucks
+which were preserved in woods and swamps of reeds. Thus it came about
+that they were a terror to the country, since no man knew but what in
+the end he might be devoured by them. "Going to the dogs" is a term
+full of meaning in any land, but in Kaloon it had a significance that
+was terrible.
+
+After we had looked at the hounds, not without a prophetic shudder, we
+rode round the walls of the town, which were laid out as a kind of
+boulevard, where the inhabitants walked and took their pleasure in the
+evenings. On these, however, there was not much to see except the
+river beneath and the plain beyond, moreover, though they were thick
+and high there were places in them that must be passed carefully, for,
+like everything else with which the effete ruling class had to do,
+they had been allowed to fall into disrepair.
+
+The town itself was an uninteresting place also, for the most part
+peopled by hangers-on of the Court. So we were not sorry when we
+crossed the river by a high-pitched bridge, where in days to come I
+was destined to behold one of the strangest sights ever seen by mortal
+man, and rode out into the country. Here all was different, for we
+found ourselves among the husbandmen, who were the descendants of the
+original owners of the land and lived upon its produce. Every
+available inch of soil seemed to be cultivated by the aid of a
+wonderful system of irrigation. Indeed water was lifted to levels
+where it would not flow naturally, by means of wheels turned with
+mules, or even in some places carried up by the women, who bore poles
+on their shoulders to which were balanced buckets.
+
+Leo asked the Khania what happened if there was a bad season. She
+replied grimly that famine happened, in which thousands of people
+perished, and that after the famine came pestilence. These famines
+were periodical, and were it not for them, she added, the people would
+long ago have been driven to kill each other like hungry rats, since
+having no outlet and increasing so rapidly, the land, large as it was,
+could not hold them all.
+
+"Will this be a good year?" I asked.
+
+"It is feared not," she answered, "for the river has not risen well
+and but few rains have fallen. Also the light that shone last night on
+the Fire-mountain is thought a bad omen, which means, they say, that
+the Spirit of the Mountain is angry and that drought will follow. Let
+us hope they will not say also that this is because strangers have
+visited the land, bringing with them bad luck."
+
+"If so," said Leo with a laugh, "we shall have to fly to the Mountain
+to take refuge there."
+
+"Do you then wish to take refuge in death?" she asked darkly. "Of this
+be sure, my guests, that never while I live shall you be allowed to
+cross the river which borders the slopes of yonder peak."
+
+"Why not, Khania?"
+
+"Because, my lord Leo--that is your name, is it not?--such is my will,
+and while I rule here my will is law. Come, let us turn homewards."
+
+That night we did not eat in the great hall, but in the room which
+adjoined our bed-chambers. We were not left alone, however, for the
+Khania and her uncle, the Shaman, who always attended her, joined our
+meal. When we greeted them wondering, she said briefly that it was
+arranged thus because she refused to expose us to more insults. She
+added that a festival had begun which would last for a week, and that
+she did not wish us to see how vile were the ways of her people.
+
+That evening and many others which followed it--we never dined in the
+central hall again--passed pleasantly enough, for the Khania made Leo
+tell her of England where he was born, and of the lands that he had
+visited, their peoples and customs. I spoke also of the history of
+Alexander, whose general Rassen, her far-off forefather, conquered the
+country of Kaloon, and of the land of Egypt, whence the latter came,
+and so it went on till midnight, while Atene listened to us greedily,
+her eyes fixed always on Leo's face.
+
+Many such nights did we spend thus in the palace of the city of Kaloon
+where, in fact, we were close prisoners. But oh! the days hung heavy
+on our hands. If we went into the courtyard or reception rooms of the
+palace, the lords and their followers gathered round us and pestered
+us with questions, for, being very idle, they were also very curious.
+
+Also the women, some of whom were fair enough, began to talk to us on
+this pretext or on that, and did their best to make love to Leo; for,
+in contrast with their slim, delicate-looking men, they found this
+deep-chested, yellow-haired stranger to their taste. Indeed they
+troubled him much with gifts of flowers and messages sent by servants
+or soldiers, making assignations with him, which of course he did not
+keep.
+
+If we went out into the streets, matters were as bad, for then the
+people ceased from their business, such as it was, and followed us
+about, staring at us till we took refuge again in the palace gardens.
+
+There remained, therefore, only our rides in the country with the
+Khania, but after three or four of them, these came to an end owing to
+the jealousy of the Khan, who vowed that if we went out together any
+more he would follow with the death-hounds. So we must ride alone, if
+at all, in the centre of a large guard of soldiers sent to see that we
+did not attempt to escape, and accompanied very often by a mob of
+peasants, who with threats and entreaties demanded that we should give
+back the rain which they said we had taken from them. For now the
+great drought had begun in earnest.
+
+Thus it came about that at length our only resource was making
+pretence to fish in the river, where the water was so clear and low
+that we could catch nothing, watching the while the Fire-mountain,
+that loomed in the distance mysterious and unreachable, and vainly
+racking our brains for plans to escape thither, or at least to
+communicate with its priestess, of whom we could learn no more.
+
+For two great burdens lay upon our souls. The burden of desire to
+continue our search and to meet with its reward which we were sure
+that we should pluck amid the snows of yonder peak, if we could but
+come there; and the burden of approaching catastrophe at the hands of
+the Khania Atene. She had made no love to Leo since that night in the
+Gateway, and, indeed, even if she had wished to, this would have been
+difficult, since I took care that he was never left for one hour
+alone. No duenna could have clung to a Spanish princess more closely
+than I did to Leo. Yet I could see well that her passion was no whit
+abated; that it grew day by day, indeed, as the fire swells in the
+heart of a volcano, and that soon it must break loose and spread its
+ruin round. The omen of it was to be read in her words, her gestures,
+and her tragic eyes.
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER X
+
+                       IN THE SHAMAN'S CHAMBER
+
+One night Simbri asked us to dine with him in his own apartments in
+the highest tower of the palace--had we but known it, for us a fateful
+place indeed, for here the last act of the mighty drama was destined
+to be fulfilled. So we went, glad enough of any change. When we had
+eaten Leo grew very thoughtful, then said suddenly--
+
+"Friend Simbri, I wish to ask a favour of you--that you will beg the
+Khania to let us go our ways."
+
+Instantly the Shaman's cunning old face became like a mask of ivory.
+
+"Surely you had better ask your favours of the lady herself, lord; I
+do not think that any in reason will be refused to you," he replied.
+
+"Let us stop fencing," said Leo, "and consider the facts. It has
+seemed to me that the Khania Atene is not happy with her husband."
+
+"Your eyes are very keen, lord, and who shall say that they have
+deceived you?"
+
+"It has seemed, further," went on Leo, reddening, "that she has been
+so good as to look on me with--some undeserved regard."
+
+"Ah! perhaps you guessed that in the Gate-house yonder, if you have
+not forgotten what most men would remember."
+
+"I remember certain things, Simbri, that have to do with her and you."
+
+The Shaman only stroked his beard and said: "Proceed!"
+
+"There is little to add, Simbri, except that /I/ am not minded to
+bring scandal on the name of the first lady in your land."
+
+"Nobly said, lord, nobly said, though here they do not trouble much
+about such things. But how if the matter could be managed without
+scandal? If, for instance, the Khania chose to take another husband
+the whole land would rejoice, for she is the last of her royal race."
+
+"How can she take another husband when she has one living?"
+
+"True; indeed that is a question which I have considered, but the
+answer to it is that men die. It is the common lot, and the Khan has
+been drinking very heavily of late."
+
+"You mean that men can be murdered," said Leo angrily. "Well, I will
+have nothing to do with such a crime. Do you understand me?"
+
+As the words passed his lips I heard a rustle and turned my head.
+Behind us were curtains beyond which the Shaman slept, kept his
+instruments of divination and worked out his horoscopes. Now they had
+been drawn, and between them, in her royal array, stood the Khania
+still as a statue.
+
+"Who was it that spoke of crime?" she asked in a cold voice. "Was it
+you, my lord Leo?"
+
+Rising from his chair, he faced her and said--
+
+"Lady, I am glad that you have heard my words, even if they should vex
+you."
+
+"Why should it vex me to learn that there is one honest man in this
+court who will have naught to do with murder? Nay, I honour you for
+those words. Know also that no such foul thoughts have come near to
+me. Yet, Leo Vincey, that which is written--is written."
+
+"Doubtless, Khania; but what is written?"
+
+"Tell him, Shaman."
+
+Now Simbri passed behind the curtain and returned thence with a roll
+from which he read: "The heavens have declared by their signs
+infallible that before the next new moon, the Khan Rassen will lie
+dead at the hands of the stranger lord who came to this country from
+across the mountains."
+
+"Then the heavens have declared a lie," said Leo contemptuously.
+
+"That is as you will," answered Atene; "but so it must befall, not by
+my hand or those of my servants, but by yours. And then?"
+
+"Why by mine? Why not by Holly's? Yet, if so, then doubtless I shall
+suffer the punishment of my crime at the hands of his mourning widow,"
+he replied exasperated.
+
+"You are pleased to mock me, Leo Vincey, well knowing what a husband
+this man is to me."
+
+Now I felt that the crisis had come, and so did Leo, for he looked her
+in the face and said--
+
+"Speak on, lady, say all you wish; perhaps it will be better for us
+both."
+
+"I obey you, lord. Of the beginning of this fate I know nothing, but I
+read from the first page that is open to me. It has to do with this
+present life of mine. Learn, Leo Vincey, that from my childhood
+onwards you have haunted me. Oh! when first I saw you yonder by the
+river, your face was not strange to me, for I knew it--I knew it well
+in dreams. When I was a little maid and slept one day amidst the
+flowers by the river's brim, it came first to me--ask my uncle here if
+this be not so, though it is true that your face was younger then.
+Afterwards again and again I saw it in my sleep and learned to know
+that you were mine, for the magic of my heart taught me this.
+
+"Then passed the long years while I felt that you were drawing near to
+me, slowly, very slowly, but ever drawing nearer, wending onward and
+outward through the peoples of the world; across the hills, across the
+plains, across the sands, across the snows, on to my side. At length
+came the end, for one night not three moons ago, whilst this wise man,
+my uncle, and I sat together here studying the lore that he has taught
+me and striving to wring its secrets from the past, a vision came to
+me.
+
+"Look you, I was lost in a charmed sleep which looses the spirit from
+the body and gives it strength to stray afar and to see those things
+that have been and that are yet to be. Then I saw you and your
+companion clinging to a point of broken ice, over the river of the
+gulf. I do not lie; it is written here upon the scroll. Yes, it was
+you, the man of my dreams, and no other, and we knew the place and
+hurried thither and waited by the water, thinking that perhaps beneath
+it you lay dead.
+
+"Then, while we waited, lo! two tiny figures appeared far above upon
+the icy tongue that no man may climb, and oh! you know the rest.
+Spellbound we stood and saw you slip and hang, saw you sever the thin
+cord and rush downwards, yes, and saw that brave man, Holly, leap
+headlong after you.
+
+"But mine was the hand that drew you from the torrent, where otherwise
+you must have drowned, you the love of the long past and of to-day,
+aye, and of all time. Yes, you and no other, Leo Vincey. It was this
+spirit that foresaw your danger and this hand which delivered you from
+death, and--and would you refuse them now--when I, the Khania of
+Kaloon, proffer them to you?"
+
+So she spoke, and leaned upon the table, looking up into his face with
+lips that trembled and with appealing eyes.
+
+"Lady," said Leo, "you saved me, and again I thank you, though perhaps
+it would have been better if you had let me drown. But, forgive me the
+question, if all this tale be true, why did you marry another man?"
+
+Now she shrank back as though a knife had pricked her.
+
+"Oh! blame me not," she moaned, "it was but policy which bound me to
+this madman, whom I ever loathed. They urged me to it; yes, even you,
+Simbri, my uncle, and for that deed accursed be your head--urged me,
+saying that it was necessary to end the war between Rassen's faction
+and my own. That I was the last of the true race, moreover, which must
+be carried on; saying also that my dreams and my rememberings were but
+sick phantasies. So, alas! alas! I yielded, thinking to make my people
+great."
+
+"And yourself, the greatest of them, if all I hear is true," commented
+Leo bluntly, for he was determined to end this thing. "Well, I do not
+blame you, Khania, although now you tell me that I must cut a knot you
+tied by taking the life of this husband of your own choice, for so
+forsooth it is decreed by fate, that fate which /you/ have shaped.
+Yes, I must do what you will not do, and kill him. Also your tale of
+the decree of the heavens and of that vision which led you to the
+precipice to save us is false. Lady, you met me by the river because
+the 'mighty' Hesea, the Spirit of the Mountain, so commanded you."
+
+"How know you that?" Atene said, springing up and facing him, while
+the jaw of old Simbri dropped and the eyelids blinked over his glazed
+eyes.
+
+"In the same way that I know much else. Lady, it would have been
+better if you had spoken all the truth."
+
+Now Atene's face went ashen and her cheeks sank in.
+
+"Who told you?" she whispered. "Was it you, Magician?" and she turned
+upon her uncle like a snake about to strike. "Oh! if so, be sure that
+I shall learn it, and though we are of one blood and have loved each
+other, I will pay you back in agony."
+
+"Atene, Atene," Simbri broke in, holding up his claw-like hands, "you
+know well it was not I."
+
+"Then it was you, you ape-faced wanderer, you messenger of the evil
+gods? Oh! why did I not kill you at the first? Well, that fault can be
+remedied."
+
+"Lady," I said blandly, "am I also a magician?"
+
+"Aye," she answered, "I think that you are, and that you have a
+mistress who dwells in fire."
+
+"Then, Khania," I said, "such servants and such mistresses are ill to
+meddle with. Say, what answer has the Hesea sent to your report of our
+coming to this land?"
+
+"Listen," broke in Leo before she could reply. "I go to ask a certain
+question of the Oracle on yonder mountain peak. With your will or
+without it I tell you that I go, and afterwards you can settle which
+is the stronger--the Khania of Kaloon or the Hesea of the House of
+Fire."
+
+Atene listened and for a while stood silent, perhaps because she had
+no answer. Then she said with a little laugh--
+
+"Is that your will? Well, I think that yonder are none whom you would
+wish to wed. There is fire and to spare, but no lovely, shameless
+spirit haunts it to drive men mad with evil longings;" and as though
+at some secret thought, a spasm of pain crossed her face and caught
+her breath. Then she went on in the same cold voice--
+
+"Wanderers, this land has its secrets, into which no foreigner must
+pry. I say to you yet again that while I live you set no foot upon
+that Mountain. Know also, Leo Vincey, I have bared my heart to you,
+and I have been told in answer that this long quest of yours is not
+for me, as I was sure in my folly, but, as I think, for some demon
+wearing the shape of woman, whom you will never find. Now I make no
+prayer to you; it is not fitting, but you have learned too much.
+
+"Therefore, consider well to-night and before next sundown answer.
+Having offered, I do not go back, and tomorrow you shall tell me
+whether you will take me when the time comes, as come it must, and
+rule this land and be great and happy in my love, or whether, you and
+your familiar together, you will--die. Choose then between the
+vengeance of Atene and her love, since I am not minded to be mocked in
+my own land as a wanton who sought a stranger and was--refused."
+
+Slowly, slowly, in an intense whisper she spoke the words, that fell
+one by one from her lips like drops of blood from a death wound, and
+there followed silence. Never shall I forget the scene. There the old
+wizard watched us through his horny eyes, that blinked like those of
+some night bird. There stood the imperial woman in her royal robes,
+with icy rage written on her face and vengeance in her glance. There,
+facing her, was the great form of Leo, quiet, alert, determined,
+holding back his doubts and fears with the iron hand of will. And
+there to the right was /I/, noting all things and wondering how long
+I, "the familiar," who had earned Atene's hate, would be left alive
+upon the earth.
+
+Thus we stood, watching each other, till suddenly I noted that the
+flame of the lamp above us flickered and felt a draught strike upon my
+face. Then I looked round, and became aware of another presence. For
+yonder in the shadow showed the tall form of a man. See! it shambled
+forward silently, and I saw that its feet were naked. Now it reached
+the ring of the lamplight and burst into a savage laugh.
+
+It was the Khan.
+
+Atene, his wife, looked up and saw him, and never did I admire that
+passionate woman's boldness more, who admired little else about her
+save her beauty, for her face showed neither anger nor fear, but
+contempt only. And yet she had some cause to be afraid, as she well
+knew.
+
+"What do you here, Rassen?" she asked, "creeping on me with your naked
+feet? Get you back to your drink and the ladies of your court."
+
+But he still laughed on, an hyena laugh.
+
+"What have you heard?" she said, "that makes you so merry?"
+
+"What have I heard?" Rassen gurgled out between his screams of hideous
+glee. "Oho! I have heard the Khania, the last of the true blood, the
+first in the land, the proud princess who will not let her robes be
+soiled by those of the 'ladies of the court' and my wife, my wife, who
+asked me to marry her--mark that, you strangers--because I was her
+cousin and a rival ruler, and the richest lord in all the land, and
+thereby she thought she would increase her power--I have heard her
+offer herself to a nameless wanderer with a great yellow beard, and I
+have heard him, who hates and would escape from her"--here he screamed
+with laughter--"refuse her in such a fashion as I would not refuse the
+lowest woman in the palace.
+
+"I have heard also--but that I always knew--that I am mad; for,
+strangers, I was made mad by a hate-philtre which that old Rat," and
+he pointed to Simbri, "gave me in my drink--yes, at my marriage feast.
+It worked well, for truly there is no one whom I hate more than the
+Khania Atene. Why, I cannot bear her touch, it makes me sick. I loathe
+to be in the same room with her; she taints the air; there is a smell
+of sorceries about her.
+
+"It seems that it takes you thus also, Yellow-beard? Well, if so, ask
+the old Rat for a love drink; he can mix it, and then you will think
+her sweet and sound and fair, and spend some few months jollily
+enough. Man, don't be a fool, the cup that is thrust into your hands
+looks goodly. Drink, drink deep. You'll never guess the liquor's bad--
+till to-morrow--though it be mixed with a husband's poisoned blood,"
+and again Rassen screamed in his unholy mirth.
+
+To all these bitter insults, venomed with the sting of truth, Atene
+listened without a word. Then, she turned to us and bowed.
+
+"My guests," she said, "I pray you pardon me for all I cannot help.
+You have strayed to a corrupt and evil land, and there stands its
+crown and flower. Khan Rassen, your doom is written, and I do not
+hasten it, because once for a little while we were near to each other,
+though you have been naught to me for this many a year save a snake
+that haunts my house. Were it otherwise, the next cup you drank should
+still your madness, and that vile tongue of yours which gives its
+venom voice. My uncle, come with me. Your hand, for I grow weak with
+shame and woe."
+
+The old Shaman hobbled forward, but when he came face to face with the
+Khan he stopped and looked him up and down with his dim eyes. Then he
+said--
+
+"Rassen, I saw you born, the son of an evil woman, and your father
+none knew but I. The flame flared that night upon the Fire-mountain,
+and the stars hid their faces, for none of them would own you, no, not
+even those of the most evil influence. I saw you wed and rise drunken
+from your marriage feast, your arm about a wanton's neck. I have seen
+you rule, wasting the land for your cruel pleasure, turning the
+fertile fields into great parks for your game, leaving those who
+tilled them to starve upon the road or drown themselves in ditches for
+very misery. And soon, soon I shall see you die in pain and blood, and
+then the chain will fall from the neck of this noble lady whom you
+revile, and another more worthy shall take your place and rear up
+children to fill your throne, and the land shall have rest again."
+
+Now I listened to these words--and none who did not hear them can
+guess the fearful bitterness with which they were spoken--expecting
+every moment that the Khan would draw the short sword at his side and
+cut the old man down. But he did not; he cowered before him like a dog
+before some savage master, the weight of whose whip he knows. Yes,
+answering nothing, he shrank into the corner and cowered there, while
+Simbri, taking Atene by the hand, went from the room. At its massive,
+iron-bound door he turned and pointing to the crouching figure with
+his staff, said--
+
+"Khan Rassen, I raised you up, and now I cast you down. Remember me
+when you lie dying--in blood and pain."
+
+Their footsteps died away, and the Khan crept from his corner, looking
+about him furtively.
+
+"Have that Rat and the other gone?" he asked of us, wiping his damp
+brow with his sleeve; and I saw that fear had sobered him and that for
+awhile the madness had left his eyes.
+
+I answered that they had gone.
+
+"You think me a coward," he went on passionately, "and it is true, I
+am afraid of him and her--as you, Yellow-beard, will be afraid when
+your turn comes. I tell you that they sapped my strength and crazed me
+with their drugged drink, making me the thing I am, for who can war
+against their wizardries? Look you now. Once I was a prince, the lord
+of half this land, noble of form and upright of heart, and I loved her
+accursed beauty as all must love it on whom she turns her eyes. And
+she turned them on me, she sought /me/ in marriage; it was that old
+Rat who bore her message.
+
+"So I stayed the great war and married the Khania and became the Khan;
+but better had it been for me if I had crept into her kitchen as a
+scullion, than into her chamber as a husband. For from the first she
+hated me, and the more I loved, the more she hated, till at our
+wedding feast she doctored me with that poison which made me loathe
+her, and thus divorced us; which made me mad also, eating into my
+brain like fire."
+
+"If she hated you so sorely, Khan," I asked, "why did she not mix a
+stronger draught and have done with you?"
+
+"Why? Because of policy, for I ruled half the land. Because it suited
+her also that I should live on, a thing to mock at, since while I was
+alive no other husband could be forced upon her by the people. For she
+is not a woman, she is a witch, who desires to live alone, or so I
+thought until to-night"--and he glowered at Leo.
+
+"She knew also that although I must shrink from her, I still love her
+in my heart, and can still be jealous, and therefore that I should
+protect her from all men. It was she who set me on that lord whom my
+dogs tore awhile ago, because he was powerful and sought her favour
+and would not be denied. But now," and again he glowered at Leo, "now
+I know why she has always seemed so cold. It is because there lived a
+man to melt whose ice she husbanded her fire."
+
+Then Leo, who all this while had stood silent, stepped forward.
+
+"Listen, Khan," he said. "Did the ice seem like melting a little while
+ago?"
+
+"No--unless you lied. But that was only because the fire is not yet
+hot enough. Wait awhile until it burns up, and melt you must, for who
+can match his will against Atene?"
+
+"And what if the ice desires to flee the fire? Khan, they said that I
+should kill you, but I do not seek your blood. You think that I would
+rob you of your wife, yet I have no such thought towards her. We
+desire to escape this town of yours, but cannot, because its gates are
+locked, and we are prisoners, guarded night and day. Hear me, then.
+You have the power to set us free and to be rid of us."
+
+The Khan looked at him cunningly. "And if I set you free, whither
+would you go? You could tumble down yonder gorge, but only the birds
+can climb its heights."
+
+"To the Fire-mountain, where we have business."
+
+Rassen stared at him.
+
+"Is it I who am mad, or are you, who wish to visit the Fire-mountain?
+Yet that is nothing to me, save that I do not believe you. But if so
+you might return again and bring others with you. Perchance, having
+its lady, you wish this land also by right of conquest. It has foes up
+yonder."
+
+"It is not so," answered Leo earnestly. "As one man to another, I tell
+you it is not so. /I/ ask no smile of your wife and no acre of your
+soil. Be wise and help us to be gone, and live on undisturbed in such
+fashion as may please you."
+
+The Khan stood still awhile, swinging his long arms vacantly, till
+something seemed to come into his mind that moved him to merriment,
+for he burst into one of his hideous laughs.
+
+"I am thinking," he said, "what Atene would say if she woke up to find
+her sweet bird flown. She would search for you and be angry with me."
+
+"It seems that she cannot be angrier than she is," I answered. "Give
+us a night's start and let her search never so closely, she shall not
+find us."
+
+"You forget, Wanderer, that she and her old Rat have arts. Those who
+knew where to meet you might know where to seek you. And yet, and yet,
+it would be rare to see her rage. 'Oh, Yellow-beard, where are you,
+Yellow-beard?' he went on, mimicking his wife's voice. 'Come back and
+let me melt your ice, Yellow-beard.'"
+
+Again he laughed; then said suddenly--
+
+"When can you be ready?"
+
+"In half an hour," I answered.
+
+"Good. Go to your chambers and prepare. I will join you there
+presently."
+
+So we went.
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI
+
+                        THE HUNT AND THE KILL
+
+We reached our rooms, meeting no one in the passages, and there made
+our preparations. First we changed our festal robes for those warmer
+garments in which we had travelled to the city of Kaloon. Then we ate
+and drank what we could of the victuals which stood in the
+antechamber, not knowing when we should find more food, and filled two
+satchels such as these people sling about their shoulders, with the
+remains of the meat and liquor and a few necessaries. Also we strapped
+our big hunting knives about our middles and armed ourselves with
+short spears that were made for the stabbing of game.
+
+"Perhaps he has laid a plot to murder us, and we may as well defend
+ourselves while we can," suggested Leo.
+
+I nodded, for the echoes of the Khan's last laugh still rang in my
+ears. It was a very evil laugh.
+
+"Likely enough," I said. "I do not trust that insane brute. Still, he
+wishes to be rid of us."
+
+"Yes, but as he said, live men may return, whereas the dead do not."
+
+"Atene thinks otherwise," I commented.
+
+"And yet she threatened us with death," answered Leo.
+
+"Because her shame and passion make her mad," I replied, after which
+we were silent.
+
+Presently the door opened, and through it came the Khan, muffled in a
+great cloak as though to disguise himself.
+
+"Come," he said, "if you are ready." Then, catching sight of the
+spears we held, he added: "You will not need those things. You do not
+go a-hunting."
+
+"No," I answered, "but who can say--we might be hunted."
+
+"If you believe that perhaps you had best stay where you are till the
+Khania wearies of Yellow-beard and opens the gates for you," he
+replied, eyeing me with his cunning glance.
+
+"I think not," I said, and we started, the Khan leading the way and
+motioning us to be silent.
+
+We passed through the empty rooms on to the verandah, and from the
+verandah down into the courtyard, where he whispered to us to keep in
+the shadow. For the moon shone very clearly that night, so clearly, I
+remember, that I could see the grass which grew between the joints of
+the pavement, and the little shadows thrown by each separate blade
+upon the worn surface of its stones. Now I wondered how we should pass
+the gate, for there a guard was stationed, which had of late been
+doubled by order of the Khania. But this gate we left upon our right,
+taking a path that led into the great walled garden, where Rassen
+brought us to a door hidden behind a clump of shrubs, which he
+unlocked with a key he carried.
+
+Now we were outside the palace wall, and our road ran past the
+kennels. As we went by these, the great, sleepless death-hounds, that
+wandered to and fro like prowling lions, caught our wind and burst
+into a sudden chorus of terrific bays. I shivered at the sound, for it
+was fearful in that silence, also I thought that it would arouse the
+keepers. But the Khan went to the bars and showed himself, whereon the
+brutes, which knew him, ceased their noise.
+
+"Fear not," he said as he returned, "the huntsmen know that they are
+starved to-night, for to-morrow certain criminals will be thrown to
+them."
+
+Now we had reached the palace gates. Here the Khan bade us hide in an
+archway and departed. We looked at each other, for the same thought
+was in both our minds--that he had gone to fetch the murderers who
+were to make an end of us. But in this we did him wrong, for presently
+we heard the sound of horses' hoofs upon the stones, and he returned
+leading the two white steeds that Atene had given us.
+
+"I saddled them with my own hands," he whispered. "Who can do more to
+speed the parting guest? Now mount, hide your faces in your cloaks as
+I do, and follow me."
+
+So we mounted, and he trotted before us like a running footman, such
+as the great lords of Kaloon employed when they went about their
+business or their pleasure. Leaving the main street, he led us through
+a quarter of the town that had an evil reputation, and down its
+tortuous by-ways. Here we met a few revellers, while from time to time
+night-birds flitted from the doorways and, throwing aside their veils,
+looked at us, but as we made no sign drew back again, thinking that we
+passed to some assignation. We reached the deserted docks upon the
+river's edge and came to a little quay, alongside of which a broad
+ferryboat was fastened.
+
+"You must put your horses into it and row across," Rassen said, "for
+the bridges are guarded, and without discovering myself I cannot bid
+the soldiers to let you pass."
+
+So with some little trouble we urged the horses into the boat, where I
+held them by their bridles while Leo took the oars.
+
+"Now go your ways, accursed wanderers," cried the Khan as he thrust us
+from the quay, "and pray the Spirit of the Mountain that the old Rat
+and his pupil--your love, Yellow-beard, your love--are not watching
+you in their magic glass. For if so we may meet again."
+
+Then as the stream caught us, sweeping the boat out towards the centre
+of the river, he began to laugh that horrible laugh of his, calling
+after us--
+
+"Ride fast, ride fast for safety, strangers; there is death behind."
+
+Leo put out his strength and backed water, so that the punt hung upon
+the edge of the stream.
+
+"I think that we should do well to land again and kill that man, for
+he means mischief," he said.
+
+He spoke in English, but Rassen must have caught the ring of his voice
+and guessed its meaning with the cunning of the mad. At least he
+shouted--
+
+"Too late, fools," and with a last laugh turned, ran so swiftly up the
+quay that his cloak flew out upon the air behind him, and vanished
+into the shadows at its head.
+
+"Row on," I said, and Leo bent himself to the oars.
+
+But the ferry-boat was cumbersome and the current swift, so that we
+were swept down a long way before we could cross it. At length we
+reached still water near the further shore, and seeing a landing-
+place, managed to beach the punt and to drag our horses to the bank.
+Then leaving the craft to drift, for we had no time to scuttle her, we
+looked to our girths and bridles, and mounted, heading towards the far
+column of glowing smoke which showed like a beacon above the summit of
+the House of Fire.
+
+At first our progress was very slow, for here there seemed to be no
+path, and we were obliged to pick our way across the fields, and to
+search for bridges that spanned such of the water-ditches as were too
+wide for us to jump. More than an hour was spent in this work, till we
+came to a village wherein none were stirring, and here struck a road
+which seemed to run towards the mountain, though, as we learned
+afterwards, it took us very many miles out of our true path. Now for
+the first time we were able to canter, and pushed on at some speed,
+though not too fast, for we wished to spare our horses and feared lest
+they might fall in the uncertain light.
+
+A while before dawn the moon sank behind the Mountain, and the gloom
+grew so dense that we were forced to stop, which we did, holding the
+horses by their bridles and allowing them to graze a little on some
+young corn. Then the sky turned grey, the light faded from the column
+of smoke that was our guide, the dawn came, blushing red upon the vast
+snows of the distant peak, and shooting its arrows through the loop
+above the pillar. We let the horses drink from a channel that watered
+the corn, and, mounting them, rode onward slowly.
+
+Now with the shadows of the night a weight of fear seemed to be lifted
+off our hearts and we grew hopeful, aye, almost joyous. That hated
+city was behind us. Behind us were the Khania with her surging, doom-
+driven passions and her stormy loveliness, the wizardries of her
+horny-eyed mentor, so old in years and secret sin, and the madness of
+that strange being, half-devil, half-martyr, at once cruel and a
+coward--the Khan, her husband, and his polluted court. In front lay
+the fire, the snow and the mystery they hid, sought for so many empty
+years. Now we would solve it or we would die. So we pressed forward
+joyfully to meet our fate, whatever it might be.
+
+For many hours our road ran deviously through cultivated land, where
+the peasants at their labour laid down their tools and gathered into
+knots to watch us pass, and quaint, flat-roofed villages, whence the
+women snatched up their children and fled at the sight of us. They
+believed us to be lords from the court who came to work them some harm
+in person or in property, and their terror told /us/ how the country
+smarted beneath the rod of the oppressor. By mid-day, although the
+peak seemed to be but little nearer, the character of the land had
+changed. Now it sloped gently upwards, and therefore could not be
+irrigated.
+
+Evidently all this great district was dependent on the fall of timely
+rains, which had not come that spring. Therefore, although the
+population was still dense and every rod of the land was under the
+plough or spade, the crops were failing. It was pitiful to see the
+green, uneared corn already turning yellow because of the lack of
+moisture, the beasts searching the starved pastures for food and the
+poor husbandmen wandering about their fields or striving to hoe the
+iron soil.
+
+Here the people seemed to know us as the two foreigners whose coming
+had been noised abroad, and, the fear of famine having made them bold,
+they shouted at us as we went by to give them back the rain which we
+had stolen, or so we understood their words. Even the women and the
+children in the villages prostrated themselves before us, pointing
+first to the Mountain and then to the hard, blue sky, and crying to us
+to send them rain. Once, indeed, we were threatened by a mob of
+peasants armed with spades and reaping-hooks, who seemed inclined to
+bar our path, so that we were obliged to put our horses to a gallop
+and pass through them with a rush. As we went forward the country grew
+ever more arid and its inhabitants more scarce, till we saw no man
+save a few wandering herds who drove their cattle from place to place
+in search of provender.
+
+By evening we guessed that we had reached that border tract which was
+harried by the Mountain tribes, for here strong towers built of stone
+were dotted about the heaths, doubtless to serve as watch-houses or
+places of refuge. Whether they were garrisoned by soldiers I do not
+know, but I doubt it, for we saw none. It seems probable indeed that
+these forts were relics of days when the land of Kaloon was guarded
+from attack by rulers of a very different character to that of the
+present Khan and his immediate predecessors.
+
+At length even the watch-towers were left behind, and by sundown we
+found ourselves upon a vast uninhabited plain, where we could see no
+living thing. Now we made up our minds to rest our horses awhile,
+proposing to push forward again with the moon, for having the wrath of
+the Khania behind us we did not dare to linger. By this evening
+doubtless she would have discovered our escape, since before sundown,
+as she had decreed, Leo must make his choice and give his answer.
+Then, as we were sure, she would strike swiftly. Perhaps her
+messengers were already at their work rousing the country to capture
+us, and her soldiers following on our path.
+
+We unsaddled the horses and let them refresh themselves by rolling on
+the sandy soil, and graze after a fashion upon the coarse tufts of
+withering herbage which grew around. There was no water here; but this
+did not so much matter, for both they and we had drunk at a little
+muddy pool we found not more than an hour before. We were finishing
+our meal of the food that we had brought with us, which, indeed, we
+needed sorely after our sleepless night and long day's journey, when
+my horse, which was knee-haltered close at hand, lay down to roll
+again. This it could not do with ease because of the rope about its
+fore-leg, and I watched its efforts idly, till at length, at the
+fourth attempt, after hanging for a few seconds upon its back, its
+legs sticking straight into the air, it fell over slowly towards me as
+horses do.
+
+"Why are its hoofs so red? Has it cut itself?" asked Leo in an
+indifferent voice.
+
+As it chanced I also had just noticed this red tinge, and for the
+first time, since it was most distinct about the animal's frogs, which
+until it rolled thus I had not seen. So I rose to look at them,
+thinking that probably the evening light had deceived us, or that we
+might have passed through some ruddy-coloured mud. Sure enough they
+/were/ red, as though a dye had soaked into the horn and the substance
+of the frogs. What was more, they gave out a pungent, aromatic smell
+that was unpleasant, such a smell as might arise from blood mixed with
+musk and spices.
+
+"It is very strange," I said. "Let us look at your beast, Leo."
+
+So we did, and found that its hoofs had been similarly-treated.
+
+"Perhaps it is a native mixture to preserve the horn," suggested Leo.
+
+I thought awhile, then a terrible idea struck me.
+
+"I don't want to frighten you," I said, "but I think that we had
+better saddle up and get on."
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"Because I believe that villain of a Khan has doctored our horses."
+
+"What for? To make them go lame?"
+
+"No, Leo, to make them leave a strong scent upon dry ground."
+
+He turned pale. "Do you mean--those hounds?"
+
+I nodded. Then wasting no more time in words, we saddled up in frantic
+haste. Just as I fastened the last strap of my saddle I thought that a
+faint sound reached my ear.
+
+"Listen," I said. Again it came, and now there was no doubt about it.
+It was the sound of baying dogs.
+
+"By heaven! the death-hounds," said Leo.
+
+"Yes," I answered quietly enough, for at this crisis my nerves
+hardened and all fear left me, "our friend the Khan is out a-hunting.
+That is why he laughed."
+
+"What shall we do?" asked Leo. "Leave the horses?"
+
+I looked at the Peak. Its nearest flanks were miles and miles away.
+
+"Time enough to do that when we are forced. We can never reach that
+mountain on foot, and after they had run down the horses, they would
+hunt us by spoor or gaze. No, man, ride as you never rode before."
+
+We sprang to our saddles, but before we gave rein I turned and looked
+behind me. It will be remembered that we had ridden up a long slope
+which terminated in a ridge, about three miles away, the border of the
+great plain whereon we stood. Now the sun had sunk behind that ridge
+so that although it was still light the plain had fallen into shadow.
+Therefore, while no distant object could be seen upon the plain,
+anything crossing the ridge remained visible enough in that clear air,
+at least to persons of keen sight.
+
+This is what we saw. Over the ridge poured a multitude of little
+objects, and amongst the last of these galloped a man mounted on a
+great horse, who led another horse by the bridle.
+
+"All the pack are out," said Leo grimly, "and Rassen has brought a
+second mount with him. Now I see why he wanted us to leave the spears,
+and I think," he shouted as we began to gallop, "that before all is
+done the Shaman may prove himself a true prophet."
+
+Away we sped through the gathering darkness, heading straight for the
+Peak. While we went I calculated our chances. Our horses, as good as
+any in the land, were still strong and fresh, for although we had
+ridden far we had not over-pressed them, and their condition was
+excellent. But doubtless the death-hounds were fresh also, for,
+meaning to run us down at night when he thought that he might catch us
+sleeping, Rassen would have brought them along easily, following us by
+inquiry among the peasants and only laying them on our spoor after the
+last village had been left behind.
+
+Also he had two mounts, and for aught we knew--though afterwards this
+proved not to be the case, for he wished to work his wickedness alone
+and unseen--he might be followed by attendants with relays. Therefore
+it would appear that unless we reached some place whither he did not
+dare to follow, before him--that is the slopes of the Peak many miles
+away, he must run us down. There remained the chance also that the
+dogs would tire and refuse to pursue the chase.
+
+This, however, seemed scarcely probable, for they were extraordinarily
+swift and strong, and so savage that when once they had scented blood,
+in which doubtless our horses' hoofs were steeped, they would fall
+dead from exhaustion sooner than abandon the trail. Indeed, both the
+Khania and Simbri had often told us as much. Another chance--they
+might lose the scent, but seeing its nature, again this was not
+probable. Even an English pack will carry the trail of a red herring
+breast high without a fault for hours, and here was something stronger
+--a cunning compound of which the tell-tale odour would hold for days.
+A last chance. If we were forced to abandon our horses, we, their
+riders, might possibly escape, could we find any place to hide in on
+that great plain. If not, we should be seen as well as scented, and
+then----
+
+No, the odds were all against us, but so they had often been before;
+meanwhile we had three miles start, and perhaps help would come to us
+from the Mountain, some help unforeseen. So we set our teeth and sped
+away like arrows while the light lasted.
+
+Very soon it failed, and whilst the moon was hidden behind the
+mountains the night grew dark.
+
+Now the hounds gained on us, for in the gloom, which to them was
+nothing, we did not dare to ride full speed, fearing lest our horses
+should stumble and lame themselves, or fall. Then it was for the
+second time since we had dwelt in this land of Kaloon that of a sudden
+the fire flamed upon the Peak. When we had seen it before, it had
+appeared to flash across the heavens in one great lighthouse ray,
+concentrated through the loop above the pillar, and there this night
+also the ray ran far above us like a lance of fire. But now that we
+were nearer to its fount we found ourselves bathed in a soft,
+mysterious radiance like that of the phosphorescence on a summer sea,
+reflected downwards perhaps from the clouds and massy rock roof of the
+column loop and diffused by the snows beneath.
+
+This unearthly glimmer, faint as it was, helped us much, indeed but
+for it we must have been overtaken, for here the ground was very
+rough, full of holes also made by burrowing marmots. Thus in our
+extremity help did come to us from the Mountain, until at length the
+moon rose, when as quickly as they had appeared the volcanic fires
+vanished, leaving behind them nothing but the accustomed pillar of
+dull red smoke.
+
+It is a commonplace to speak of the music of hounds at chase, but
+often I have wondered how that music sounds in the ears of the deer or
+the fox fleeing for its life.
+
+Now, when we filled the place of the quarry, it was my destiny to
+solve this problem, and I assert with confidence that the progeny of
+earth can produce no more hideous noise. It had come near to us, and
+in the desolate silence of the night the hellish harmonies of its
+volume seemed terrific, yet I could discern the separate notes of
+which it was composed, especially one deep, bell-like bay.
+
+I remembered that I had heard this bay when we sat in the boat upon
+the river and saw that poor noble done to death for the crime of
+loving the Khania. As the hunt passed us then I observed that it burst
+from the throat of the leading hound, a huge brute, red in colour,
+with a coal-black ear, fangs that gleamed like ivory, and a mouth
+which resembled a hot oven. I even knew the name of the beast, for
+afterwards the Khan, whose peculiar joy it was, had pointed it out to
+me. He called it Master, because no dog in the pack dared fight it,
+and told me that it could kill an armed man alone.
+
+Now, as its baying warned us, Master was not half a mile away!
+
+The coming of the moonlight enabled us to gallop faster, especially as
+here the ground was smooth, being covered with a short, dry turf, and
+for the next two hours we gained upon the pack. Yes, it was only two
+hours, or perhaps less, but it seemed a score of centuries. The slopes
+of the Peak were now not more than ten miles ahead, but our horses
+were giving out at last. They had borne us nobly, poor beasts, though
+we were no light weights, yet their strength had its limits. The sweat
+ran from them, their sides panted like bellows, they breathed in
+gasps, they stumbled and would scarcely answer to the flogging of our
+spear-shafts. Their gallop sank to a jolting canter, and I thought
+that soon they must come to a dead stop.
+
+We crossed the brow of a gentle rise, from which the ground, that was
+sprinkled with bush and rocks, sloped downwards to where, some miles
+below us, the river ran, bounding the enormous flanks of the Mountain.
+When we had travelled a little way down this slope we were obliged to
+turn in order to pass between two heaps of rock, which brought us side
+on to its brow. And there, crossing it not more than three hundred
+yards away, we saw the pack. There were fewer of them now; doubtless
+many had fallen out of the hunt, but many still remained. Moreover,
+not far behind them rode the Khan, though his second mount was gone,
+or more probably he was riding it, having galloped the first to a
+standstill.
+
+Our poor horses saw them also, and the sight lent them wings, for all
+the while they knew that they were running for their lives. This we
+could tell from the way they quivered whenever the baying came near to
+them, not as horses tremble with the pleasureable excitement of the
+hunt, but in an extremity of terror, as I have often seen them do when
+a prowling tiger roars close to their camp. On they went as though
+they were fresh from the stable, nor did they fail again until another
+four miles or so were covered and the river was but a little way
+ahead, for we could hear the rush of its waters.
+
+Then slowly but surely the pack overtook us. We passed a clump of
+bush, but when we had gone a couple of hundred yards or so across the
+open plain beyond, feeling that the horses were utterly spent, I
+shouted to Leo--
+
+"Ride round back to the bush and hide there." So we did, and scarcely
+had we reached it and dismounted when the hounds came past. Yes, they
+went within fifty yards of us, lolloping along upon our spoor and
+running all but mute, for now they were too weary to waste their
+breath in vain. "Run for it," I said to Leo as soon as they had gone
+by, "for they will be back on the scent presently," and we set off to
+the right across the line that the hounds had taken, so as not to cut
+our own spoor.
+
+About a hundred yards away was a rock, which fortunately we were able
+to reach before the pack swung round upon the horses' tracks, and
+therefore they did not view us. Here we stayed until following the
+loop, they came to the patch of bush and passed behind it. Then we ran
+forward again as far as we could go. Glancing backwards as we went, I
+saw our two poor, foundered beasts plunging away across the plain,
+happily almost in the same line along which we had ridden from the
+rise. They were utterly done, but freed from our weights and urged on
+by fear, could still gallop and keep ahead of the dogs, though we knew
+that this would not be for very long. I saw also that the Khan,
+guessing what we had done in our despair, was trying to call his
+hounds off the horses, but as yet without avail, for they would not
+leave the quarry which they had viewed.
+
+All this came to my sight in a flash, but I remember the picture well.
+The mighty, snow-clad Peak surmounted by its column of glowing smoke
+and casting its shadow for mile upon mile across the desert flats; the
+plain with its isolated rocks and grey bushes; the doomed horses
+struggling across it with convulsive bounds; the trailing line of
+great dogs that loped after them, and amongst these, looking small and
+lonely in that vast place, the figure of the Khan and his horse, of
+which the black hide was beflecked with foam. Then above, the blue and
+tender sky, where the round moon shone so clearly that in her quiet,
+level light no detail, even the smallest, could escape the eye.
+
+Now youth and even middle age were far behind me, and although a very
+strong man for my years, I could not run as I used to do. Also I was
+most weary, and my limbs were stiff and chafed with long riding, so I
+made but slow progress, and to worsen matters I struck my left foot
+against a stone and hurt it much. I implored Leo to go on and leave
+me, for we thought that if we could once reach the river our scent
+would be lost in the water; at any rate that it would give us a chance
+of life. Just then too, I heard the belling bay of the hound Master,
+and waited for the next. Yes, it was nearer to us. The Khan had made a
+cast and found our line. Presently we must face the end.
+
+"Go, go!" I said. "I can keep them back for a few minutes and you may
+escape. It is your quest, not mine. Ayesha awaits you, not me, and I
+am weary of life. I wish to die and have done with it."
+
+Thus I gasped, not all at once, but in broken words, as I hobbled
+along clinging to Leo's arm. But he only answered in a low voice--
+
+"Be quiet, or they will hear you," and on he went, dragging me with
+him.
+
+We were quite near the water now, for we could see it gleaming below
+us, and oh! how I longed for one deep drink. I remember that this was
+the uppermost desire in my mind, to drink and drink. But the hounds
+were nearer still to us, so near that we could hear the pattering of
+their feet on the dry ground mingled with the thud of the hoofs of the
+Khan's galloping horse. We had reached some rocks upon a little rise,
+just where the bank began, when Leo said suddenly--
+
+"No use, we can't make it. Stop and let's see the thing through."
+
+So we wheeled round, resting our backs against the rock. There, about
+a hundred yards off, were the death-hounds, but Heaven be praised!
+/only three of them/. The rest had followed the flying horses, and
+doubtless when they caught them at last, which may have been far
+distant, had stopped to gorge themselves upon them. So they were out
+of the fight. Only three, and the Khan, a wild figure, who galloped
+with them; but those three, the black and red brute, Master, and two
+others almost as fierce and big.
+
+"It might be worse," said Leo. "If you will try to tackle the dogs,
+I'll do my best with the Khan," and stooping down he rubbed his palms
+in the grit, for they were wet as water, an example which I followed.
+Then we gripped the spears in our right hands and the knives in our
+left, and waited.
+
+The dogs had seen us now and came on, growling and baying fearfully.
+With a rush they came, and I am not ashamed to own that I felt
+terribly afraid, for the brutes seemed the size of lions and more
+fierce. One, it was the smallest of them, outstripped the others, and,
+leaping up the little rise, sprang straight at my throat.
+
+Why or how I do not know, but on the impulse of the moment I too
+sprang to meet it, so that its whole weight came upon the point of my
+spear, which was backed by my weight. The spear entered between its
+forelegs and such was the shock that I was knocked backwards. But when
+I regained my feet I saw the dog rolling on the ground before me and
+gnashing at the spear shaft, which had been twisted from my hand.
+
+The other two had jumped at Leo, but failed to get hold, though one of
+them tore away a large fragment from his tunic. Foolishly enough, he
+hurled his spear at it but missed, for the steel passed just under its
+belly and buried itself deep in the ground. The pair of them did not
+come on again at once. Perhaps the sight of their dying companion made
+them pause. At any rate, they stood at a little distance snarling,
+where, as our spears were gone, they were safe from us.
+
+Now the Khan had ridden up and sat upon his horse glowering at us, and
+his face was like the face of a devil. I had hoped that he might fear
+to attack, but the moment I saw his eyes, I knew that this would not
+be. He was quite mad with hate, jealousy, and the long-drawn
+excitement of the hunt, and had come to kill or be killed. Sliding
+from the saddle, he drew his short sword--for either he had lost his
+spear or had brought none--and made a hissing noise to the two dogs,
+pointing at me with the sword. I saw them spring and I saw him rush at
+Leo, and after that who can tell exactly what happened?
+
+My knife went home to the hilt in the body of one dog--and it came to
+the ground and lay there--for its hindquarters were paralysed,
+howling, snarling and biting at me. But the other, the fiend called
+Master, got me by the right arm beneath the elbow, and I felt my bones
+crack in its mighty jaws, and the agony of it, or so I suppose, caused
+me to drop the knife, so that I was weaponless. The brute dragged me
+from the rock and began to shake and worry me, although I kicked it in
+the stomach with all my strength. I fell to my knees and, as it
+chanced, my left hand came upon a stone of about the size of a large
+orange, which I gripped. I gained my feet again and pounded at its
+skull with the stone, but still it did not leave go, and this was well
+for me, for its next hold would have been on my throat.
+
+We twisted and tumbled to and fro, man and dog together. At one turn I
+thought that I saw Leo and the Khan rolling over and over each other
+upon the ground; at another, that he, the Khan, was sitting against a
+stone looking at me, and it came into my mind that he must have killed
+Leo and was watching while the dog worried me to death.
+
+Then just as things began to grow black, something sprang forward and
+I saw the huge hound lifted from the earth. Its jaws opened, my arm
+came free and fell against my side. Yes! the brute was whirling round
+in the air. Leo held it by its hind legs and with all his great
+strength whirled it round and round.
+
+/Thud!/
+
+He had dashed its head against the rock, and it fell and lay still, a
+huddled heap of black and red. Oddly enough, I did not faint; I
+suppose that the pain and the shock to my nerves kept me awake, for I
+heard Leo say in a matter-of-fact voice between his gasps for breath--
+
+"Well, that's over, and I think that I have fulfilled the Shaman's
+prophecy. Let's look and make sure."
+
+Then he led me with him to one of the rocks, and there, resting
+supinely against it, sat the Khan, still living but unable to move
+hand or foot. The madness had quite left his face and he looked at us
+with melancholy eyes, like the eyes of a sick child.
+
+"You are brave men," he said, slowly, "strong also, to have killed
+those hounds and broken my back. So it has come about as was foretold
+by the old Rat. After all, I should have hunted Atene, not you, though
+now she lives to avenge me, for her own sake, not mine. Yellow-beard,
+she hunts you too and with deadlier hounds than these, those of her
+thwarted passions. Forgive me and fly to the Mountain, Yellow-beard,
+whither I go before you, for there one dwells who is stronger than
+Atene."
+
+Then his jaw dropped and he was dead.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XII
+
+                            THE MESSENGER
+
+"He is gone," I panted, "and the world hasn't lost much."
+
+"Well, it didn't give him much, did it, poor devil, so don't let's
+speak ill of him," answered Leo, who had thrown himself exhausted to
+the ground. "Perhaps he was all right before they made him mad. At any
+rate he had pluck, for I don't want to tackle such another."
+
+"How did you manage it?" I asked.
+
+"Dodged in beneath his sword, closed with him, threw him and smashed
+him up over that lump of stone. Sheer strength, that's all. A cruel
+business, but it was his life or mine, and there you are. It's lucky I
+finished it in time to help you before that oven-mouthed brute tore
+your throat out. Did you ever see such a dog? It looks as large as a
+young donkey. Are you much hurt, Horace?"
+
+"Oh, my forearm is chewed to a pulp, but nothing else, I think. Let us
+get down to the water; if I can't drink soon I shall faint. Also the
+rest of the pack is somewhere about, fifty or more of them."
+
+"I don't think they will trouble us, they have got the horses, poor
+beasts. Wait a minute and I will come."
+
+Then he rose, found the Khan's sword, a beautiful and ancient weapon,
+and with a single cut of its keen edge, killed the second dog that I
+had wounded, which was still yowling and snarling at us. After this he
+collected the two spears and my knife, saying that they might be
+useful, and without trouble caught the Khan's horse, which stood with
+hanging head close by, so tired that even this desperate fight had not
+frightened it away.
+
+"Now," he said, "up you go, old fellow. You are not fit to walk any
+farther;" and with his help I climbed into the saddle.
+
+Then slipping the rein over his arm he led the horse, which walked
+stiffly, on to the river, that ran within a quarter of a mile of us,
+though to me, tortured as I was by pain and half delirious with
+exhaustion, the journey seemed long enough.
+
+Still we came there somehow, and, forgetting my wounds, I tumbled from
+the horse, threw myself flat and drank and drank, more, I think, than
+ever I did before. Not in all my life have I tasted anything so
+delicious as was that long draught of water. When I had satisfied my
+thirst, I dipped my head and made shift to jerk my wounded arm into
+it, for its coolness seemed to still the pain. Presently Leo rose, the
+water running from his face and beard, and said--
+
+"What shall we do now? The river seems to be wide, over a hundred
+yards, and it is low, but there may be deep water in the middle. Shall
+we try to cross, in which case we might drown, or stop where we are
+till daylight and take our chance of the death-hounds?"
+
+"I can't go another foot," I murmured faintly, "much less try to ford
+an unknown river."
+
+Now, about thirty yards from the shore was an island covered with
+reeds and grasses.
+
+"Perhaps we could reach that," he said. "Come, get on to my back, and
+we will try."
+
+I obeyed with difficulty, and we set out, he feeling his way with the
+handle of the spear. The water proved to be quite shallow; indeed, it
+never came much above his knees, so that we reached the island without
+trouble. Here Leo laid me down on the soft rushes, and, returning to
+the mainland, brought over the black horse and the remaining weapons,
+and having unsaddled the beast, knee-haltered and turned it loose,
+whereon it immediately lay down, for it was too spent to feed.
+
+Then he set to work to doctor my wounds. Well it proved for me that
+the sleeve of my garment was so thick, for even through it the flesh
+of my forearm was torn to ribbons, moreover a bone seemed to be
+broken. Leo collected a double handful of some soft wet moss and,
+having washed the arm, wrapped it round with a handkerchief, over
+which he laid the moss. Then with a second handkerchief and some
+strips of linen torn from our undergarments he fastened a couple of
+split reeds to serve as rough splints to the wounded limb. While he
+was doing this I suppose that I slept or swooned. At any rate, I
+remember no more.
+
+Sometime during that night Leo had a strange dream, of which he told
+me the next morning. I suppose that it must have been a dream as
+certainly I saw or was aware of nothing. Well, he dreamed--I use his
+own words as nearly as possible--that again he heard those accursed
+death-hounds in full cry. Nearer and nearer they came, following our
+spoor to the edge of the river--all the pack that had run down the
+horses. At the water's brink they halted and were mute. Then suddenly
+a puff of wind brought the scent of us upon the island to one of them
+which lifted up its head and uttered a single bay. The rest clustered
+about it, and all at once they made a dash at the water.
+
+Leo could see and hear everything. He felt that after all our doom was
+now at hand, and yet, held in the grip of nightmare, if nightmare it
+were, he was quite unable to stir or even to cry out to wake and warn
+me.
+
+Now followed the marvel of this vision. Giving tongue as they came,
+half swimming and half plunging, the hounds drew near to the island
+where we slept. Then, suddenly Leo saw that we were no longer alone.
+In front of us, on the brink of the water, stood the figure of a woman
+clad in some dark garment. He could not describe her face or
+appearance, for her back was towards him.
+
+All he knew was that she stood there, like a guard, holding some
+object in her raised hand, and that suddenly the advancing hounds
+caught sight of her. In an instant it was as though they were
+paralysed by fear--for their bays turned to fearful howlings. One or
+two of those that were nearest to the island seemed to lose their
+footing and be swept away by the stream. The rest struggled back to
+the bank, and fled wildly like whipped curs.
+
+Then the dark, commanding figure, which in his dream Leo took to be
+the guardian Spirit of the Mountain, vanished. That it left no
+footprints behind it I can vouch, for in the morning we looked to see.
+
+When, awakened by the sharp pangs in my arm, I opened my eyes again,
+the dawn was breaking. A thin mist hung over the river and the island,
+and through it I could see Leo sleeping heavily at my side and the
+shape of the black horse, which had risen and was grazing close at
+hand. I lay still for a while remembering all that we had undergone
+and wondering that I should live to wake, till presently above the
+murmuring of the water I heard a sound which terrified me, the sound
+of voices. I sat up and peered through the reeds, and there upon the
+bank, looking enormous in the mist, I saw two figures mounted upon
+horses, those of a woman and a man.
+
+They were pointing to the ground as though they examined spoor in the
+sand. I heard the man say something about the dogs not daring to enter
+the territory of the Mountain, a remark which came back to my mind
+again after Leo had told me his dream. Then I remembered how we were
+placed.
+
+"Wake!" I whispered to Leo. "Wake, we are pursued."
+
+He sprang to his feet, rubbing his eyes and snatching at a spear. Now
+those upon the bank saw him, and a sweet voice spoke through the mist,
+saying--
+
+"Lay down that weapon, my guest, for we are not come to harm you."
+
+It was the voice of the Khania Atene, and the man with her was the old
+Shaman Simbri.
+
+"What shall we do now, Horace?" asked Leo with something like a groan,
+for in the whole world there were no two people whom he less wished to
+see.
+
+"Nothing," I answered, "it is for them to play."
+
+"Come to us," called the Khania across the water. "I swear that we
+mean no harm. Are we not alone?"
+
+"I do not know," answered Leo, "but it seems unlikely. Where we are we
+stop until we are ready to march again."
+
+Atene spoke to Simbri. What she said we could not hear, for she
+whispered, but she appeared to be arguing with him and persuading him
+to some course of which he strongly disapproved. Then suddenly both of
+them put their horses at the water and rode to us through the
+shallows. Reaching the island, they dismounted, and we stood staring
+at each other. The old man seemed very weary in body and oppressed in
+mind, but the Khania was strong and beautiful as ever, nor had passion
+and fatigue left any trace upon her inscrutable face. It was she who
+broke the silence, saying--
+
+"You have ridden fast and far since last we met, my guests, and left
+an evil token to mark the path you took. Yonder among the rocks one
+lies dead. Say, how came he to his end, who has no wound upon him?"
+
+"By these," answered Leo, stretching out his hands.
+
+"I knew it," she answered, "and I blame you not, for fate decreed that
+death for him, and now it is fulfilled. Still, there are those to whom
+you must answer for his blood, and I only can protect you from them."
+
+"Or betray me to them," said Leo. "Khania, what do you seek?"
+
+"That answer which you should have given me this twelve hours gone.
+Remember, before you speak, that I alone can save your life--aye, and
+will do it and clothe you with that dead madman's crown and mantle."
+
+"You shall have your answer on yonder Mountain," said Leo, pointing to
+the peak above us, "where I seek mine."
+
+She paled a little and replied, "To find that it is death, for, as I
+have told you, the place is guarded by savage folk who know no pity."
+
+"So be it. Then Death is the answer that we seek. Come, Horace, let us
+go to meet him."
+
+"I swear to you," she broke in, "that there dwells not the woman of
+your dreams. I am that woman, yes, even I, as you are the man of
+mine."
+
+"Then, lady, prove it yonder upon the Mountain," Leo answered.
+
+"There dwells there no woman," Atene went on hurriedly, "nothing
+dwells there. It is the home of fire and--a Voice."
+
+"What voice?"
+
+"The Voice of the Oracle that speaks from the fire. The Voice of a
+Spirit whom no man has ever seen, or shall see."
+
+"Come, Horace," said Leo, and he moved towards the horse.
+
+"Men," broke in the old Shaman, "would you rush upon your doom?
+Listen; I have visited yonder haunted place, for it was I who
+according to custom brought thither the body of the Khan Atene's
+father for burial, and I warn you to set no foot within its temples."
+
+"Which your mistress said that we should never reach," I commented,
+but Leo only answered--
+
+"We thank you for your warning," and added, "Horace, watch them while
+I saddle the horse, lest they do us a mischief."
+
+So I took the spear in my uninjured hand and stood ready. But they
+made no attempt to hurt us, only fell back a little and began to talk
+in hurried whispers. It was evident to me that they were much
+perturbed. In a few minutes the horse was saddled and Leo assisted me
+to mount it. Then he said--
+
+"We go to accomplish our fate, whatever it may be, but before we part,
+Khania, I thank you for the kindness you have shown us, and pray you
+to be wise and forget that we have ever been. Through no will of mine
+your husband's blood is on my hands, and that alone must separate us
+for ever. We are divided by the doors of death and destiny. Go back to
+your people, and pardon me if most unwillingly I have brought you
+doubt and trouble. Farewell."
+
+She listened with bowed head, then replied, very sadly--
+
+"I thank you for your gentle words, but, Leo Vincey, we do not part
+thus easily. You have summoned me to the Mountain, and even to the
+Mountain I shall follow you. Aye, and there I will meet its Spirit, as
+I have always known I must and as the Shaman here has always known I
+must. Yes, I will match my strength and magic against hers, as it is
+decreed that I shall do. To the victor be that crown for which we have
+warred for ages."
+
+Then suddenly Atene sprang to her saddle, and turning her horse's head
+rode it back through the water to the shore, followed by old Simbri,
+who lifted up his crooked hands as though in woe and fear, muttering
+as he went--
+
+"You have entered the forbidden river and now, Atene, the day of
+decision is upon us all--upon us and her--that predestined day of ruin
+and of war."
+
+"What do they mean?" asked Leo of me.
+
+"I don't know," I answered; "but I have no doubt we shall find out
+soon enough and that it will be something unpleasant. Now for this
+river."
+
+Before we had struggled through it I thought more than once that the
+day of drowning was upon us also, for in places there were deep rapids
+which nearly swept us away. But Leo, who waded, leading the Khan's
+horse by the bridle, felt his path and supported himself with the
+spear shaft, so that in the end we reached the other bank safely.
+
+Beyond it lay a breadth of marshy lands, that doubtless were
+overflowed when the torrent was in flood. Through these we pushed our
+way as fast as we could, for we feared lest the Khania had gone to
+fetch her escort, which we thought she might have left behind the
+rise, and would return with it presently to hunt us down. At that time
+we did not know what we learned afterwards, that with its bordering
+river the soil of the Mountain was absolutely sacred and, in practice,
+inviolable. True, it had been invaded by the people of Kaloon in
+several wars, but on each occasion their army was destroyed or met
+with terrible disaster. Little wonder then they had come to believe
+that the House of Fire was under the protection of some unconquerable
+Spirit.
+
+Leaving the marsh, we reached a bare, rising plain, which led to the
+first slope of the Mountain three or four miles away. Here we expected
+every moment to be attacked by the savages of whom we had heard so
+much, but no living creature did we see. The place was a desert
+streaked with veins of rock that once had been molten lava. /I/ do not
+remember much else about it; indeed, the pain in my arm was so sharp
+that I had no eyes for physical features. At length the rise ended in
+a bare, broad donga, quite destitute of vegetation, of which the
+bottom was buried in lava and a debris of rocks washed down by the
+rain or melting snows from slopes above. This donga was bordered on
+the farther side by a cliff, perhaps fifty feet in height, in which we
+could see no opening.
+
+Still we descended the place, that was dark and rugged; pervaded,
+moreover, by an extraordinary gloom, and as we went perceived that its
+lava floor was sprinkled over with a multitude of white objects. Soon
+we came to the first of these and found that it was the skeleton of a
+human being. Here was a veritable Valley of Dead Bones, thousands upon
+thousands of them; a gigantic graveyard. It seemed as though some
+great army had perished here.
+
+Indeed, we found afterwards that this was the case, for on one of
+those occasions in the far past when the people of Kaloon had attacked
+the Mountain tribes, they were trapped and slaughtered in this gully,
+leaving their bones as a warning and a token. Among these sad
+skeletons we wandered disconsolately, seeking a path up the opposing
+cliff, and finding none, until at length we came to a halt, not
+knowing which way to turn. Then it was that we met with our first
+strange experience on the Mountain.
+
+The gulf and its mouldering relics depressed us, so that for awhile we
+were silent, and, to tell the truth, somewhat afraid. Yes, even the
+horse seemed afraid, for it snorted a little, hung its head and
+shivered. Close by us lay a pile of bones, the remains evidently of a
+number of wretched creatures that, dead or living, had been hurled
+down from the cliff above, and on the top of the pile was a little
+huddled heap, which we took for more bones.
+
+"Unless we can find a way out of this accursed charnel-house before
+long, I think that we shall add to its company," I said, staring round
+me.
+
+As the words left my lips it seemed to me that from the corner of my
+eye I saw the heap on the top of the bones stir. I looked round. Yes,
+it was stirring. It rose, it stood up, a human figure, apparently that
+of a woman--but of this I could not be sure--wrapped from head to foot
+in white and wearing a hanging veil over its face, or rather a mask
+with cut eye-holes. It advanced towards us while we stared at it, till
+the horse, catching sight of the thing, shied violently and nearly
+threw me. When at a distance of about ten paces it paused and beckoned
+with its hand, that was also swathed in white like the arm of a mummy.
+
+"What the devil are you?" shouted Leo, and his voice echoed drearily
+among those naked rocks. But the creature did not answer, it only
+continued to beckon.
+
+Leo walked up to it to assure himself that we were not the victims of
+some hallucination. As he came it glided back to its heap of bones and
+stood there like a ghost of one dead arisen from amidst these grinning
+evidences of death, or rather a swathed corpse, for that is what it
+resembled. Leo followed with the intention of touching it to assure
+himself of its reality, whereon it lifted its white-wrapped arm and
+struck him lightly on the breast. Then as he recoiled it pointed with
+its hand, first upwards as though to the Peak or the sky, and next at
+the wall of rock which faced us.
+
+He returned to me saying, "What shall we do?"
+
+"Follow, I suppose. It may be a messenger from above," and I nodded
+toward the mountain crest.
+
+"From below, more likely," Leo muttered, "for I don't like the look of
+this guide."
+
+Still he motioned with his hand to the creature to proceed. Apparently
+it understood, for it turned to the left and began to pick its way
+amongst the stones and skeletons swiftly and without noise. We
+followed for several hundred yards till it reached a shallow cleft in
+the rock. This cleft we had seen already, but as it appeared to end at
+a depth of about thirty feet, we passed on. The figure entered here
+and vanished.
+
+"It must be a shadow," said Leo doubtfully.
+
+"Nonsense," I answered, "shadows don't strike one. Go on."
+
+So he led the horse up the cleft, to find that at the end it turned
+sharply to the right and that the form was standing there awaiting us.
+Forward it went again and we after it down a little gorge that grew
+ever gloomier till it terminated in what might have been a cave, or a
+gallery cut in the rock.
+
+Here our guide came back to us apparently with the intention of taking
+the horse by the bridle, but at this nearer sight of it the brute
+snorted and reared up, so that it almost fell backwards upon me. As it
+found its feet again the figure struck it on the head in the same
+passionless, inhuman way that it had struck Leo, whereon the horse
+trembled and burst into a sweat as though with fear, making no further
+attempt to escape or to disobey. Then it took one side of the bridle
+in its swathed hand and, Leo clinging to the other, we plunged into
+the tunnel.
+
+Our position was not pleasant, for we knew not whither we were being
+led by this horrible conductor, and suspected that it might be to meet
+our deaths in the darkness. Moreover, I guessed that the path was
+narrow and bordered by some gulf, for as we went I heard stones fall,
+apparently to a considerable depth, while the poor horse lifted its
+feet gingerly and snorted in abject fear. At length we saw daylight,
+and never was I more glad of its advent, although it showed us that
+there /was/ a gulf on our right, and that the path we travelled could
+not measure more than ten feet in width.
+
+Now we were out of the tunnel, that evidently had saved us a wide
+detour, and standing for the first time upon the actual slope of the
+Mountain, which stretched upwards for a great number of miles till it
+reached the snow-line above. Here also we saw evidences of human life,
+for the ground was cultivated in patches and herds of mountain sheep
+and cattle were visible in the distance.
+
+Presently we entered a gully, following a rough path that led along
+the edge of a raging torrent. It was a desolate place, half a mile
+wide or more, having hundreds of fantastic lava boulders strewn about
+its slopes. Before we had gone a mile I heard a shrill whistle, and
+suddenly from behind these boulders sprang a number of men, quite
+fifty of them. All we could note at the time was that they were
+brawny, savage-looking fellows, for the most part red haired and
+bearded, although their complexions were rather dark, who wore cloaks
+of white goat skins and carried spears and shields. I should imagine
+that they were not unlike the ancient Picts and Scots as they appeared
+to the invading Romans. At us they came uttering their shrill,
+whistling cries, evidently with the intention of spearing us on the
+spot.
+
+"Now for it," said Leo, drawing his sword, for escape was impossible;
+they were all round us. "Good-bye, Horace."
+
+"Good-bye," I answered rather faintly, understanding what the Khania
+and the old Shaman had meant when they said that we should be killed
+before we ascended the first slope of the Mountain.
+
+Meanwhile our ghastly-looking guide had slipped behind a great
+boulder, and even then it occurred to me that her part in the tragedy
+being played, she, if it were a woman at all, was withdrawing herself
+while we met our miserable fate. But here I did her injustice, for she
+had, I suppose, come to save us from this very fate which without her
+presence we must most certainly have suffered. When the savages were
+within a few yards suddenly she appeared on the top of the boulder,
+looking like a second Witch of Endor, and stretched out her arm. Not a
+word did she speak, only stretched out her draped arm, but the effect
+was remarkable and instantaneous.
+
+At the sight of her down on to their faces went those wild men, every
+one of them, as though a lightning stroke had in an instant swept them
+out of existence. Then she let her arm fall and beckoned, whereon a
+great fellow who, I suppose, was the leader of the band, rose and
+crept towards her with bowed head, submissive as a beaten dog. To him
+she made signs, pointing to us, pointing to the far-off Peak, crossing
+and uncrossing her white-wrapped arms, but so far as I could hear,
+speaking no word. It was evident that the chief understood her,
+however, for he said something in a guttural language. Then he uttered
+his shrill whistle, whereon the band rose and departed thence at full
+speed, this way and the other, so that in another minute they had
+vanished as quickly as they came.
+
+Now our guide motioned to us to proceed, and led the way upward as
+calmly as though nothing had happened.
+
+For over /two/ hours we went on thus till our path brought us from the
+ravine on to a grassy declivity, across which it wound its way. Here,
+to our astonishment, we found a fire burning, and hanging above the
+fire an earthenware pot, which was on the boil, although we could see
+no man tending it. The figure signalled to me to dismount, pointing to
+the pot in token that we were to eat the food which doubtless she had
+ordered the wild men to prepare for us, and very glad was /I/ to obey
+her. Provision had been made for the horse also, for near the fire lay
+a great bundle of green forage.
+
+While Leo off-saddled the beast and spread the provender for it,
+taking with me a spare earthen vessel that lay ready, I went to the
+edge of the torrent to drink and steep my wounded arm in its ice-cold
+stream. This relieved it greatly, though by now I was sure from
+various symptoms that the brute Master's fangs had fortunately only
+broken or injured the small bone, a discovery for which I was thankful
+enough. Having finished attending to it as well as I was able, I
+filled the jar with water.
+
+On my way back a thought struck me, and going to where our mysterious
+guide stood still as Lot's wife after she had been turned into a
+pillar of salt, I offered it to her, hoping that she would unveil her
+face and drink. Then for the first time she showed some sign of being
+human, or so I thought, for it seemed to me that she bowed ever so
+little in acknowledgment of the courtesy. If so--and I may have been
+mistaken--this was all, for the next instant she turned her back on me
+to show that it was declined. So she would not, or for aught I knew,
+could not drink. Neither would she eat, for when Leo tried her
+afterwards with food she refused it in like fashion.
+
+Meanwhile he had taken the pot off the fire, and as soon as its
+contents grew cool enough we fell on them eagerly, for we were
+starving. After we had eaten and drunk, Leo re-dressed my arm as best
+he could and we rested awhile. Indeed, I think that, being very tired,
+we began to doze, for I was awakened by a shadow falling on us and
+looked up to see our corpse-like guide standing close by and pointing
+first to the sun, then at the horse, as though to show us that we had
+far to travel. So we saddled up and went on again somewhat refreshed,
+for at least we were no longer ravenous.
+
+All the rest of that day we journeyed on up the grassy slopes, seeing
+no man, although occasionally we heard the wild whistle which told us
+that we were being watched by the Mountain savages. By sundown the
+character of the country had changed, for the grass was replaced with
+rocks, amongst which grew stunted firs. We had left the lower slopes
+and were beginning to climb the Mountain itself.
+
+The sun sank and we went on through the twilight. The twilight died
+and we went on through the dark, our path lit only by the stars and
+the faint radiance of the glowing pillar of smoke above the Peak,
+which was reflected on to us from the mighty mantle of its snows.
+Forward we toiled, whilst a few paces ahead of us walked our
+unwearying guide. If she had seemed weird and inhuman before, now she
+appeared a very ghost, as, clad in her graveyard white, upon which the
+faint light shimmered, never speaking, never looking back, she glided
+on noiselessly between the black rocks and the twisted, dark-green
+firs and junipers.
+
+Soon we lost all count of the road. We turned this way and turned that
+way, we passed an open patch and through the shadows of a grove, till
+at length as the moon rose we entered a ravine, and following a path
+that ran down it, came to a place which is best described as a large
+amphitheatre cut by the hand of nature out of the rock of the
+Mountain. Evidently it was chosen as a place of defence, for its
+entrance was narrow and tortuous, built up at the end also, so that
+only one person could pass its gateway at a time. Within an open space
+and at its farther side stood low, stone houses built against the
+rock. In front of these houses, the moonlight shining full upon them,
+were gathered several hundred men and women arranged in a semicircle
+and in alternate companies, who appeared to be engaged in the
+celebration of some rite.
+
+It was wild enough. In front of them, and in the exact centre of the
+semi-circle, stood a gigantic, red-bearded man, who was naked except
+for a skin girdle about his loins. He was swinging himself backwards
+and forwards, his hands resting upon his hips, and as he swung,
+shouting something like "/Ho, haha, ho!/" When he bent towards the
+audience it bent towards him, and every time he straightened himself
+it echoed his final shout of "/Ho!/" in a volume of sound that made
+the precipices ring. Nor was this all, for perched upon his hairy
+head, with arched back and waving tail, stood a great white cat.
+
+Anything stranger, and indeed more fantastic than the general effect
+of this scene, lit by the bright moonlight and set in that wild arena,
+it was never my lot to witness. The red-haired, half-naked men and
+women, the gigantic priest, the mystical white cat, that, gripping his
+scalp with its claws, waved its tail and seemed to take a part in the
+performance; the unholy chant and its volleying chorus, all helped to
+make it extraordinarily impressive. This struck us the more, perhaps,
+because at the time we could not in the least guess its significance,
+though we imagined that it must be preliminary to some sacrifice or
+offering. It was like the fragment of a nightmare preserved by the
+awakened senses in all its mad, meaningless reality.
+
+Now round the open space where these savages were celebrating their
+worship, or whatever it might be, ran a rough stone wall about six
+feet in height, in which wall was a gateway. Towards this we advanced
+quite unseen, for upon our side of the wall grew many stunted pines.
+Through these pines our guide led us, till in the thickest of them,
+some few yards from the open gateway and a little to the right of it,
+she motioned to us to stop.
+
+Then she went to a low place in the wall and stood there as though she
+were considering the scene beyond. It seemed to us, indeed, that she
+saw what she had not expected and was thereby perplexed or angered.
+Presently she appeared to make up her mind, for again she motioned to
+us to remain where we were, enjoining silence upon us by placing her
+swathed hand upon the mask that hid her face. Next moment she was
+gone. How she went, or whither, I cannot say; all we knew was that she
+was no longer there.
+
+"What shall we do now?" whispered Leo to me.
+
+"Stay where we are till she comes back again or something happens," I
+answered.
+
+So there being nothing else to be done, we stayed, hoping that the
+horse would not betray us by neighing, or that we might not be
+otherwise discovered, since we were certain that if so we should be in
+danger of death. Very soon, however, we forgot the anxieties of our
+own position in the study of the wild scene before us, which now began
+to develop a fearful interest.
+
+It would seem that what has been described was but preliminary to the
+drama itself, and that this drama was the trial of certain people for
+their lives. This we could guess, for after awhile the incantation
+ceased and the crowd in front of the big man with the cat upon his
+head opened out, while behind him a column of smoke rose into the air,
+as though light had been set to some sunk furnace.
+
+Into the space that had thus been cleared were now led seven persons,
+whose hands were tied behind them. They were of both sexes and
+included an old man and a woman with a tall and handsome figure, who
+appeared to be quite young, scarcely more than a girl indeed. These
+seven were ranged in a line where they stood, clearly in great fear,
+for the old man fell upon his knees and one of the women began to sob.
+Thus they were left awhile, perhaps to allow the fire behind them to
+burn up, which it soon did with great fierceness, throwing a vivid
+light upon every detail of the spectacle.
+
+Now all was ready, and a man brought a wooden tray to the red-bearded
+priest, who was seated on a stool, the white cat upon his knees,
+whither we had seen it leap from his head a little while before. He
+took the tray by its handles and at a word from him the cat jumped on
+to it and sat there. Then amidst the most intense silence he rose and
+uttered some prayer, apparently to the cat, which sat facing him. This
+done he turned the tray round so that the creature's back was now
+towards him, and, advancing to the line of prisoners, began to walk up
+and down in front of them, which he did several times, at each turn
+drawing a little nearer.
+
+Holding out the tray, he presented it at the face of the prisoner on
+the left, whereon the cat rose, arched its back and began to lift its
+paws up and down. Presently he moved to the next prisoner and held it
+before him awhile, and so on till he came to the fifth, that young
+woman of whom I have spoken. Now the cat grew very angry, for in the
+death-like stillness we could hear it spitting and growling. At length
+it seemed to lift its paws and strike the girl upon the face, whereon
+she screamed aloud, a terrible scream. Then all the audience broke out
+into a shout, a single word, which we understood, for we had heard one
+very like it used by the people of the Plain. It was "Witch! Witch!
+/Witch!/"
+
+Executioners who were waiting for the victim to be chosen in this
+ordeal by cat, rushed forward and seizing the girl began to drag her
+towards the fire. The prisoner who was standing by her and whom we
+rightly guessed to be her husband, tried to protect her, but his arms
+being bound, poor fellow, he could do nothing. One of the executioners
+knocked him down with a stick. For a moment his wife escaped and threw
+herself upon him, but the brutes lifted her up again, haling her
+towards the fire, whilst all the audience shouted wildly.
+
+"I can't stand this," said Leo, "it's murder--coldblooded murder," and
+he drew his sword.
+
+"Best leave the beasts alone," I answered doubtfully, though my own
+blood was boiling in my veins.
+
+Whether he heard or not I do not know, for the next thing I saw was
+Leo rushing through the gate waving the Khan's sword and shouting at
+the top of his voice. Then I struck my heels into the ribs of the
+horse and followed after him. In ten seconds we were among them. As we
+came the savages fell back this way and that, staring at us amazed,
+for at first I think they took us for apparitions. Thus Leo on foot
+and I galloping after him, we came to the place.
+
+The executioners and their victim were near the fire now--a very great
+fire of resinous pine logs built in a pit that measured about eight
+feet across. Close to it sat the priest upon his stool, watching the
+scene with a cruel smile, and rewarding the cat with little gobbets of
+raw meat, that he took from a leathern pouch at his side, occupations
+in which he was so deeply engaged that he never saw us until we were
+right on to him.
+
+Shouting, "Leave her alone, you blackguards," Leo rushed at the
+executioners, and with a single blow of his sword severed the arm of
+one of them who gripped the woman by the nape of the neck.
+
+With a yell of pain and rage the man sprang back and stood waving the
+stump towards the people and staring at it wildly. In the confusion
+that followed I saw the victim slip from the hands of her astonished
+would-be murderers and run into the darkness, where she vanished. Also
+I saw the witch-doctor spring up, still holding the tray on which the
+cat was sitting, and heard him begin to shout a perfect torrent of
+furious abuse at Leo, who in reply waved his sword and cursed him
+roundly in English and many other languages.
+
+Then of a sudden the cat upon the tray, infuriated, I suppose, by the
+noise and the interruption of its meal, sprang straight at Leo's face.
+He appeared to catch it in mid-air with his left hand and with all his
+strength dashed it to the ground, where it lay writhing and
+screeching. Then, as though by an afterthought, he stooped, picked the
+devilish creature up again and hurled it into the heart of the fire,
+for he was mad with rage and knew not what he did.
+
+At the sight of that awful sacrilege--for such it was to them who
+worshipped this beast--a gasp of horror rose from the spectators,
+followed by a howl of execration. Then like a wave of the sea they
+rushed at us. I saw Leo cut one man down, and next instant I was off
+the horse and being dragged towards the furnace. At the edge of it I
+met Leo in like plight, but fighting furiously, for his strength was
+great and they were half afraid of him.
+
+"Why couldn't you leave the cat alone?" I shouted at him in idiotic
+remonstrance, for my brain had gone, and all I knew was that we were
+about to be thrown into the fiery pit. Already I was over it; I felt
+the flames singe my hair and saw its red caverns awaiting me, when of
+a sudden the brutal hands that held me were unloosed and I fell
+backwards to the ground, where I lay staring upwards.
+
+This was what I saw. Standing in front of the fire, her draped form
+quivering as though with rage, was our ghostly-looking guide, who
+pointed with her hand at the gigantic, red-headed witch-doctor. But
+she was no longer alone, for with her were a score or more of men clad
+in white robes and armed with swords; black-eyed, ascetic-looking men,
+with clean-shaved heads and faces, for their scalps shone in the
+firelight.
+
+At the sight of them terror had seized that multitude which, mad as
+goaded bulls but a few seconds before, now fled in every direction
+like sheep frightened by a wolf. The leader of the white-robed
+priests, a man with a gentle face, which when at rest was clothed in a
+perpetual smile, was addressing the medicine-man, and I understood
+something of his talk.
+
+"Dog," he said in effect, speaking in a smooth, measured voice that
+yet was terrible, "accursed dog, beast-worshipper, what were you about
+to do to the guests of the mighty Mother of the Mountain? Is it for
+this that you and your idolatries have been spared so long? Answer, if
+you have anything to say. Answer quickly, for your time is short."
+
+With a groan of fear the great fellow flung himself upon his knees,
+not to the head-priest who questioned him, but before the quivering
+shape of our guide, and to her put up half-articulate prayers for
+mercy.
+
+"Cease," said the high-priest, "she is the Minister who judges and the
+Sword that strikes. I am the Ears and the Voice. Speak and tell me--
+were you about to cast those men, whom you were commanded to receive
+hospitably, into yonder fire because they saved the victim of your
+devilries and killed the imp you cherished? Nay, I saw it all. Know
+that it was but a trap set to catch you, who have been allowed to live
+too long."
+
+But still the wretch writhed before the draped form and howled for
+mercy.
+
+"Messenger," said the high-priest, "with thee the power goes. Declare
+thy decree."
+
+Then our guide lifted her hand slowly and pointed to the fire. At once
+the man turned ghastly white, groaned and fell back, as I think, quite
+dead, slain by his own terror.
+
+Now many of the people had fled, but some remained, and to these the
+priest called in cold tones, bidding them approach. They obeyed,
+creeping towards him.
+
+"Look," he said, pointing to the man, "look and tremble at the justice
+of Hes the Mother. Aye, and be sure that as it is with him, so shall
+it be with every one of you who dares to defy her and to practise
+sorcery and murder. Lift up that dead dog who was your chief."
+
+Some of them crept forward and did his bidding.
+
+"Now, cast him into the bed which he had made ready for his victims."
+
+Staggering forward to the edge of the flaming pit, they obeyed, and
+the great body fell with a crash amongst the burning boughs and
+vanished there.
+
+"Listen, you people," said the priest, "and learn that this man
+deserved his dreadful doom. Know you why he purposed to kill that
+woman whom the strangers saved? Because his familiar marked her as a
+witch, you think. I tell you it was not so. It was because she being
+fair, he would have taken her from her husband, as he had taken many
+another, and she refused him. But the Eye saw, the Voice spoke, and
+the Messenger did judgment. He is caught in his own snare, and so
+shall you be, every one of you who dares to think evil in his heart or
+to do it with his hands.
+
+"Such is the just decree of the Hesea, spoken by her from her throne
+amidst the fires of the Mountain."
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII
+
+                     BENEATH THE SHADOWING WINGS
+
+One by one the terrified tribesmen crept away. When the last of them
+were gone the priest advanced to Leo and saluted him by placing his
+hand upon his forehead.
+
+"Lord," he said, in the same corrupt Grecian dialect which was used by
+the courtiers of Kaloon, "I will not ask if you are hurt, since from
+the moment that you entered the sacred river and set foot within this
+land you and your companion were protected by a power invisible and
+could not be harmed by man or spirit, however great may have seemed
+your danger. Yet vile hands have been laid upon you, and this is the
+command of the Mother whom I serve, that, if you desire it, every one
+of those men who touched you shall die before your eyes. Say, is that
+your will?"
+
+"Nay," answered Leo; "they were mad and blind, let no blood be shed
+for /us/. All we ask of you, friend--but, how are you called?"
+
+"Name me Oros," he answered.
+
+"Friend Oros--a good title for one who dwells upon the Mountain--all
+we ask is food and shelter, and to be led swiftly into the presence of
+her whom you name Mother, that Oracle whose wisdom we have travelled
+far to seek."
+
+He bowed and answered: "The food and shelter are prepared and
+to-morrow, when you have rested, I am commanded to conduct you whither
+you desire to be. Follow me, I pray you"; and he preceded us past the
+fiery pit to a building that stood about fifty yards away against the
+rock wall of the amphitheatre.
+
+It would seem that it was a guest-house, or at least had been made
+ready to serve that purpose, as in it lamps were lit and a fire
+burned, for here the air was cold. The house was divided into two
+rooms, the second of them a sleeping place, to which he led us through
+the first.
+
+"Enter," he said, "for you will need to cleanse yourselves, and you"--
+here he addressed himself to me--"to be treated for that hurt to your
+arm which you had from the jaws of the great hound."
+
+"How know you that?" I asked.
+
+"It matters not if I do know and have made ready," Oros answered
+gravely.
+
+This second room was lighted and warmed like the first, moreover,
+heated water stood in basins of metal and on the beds were laid clean
+linen garments and dark-coloured hooded robes, lined with rich fur.
+Also upon a little table were ointments, bandages, and splints, a
+marvellous thing to see, for it told me that the very nature of my
+hurt had been divined. But I asked no more questions; I was too weary;
+moreover, I knew that it would be useless.
+
+Now the priest Oros helped me to remove my tattered robe, and, undoing
+the rough bandages upon my arm, washed it gently with warm water, in
+which he mixed some spirit, and examined it with the skill of a
+trained doctor.
+
+"The fangs rent deep," he said, "and the small bone is broken, but you
+will take no harm, save for the scars which must remain." Then, having
+treated the wounds with ointment, he wrapped the limb with such a
+delicate touch that it scarcely pained me, saying that by the morrow
+the swelling would have gone down and he would set the bone. This
+indeed happened.
+
+After it was done he helped me to wash and to clothe myself in the
+clean garments, and put a sling about my neck to serve as a rest for
+my arm. Meanwhile Leo had also dressed himself, so that we left the
+chamber together very different men to the foul, blood-stained
+wanderers who had entered there. In the outer room we found food
+prepared for us, of which we ate with a thankful heart and without
+speaking. Then, blind with weariness, we returned to the other chamber
+and, having removed our outer garments, flung ourselves upon the beds
+and were soon plunged in sleep.
+
+At some time in the night I awoke suddenly, at what hour I do not
+know, as certain people wake, I among them, when their room is
+entered, even without the slightest noise. Before I opened my eyes I
+felt that some one was with us in the place. Nor was I mistaken. A
+little lamp still burned in the chamber, a mere wick floating in oil,
+and by its light I saw a dim, ghost-like form standing near the door.
+Indeed I thought almost that it was a ghost, till presently I
+remembered, and knew it for our corpse-like guide, who appeared to be
+looking intently at the bed on which Leo lay, or so I thought, for the
+head was bent in that direction.
+
+At first she was quite still, then she moaned aloud, a low and
+terrible moan, which seemed to well from the very heart.
+
+So the thing was not dumb, as I had believed. Evidently it could
+suffer, and express its suffering in a human fashion. Look! it was
+wringing its padded hands as in an excess of woe. Now it would seem
+that Leo began to feel its influence also, for he stirred and spoke in
+his sleep, so low at first that I could only distinguish the tongue he
+used, which was Arabic. Presently I caught a few words.
+
+"Ayesha," he said, "/Ayesha!/"
+
+The figure glided towards him and stopped. He sat up in the bed still
+fast asleep, for his eyes were shut. He stretched out his arms, as
+though seeking one whom he would embrace, and spoke again in a low and
+passionate voice--
+
+"Ayesha, through life and death I have sought thee long. Come to me,
+my goddess, my desired."
+
+The figure glided yet nearer, and I could see that it was trembling,
+and now its arms were extended also.
+
+At the bedside she halted, and Leo laid himself down again. Now the
+coverings had fallen back, exposing his breast, where lay the leather
+satchel he always wore, that which contained the lock of Ayesha's
+hair. He was fast asleep, and the figure seemed to fix its eyes upon
+this satchel. Presently it did more, for, with surprising deftness
+those white-wrapped fingers opened its clasp, yes, and drew out the
+long tress of shining hair. Long and earnestly she gazed at it, then
+gently replaced the relic, closed the satchel and for a little while
+seemed to weep. While she stood thus the dreaming Leo once more
+stretched out his arms and spoke, saying, in the same passion-laden
+voice--
+
+"Come to me, my darling, my beautiful, my beautiful!"
+
+At those words, with a little muffled scream, like that of a scared
+night-bird, the figure turned and flitted through the doorway.
+
+When I was quite certain that she had gone, I gasped aloud.
+
+What might this mean, I wondered, in a very agony of bewilderment.
+This could certainly be no dream: it was real, for I was wide awake.
+Indeed, what did it all mean? Who was the ghastly, mummy-like thing
+which had guided us unharmed through such terrible dangers; the
+Messenger that all men feared, who could strike down a brawny savage
+with a motion of its hand? Why did it creep into the place thus at
+dead of night, like a spirit revisiting one beloved? Why did its
+presence cause me to awake and Leo to dream? Why did it draw out the
+tress; indeed, how knew it that this tress was hidden there? And why--
+oh! why, at those tender and passionate words did it flit away at last
+like some scared bat?
+
+The priest Oros had called our guide Minister, and Sword, that is, one
+who carries out decrees. But what if they were its own decrees? What
+if this thing should be she whom we sought, /Ayesha herself?/ Why
+should I tremble at the thought, seeing that if so, our quest was
+ended, we had achieved? Oh! it must be because about this being there
+was something terrible, something un-human and appalling. If Ayesha
+lived within those mummy-cloths, then it was a different Ayesha whom
+we had known and worshipped. Well could I remember the white-draped
+form of /She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed/, and how, long before she revealed
+her glorious face to us, we guessed the beauty and the majesty hidden
+beneath that veil by which her radiant life and loveliness incarnate
+could not be disguised.
+
+But what of this creature? I would not pursue the thought. I was
+mistaken. Doubtless she was what the priest Oros had said--some half-
+supernatural being to whom certain powers were given, and, doubtless,
+she had come to spy on us in our rest that she might make report to
+the giver of those powers.
+
+Comforting myself thus I fell asleep again, for fatigue overcame even
+such doubts and fears. In the morning, when they were naturally less
+vivid, I made up my mind that, for various reasons, it would be wisest
+to say nothing of what I had seen to Leo. Nor, indeed, did I do so
+until some days had gone by.
+
+When I awoke the full light was pouring into the chamber, and by it I
+saw the priest Oros standing at my bedside. I sat up and asked him
+what time it was, to which he answered with a smile, but in a low
+voice, that it lacked but two hours of mid-day, adding that he had
+come to set my arm. Now I saw why he spoke low, for Leo was still fast
+asleep.
+
+"Let him rest on," he said, as he undid the wrappings on my arm, "for
+he has suffered much, and," he continued significantly, "may still
+have more to suffer."
+
+"What do you mean, friend Oros?" I asked sharply. "I thought you told
+us that we were safe upon this Mountain."
+
+"I told you, friend----" and he looked at me.
+
+"Holly is my name----"
+
+"--friend Holly, that your bodies are safe. I said nothing of all the
+rest of you. Man is more than flesh and blood. He is mind and spirit
+as well, and these can be injured also."
+
+"Who is there that would injure them?" I asked.
+
+"Friend," he answered, gravely, "you and your companion have come to a
+haunted land, not as mere wanderers, for then you would be dead ere
+now, but of set purpose, seeking to lift the veil from mysteries which
+have been hid for ages. Well, your aim is known and it may chance that
+it will be achieved. But if this veil is lifted, it may chance also
+that you will find what shall send your souls shivering to despair and
+madness. Say, are you not afraid?"
+
+"Somewhat," I answered. "Yet my foster-son and I have seen strange
+things and lived. We have seen the very Light of Life roll by in
+majesty; we have been the guests of an Immortal, and watched Death
+seem to conquer her and leave us untouched. Think you then that we
+will turn cowards now? Nay, we march on to fulfil our destinies."
+
+At these words Oros showed neither curiosity nor surprise; it was as
+though I told him only what he knew.
+
+"Good," he replied, smiling, and with a courteous bow of his shaven
+head, "within an hour you shall march on--to fulfil your destinies. If
+I have warned you, forgive me, for I was bidden so to do, perhaps to
+try your mettle. Is it needful that I should repeat this warning to
+the lord----" and again he looked at me.
+
+"Leo Vincey," I said.
+
+"Leo Vincey, yes, Leo Vincey," he repeated, as though the name were
+familiar to him but had slipped his mind. "But you have not answered
+my question. Is it needful that I should repeat the warning?"
+
+"Not in the least; but you can do so if you wish when he awakes."
+
+"Nay, I think with you, that it would be but waste of words, for--
+forgive the comparison;--what the wolf dares"--and he looked at me--
+"the tiger does not flee from," and he nodded towards Leo. "There, see
+how much better are the wounds upon your arm, which is no longer
+swollen. Now I will bandage it, and within some few weeks the bone
+will be as sound again as it was before you met the Khan Rassen
+hunting in the Plains. By the way, you will see him again soon, and
+his fair wife with him."
+
+"See him again? Do the dead, then, come to life upon this Mountain?"
+
+"Nay, but certain of them are brought hither for burial. It is the
+privilege of the rulers of Kaloon; also, I think, that the Khania has
+questions to ask of its Oracle."
+
+"Who is its Oracle?" I asked with eagerness.
+
+"The Oracle," he replied darkly, "is a Voice. It was ever so, was it
+not?"
+
+"Yes; I have heard that from Atene, but a voice implies a speaker. Is
+this speaker she whom you name Mother?"
+
+"Perhaps, friend Holly."
+
+"And is this Mother a spirit?"
+
+"It is a point that has been much debated. They told you so in the
+Plains, did they not? Also the Tribes think it on the Mountain.
+Indeed, the thing seems reasonable, seeing that all of us who live are
+flesh and spirit. But you will form your own judgment and then we can
+discuss the matter. There, your arm is finished. Be careful now not to
+strike it or to fall, and look, your companion awakes."
+
+Something over an hour later we started upon our upward journey. I was
+again mounted on the Khan's horse, which having been groomed and fed
+was somewhat rested, while to Leo a litter had been offered. This he
+declined, however, saying that he had now recovered and would not be
+carried like a woman. So he walked by the side of my horse, using his
+spear as a staff. We passed the fire-pit--now full of dead, white
+ashes, among which were mixed those of the witch-finder and his
+horrible cat--preceded by our dumb guide, at the sight of whom, in her
+pale wrappings, the people of the tribe who had returned to their
+village prostrated themselves, and so remained until she was gone by.
+
+One of them, however, rose again and, breaking through our escort of
+priests, ran to Leo, knelt before him and kissed his hand. It was that
+young woman whose life he had saved, a noble-looking girl, with masses
+of red hair, and by her was her husband, the marks of his bonds still
+showing on his arms. Our guide seemed to see this incident, though how
+she did so I do not know. At any rate she turned and made some sign
+which the priest interpreted.
+
+Calling the woman to him he asked her sternly how she dared to touch
+the person of this stranger with her vile lips. She answered that it
+was because her heart was grateful. Oros said that for this reason she
+was forgiven; moreover, that in reward for what they had suffered he
+was commanded to lift up her husband to be the ruler of that tribe
+during the pleasure of the Mother. He gave notice, moreover, that all
+should obey the new chief in his place, according to their customs,
+and if he did any evil, make report that he might suffer punishment.
+Then waving the pair aside, without listening to their thanks or the
+acclamations of the crowd, he passed on.
+
+As we went down the ravine by which we had approached the village on
+the previous night, a sound of chanting struck our ears. Presently the
+path turned, and we saw a solemn procession advancing up that dismal,
+sunless gorge. At the head of it rode none other than the beautiful
+Khania, followed by her great-uncle, the old Shaman, and after these
+came a company of shaven priests in their white robes, bearing between
+them a bier, upon which, its face uncovered, lay the body of the Khan,
+draped in a black garment. Yet he looked better thus than he had ever
+done, for now death had touched this insane and dissolute man with
+something of the dignity which he lacked in life.
+
+Thus then we met. At the sight of our guide's white form, the horse
+which the Khania rode reared up so violently that I thought it would
+have thrown her. But she mastered the animal with her whip and voice,
+and called out--
+
+"Who is this draped hag of the Mountain that stops the path of the
+Khania Atene and her dead lord? My guests, I find you in ill company,
+for it seems that you are conducted by an evil spirit to meet an evil
+fate. That guide of yours must surely be something hateful and
+hideous, for were she a wholesome woman she would not fear to show her
+face."
+
+Now the Shaman plucked his mistress by the sleeve, and the priest
+Oros, bowing to her, prayed her to be silent and cease to speak such
+ill-omened words into the air, which might carry them she knew not
+whither. But some instinctive hate seemed to bubble up in Atene, and
+she would not be silent, for she addressed our guide using the direct
+"thou," a manner of speech that we found was very usual on the
+Mountain though rare upon the Plains.
+
+"Let the air carry them whither it will," she cried. "Sorceress, strip
+off thy rags, fit only for a corpse too vile to view. Show us what
+thou art, thou flitting night-owl, who thinkest to frighten me with
+that livery of death, which only serves to hide the death within."
+
+"Cease, I pray lady, cease," said Oros, stirred for once out of his
+imperturbable calm. "She is the Minister, none other, and with her
+goes the Power."
+
+"Then it goes not against Atene, Khania of Kaloon," she answered, "or
+so I think. Power, forsooth! Let her show her power. If she has any it
+is not her own, but that of the Witch of the Mountain, who feigns to
+be a spirit, and by her sorceries has drawn away my guests"--and she
+pointed to us--"thus bringing my husband to his death."
+
+"Niece, be silent!" said the old Shaman, whose wrinkled face was white
+with terror, whilst Oros held up his hands as though in supplication
+to some unseen Strength, saying--
+
+"O thou that hearest and seest, be merciful, I beseech thee, and
+forgive this woman her madness, lest the blood of a guest should stain
+the hands of thy servants, and the ancient honour of our worship be
+brought low in the eyes of men."
+
+Thus he prayed, but although his hands were uplifted, it seemed to me
+that his eyes were fixed upon our guide, as ours were. While he spoke,
+I saw her hand raised, as she had raised it when she slew or rather
+sentenced the witchdoctor. Then she seemed to reflect, and stayed it
+in mid air, so that it pointed at the Khania. She did not move, she
+made no sound, only she pointed, and, the angry words died upon
+Atene's lips, the fury left her eyes, and the colour her face. Yes,
+she grew white and silent as the corpse upon the bier behind her.
+Then, cowed by that invisible power, she struck her horse so fiercely
+that it bounded by us onward towards the village, at which the funeral
+company were to rest awhile.
+
+As the Shaman Simbri followed the Khania, the priest Oros caught his
+horse's bridle and said to him--
+
+"Magician, we have met before, for instance, when your lady's father
+was brought to his funeral. Warn her, then, you that know something of
+the truth and of her power to speak more gently of the ruler of this
+land. Say to her, from me, that had she not been the ambassadress of
+death, and, therefore, inviolate, surely ere now she would have shared
+her husband's bier. Farewell, tomorrow we will speak again," and,
+loosing the Shaman's bridle, Oros passed on.
+
+Soon we had left the melancholy procession behind us and, issuing from
+the gorge, turned up the Mountain slope towards the edge of the bright
+snows that lay not far above. It was as we came out of this darksome
+valley, where the overhanging pine trees almost eclipsed the light,
+that suddenly we missed our guide.
+
+"Has she gone back to--to reason with the Khania?" I asked of Oros.
+
+"Nay!" he answered, with a slight smile, "I think that she has gone
+forward to give warning that the Hesea's guests draw near."
+
+"Indeed," I answered, staring hard at the bare slope of mountain, up
+which not a mouse could have passed without being seen. "I
+understand--she has gone forward," and the matter dropped. But what I
+did /not/ understand was--how she had gone. As the Mountain was
+honeycombed with caves and galleries, I suppose, however, that she
+entered one of them.
+
+All the rest of that day we marched upwards, gradually drawing nearer
+to the snow-line, as we went gathering what information we could from
+the priest Oros. This was the sum of it--
+
+From the beginning of the world, as he expressed it, that is, from
+thousands and thousands of years ago, this Mountain had been the home
+of a peculiar fire-worship, of which the head heirophant was a woman.
+About twenty centuries before, however, the invading general named
+Rassen, had made himself Khan of Kaloon. Rassen established a new
+priestess on the Mountain, a worshipper of the Egyptian goddess, Hes,
+or Isis. This priestess had introduced certain modifications in the
+ancient doctrines, superseding the cult of fire, pure and simple, by a
+new faith, which, while holding to some of the old ceremonies, revered
+as its head the Spirit of Life or Nature, of whom they looked upon
+their priestess as the earthly representative.
+
+Of this priestess Oros would only tell us that she was "ever present,"
+although we gathered that when one priestess died or was "taken to the
+fire," as he put it, her child, whether in fact or by adoption,
+succeeded her and was known by the same names, those of "Hes" or the
+"Hesea" and "Mother." We asked if we should see this Mother, to which
+he answered that she manifested herself very rarely. As to her
+appearance and attributes he would say nothing, except that the former
+changed from time to time and that when she chose to use it she had
+"all power."
+
+The priests of her College, he informed us, numbered three hundred,
+never more nor less, and there were also three hundred priestesses.
+Certain of those who desired it were allowed to marry, and from among
+their children were reared up the new generation of priests and
+priestesses. Thus they were a people apart from all others, with
+distinct racial characteristics. This, indeed, was evident, for our
+escort were all exceedingly like to each other, very handsome and
+refined in appearance, with dark eyes, clean-cut features and olive-
+hued skins; such a people as might well have descended from Easterns
+of high blood, with a dash of that of the Egyptians and Greeks thrown
+in.
+
+We asked him whether the mighty looped pillar that towered from the
+topmost cup of the Mountain was the work of men. He answered, No; the
+hand of Nature had fashioned it, and that the light shining through it
+came from the fires which burned in the crater of the volcano. The
+first priestess, having recognized in this gigantic column the
+familiar Symbol of Life of the Egyptian worship, established her
+altars beneath its shadow.
+
+For the rest, the Mountain with its mighty slopes and borderlands was
+peopled by a multitude of half-savage folk, who accepted the rule of
+the Hesea, bringing her tribute of all things necessary, such as food
+and metals. Much of the meat and grain however the priests raised
+themselves on sheltered farms, and the metals they worked with their
+own hands. This rule, however, was of a moral nature, since for
+centuries the College had sought no conquests and the Mother contented
+herself with punishing crime in some such fashion as we had seen. For
+the petty wars between the Tribes and the people of the Plain they
+were not responsible, and those chiefs who carried them on were
+deposed, unless they had themselves been attacked. All the Tribes,
+however, were sworn to the defence of the Hesea and the College, and,
+however much they might quarrel amongst themselves, if need arose,
+were ready to die for her to the last man. That war must one day break
+out again between the priests of the Mountain and the people of Kaloon
+was recognized; therefore they endeavoured to be prepared for that
+great and final struggle.
+
+Such was the gist of his history, which, as we learned afterwards,
+proved to be true in every particular.
+
+Towards sundown we came to a vast cup extending over many thousand
+acres, situated beneath the snow-line of the peak and filled with rich
+soil washed down, I suppose, from above. So sheltered was the place by
+its configuration and the over-hanging mountain that, facing south-
+west as it did, notwithstanding its altitude it produced corn and
+other temperate crops in abundance. Here the College had its farms,
+and very well cultivated these seemed to be. This great cup, which
+could not be seen from below, we entered through a kind of natural
+gateway, that might be easily defended against a host.
+
+There were other peculiarities, but it is not necessary to describe
+them further than to say that I think the soil benefited by the
+natural heat of the volcano, and that when this erupted, as happened
+occasionally, the lava streams always passed to the north and south of
+the cup of land. Indeed, it was these lava streams that had built up
+the protecting cliffs.
+
+Crossing the garden-like lands, we came to a small town beautifully
+built of lava rock. Here dwelt the priests, except those who were on
+duty, no man of the Tribes or other stranger being allowed to set foot
+within the place.
+
+Following the main street of this town, we arrived at the face of the
+precipice beyond, and found ourselves in front of a vast archway,
+closed with massive iron gates fantastically wrought. Here, taking my
+horse with them, our escort left us alone with Oros. As we drew near
+the great gates swung back upon their hinges. We passed them--with
+what sensations I cannot describe--and groped our way down a short
+corridor which ended in tall, iron-covered doors. These also rolled
+open at our approach, and next instant we staggered back amazed and
+half-blinded by the intense blaze of light within.
+
+Imagine, you who read, the nave of the vastest cathedral with which
+you are acquainted. Then double or treble its size, and you will have
+some conception of that temple in which we found ourselves. Perhaps in
+the beginning it had been a cave, who can say? but now its sheer
+walls, its multitudinous columns springing to the arched roof far
+above us, had all been worked on and fashioned by the labour of men
+long dead; doubtless the old fire-worshippers of thousands of years
+ago.
+
+You will wonder how so great a place was lighted, but I think that
+never would you guess. Thus--by twisted columns of living flame! I
+counted eighteen of them, but there may have been others. They sprang
+from the floor at regular intervals along the lines of what in a
+cathedral would be the aisles. Right to the roof they sprang, of even
+height and girth, so fierce was the force of the natural gas that
+drove them, and there were lost, I suppose, through chimneys bored in
+the thickness of the rock. Nor did they give off smell or smoke, or in
+that great, cold place, any heat which could be noticed, only an
+intense white light like that of molten iron, and a sharp hissing
+noise as of a million angry snakes.
+
+The huge temple was utterly deserted, and, save for this sybilant,
+pervading sound, utterly silent; an awesome, an overpowering place.
+
+"Do these candles of yours ever go out?" asked Leo of Oros, placing
+his hand before his dazzled eyes.
+
+"How can they," replied the priest, in his smooth, matter-of-fact
+voice, "seeing that they rise from the eternal fire which the builders
+of this hall worshipped? Thus they have burned from the beginning, and
+thus they will burn for ever, though, if we wish it, we can shut off
+their light.[*] Be pleased to follow me: you will see greater things."
+
+[*] This, as I ascertained afterwards, was done by thrusting a broad
+    stone of great thickness over the apertures through which the gas
+    or fire rushed and thus cutting off the air. These stones were
+    worked to and fro by means of pulleys connected with iron rods.--
+    L. H. H.
+
+So in awed silence we followed, and, oh! how small and miserable we
+three human beings looked alone in that vast temple illuminated by
+this lightning radiance. We reached the end of it at length, only to
+find that to right and left ran transepts on a like gigantic scale and
+lit in the same amazing fashion. Here Oros bade us halt, and we waited
+a little while, till presently, from either transept arose a sound of
+chanting, and we perceived two white-robed processions advancing
+towards us from their depths.
+
+On they came, very slowly, and we saw that the procession to the right
+was a company of priests, and that to the left a company of
+priestesses, a hundred or so of them in all.
+
+Now the men ranged themselves in front of us, while the women ranged
+themselves behind, and at a signal from Oros, all of them still
+chanting some wild and thrilling hymn, once more we started forward,
+this time along a narrow gallery closed at the end with double wooden
+doors. As our procession reached these they opened, and before us lay
+the crowning wonder of this marvellous fane, a vast, ellipse-shaped
+apse. Now we understood. The plan of the temple was the plan of the
+looped pillar which stood upon the brow of the Peak, and as we rightly
+guessed, its dimensions were the same.
+
+At intervals around this ellipse the fiery columns flared, but
+otherwise the place was empty.
+
+No, not quite, for at the head of the apse, almost between two of the
+flame columns, stood a plain, square altar of the size of a small
+room, in front of which, as we saw when we drew nearer, were hung
+curtains of woven silver thread. On this altar was placed a large
+statue of silver, that, backed as it was by the black rock, seemed to
+concentrate and reflect from its burnished surface the intense light
+of the two blazing pillars.
+
+It was a lovely thing, but to describe it is hard indeed. The figure,
+which was winged, represented a draped woman of mature years, and pure
+but gracious form, half hidden by the forward-bending wings. Sheltered
+by these, yet shown between them, appeared the image of a male child,
+clasped to its bearer's breast with her left arm, while the right was
+raised toward the sky. A study of Motherhood, evidently, but how shall
+I write of all that was conveyed by those graven faces?
+
+To begin with the child. It was that of a sturdy boy, full of health
+and the joy of life. Yet he had been sleeping, and in his sleep some
+terror had over-shadowed him with the dark shades of death and evil.
+There was fear in the lines of his sweet mouth and on the lips and
+cheeks, that seemed to quiver. He had thrown his little arm about his
+mother's neck, and, pressing close against her breast, looked up to
+her for safety, his right hand and outstretched finger pointing
+downwards and behind him, as though to indicate whence the danger
+came. Yet it was passing, already half-forgotten, for the upturned
+eyes expressed confidence renewed, peace of soul attained.
+
+And the mother. She did not seem to mock or chide his fears, for her
+lovely face was anxious and alert. Yet upon it breathed a very
+atmosphere of unchanging tenderness and power invincible; care for the
+helpless, strength to shelter it from every harm. The great, calm eyes
+told their story, the parted lips were whispering some tale of hope,
+sure and immortal; the raised hand revealed whence that hope arose.
+All love seemed to be concentrated in the brooding figure, so human,
+yet so celestial; all heaven seemed to lie an open path before those
+quivering wings. And see, the arching instep, the upward-springing
+foot, suggested that thither those wings were bound, bearing their
+God-given burden far from the horror of the earth, deep into the bosom
+of a changeless rest above.
+
+The statue was only that of an affrighted child in its mother's arms;
+its interpretation made clear even to the dullest by the simple
+symbolism of some genius--Humanity saved by the Divine.
+
+While we gazed at its enchanting beauty, the priests and priestesses,
+filing away to right and left, arranged themselves alternately, first
+a man and then a woman, within the ring of the columns of fire that
+burned around the loop-shaped shrine. So great was its circumference
+that the whole hundred of them must stand wide apart one from another,
+and, to our sight, resembled little lonely children clad in gleaming
+garments, while their chant of worship reached us only like echoes
+thrown from a far precipice. In short, the effect of this holy shrine
+and its occupants was superb yet overwhelming, at least I know that it
+filled me with a feeling akin to fear.
+
+Oros waited till the last priest had reached his appointed place. Then
+he turned and said, in his gentle, reverent tones--
+
+"Draw nigh, now, O Wanderers well-beloved, and give greeting to the
+Mother," and he pointed towards the statue.
+
+"Where is she?" asked Leo, in a whisper, for here we scarcely dared to
+speak aloud. "I see no one."
+
+"The Hesea dwells yonder," he answered, and, taking each of us by the
+hand, he led us forward across the great emptiness of the apse to the
+altar at its head.
+
+As we drew near the distant chant of the priests gathered in volume,
+assuming a glad, triumphant note, and it seemed to me--though this,
+perhaps was fancy--that the light from the twisted columns of flame
+grew even brighter.
+
+At length we were there, and, Oros, loosing our hands, prostrated
+himself thrice before the altar. Then he rose again, and, falling
+behind us, stood in silence with bent head and folded fingers. We
+stood silent also, our hearts filled with mingled hope and fear like a
+cup with wine.
+
+Were our labours ended? Had we found her whom we sought, or were we,
+perchance, but enmeshed in the web of some marvellous mummery and
+about to make acquaintance with the secret of another new and mystical
+worship? For years and years we had searched, enduring every hardness
+of flesh and spirit that man can suffer, and now we were to learn
+whether we had endured in vain. Yes, and Leo would learn if the
+promise was to be fulfilled to him, or whether she whom he adored had
+become but a departed dream to be sought for only beyond the gate of
+Death. Little wonder that he trembled and turned white in the agony of
+that great suspense.
+
+Long, long was the time. Hours, years, ages, aeons, seemed to flow
+over us as we stood there before glittering silver curtains that hid
+the front of the black altar beneath the mystery of the sphinx-like
+face of the glorious image which was its guardian, clothed with that
+frozen smile of eternal love and pity. All the past went before us as
+we struggled in those dark waters of our doubt. Item by item, event by
+event, we rehearsed the story which began in the Caves of Kor, for our
+thoughts, so long attuned, were open to each other and flashed from
+soul to soul.
+
+Oh! now we knew, they were open also to /another/ soul. We could see
+nothing save the Altar and the Effigy, we could only hear the slow
+chant of the priests and priestesses and the snake-like hiss of the
+rushing fires. Yet we knew that our hearts were as an open book to One
+who watched beneath the Mother's shadowing wings.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIV
+
+                          THE COURT OF DEATH
+
+Now the curtains were open. Before us appeared a chamber hollowed from
+the thickness of the altar, and in its centre a throne, and on the
+throne a figure clad in waves of billowy white flowing from the head
+over the arms of the throne down to its marble steps. We could see no
+more in the comparative darkness of that place, save that beneath the
+folds of the drapery the Oracle held in its hand a loop-shaped,
+jewelled sceptre.
+
+Moved by some impulse, we did as Oros had done, prostrating ourselves,
+and there remained upon our knees. At length we heard a tinkling as of
+little bells, and, looking up, saw that the sistrum-shaped sceptre was
+stretched towards us by the draped arm which held it. Then a thin,
+clear voice spoke, and I thought that it trembled a little. It spoke
+in Greek, but in a much purer Greek than all these people used.
+
+"I greet you, Wanderers, who have journeyed so far to visit this most
+ancient shrine, and although doubtless of some other faith, are not
+ashamed to do reverence to that unworthy one who is for this time its
+Oracle and the guardian of its mysteries. Rise now and have no fear of
+me; for have I not sent my Messenger and servants to conduct you to
+this Sanctuary?"
+
+Slowly we rose, and stood silent, not knowing what to say.
+
+"I greet you, Wanderers," the voice repeated. "Tell me thou"--and the
+sceptre pointed towards Leo--"how art thou named?"
+
+"I am named Leo Vincey," he answered.
+
+"Leo Vincey! I like the name, which to me well befits a man so goodly.
+And thou, the companion of--Leo Vincey?"
+
+"I am named Horace Holly."
+
+"So. Then tell me, Leo Vincey and Horace Holly, what came ye so far to
+seek?"
+
+We looked at each other, and I said--
+
+"The tale is long and strange. O--but by what title must we address
+thee?"
+
+"By the name which I bear here, Hes."
+
+"O Hes," I said, wondering what name she bore elsewhere.
+
+"Yet I desire to hear that tale," she went on, and to me her voice
+sounded eager. "Nay, not all to-night, for I know that you both are
+weary; a little of it only. In sooth, Strangers, there is a sameness
+in this home of contemplations, and no heart can feed only on the
+past, if such a thing there be. Therefore I welcome a new history from
+the world without. Tell it me, thou, Leo, as briefly as thou wilt, so
+that thou tell the truth, for in the Presence of which I am a
+Minister, may nothing else be uttered."
+
+"Priestess," he said, in his curt fashion, "I obey. Many years ago
+when I was young, my friend and foster-father and I, led by records of
+the past, travelled to a wild land, and there found a certain divine
+woman who had conquered time."
+
+"Then that woman must have been both aged and hideous."
+
+"I said, Priestess, that she had conquered time, not suffered it, for
+the gift of immortal youth was hers. Also she was not hideous; she was
+beauty itself."
+
+"Therefore stranger, thou didst worship her for her beauty's sake, as
+a man does."
+
+"I did not worship her; I loved her, which is another thing. The
+priest Oros here worships thee, whom he calls Mother. I loved that
+immortal woman."
+
+"Then thou shouldst love her still. Yet, not so, since love is very
+mortal."
+
+"I love her still," he answered, "although she died."
+
+"Why, how is that? Thou saidst she was immortal."
+
+"Perchance she only seemed to die; perchance she changed. At least I
+lost her, and what I lost I seek, and have sought this many a year."
+
+"Why dost thou seek her in my Mountain, Leo Vincey?"
+
+"Because a vision led me to ask counsel of its Oracle. I am come
+hither to learn tidings of my lost love, since here alone these may be
+found."
+
+"And thou, Holly, didst thou also love an immortal woman whose
+immortality, it seems, must bow to death?"
+
+"Priestess," I answered, "I am sworn to this quest, and where my
+foster-son goes I follow. He follows beauty that is dead----"
+
+"And thou dost follow him. Therefore both of you follow beauty as men
+have ever done, being blind and mad."
+
+"Nay," I answered, "if they were blind, beauty would be naught to them
+who could not see it, and if they were mad, they would not know it
+when it was seen. Knowledge and vision belong to the wise, O Hes."
+
+"Thou art quick of wit and tongue, Holly, as----" and she checked
+herself, then of a sudden, said, "Tell me, did my servant the Khania
+of Kaloon entertain both of you hospitably in her city, and speed you
+on your journey hither, as I commanded her?"
+
+"We knew not that she was thy servant," I replied. "Hospitality we had
+and to spare, but we were sped from her Court hitherward by the death-
+hounds of the Khan, her husband. Tell us, Priestess, what thou knowest
+of this journey of ours."
+
+"A little," she answered carelessly. "More than three moons ago my
+spies saw you upon the far mountains, and, creeping very close to you
+at night, heard you speak together of the object of your wanderings,
+then, returning thence swiftly, made report to me. Thereon I bade the
+Khania Atene, and that old magician her great-uncle, who is Guardian
+of the Gate, go down to the ancient gates of Kaloon to receive you and
+bring you hither with all speed. Yet for men who burned to learn the
+answer to a riddle, you have been long in coming."
+
+"We came as fast as we might, O Hes," said Leo; "and if thy spies
+could visit those mountains, where no man was, and find a path down
+that hideous precipice, they must have been able also to tell thee the
+reason of our delay. Therefore I pray, ask it not of us."
+
+"Nay, I will ask it of Atene herself, and she shall surely answer me,
+for she stands without," replied the Hesea in a cold voice. "Oros,
+lead the Khania hither and be swift."
+
+The priest turned and walking quickly to the wooden doors by which we
+had entered the shrine, vanished there.
+
+"Now," said Leo to me nervously in the silence that followed, and
+speaking in English, "now I wish we were somewhere else, for I think
+that there will be trouble."
+
+"I don't think, I am sure," I answered; "but the more the better, for
+out of trouble may come the truth, which we need sorely." Then I
+stopped, reflecting that the strange woman before us said that her
+spies had overheard our talk upon the mountains, where we had spoken
+nothing but English.
+
+As it proved, I was wise, for quite quietly the Hesea repeated after
+me--
+
+"Thou hast experience, Holly, for out of trouble comes the truth, as
+out of wine."
+
+Then she was silent, and, needless to say, I did not pursue the
+conversation.
+
+The doors swung open, and through them came a procession clad in
+black, followed by the Shaman Simbri, who walked in front of a bier,
+upon which lay the body of the Khan, carried by eight priests. Behind
+it was Atene, draped in a black veil from head to foot, and after her
+marched another company of priests. In front of the altar the bier was
+set down and the priests fell back, leaving Atene and her uncle
+standing alone before the corpse.
+
+"What seeks my vassal, the Khania of Kaloon?" asked the Hesea in a
+cold voice.
+
+Now Atene advanced and bent the knee, but with little graciousness.
+
+"Ancient Mother, Mother from of old, I do reverence to thy holy
+Office, as my forefathers have done for many a generation," and again
+she curtseyed. "Mother, this dead man asks of thee that right of
+sepulchre in the fires of the holy Mountain which from the beginning
+has been accorded to the royal departed who went before him."
+
+"It has been accorded as thou sayest," answered the Hesea, "by those
+priestesses who filled my place before me, nor shall it be refused to
+thy dead lord--or to thee Atene--when thy time comes."
+
+"I thank thee, O Hes, and I pray that this decree may be written down,
+for the snows of age have gathered on thy venerable head and soon thou
+must leave us for awhile. Therefore bid thy scribes that it be written
+down, so that the Hesea who rules after thee may fulfil it in its
+season."
+
+"Cease," said the Hesea, "cease to pour out thy bitterness at that
+which should command thy reverence, oh! thou foolish child, who dost
+not know but that to-morrow the fire shall claim the frail youth and
+beauty which are thy boast. I bid thee cease, and tell me how did
+death find this lord of thine?"
+
+"Ask those wanderers yonder, that were his guests, for his blood is on
+their heads and cries for vengeance at thy hands."
+
+"I killed him," said Leo, "to save my own life. He tried to hunt us
+down with his dogs, and there are the marks of them," and he pointed
+to my arm. "The priest Oros knows, for he dressed the hurts."
+
+"How did this chance?" asked the Hesea of Atene.
+
+"My lord was mad," she answered boldly, "and such was his cruel
+sport."
+
+"So. And was thy lord jealous also? Nay, keep back the falsehood I see
+rising to thy lips. Leo Vincey, answer thou me. Yet, I will not ask
+thee to lay bare the secrets of a woman who has offered thee her love.
+Thou, Holly, speak, and let it be the truth."
+
+"It is this, O Hes," I answered. "Yonder lady and her uncle the Shaman
+Simbri saved us from death in the waters of the river that bounds the
+precipices of Kaloon. Afterwards we were ill, and they treated us
+kindly, but the Khania became enamoured of my foster-son."
+
+Here the figure of the Priestess stirred beneath its gauzy wrappings,
+and the Voice asked--
+
+"And did thy foster-son become enamoured of the Khania, as being a man
+he may well have done, for without doubt she is fair?"
+
+"He can answer that question for himself, O Hes. All I know is that he
+strove to escape from her, and that in the end she gave him a day to
+choose between death and marriage with her, when her lord should be
+dead. So, helped by the Khan, her husband, who was jealous of him, we
+fled towards this Mountain, which we desired to reach. Then the Khan
+set his hounds upon us, for he was mad and false-hearted. We killed
+him and came on in spite of this lady, his wife, and her uncle, who
+would have prevented us, and were met in a Place of Bones by a certain
+veiled guide, who led us up the Mountain and twice saved us from
+death. That is all the story."
+
+"Woman, what hast thou to say?" asked the Hesea in a menacing voice.
+
+"But little," Atene answered, without flinching. "For years I have
+been bound to a madman and a brute, and if my fancy wandered towards
+this man and his fancy wandered towards me--well, Nature spoke to us,
+and that is all. Afterwards it seems that he grew afraid of the
+vengeance of Rassen, or this Holly, whom I would that the hounds had
+torn bone from bone, grew afraid. So they strove to escape the land,
+and perchance wandered to thy Mountain. But I weary of this talk, and
+ask thy leave to rest before to-morrow's rite."
+
+"Thou sayest, Atene," said the Hesea, "that Nature spoke to this man
+and to thee, and that his heart is thine; but that, fearing thy lord's
+vengeance, he fled from thee, he who seems no coward. Tell me, then,
+is that tress he hides in the satchel on his breast thy gage of love
+to him?"
+
+"I know nothing of what he hides in the satchel," answered the Khania
+sullenly.
+
+"And yet, yonder in the Gatehouse when he lay so sick he set the lock
+against thine own--ah, dost remember now?"
+
+"So, O Hes, already he has told thee all our secrets, though they be
+such as most men hide within their breasts;" and she looked
+contemptuously at Leo.
+
+"I told her nothing of the matter, Khania," Leo said in an angry
+voice.
+
+"Nay, /thou/ toldest me nothing, Wanderer; my watching wisdom told me.
+Oh, didst thou think, Atene, that thou couldst hide the truth from the
+all-seeing Hesea of the Mountain? If so, spare thy breath, for I know
+all, and have known it from the first. I passed thy disobedience by;
+of thy false messages I took no heed. For my own purposes I, to whom
+time is naught, suffered even that thou shouldst hold these, my
+guests, thy prisoners whilst thou didst strive by threats and force to
+win a love denied."
+
+She paused, then went on coldly: "Woman, I tell thee that, to complete
+thy sin, thou hast even dared to lie to me here, in my very
+Sanctuary."
+
+"If so, what of it?" was the bold answer. "Dost thou love the man
+thyself? Nay, it is monstrous. Nature would cry aloud at such a shame.
+Oh! tremble not with rage. Hes, I know thy evil powers, but I know
+also that I am thy guest, and that in this hallowed place, beneath
+yonder symbol of eternal Love, thou may'st shed no blood. More, thou
+canst not harm me, Hes, who am thy equal."
+
+"Atene," replied the measured Voice, "did I desire it, I could destroy
+thee where thou art. Yet thou art right, I shall not harm thee, thou
+faithless servant. Did not my writ bid thee through yonder searcher of
+the stars, thy uncle, to meet these guests of mine and bring them
+straight to my shrine? Tell me, for I seek to know, how comes it that
+thou didst disobey me?"
+
+"Have then thy desire," answered Atene in a new and earnest voice,
+devoid now of bitterness and falsehood. "I disobeyed because that man
+is not thine, but mine, and no other woman's; because I love him and
+have loved him from of old. Aye, since first our souls sprang into
+life I have loved him, as he has loved me. My own heart tells me so;
+the magic of my uncle here tells me so, though how and where and when
+these things have been I know not. Therefore I come to thee, Mother of
+Mysteries, Guardian of the secrets of the past, to learn the truth. At
+least /thou/ canst not lie at thine own altar, and I charge thee, by
+the dread name of that Power to which thou also must render thy
+account, that thou answer now and here.
+
+"Who is this man to whom my being yearns? What has he been to me? What
+has he to do with thee? Speak, O Oracle and make the secret clear.
+Speak, I command, even though afterwards thou dost slay me--if thou
+canst."
+
+"Aye, speak! speak!" said Leo, "for know I am in sore suspense. I also
+am bewildered by memories and rent with hopes and fears."
+
+And I too echoed, "Speak!"
+
+"Leo Vincey," asked the Hesea, after she had thought awhile, "whom
+dost thou believe me to be?"
+
+"I believe," he answered solemnly, "that thou art that Ayesha at whose
+hands I died of old in the Caves of Kor in Africa. I believe thou art
+that Ayesha whom not twenty years ago I found and loved in those same
+Caves of Kor, and there saw perish miserably, swearing that thou
+wouldst return again."
+
+"See now, how madness can mislead a man," broke in Atene triumphantly.
+"'Not twenty years ago,' he said, whereas I know well that more than
+eighty summers have gone by since my grandsire in his youth saw this
+same priestess sitting on the Mother's throne."
+
+"And whom dost thou believe me to be, O Holly?" the Priestess asked,
+taking no note of the Khania's words.
+
+"What he believes I believe," I answered. "The dead come back to life
+--sometimes. Yet alone thou knowest the truth, and by thee only it can
+be revealed."
+
+"Aye," she said, as though musing, "the dead come back to life--
+sometimes--and in strange shape, and, mayhap, I know the truth.
+To-morrow when yonder body is borne on high for burial we will speak
+of it again. Till then rest you all, and prepare to face that fearful
+thing--the Truth."
+
+While the Hesea still spoke the silvery curtains swung to their place
+as mysteriously as they had opened. Then, as though at some signal,
+the black-robed priests advanced. Surrounding Atene, they led her from
+the Sanctuary, accompanied by her uncle the Shaman, who, as it seemed
+to me, either through fatigue or fear, could scarcely stand upon his
+feet, but stood blinking his dim eyes as though the light dazed him.
+When these were gone, the priests and priestesses, who all this time
+had been ranged round the walls, far out of hearing of our talk,
+gathered themselves into their separate companies, and still chanting,
+departed also, leaving us alone with Oros and the corpse of the Khan,
+which remained where it had been set down.
+
+Now the head-priest Oros beckoned to us to follow him, and we went
+also. Nor was I sorry to leave the place, for its death-like
+loneliness--enhanced, strangely enough, as it was, by the flood of
+light that filled it; a loneliness which was concentrated and
+expressed in the awful figure stretched upon the bier, oppressed and
+overcame us, whose nerves were broken by all that we had undergone.
+Thankful enough was I when, having passed the transepts and down the
+length of the vast nave, we came to the iron doors, the rock passage,
+and the outer gates, which, as before, opened to let us through, and
+so at last into the sweet, cold air of the night at that hour which
+precedes the dawn.
+
+Oros led us to a house well-built and furnished, where at his bidding,
+like men in a dream, we drank of some liquor which he gave us. I think
+that drink was drugged, at least after swallowing it I remembered no
+more till I awoke to find myself lying on a bed and feeling
+wonderfully strong and well. This I thought strange, for a lamp
+burning in the room showed me that it was still dark, and therefore
+that I could have rested but a little time.
+
+I tried to sleep again, but was not able, so fell to thinking till I
+grew weary of the task. For here thoughts would not help me; nothing
+could help, except the truth, "that fearful thing," as the veiled
+Priestess had called it.
+
+Oh! what if she should prove not the Ayesha whom we desired, but some
+"fearful thing"? What were the meaning of the Khania's hints and of
+her boldness, that surely had been inspired by the strength of a
+hidden knowledge? What if--nay, it could not be--I would rise and
+dress my arm. Or I would wake Leo and make him dress it--anything to
+occupy my mind until the appointed hour, when we must learn--the best
+--or the worst.
+
+I sat up in the bed and saw a figure advancing towards me. It was
+Oros, who bore a lamp in his hand.
+
+"You have slept long, friend Holly," he said, "and now it is time to
+be up and doing."
+
+"Long?" I answered testily. "How can that be, when it is still dark?"
+
+"Because, friend, the dark is that of a new night. Many hours have
+gone by since you lay down upon this bed. Well, you were wise to rest
+you while you may, for who knows when you will sleep again! Come, let
+me bathe your arm."
+
+"Tell me," I broke in----
+
+"Nay, friend," he interrupted firmly, "I will tell you nothing, except
+that soon you must start to be present at the funeral of the Khan,
+and, perchance, to learn the answer to your questions."
+
+Ten minutes later he led me to the eating-chamber of the house, where
+I found Leo already dressed, for Oros had awakened him before he came
+to me and bidden him to prepare himself. Oros told us here that the
+Hesea had not suffered us to be disturbed until the night came again
+since we had much to undergo that day. So presently we started.
+
+Once more we were led through the flame-lit hall till we came to the
+loop-shaped apse. The place was empty now, even the corpse of the Khan
+had gone, and no draped Oracle sat in the altar shrine, for its silver
+curtains were drawn, and we saw that it was untenanted.
+
+"The Mother has departed to do honour to the dead, according to the
+ancient custom," Oros explained to us.
+
+Then we passed the altar, and behind the statue found a door in the
+rock wall of the apse, and beyond the door a passage, and a hall as of
+a house, for out of it opened other doors leading to chambers. These,
+our guide told us, were the dwelling-places of the Hesea and her
+maidens. He added that they ran to the side of the Mountain and had
+windows that opened on to gardens and let in the light and air. In
+this hall six priests were waiting, each of whom carried a bundle of
+torches beneath his arm and held in his hand a lighted lamp.
+
+"Our road runs through the dark," said Oros, "though were it day we
+might climb the outer snows, but this at night it is dangerous to do."
+
+Then taking torches, he lit them at a lamp and gave one to each of us.
+
+Now our climb began. Up endless sloping galleries we went, hewn with
+inconceivable labour by the primeval fire-worshippers from the living
+rock of the Mountain. It seemed to me that they stretched for miles,
+and indeed this was so, since, although the slope was always gentle,
+it took us more than an hour to climb them. At length we came to the
+foot of a great stair.
+
+"Rest awhile here, my lord," Oros said, bowing to Leo with the
+reverence that he had shown him from the first, "for this stair is
+steep and long. Now we stand upon the Mountain's topmost lip, and are
+about to climb that tall looped column which soars above."
+
+So we sat down in the vault-like place and let the sharp draught of
+air rushing to and from the passages play upon us, for we were heated
+with journeying up those close galleries. As we sat thus I heard a
+roaring sound and asked Oros what it might be. He answered that we
+were very near to the crater of the volcano, and that what we heard
+through the thickness of the rock was the rushing of its everlasting
+fires. Then the ascent commenced.
+
+It was not dangerous though very wearisome, for there were nearly six
+hundred of those steps. The climb of the passages had reminded me of
+that of the gallery of the Great Pyramid drawn out for whole furlongs;
+that of the pillar was like the ascent of a cathedral spire, or rather
+of several spires piled one upon another.
+
+Resting from time to time, we dragged ourselves up the steep steps,
+each of them quite a foot in height, till the pillar was climbed and
+only the loop remained. Up it we went also, Oros leading us, and glad
+was I that the stairway still ran within the substance of the rock,
+for I could feel the needle's mighty eye quiver in the rush of the
+winds which swept about its sides.
+
+At length we saw light before us, and in another twenty steps emerged
+upon a platform. As Leo, who went in front of me, walked from the
+stairway I saw Oros and another priest seize him by the arms, and
+called to him to ask what they were doing.
+
+"Nothing," he cried back, "except that this is a dizzy place and they
+feared lest I should fall. Mind how you come, Horace," and he
+stretched out his hand to me.
+
+Now I was clear of the tunnel, and I believe that had it not been for
+that hand I should have sunk to the rocky floor, for the sight before
+me seemed to paralyse my brain. Nor was this to be wondered at, for I
+doubt whether the world can show such another.
+
+We stood upon the very apex of the loop, a flat space of rock about
+eighty yards in length by some thirty in breadth, with the star-strewn
+sky above us. To the south, twenty thousand feet or more below,
+stretched the dim Plain of Kaloon, and to the east and west the snow-
+clad shoulders of the peak and the broad brown slopes beneath. To the
+north was a different sight, and one more awesome. There, right under
+us as it seemed, for the pillar bent inwards, lay the vast crater of
+the volcano, and in the centre of it a wide lake of fire that broke
+into bubbles and flowers of sudden flame or spouted, writhed and
+twisted like an angry sea.
+
+From the surface of this lake rose smoke and gases that took fire as
+they floated upwards, and, mingling together, formed a gigantic sheet
+of living light. Right opposite to us burned this sheet and, the flare
+of it passing through the needle-eye of the pillar under us, sped away
+in one dazzling beam across the country of Kaloon, across the
+mountains beyond, till it was lost on the horizon.
+
+The wind blew from south to north, being sucked in towards the hot
+crater of the volcano, and its fierce breath, that screamed through
+the eye of the pillar and against its rugged surface, bent the long
+crest of the sheet of flame, as an ocean roller is bent over by the
+gale, and tore from it fragments of fire, that floated away to leeward
+like the blown-out sails of a burning ship.
+
+Had it not been for this strong and steady wind indeed, no creature
+could have lived upon the pillar, for the vapours would have poisoned
+him; but its unceasing blast drove these all away towards the north.
+For the same reason, in the thin air of that icy place the heat was
+not too great to be endured.
+
+Appalled by that terrific spectacle, which seemed more appropriate to
+the terrors of the Pit than to this earth of ours, and fearful lest
+the blast should whirl me like a dead leaf into the glowing gulf
+beneath, I fell on to my sound hand and my knees, shouting to Leo to
+do likewise, and looked about me. Now I observed lines of priests
+wrapped in great capes, kneeling upon the face of the rock and engaged
+apparently in prayer, but of Hes the Mother, or of Atene, or of the
+corpse of the dead Khan I could see nothing.
+
+Whilst I wondered where they might be, Oros, upon whose nerves this
+dread scene appeared to have no effect, and some of our attendant
+priests surrounded us and led us onwards by a path that ran perilously
+near to the rounded edge of the rock. A few downward steps and we
+found that we were under shelter, for the gale was roaring over us.
+Twenty more paces and we came to a recess cut, I suppose, by man in
+the face of the loop, in such fashion that a lava roof was left
+projecting half across its width.
+
+This recess, or rock chamber, which was large enough to shelter a
+great number of people, we reached safely, to discover that it was
+already tenanted. Seated in a chair hewn from the rock was the Hesea,
+wearing a broidered, purple mantle above her gauzy wrappings that
+enveloped her from head to foot. There, too, standing near to her were
+the Khania Atene and her uncle the old Shaman, who looked but ill at
+ease, and lastly, stretched upon his funeral couch, the fiery light
+beating upon his stark form and face, lay the dead Khan, Rassen.
+
+We advanced to the throne and bowed to her who sat thereon. The Hesea
+lifted her hooded head, which seemed to have been sunk upon her breast
+as though she were overcome by thought or care, and addressed Oros the
+priest. For in the shelter of those massive walls by comparison there
+was silence and folk could hear each other speak.
+
+"So thou hast brought them safely, my servant," she said, "and I am
+glad, for to those that know it not this road is fearful. My guests,
+what say you of the burying-pit of the Children of Hes?"
+
+"Our faith tells us of a hell, lady," answered Leo, "and I think that
+yonder cauldron looks like its mouth."
+
+"Nay," she answered, "there is no hell, save that which from life to
+life we fashion for ourselves within the circle of this little star.
+Leo Vincey, I tell thee that hell is here, aye, /here/," and she
+struck her hand upon her breast, while once more her head drooped
+forward as though bowed down beneath some load of secret misery.
+
+Thus she stayed awhile, then lifted it and spoke again, saying--
+
+"Midnight is past, and much must be done and suffered before the dawn.
+Aye, the darkness must be turned to light, or perchance the light to
+eternal darkness."
+
+"Royal woman," she went on, addressing Atene, "as is his right, thou
+hast brought thy dead lord hither for burial in this consecrated
+place, where the ashes of all who went before him have become fuel for
+the holy fires. Oros, my priest, summon thou the Accuser and him who
+makes defence, and let the books be opened that I may pass my judgment
+on the dead, and call his soul to live again, or pray that from it the
+breath of life may be withheld.
+
+"Priest, I say the Court of Death is open."
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV
+
+                          THE SECOND ORDEAL
+
+Oros bowed and left the place, whereon the Hesea signed to us to stand
+upon her right and to Atene to stand upon her left. Presently from
+either side the hooded priests and priestesses stole into the chamber,
+and to the number of fifty or more ranged themselves along its walls.
+Then came two figures draped in black and masked, who bore parchment
+books in their hands, and placed themselves on either side of the
+corpse, while Oros stood at its feet, facing the Hesea.
+
+Now she lifted the sistrum that she held, and in obedience to the
+signal Oros said--
+
+"Let the books be opened."
+
+Thereon the masked Accuser to the right broke the seal of his book and
+began to read its pages. It was a tale of the sins of this dead man
+entered as fully as though that officer were his own conscience given
+life and voice. In cold and horrible detail it told of the evil doings
+of his childhood, of his youth, and of his riper years, and thus
+massed together the record was black indeed.
+
+I listened amazed, wondering what spy had been set upon the deeds of
+yonder man throughout his days; thinking also with a shudder of how
+heavy would be the tale against any one of us, if such a spy should
+companion him from the cradle to the grave; remembering too that full
+surely this count is kept by scribes even more watchful than the
+ministers of Hes.
+
+At length the long story drew to its close. Lastly it told of the
+murder of that noble upon the banks of the river; it told of the plot
+against our lives for no just cause; it told of our cruel hunting with
+the death-hounds, and of its end. Then the Accuser shut his book and
+cast it on the ground, saying--
+
+"Such is the record, O Mother. Sum it up as thou hast been given
+wisdom."
+
+Without speaking, the Hesea pointed with her sistrum to the Defender,
+who thereon broke the seal of his book and began to read.
+
+Its tale spoke of all the good that the dead man had done; of every
+noble word that he had said, of every kind action; of plans which he
+had made for the welfare of his vassals; of temptations to ill that he
+had resisted; of the true love that he had borne to the woman who
+became his wife; of the prayers which he had made and of the offerings
+which he had sent to the temple of Hes.
+
+Making no mention of her name, it told of how that wife of his had
+hated him, of how she and the magician, who had fostered and educated
+her, and was her relative and guide, had set other women to lead him
+astray that she might be free of him. Of how too they had driven him
+mad with a poisonous drink which took away his judgment, unchained all
+the evil in his heart, and caused him by its baneful influence to
+shrink unnaturally from her whose love he still desired.
+
+Also it set out that the heaviest of his crimes were inspired by this
+wife of his, who sought to befoul his name in the ears of the people
+whom she led him to oppress, and how bitter jealousy drove him to
+cruel acts, the last and worst of which caused him foully to violate
+the law of hospitality, and in attempting to bring about the death of
+blameless guests at their hands to find his own.
+
+Thus the Defender read, and having read, closed the book and threw it
+on the ground, saying--
+
+"Such is the record, O Mother, sum it up as thou hast been given
+wisdom."
+
+Then the Khania, who all this time had stood cold and impassive,
+stepped forward to speak, and with her her uncle, the Shaman Simbri.
+But before a word passed Atene's lips the Hesea raised her sceptre and
+forbade them, saying--
+
+"Thy day of trial is not yet, nor have we aught to do with thee. When
+thou liest where he lies and the books of thy deeds are read aloud to
+her who sits in judgment, then let thine advocate make answer for
+these things."
+
+"So be it," answered Atene haughtily and fell back.
+
+Now it was the turn of the high-priest Oros. "Mother," he said, "thou
+hast heard. Balance the writings, assess the truth, and according to
+thy wisdom, issue thy commands. Shall we hurl him who was Rassen feet
+first into the fiery gulf, that he may walk again in the paths of
+life, or head first, in token that he is dead indeed?"
+
+Then while all waited in a hushed expectancy, the great Priestess
+delivered her verdict.
+
+"I hear, I balance, I assess, but judge I do not, who claim no such
+power. Let the Spirit who sent him forth, to whom he is returned
+again, pass judgment on his spirit. This dead one has sinned deeply,
+yet has he been more deeply sinned against. Nor against that man can
+be reckoned the account of his deeds of madness. Cast him then to his
+grave feet first that his name may be whitened in the ears of those
+unborn, and that thence he may return again at the time appointed. It
+is spoken."
+
+Now the Accuser lifted the book of his accusations from the ground
+and, advancing, hurled it into the gulf in token that it was blotted
+out. Then he turned and vanished from the chamber; while the Advocate,
+taking up his book, gave it into the keeping of the priest Oros, that
+it might be preserved in the archives of the temple for ever. This
+done, the priests began a funeral chant and a solemn invocation to the
+great Lord of the Under-world that he would receive this spirit and
+acquit it there as here it had been acquitted by the Hesea, his
+minister.
+
+Ere their dirge ended certain of the priests, advancing with slow
+steps, lifted the bier and carried it to the edge of the gulf; then at
+a sign from the Mother, hurled it feet foremost into the fiery lake
+below, whilst all watched to see how it struck the flame. For this
+they held to be an omen, since should the body turn over in its
+descent it was taken as a sign that the judgment of mortal men had
+been refused in the Place of the Immortals. It did not turn; it rushed
+downwards straight as a plummet and plunged into the fire hundreds of
+feet below, and there for ever vanished. This indeed was not strange
+since, as we discovered afterwards, the feet were weighted.
+
+In fact this solemn rite was but a formula that, down to the exact
+words of judgment and committal, had been practised here from unknown
+antiquity over the bodies of the priests and priestesses of the
+Mountain, and of certain of the great ones of the Plain. So it was in
+ancient Egypt, whence without doubt this ceremony of the trial of the
+dead was derived, and so it continued to be in the land of Hes, for no
+priestess ever ventured to condemn the soul of one departed.
+
+The real interest of the custom, apart from its solemnity and awful
+surroundings, centred in the accurate knowledge displayed by the
+masked Accuser and Advocate of the life-deeds of the deceased. It
+showed that although the College of Hes affected to be indifferent to
+the doings and politics of the people of the Plain that they once
+ruled and over which, whilst secretly awaiting an opportunity of re-
+conquest, they still claimed a spiritual authority, the attitude was
+assumed rather than real. Moreover it suggested a system of espionage
+so piercing and extraordinary that it was difficult to believe it
+unaided by the habitual exercise of some gift of clairvoyance.
+
+The service, if I may call it so, was finished; the dead man had
+followed the record of his sins into that lurid sea of fire, and by
+now was but a handful of charred dust. But if his book had closed,
+ours remained open and at its strangest chapter. We knew it, all of
+us, and waited, our nerves thrilled, with expectancy.
+
+The Hesea sat brooding on her rocky throne. She also knew that the
+hour had come. Presently she sighed, then motioned with her sceptre
+and spoke a word or two, dismissing the priests and priestesses, who
+departed and were seen no more. Two of them remained however, Oros and
+the head priestess who was called Papave, a young woman of a noble
+countenance.
+
+"Listen, my servants," she said. "Great things are about to happen,
+which have to do with the coming of yonder strangers, for whom I have
+waited these many years as is well known to you. Nor can I tell the
+issue since to me, to whom power is given so freely, foresight of the
+future is denied. It well may happen, therefore, that this seat will
+soon be empty and this frame but food for the eternal fires. Nay,
+grieve not, grieve not, for I do not die and if so, the spirit shall
+return again.
+
+"Hearken, Papave. Thou art of the blood, and to thee alone have I
+opened all the doors of wisdom. If I pass now or at any time, take
+thou the ancient power, fill thou my place, and in all things do as I
+have instructed thee, that from this Mountain light may shine upon the
+world. Further I command thee, and thee also, Oros my priest, that if
+I be summoned hence you entertain these strangers hospitably until it
+is possible to escort them from the land, whether by the road they
+came or across the northern hills and deserts. Should the Khania Atene
+attempt to detain them against their will, then raise the Tribes upon
+her in the name of the Hesea; depose her from her seat, conquer her
+land and hold it. Hear and obey."
+
+"Mother, we hear and we will obey," answered Oros and Papave as with a
+single voice.
+
+She waved her hand to show that this matter was finished; then after
+long thought spoke again, addressing herself to the Khania.
+
+"Atene, last night thou didst ask me a question--why thou dost love
+this man," and she pointed to Leo. "To that the answer would be easy,
+for is he not one who might well stir passion in the breast of a woman
+such as thou art? But thou didst say also that thine own heart and the
+wisdom of yonder magician, thy uncle, told thee that since thy soul
+first sprang to life thou hadst loved him, and didst adjure me by the
+Power to whom I must give my account to draw the curtain from the past
+and let the truth be known.
+
+"Woman, the hour has come, and I obey thy summons--not because thou
+dost command but because it is my will. Of the beginning I can tell
+thee nothing, who am still human and no goddess. I know not why we
+three are wrapped in this coil of fate; I know not the destinies to
+which we journey up the ladder of a thousand lives, with grief and
+pain climbing the endless stair of circumstance, or, if I know, I may
+not say. Therefore I take up the tale where my own memory gives me
+light."
+
+The Hesea paused, and we saw her frame shake as though beneath some
+fearful inward effort of the will. "Look now behind you," she cried,
+throwing her arms wide.
+
+We turned, and at first saw nothing save the great curtain of fire
+that rose from the abyss of the volcano, whereof, as I have told, the
+crest was bent over by the wind like the crest of a breaking billow.
+But presently, as we watched, in the depths of this red veil, Nature's
+awful lamp-flame, a picture began to form as it forms in the seer's
+magic crystal.
+
+Behold! a temple set amid sands and washed by a wide, palm-bordered
+river, and across its pyloned court processions of priests, who pass
+to and fro with flaunting banners. The court empties; I could see the
+shadow of a falcon's wings that fled across its sunlit floor. A man
+clad in a priest's white robe, shaven-headed, and barefooted, enters
+through the southern pylon gate and walks slowly towards a painted
+granite shrine, in which sits the image of a woman crowned with the
+double crown of Egypt, surmounted by a lotus bloom, and holding in her
+hand the sacred sistrum. Now, as though he heard some sound, he halts
+and looks towards us, and by the heaven above me, his face is the face
+of Leo Vincey in his youth, the face too of that Kallikrates whose
+corpse we had seen in the Caves of Kor!
+
+"Look, look!" gasped Leo, catching me by the arm; but I only nodded my
+head in answer.
+
+The man walks on again, and kneeling before the goddess in the shrine,
+embraces her feet and makes his prayer to her. Now the gates roll
+open, and a procession enters, headed by a veiled, noble-looking
+woman, who bears offerings, which she sets on the table before the
+shrine, bending her knee to the effigy of the goddess. Her oblations
+made, she turns to depart, and as she goes brushes her hand against
+the hand of the watching priest, who hesitates, then follows her.
+
+When all her company have passed the gate she lingers alone in the
+shadow of the pylon, whispering to the priest and pointing to the
+river and the southern land beyond. He is disturbed; he reasons with
+her, till, after one swift glance round, she lets drop her veil,
+bending towards him and--their lips meet.
+
+As time flies her face is turned towards us, and lo! it is the face of
+Atene, and amid her dusky hair the aura is reflected in jewelled gold,
+the symbol of her royal rank. She looks at the shaven priest; she
+laughs as though in triumph; she points to the westering sun and to
+the river, and is gone.
+
+Aye, and that laugh of long ago is echoed by Atene at our side, for
+she also laughs in triumph and cries aloud to the old Shaman--
+
+"True diviners were my heart and thou! Behold how I won him in the
+past."
+
+Then, like ice on fire fell the cold voice of the Hesea.
+
+"Be silent, woman, and see how thou didst lose him in the past."
+
+Lo! the scene changes, and on a couch a lovely shape lies sleeping.
+She dreams; she is afraid; and over her bends and whispers in her ear
+a shadowy form clad with the emblems of the goddess in the shrine, but
+now wearing upon her head the vulture cap. The woman wakes from her
+dream and looks round, and oh! the face is the face of Ayesha as it
+was seen of us when first she loosed her veil in the Caves of Kor.
+
+A sigh went up from us; we could not speak who thus fearfully once
+more beheld her loveliness.
+
+Again she sleeps, again the awful form bends over her and whispers. It
+points, the distance opens. Lo! on a stormy sea a boat, and in the
+boat two wrapped in each other's arms, the priest and the royal woman,
+while over them like a Vengeance, raw-necked and ragged-pinioned,
+hovers a following vulture, such a vulture as the goddess wore for
+headdress.
+
+That picture fades from its burning frame, leaving the vast sheet of
+fire empty as the noonday sky. Then another forms. First a great,
+smooth-walled cave carpeted with sand, a cave that we remembered well.
+Then lying on the sand, now no longer shaven, but golden-haired, the
+corpse of the priest staring upwards with his glazed eyes, his white
+skin streaked with blood, and standing over him two women. One holds a
+javelin in her hand and is naked except for her flowing hair, and
+beautiful, beautiful beyond imagining. The other, wrapped in a dark
+cloak, beats the air with her hands, casting up her eyes as though to
+call the curse of Heaven upon her rival's head. And those women are
+she into whose sleeping ear the shadow had whispered, and the royal
+Egyptian who had kissed her lover beneath the pylon gate.
+
+Slowly all the figures faded; it was as though the fire ate them up,
+for first they became thin and white as ashes; then vanished. The
+Hesea, who had been leaning forward, sank backwards in her chair, as
+if weary with the toil of her own magic.
+
+For a while confused pictures flitted rapidly to and fro across the
+vast mirror of the flame, such as might be reflected from an
+intelligence crowded with the memories of over two thousand years
+which it was too exhausted to separate and define.
+
+Wild scenes, multitudes of people, great caves, and in them faces,
+amongst others our own, starting up distorted and enormous, to grow
+tiny in an instant and depart; stark imaginations of Forms towering
+and divine; of Things monstrous and inhuman; armies marching,
+illimitable battle-fields, and corpses rolled in blood, and hovering
+over them the spirits of the slain.
+
+These pictures died as the others had died, and the fire was blank
+again.
+
+Then the Hesea spoke in a voice very faint at first, that by slow
+degrees grew stronger.
+
+"Is thy question answered, O Atene?"
+
+"I have seen strange sights, Mother, mighty limnings worthy of thy
+magic, but how know I that they are more than vapours of thine own
+brain cast upon yonder fire to deceive and mock us?"[*]
+
+[*] Considered in the light of subsequent revelations, vouchsafed to
+    us by Ayesha herself, I am inclined to believe that Atene's shrewd
+    surmise was accurate, and that these fearful pictures, although
+    founded on events that had happened in the past, were in the main
+    "vapours" cast upon the crater fire; visions raised in our minds
+    to "deceive and mock us."--L. H. H.
+
+"Listen then," said the Hesea, in her weary voice, "to the
+interpretation of the writing, and cease to trouble me with thy
+doubts. Many an age ago, but shortly after I began to live this last,
+long life of mine, Isis, the great goddess of Egypt, had her Holy
+House at Behbit, near the Nile. It is a ruin now, and Isis has
+departed from Egypt, though still under the Power that fashioned it
+and her: she rules the world, for she is Nature's self. Of that shrine
+a certain man, a Greek, Kallikrates by name, was chief priest, chosen
+for her service by the favour of the goddess, vowed to her eternally
+and to her alone, by the dreadful oath that might not be broken
+without punishment as eternal.
+
+"In the flame thou sawest that priest, and here at thy side he stands,
+re-born, to fulfil his destiny and ours.
+
+"There lived also a daughter of Pharaoh's house, one Amenartas, who
+cast eyes of love upon this Kallikrates, and, wrapping him in her
+spells--for then as now she practised witcheries--caused him to break
+his oaths and fly with her, as thou sawest written in the flame. Thou,
+Atene, wast that Amenartas.
+
+"Lastly there lived a certain Arabian, named Ayesha, a wise and lovely
+woman, who, in the emptiness of her heart, and the sorrow of much
+knowledge, had sought refuge in the service of the universal Mother,
+thinking there to win the true wisdom which ever fled from her. That
+Ayesha, as thou sawest also, the goddess visited in a dream, bidding
+her to follow those faithless ones, and work Heaven's vengeance on
+them, and promising her in reward victory over death upon the earth
+and beauty such as had not been known in woman.
+
+"She followed far; she awaited them where they wandered. Guided by a
+sage named Noot, one who from the beginning had been appointed to her
+service and that of another--thou, O Holly, wast that man--she found
+the essence in which to bathe is to outlive Generations, Faiths, and
+Empires, saying--
+
+"'I will slay these guilty ones. I will slay them presently, as I am
+commanded.'
+
+"Yet Ayesha slew not, for now their sin was her sin, since she who had
+never loved came to desire this man. She led them to the Place of
+Life, purposing there to clothe him and herself with immortality, and
+let the woman die. But it was not so fated, for then the goddess
+smote. The life was Ayesha's as had been sworn, but in its first hour,
+blinded with jealous rage because he shrank from her unveiled glory to
+the mortal woman at his side, this Ayesha brought him to his death,
+and alas! alas! left herself undying.
+
+"Thus did the angry goddess work woe upon her faithless ministers,
+giving to the priest swift doom, to the priestess Ayesha, long remorse
+and misery, and to the royal Amenartas jealousy more bitter than life
+or death, and the fate of unending effort to win back that love which,
+defying Heaven, she had dared to steal, but to be bereft thereof
+again.
+
+"Lo! now the ages pass, and, at the time appointed, to that undying
+Ayesha who, whilst awaiting his re-birth, from century to century
+mourned his loss, and did bitter penance for her sins, came back the
+man, her heart's desire. Then, whilst all went well for her and him,
+again the goddess smote and robbed her of her reward. Before her
+lover's living eyes, sunk in utter shame and misery, the beautiful
+became hideous, the undying seemed to die.
+
+"Yet, O Kallikrates, I tell thee that she died not. Did not Ayesha
+swear to thee yonder in the Caves of Kor that she would come again?
+for even in that awful hour this comfort kissed her soul. Thereafter,
+Leo Vincey, who art Killikrates, did not her spirit lead thee in thy
+sleep and stand with thee upon this very pinnacle which should be thy
+beacon light to guide thee back to her? And didst thou not search
+these many years, not knowing that she companioned thy every step and
+strove to guard thee in every danger, till at length in the permitted
+hour thou earnest back to her?"
+
+She paused, and looked towards Leo, as though awaiting his reply.
+
+"Of the first part of the tale, except from the writing on the Sherd,
+I know nothing, Lady," he said; "of the rest I, or rather we, know
+that it is true. Yet I would ask a question, and I pray thee of thy
+charity let thy answer be swift and short. Thou sayest that in the
+permitted hour I came back to Ayesha. Where then is Ayesha? Art thou
+Ayesha? And if so why is thy voice changed? Why art thou less in
+stature? Oh! in the name of whatever god thou dost worship, tell me
+art thou Ayesha?"
+
+"/I am Ayesha/" she answered solemnly, "that very Ayesha to whom thou
+didst pledge thyself eternally."
+
+"She lies, she lies," broke in Atene. "I tell thee, husband--for such
+with her own lips she declares thou art to me--that yonder woman who
+says that she parted from thee young and beautiful, less than twenty
+years ago, is none other than the aged priestess who for a century at
+least has borne rule in these halls of Hes. Let her deny it if she
+can."
+
+"Oros," said the Mother, "tell thou the tale of the death of that
+priestess of whom the Khania speaks."
+
+The priest bowed, and in his usual calm voice, as though he were
+narrating some event of every day, said mechanically, and in a fashion
+that carried no conviction to my mind--
+
+"Eighteen years ago, on the fourth night of the first month of the
+winter in the year 2333 of the founding of the worship of Hes on this
+Mountain, the priestess of whom the Khania Atene speaks, died of old
+age in my presence in the hundred and eighth year of her rule. Three
+hours later we went to lift her from the throne on which she died, to
+prepare her corpse for burial in this fire, according to the ancient
+custom. Lo! a miracle, for she lived again, the same, yet very
+changed.
+
+"Thinking this a work of evil magic, the Priests and Priestesses of
+the College rejected her, and would have driven her from the throne.
+Thereon the Mountain blazed and thundered, the light from the fiery
+pillars died, and great terror fell upon the souls of men. Then from
+the deep darkness above the altar where stands the statue of the
+Mother of Men, the voice of the living goddess spoke, saying--
+
+"'Accept ye her whom I have set to rule over you, that my judgments
+and my purposes may be fulfilled.'
+
+"The Voice ceased, the fiery torches burnt again, and we bowed the
+knee to the new Hesea, and named her Mother in the ears of all. That
+is the tale to which hundreds can bear witness."
+
+"Thou hearest, Atene," said the Hesea. "Dost thou still doubt?"
+
+"Aye," answered the Khania, "for I hold that Oros also lies, or if he
+lies not, then he dreams, or perchance that voice he heard was thine
+own. Now if thou art this undying woman, this Ayesha, let proof be
+made of it to these two men who knew thee in the past. Tear away those
+wrappings that guard thy loveliness thus jealously. Let thy shape
+divine, thy beauty incomparable, shine out upon our dazzled sight.
+Surely thy lover will not forget such charms; surely he will know
+thee, and bow the knee, saying, 'This is my Immortal, and no other
+woman.'
+
+"Then, and not till then, will I believe that thou art even what thou
+declarest thyself to be, an evil spirit, who bought undying life with
+murder and used thy demon loveliness to bewitch the souls of men."
+
+Now the Hesea on the throne seemed to be much troubled, for she rocked
+herself to and fro, and wrung her white-draped hands.
+
+"Kallikrates," she said in a voice that sounded like a moan, "is this
+thy will? For if it be, know that I must obey. Yet I pray thee command
+it not, for the time is not yet come; the promise unbreakable is not
+yet fulfilled. /I am somewhat changed/, Kallikrates, since I kissed
+thee on the brow and named thee mine, yonder in the Caves of Kor."
+
+Leo looked about him desperately, till his eyes fell upon the mocking
+face of Atene, who cried--
+
+"Bid her unveil, my lord. I swear to thee I'll not be jealous."
+
+At that taunt he took fire.
+
+"Aye," he said, "I bid her unveil, that I may learn the best or worst,
+who otherwise must die of this suspense. Howsoever changed, if she be
+Ayesha I shall know her, and if she be Ayesha, I shall love her."
+
+"Bold words, Kallikrates," answered the Hesea; "yet from my very heart
+I thank thee for them: those sweet words of trust and faithfulness to
+thou knowest not what. Learn now the truth, for I may keep naught back
+from thee. When I unveil it is decreed that thou must make thy choice
+for the last time on this earth between yonder woman, my rival from
+the beginning, and that Ayesha to whom thou art sworn. Thou canst
+reject me if thou wilt, and no ill shall come to thee, but many a
+blessing, as men reckon them--power and wealth and love. Only then
+thou must tear my memory from thy heart, for then I leave thee to
+follow thy fate alone, till at the last the purpose of these deeds and
+sufferings is made clear.
+
+"Be warned. No light ordeal lies before thee. Be warned. I can promise
+thee naught save such love as woman never gave to man, love that
+perchance--I know not--must yet remain unsatisfied upon the earth."
+
+Then she turned to me and said:
+
+"Oh! thou, Holly, thou true friend, thou guardian from of old, thou,
+next to him most beloved by me, to thy clear and innocent spirit
+perchance wisdom may be given that is denied to us, the little
+children whom thine arms protect. Counsel thou him, my Holly, with the
+counsel that is given thee, and I will obey thy words and his, and,
+whatever befalls, will bless thee from my soul. Aye, and should he
+cast me off, then in the Land beyond the lands, in the Star appointed,
+where all earthly passions fade, together will we dwell eternally in a
+friendship glorious, thou and I alone.
+
+"For /thou/ wilt not reject; thy steel, forged in the furnace of pure
+truth and power, shall not lose its temper in these small fires of
+temptation and become a rusted chain to bind thee to another woman's
+breast--until it canker to her heart and thine."
+
+"Ayesha, I thank thee for thy words," I answered simply, "and by them
+and that promise of thine, I, thy poor friend--for more I never
+thought to be--am a thousandfold repaid for many sufferings. This I
+will add, that for my part I know that thou art She whom we have lost,
+since, whatever the lips that speak them, those thoughts and words are
+Ayesha's and hers alone."
+
+Thus I spoke, not knowing what else to say, for I was filled with a
+great joy, a calm and ineffable satisfaction, which broke thus feebly
+from my heart. For now I knew that I was dear to Ayesha as I had
+always been dear to Leo; the closest of friends, from whom she never
+would be parted. What more could I desire?
+
+We fell back; we spoke together, whilst they watched us silently. What
+we said I do not quite remember, but the end of it was that, as the
+Hesea had done, Leo bade me judge and choose. Then into my mind there
+came a clear command, from my own conscience or otherwhere, who can
+say? This was the command, that I should bid her to unveil, and let
+fate declare its purposes.
+
+"Decide," said Leo, "I cannot bear much more. Like that woman, whoever
+she may be, whatever happens, I will not blame you, Horace."
+
+"Good," I answered, "I have decided," and, stepping forward, I said:
+"We have taken counsel, Hes, and it is our will, who would learn the
+truth and be at rest, that thou shouldst unveil before us, here and
+now."
+
+"I hear and obey," the Priestess answered, in a voice like to that of
+a dying woman, "only, I beseech you both, be pitiful to me, spare me
+your mockeries; add not the coals of your hate and scorn to the fires
+of a soul in hell, for whate'er I am, I became it for thy sake,
+Kallikrates. Yet, yet I also am athirst for knowledge; for though I
+know all wisdom, although I wield much power, one thing remains to me
+to learn--what is the worth of the love of man, and if, indeed, it can
+live beyond the horrors of the grave?"
+
+Then, rising slowly, the Hesea walked, or rather tottered to the
+unroofed open space in front of the rock chamber, and stood there
+quite near to the brink of the flaming gulf beneath.
+
+"Come hither, Papave, and loose these veils," she cried in a shrill,
+thin voice.
+
+Papave advanced, and with a look of awe upon her handsome face began
+the task. She was not a tall woman, yet as she bent over her I noted
+that she seemed to tower above her mistress, the Hesea.
+
+The outer veils fell revealing more within. These fell also, and now
+before us stood the mummy-like shape, although it seemed to be of less
+stature, of that strange being who had met us in the Place of Bones.
+So it would seem that our mysterious guide and the high priestess Hes
+were the same.
+
+Look! Length by length the wrappings sank from her. Would they never
+end? How small grew the frame within? She was very short now,
+unnaturally short for a full-grown woman, and oh! I grew sick at
+heart. The last bandages uncoiled themselves like shavings from a
+stick; two wrinkled hands appeared, if hands they could be called.
+Then the feet--once I had seen such on the mummy of a princess of
+Egypt, and even now by some fantastic play of the mind, I remembered
+that on her coffin this princess was named "The Beautiful."
+
+Everything was gone now, except a shift and a last inner veil about
+the head. Hes waved back the priestess Papave, who fell half fainting
+to the ground and lay there covering her eyes with her hand. Then
+uttering something like a scream she gripped this veil in her thin
+talons, tore it away, and with a gesture of uttermost despair, turned
+and faced us.
+
+Oh! she was--nay, I will not describe her. I knew her at once, for
+thus had I seen her last before the Fire of Life, and, strangely
+enough, through the mask of unutterable age, through that cloak of
+humanity's last decay, still shone some resemblance to the glorious
+and superhuman Ayesha: the shape of the face, the air of defiant pride
+that for an instant bore her up--I know not what.
+
+Yes, there she stood, and the fierce light of the heartless fires beat
+upon her, revealing every shame.
+
+There was a dreadful silence. I saw Leo's lips turn white and his
+knees begin to give; but by some effort he recovered himself, and
+stayed still and upright like a dead man held by a wire. Also I saw
+Atene--and this is to her credit--turn her head away. She had desired
+to see her rival humiliated, but that horrible sight shocked her; some
+sense of their common womanhood for the moment touched her pity. Only
+Simbri, who, I think, knew what to expect, and Oros remained quite
+unmoved; indeed, in that ghastly silence the latter spoke, and ever
+afterwards I loved him for his words.
+
+"What of the vile vessel, rotted in the grave of time? What of the
+flesh that perishes?" he said. "Look through the ruined lamp to the
+eternal light which burns within. Look through its covering carrion to
+the inextinguishable soul."
+
+My heart applauded these noble sentiments. I was of one mind with
+Oros, but oh, Heaven! I felt that my brain was going, and I wished
+that it would go, so that I might hear and see no more.
+
+That look which gathered on Ayesha's mummy face? At first there had
+been a little hope, but the hope died, and anguish, anguish, /anguish/
+took its place.
+
+Something must be done, this could not endure. My lips clave together,
+no word would come; my feet refused to move.
+
+I began to contemplate the scenery. How wonderful were that sheet of
+flame, and the ripples which ran up and down its height. How awesome
+its billowy crest. It would be warm lying in yonder red gulf below
+with the dead Rassen, but oh! I wished that I shared his bed and had
+finished with these agonies.
+
+Thank Heaven, Atene was speaking. She had stepped to the side of the
+naked-headed Thing, and stood by it in all the pride of her rich
+beauty and perfect womanhood.
+
+"Leo Vincey, or Kallikrates," said Atene, "take which name thou wilt;
+thou thinkest ill of me perhaps, but know that at least I scorn to
+mock a rival in her mortal shame. She told us a wild tale but now, a
+tale true or false, but more false than true, I think, of how I robbed
+a goddess of a votary, and of how that goddess--Ayesha's self
+perchance--was avenged upon me for the crime of yielding to the man I
+loved. Well, let goddesses--if such indeed there be--take their way
+and work their will upon the helpless, and I, a mortal, will take mine
+until the clutch of doom closes round my throat and chokes out life
+and memory, and I too am a goddess--or a clod.
+
+"Meanwhile, thou man, I shame not to say it before all these
+witnesses, I love thee, and it seems that this--this woman or goddess
+--loves thee also, and she has told us that now, /now/ thou must
+choose between us once and for ever. She has told us too that if I
+sinned against Isis, whose minister be it remembered she declares
+herself, herself she sinned yet more. For she would have taken thee
+both from a heavenly mistress and from an earthly bride, and yet
+snatch that guerdon of immortality which is hers to-day. Therefore if
+I am evil, she is worse, nor does the flame that burns within the
+casket whereof Oros spoke shine so very pure and bright.
+
+"Choose thou then Leo Vincey, and let there be an end. I vaunt not
+myself; thou knowest what I have been and seest what I am. Yet I can
+give thee love and happiness and, mayhap, children to follow after
+thee, and with them some place and power. What yonder witch can give
+thee thou canst guess. Tales of the past, pictures on the flame, wise
+maxims and honeyed words, and after thou art dead once more, promises
+perhaps, of joy to come when that terrible goddess whom she serves so
+closely shall be appeased. I have spoken. Yet I will add a word:
+
+"O thou for whom, if the Hesea's tale be true, I did once lay down my
+royal rank and dare the dangers of an unsailed sea; O thou whom in
+ages gone I would have sheltered with my frail body from the sorceries
+of this cold, self-seeking witch; O thou whom but a little while ago
+at my own life's risk I drew from death in yonder river, choose,
+choose!"
+
+To all this speech, so moderate yet so cruel, so well-reasoned and yet
+so false, because of its glosses and omissions, the huddled Ayesha
+seemed to listen with a fierce intentness. Yet she made no answer, not
+a single word, not a sign even; she who had said her say and scorned
+to plead her part.
+
+I looked at Leo's ashen face. He leaned towards Atene, drawn perhaps
+by the passion shining in her beauteous eyes, then of a sudden
+straightened himself, shook his head and sighed. The colour flamed to
+his brow, and his eyes grew almost happy.
+
+"After all," he said, thinking aloud rather than speaking, "I have to
+do not with unknowable pasts or with mystic futures, but with the
+things of my own life. Ayesha waited for me through two thousand
+years; Atene could marry a man she hated for power's sake, and then
+could poison him, as perhaps she would poison me when I wearied her. I
+know not what oaths I swore to Amenartas, if such a woman lived. I
+remember the oaths I swore to Ayesha. If I shrink from her now, why
+then my life is a lie and my belief a fraud; then love will not endure
+the touch of age and never can survive the grave.
+
+"Nay, remembering what Ayesha was I take her as she is, in faith and
+hope of what she shall be. At least love is immortal and if it must,
+why let it feed on memory alone till death sets free the soul."
+
+Then stepping to where stood the dreadful, shrivelled form, Leo knelt
+down before it and kissed her on the brow.
+
+Yes, he kissed the trembling horror of that wrinkled head, and I think
+it was one of the greatest, bravest acts ever done by man.
+
+"Thou hast chosen," said Atene in a cold voice, "and I tell thee, Leo
+Vincey, that the manner of thy choice makes me mourn my loss the more.
+Take now thy--thy bride and let me hence."
+
+But Ayesha still said no word and made no sign, till presently she
+sank upon her bony knees and began to pray aloud. These were the words
+of her prayer, as I heard them, though the exact Power to which it was
+addressed is not very easy to determine, as I never discovered who or
+what it was that she worshipped in her heart--
+
+"O Thou minister of the almighty Will, thou sharp sword in the hand of
+Doom, thou inevitable Law that art named Nature; thou who wast crowned
+as Isis of the Egyptians, but art the goddess of all climes and ages;
+thou that leadest the man to the maid, and layest the infant on his
+mother's breast, that bringest our dust to its kindred dust, that
+givest life to death, and into the dark of death breathest the light
+of life again; thou who causest the abundant earth to bear, whose
+smile is Spring, whose laugh is the ripple of the sea, whose noontide
+rest is drowsy Summer, and whose sleep is Winter's night, hear thou
+the supplication of thy chosen child and minister:
+
+"Of old thou gavest me thine own strength with deathless days, and
+beauty above every daughter of this Star. But I sinned against thee
+sore, and for my sin I paid in endless centuries of solitude, in the
+vileness that makes me loathsome to my lover's eyes, and for its
+diadem of perfect power sets upon my brow this crown of naked mockery.
+Yet in thy breath, the swift essence that brought me light, that
+brought me gloom, thou didst vow to me that I who cannot die should
+once more pluck the lost flower of my immortal loveliness from this
+foul slime of shame.
+
+"Therefore, merciful Mother that bore me, to thee I make my prayer.
+Oh, let his true love atone my sin; or, if it may not be, then give me
+death, the last and most blessed of thy boons!"
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVI
+
+                              THE CHANGE
+
+She ceased, and there was a long, long silence. Leo and I looked at
+each other in dismay. We had hoped against hope that this beautiful
+and piteous prayer, addressed apparently to the great, dumb spirit of
+Nature, would be answered. That meant a miracle, but what of it? The
+prolongation of the life of Ayesha was a miracle, though it is true
+that some humble reptiles are said to live as long as she had done.
+
+The transference of her spirit from the Caves of Kor to this temple
+was a miracle, that is, to our western minds, though the dwellers in
+these parts of Central Asia would not hold it so. That she should re-
+appear with the same hideous body was a miracle. But was it the same
+body? Was it not the body of the last Hesea? One very ancient woman is
+much like another, and eighteen years of the working of the soul or
+identity within might well wear away their trivial differences and
+give to the borrowed form some resemblance to that which it had left.
+
+At least the figures on that mirror of the flame were a miracle. Nay,
+why so? A hundred clairvoyants in a hundred cities can produce or see
+their like in water and in crystal, the difference being only one of
+size. They were but reflections of scenes familiar to the mind of
+Ayesha, or perhaps not so much as that. Perhaps they were only
+phantasms called up in /our/ minds by her mesmeric force.
+
+Nay, none of these things were true miracles, since all, however
+strange, might be capable of explanation. What right then had we to
+expect a marvel now?
+
+Such thoughts as these rose in our minds as the endless minutes were
+born and died and--nothing happened.
+
+Yes, at last one thing did happen. The light from the sheet of flame
+died gradually away as the flame itself sank downwards into the
+abysses of the pit. But about this in itself there was nothing
+wonderful, for as we had seen with our own eyes from afar this fire
+varied much, and indeed it was customary for it to die down at the
+approach of dawn, which now drew very near.
+
+Still that onward-creeping darkness added to the terrors of the scene.
+By the last rays of the lurid light we saw Ayesha rise and advance
+some few paces to that little tongue of rock at the edge of the pit
+off which the body of Rassen had been hurled; saw her standing on it,
+also, looking like some black, misshapen imp against the smoky glow
+which still rose from the depths beneath.
+
+Leo would have gone forward to her, for he believed that she was about
+to hurl herself to doom, which indeed I thought was her design. But
+the priest Oros, and the priestess Papave, obeying, I suppose, some
+secret command that reached them I know not how, sprang to him and
+seizing his arms, held him back. Then it became quite dark, and
+through the darkness we could hear Ayesha chanting a dirge-like hymn
+in some secret, holy tongue which was unknown to us.
+
+A great flake of fire floated through the gloom, rocking to and fro
+like some vast bird upon its pinions. We had seen many such that
+night, torn by the gale from the crest of the blazing curtain as I
+have described. But--but--
+
+"Horace," whispered Leo through his chattering teeth, "that flame is
+coming up /against the wind!/"
+
+"Perhaps the wind has changed," I answered, though I knew well that it
+had not; that it blew stronger than ever from the south.
+
+Nearer and nearer sailed the rocking flame, two enormous wings was the
+shape of it, with something dark between them. It reached the little
+promontory. The wings appeared to fold themselves about the dwarfed
+figure that stood thereon--illuminating it for a moment. Then the
+light went out of them and they vanished--everything vanished.
+
+A while passed, it may have been one minute or ten, when suddenly the
+priestess Papave, in obedience to some summons which we could not
+hear, crept by me. I knew that it was she because her woman's garments
+touched me as she went. Another space of silence and of deep darkness,
+during which I heard Papave return, breathing in short, sobbing gasps
+like one who is very frightened.
+
+Ah! I thought, Ayesha has cast herself into the pit. The tragedy is
+finished!
+
+Then it was that the wondrous music came. Of course it /may/ have been
+only the sound of priests chanting beyond us, but I do not think so,
+since its quality was quite different to any that I heard in the
+temple before or afterwards: to any indeed that ever I heard upon the
+earth.
+
+I cannot describe it, but it was awful to listen to, yet most
+entrancing. From the black, smoke-veiled pit where the fire had burned
+it welled and echoed--now a single heavenly voice, now a sweet chorus,
+and now an air-shaking thunder as of a hundred organs played to time.
+
+That diverse and majestic harmony seemed to include, to express every
+human emotion, and I have often thought since then that in its all-
+embracing scope and range, this, the song or paean of her re-birth was
+symbolical of the infinite variety of Ayesha's spirit. Yet like that
+spirit it had its master notes; power, passion, suffering, mystery and
+loveliness. Also there could be no doubt as to the general
+significance of the chant by whomsoever it was sung. It was the
+changeful story of a mighty soul; it was worship, worship, worship of
+a queen divine!
+
+Like slow clouds of incense fading to the bannered roof of some high
+choir, the bursts of unearthly melodies grew faint; in the far
+distance of the hollow pit they wailed themselves away.
+
+Look! from the east a single ray of upward-springing light.
+
+"Behold the dawn," said the quiet voice of Oros.
+
+That ray pierced the heavens above our heads, a very sword of flame.
+It sank downwards, swiftly. Suddenly it fell, not upon us, for as yet
+the rocky walls of our chamber warded it away, but on to the little
+promontory at its edge.
+
+Oh! and there--a Glory covered with a single garment--stood a shape
+celestial. It seemed to be asleep, since the eyes were shut. Or was it
+dead, for at first that face was a face of death? Look, the sunlight
+played upon her, shining through the thin veil, the dark eyes opened
+like the eyes of a wondering child; the blood of life flowed up the
+ivory bosom into the pallid cheeks; the raiment of black and curling
+tresses wavered in the wind; the head of the jewelled snake that held
+them sparkled beneath her breast.
+
+Was it an illusion, or was this Ayesha as she had been when she
+entered the rolling flame in the caverns of Kor? Our knees gave way
+beneath us, and down, our arms about each other's necks, Leo and I
+sank till we lay upon the ground. Then a voice sweeter than honey,
+softer than the whisper of a twilight breeze among the reeds, spoke
+near to us, and these were the words it said--
+
+"/Come hither to me, Kallikrates, who would pay thee back that
+redeeming kiss of faith and love thou gavest me but now!/"
+
+Leo struggled to his feet. Like a drunken man he staggered to where
+Ayesha stood, then overcome, sank before her on his knees.
+
+"Arise," she said, "it is I who should kneel to thee," and she
+stretched out her hand to raise him, whispering in his ear the while.
+
+Still he would not, or could not rise, so very slowly she bent over
+him and touched him with her lips upon the brow. Next she beckoned to
+me. I came and would have knelt also, but she suffered it not.
+
+"Nay," she said, in her rich, remembered voice, "thou art no suitor;
+it shall not be. Of lovers and worshippers henceforth as before, I can
+find a plenty if I will, or even if I will it not. But where shall I
+find another friend like to thee, O Holly, whom thus I greet?" and
+leaning towards me, with her lips she touched me also on the brow--
+just touched me, and no more.
+
+Fragrant was Ayesha's breath as roses, the odour of roses clung to her
+lovely hair; her sweet body gleamed like some white sea-pearl; a faint
+but palpable radiance crowned her head; no sculptor ever fashioned
+such a marvel as the arm with which she held her veil about her; no
+stars in heaven ever shone more purely bright than did her calm,
+entranced eyes.
+
+Yet it is true, even with her lips upon me, all I felt for her was a
+love divine into which no human passion entered. Once, I acknowledge
+to my shame, it was otherwise, but I am an old man now and have done
+with such frailties. Moreover, had not Ayesha named me Guardian,
+Protector, Friend, and sworn to me that with her and Leo I should ever
+dwell where all earthly passions fail. I repeat: what more could I
+desire?
+
+Taking Leo by the hand Ayesha returned with him into the shelter of
+the rock-hewn chamber and when she entered its shadows, shivered a
+little as though with cold. I rejoiced at this I remember, for it
+seemed to show me that she still was human, divine as she might
+appear. Here her priest and priestess prostrated themselves before her
+new-born splendour, but she motioned to them to rise, laying a hand
+upon the head of each as though in blessing. "I am cold," she said,
+"give me my mantle," and Papave threw the purple-broidered garment
+upon her shoulders, whence now it hung royally, like a coronation
+robe.
+
+"Nay," she went on, "it is not this long-lost shape of mine, which in
+his kiss my lord gave back to me, that shivers in the icy wind, it is
+my spirit's self bared to the bitter breath of Destiny. O my love, my
+love, offended Powers are not easily appeased, even when they appear
+to pardon, and though I shall no more be made a mockery in thy sight,
+how long is given us together upon the world I know not; but a little
+hour perchance. Well, ere we pass otherwhere, we will make it
+glorious, drinking as deeply of the cup of joy as we have drunk of
+those of sorrows and of shame. This place is hateful to me, for here I
+have suffered more than ever woman did on earth or phantom in the
+deepest hell. It is hateful, it is ill-omened. I pray that never again
+may I behold it.
+
+"Say, what is it passes in thy mind, magician?" and of a sudden she
+turned fiercely upon the Shaman Simbri who stood near, his arms
+crossed upon his breast.
+
+"Only, thou Beautiful," he answered, "a dim shadow of things to come.
+I have what thou dost lack with all thy wisdom, the gift of foresight,
+and here I see a dead man lying----"
+
+"Another word," she broke in with fury born of some dark fear, "and
+thou shalt be that man. Fool, put me not in mind that now I have
+strength again to rid me of the ancient foes I hate, lest I should use
+a sword thou thrustest to my hand," and her eyes that had been so calm
+and happy, blazed upon him like fire.
+
+The old wizard felt their fearsome might and shrank from it till the
+wall stayed him.
+
+"Great One! now as ever I salute thee. Yes, now as at the first
+beginning whereof we know alone," he stammered. "I had no more to say;
+the face of that dead man was not revealed to me. I saw only that some
+crowned Khan of Kaloon to be shall lie here, as he whom the flame has
+taken lay an hour ago."
+
+"Doubtless many a Khan of Kaloon will lie here," she answered coldly.
+"Fear not, Shaman, my wrath is past, yet be wise, mine enemy, and
+prophesy no more evil to the great. Come, let us hence."
+
+So, still led by Leo, she passed from that chamber and stood presently
+upon the apex of the soaring pillar. The sun was up now, flooding the
+Mountain flanks, the plains of Kaloon far beneath and the distant,
+misty peaks with a sheen of gold. Ayesha stood considering the mighty
+prospect, then addressing Leo, she said--
+
+"The world is very fair; I give it all to thee."
+
+Now Atene spoke for the first time.
+
+"Dost thou mean Hes--if thou art still the Hesea and not a demon
+arisen from the Pit--that thou offerest my territories to this man as
+a love-gift? If so, I tell thee that first thou must conquer them."
+
+"Ungentle are thy words and mien," answered Ayesha, "yet I forgive
+them both, for I also can scorn to mock a rival in my hour of victory.
+When thou wast the fairer, thou didst proffer him these very lands,
+but say, who is the fairer now? Look at us, all of you, and judge,"
+and she stood by Atene and smiled.
+
+The Khania was a lovely woman. Never to my knowledge have I seen one
+lovelier, but oh! how coarse and poor she showed beside the wild,
+ethereal beauty of Ayesha born again. For that beauty was not
+altogether human, far less so indeed than it had been in the Caves of
+Kor; now it was the beauty of a spirit.
+
+The little light that always shone upon Ayesha's brow; the wide-set,
+maddening eyes which were filled sometimes with the fire of the stars
+and sometimes with the blue darkness of the heavens wherein they
+float; the curved lips, so wistful yet so proud; the tresses fine as
+glossy silk that still spread and rippled as though with a separate
+life; the general air, not so much of majesty as of some secret power
+hard to be restrained, which strove in that delicate body and
+proclaimed its presence to the most careless; that flame of the soul
+within whereof Oros had spoken, shining now through no "vile vessel,"
+but in a vase of alabaster and of pearl--none of these things and
+qualities were altogether human. I felt it and was afraid, and Atene
+felt it also, for she answered--
+
+"I am but a woman. What thou art, thou knowest best. Still a taper
+cannot shine midst yonder fires or a glow-worm against a fallen star;
+nor can my mortal flesh compare with the glory thou hast earned from
+hell in payment for thy gifts and homage to the lord of ill. Yet as
+woman I am thy equal, and as spirit I shall be thy mistress, when
+robbed of these borrowed beauties thou, Ayesha, standest naked and
+ashamed before the Judge of all whom thou hast deserted and defied;
+yes, as thou stoodest but now upon yonder brink above the burning pit
+where thou yet shalt wander wailing thy lost love. For this I know,
+mine enemy, that /man and spirit cannot mate/," and Atene ceased,
+choking in her bitter rage and jealousy.
+
+Now watching Ayesha, I saw her wince a little beneath these evil-
+omened words, saw also a tinge of grey touch the carmine of her lips
+and her deep eyes grow dark and troubled. But in a moment her fears
+had gone and she was asking in a voice that rang clear as silver
+bells--
+
+"Why ravest thou, Atene, like some short-lived summer torrent against
+the barrier of a seamless cliff? Dost think, poor creature of an hour,
+to sweep away the rock of my eternal strength with foam and bursting
+bubbles? Have done and listen. I do not seek thy petty rule, who, if I
+will it, can take the empire of the world. Yet learn, thou holdest it
+of my hand. More--I purpose soon to visit thee in thy city--choose
+thou if it shall be in peace or war! Therefore, Khania, purge thy
+court and amend thy laws, that when I come I may find contentment in
+the land which now it lacks, and confirm thee in thy government. My
+counsel to thee also is that thou choose some worthy man to husband,
+let him be whom thou wilt, if only he is just and upright and one upon
+whom thou mayest rest, needing wise guidance as thou dost, Atene.
+Come, now, my guests, let us hence," and she walked past the Khania,
+stepping fearlessly upon the very edge of the wind-swept, rounded
+peak.
+
+In a second the attempt had been made and failed, so quickly indeed
+that it was not until Leo and I compared our impressions afterwards
+that we could be sure of what had happened. As Ayesha passed her, the
+maddened Khania drew a hidden dagger and struck with all her force at
+her rival's back. I saw the knife vanish to the hilt in her body, as I
+thought, but this cannot have been so since it fell to the ground, and
+she who should have been dead, took no hurt at all.
+
+Feeling that she had failed, with a movement like the sudden lurch of
+a ship, Atene thrust at Ayesha, proposing to hurl her to destruction
+in the depths beneath. Lo! her outstretched arms went past her
+although Ayesha never seemed to stir. Yes it was Atene who would have
+fallen, Atene who already fell, had not Ayesha put out her hand and
+caught her by the wrist, bearing all her backward-swaying weight as
+easily as though she were but an infant, and without effort drawing
+her to safety.
+
+"Foolish woman!" she said in pitying tones. "Wast thou so vexed that
+thou wouldst strip thyself of the pleasant shape which heaven has
+given thee? Surely this is madness, Atene, for how knowest thou in
+what likeness thou mightest be sent to tread the earth again? As no
+queen perhaps, but as a peasant's child, deformed, unsightly; for such
+reward, it is said, is given to those that achieve self-murder. Or
+even, as many think, shaped like a beast--a snake, a cat, a tigress!
+Why, see," and she picked the dagger from the ground and cast it into
+the air, "that point was poisoned. Had it but pricked thee now!" and
+she smiled at her and shook her head.
+
+But Atene could bear no more of this mockery, more venomed than her
+own steel.
+
+"Thou art not mortal," she wailed. "How can I prevail against thee? To
+Heaven I leave thy punishment," and there upon the rocky peak Atene
+sank down and wept.
+
+Leo stood nearest to her, and the sight of this royal woman in her
+misery proved too much for him to bear. Stepping to her side he
+stooped and lifted her to her feet, muttering some kind words. For a
+moment she rested on his arm, then shook herself free of him and took
+the proffered hand of her old uncle Simbri.
+
+"I see," said Ayesha, "that as ever, thou art courteous, my lord Leo,
+but it is best that her own servant should take charge of her, for--
+she may hide more daggers. Come, the day grows, and surely we need
+rest."
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII
+
+                            THE BETROTHAL
+
+Together we descended the multitudinous steps and passed the endless,
+rock-hewn passages till we came to the door of the dwelling of the
+high-priestess and were led through it into a hall beyond. Here Ayesha
+parted from us saying that she was outworn, as indeed she seemed to be
+with an utter weariness, not of the body, but of the spirit. For her
+delicate form drooped like a rain-laden lily, her eyes grew dim as
+those of a person in a trance, and her voice came in a soft, sweet
+whisper, the voice of one speaking in her sleep.
+
+"Good-bye," she said to us. "Oros will guard you both, and lead you to
+me at the appointed time. Rest you well."
+
+So she went and the priest led us into a beautiful apartment that
+opened on to a sheltered garden. So overcome were we also by all that
+we had endured and seen, that we could scarcely speak, much less
+discuss these marvellous events.
+
+"My brain swims," said Leo to Oros, "I desire to sleep."
+
+He bowed and conducted us to a chamber where were beds, and on these
+we flung ourselves down and slept, dreamlessly, like little children.
+
+When we awoke it was afternoon. We rose and bathed, then saying that
+we wished to be alone, went together into the garden where even at
+this altitude, now, at the end of August, the air was still mild and
+pleasant. Behind a rock by a bed of campanulas and other mountain
+flowers and ferns, was a bench near to the banks of a little stream,
+on which we seated ourselves.
+
+"What have you to say, Horace?" asked Leo laying his hand upon my arm.
+
+"Say?" I answered. "That things have come about most marvellously;
+that we have dreamed aright and laboured not in vain; that you are the
+most fortunate of men and should be the most happy."
+
+He looked at me somewhat strangely, and answered--
+
+"Yes, of course; she is lovely, is she not--but," and his voice
+dropped to its lowest whisper, "I wish, Horace, that Ayesha were a
+little more human, even as human as she was in the Caves of Kor. I
+don't think she is quite flesh and blood, I felt it when she kissed me
+--if you can call it a kiss--for she barely touched my hair. Indeed
+how can she be who changed thus in an hour? Flesh and blood are not
+born of flame, Horace."
+
+"Are you sure that she was so born?" I asked. "Like the visions on the
+fire, may not that hideous shape have been but an illusion of our
+minds? May she not be still the same Ayesha whom we knew in Kor, not
+re-born, but wafted hither by some mysterious agency?"
+
+"Perhaps. Horace, we do not know--I think that we shall never know.
+But I admit that to me the thing is terrifying. I am drawn to her by
+an infinite attraction, her eyes set my blood on fire, the touch of
+her hand is as that of a wand of madness laid upon my brain. And yet
+between us there is some wall, invisible, still present. Or perhaps it
+is only fancy. But, Horace, I think that she is afraid of Atene. Why,
+in the old days the Khania would have been dead and forgotten in an
+hour--you remember Ustane?"
+
+"Perhaps she may have grown more gentle, Leo, who, like ourselves, has
+learned hard lessons."
+
+"Yes," he answered, "I hope that is so. At any rate she has grown more
+divine--only, Horace, what kind of a husband shall I be for that
+bright being, if ever I get so far?"
+
+"Why should you not get so far?" I asked angrily, for his words jarred
+upon my tense nerves.
+
+"I don't know," he answered, "but on general principles do you think
+that such fortune will be allowed to a man? Also, what did Atene mean
+when she said that man and spirit cannot mate--and--other things?"
+
+"She meant that she /hoped/ they could not, I imagine, and, Leo, it is
+useless to trouble yourself with forebodings that are more fitted to
+my years than yours, and probably are based on nothing. Be a
+philosopher, Leo. You have striven by wonderful ways such as are
+unknown in the history of the world; you have attained. Take the goods
+the gods provide you--the glory, the love and the power--and let the
+future look to itself."
+
+Before he could answer Oros appeared from round the rock, and, bowing
+with more than his usual humility to Leo, said that the Hesea desired
+our presence at a service in the Sanctuary. Rejoiced at the prospect
+of seeing her again before he had hoped to do so, Leo sprang up and we
+accompanied him back to our apartment.
+
+Here priests were waiting, who, somewhat against his will, trimmed his
+hair and beard, and would have done the same for me had I not refused
+their offices. Then they placed gold-embroidered sandals on our feet
+and wrapped Leo in a magnificent, white robe, also richly worked with
+gold and purple; a somewhat similar robe but of less ornate design
+being given to me. Lastly, a silver sceptre was thrust into his hand
+and into mine a plain wand. This sceptre was shaped like a crook, and
+the sight of it gave me some clue to the nature of the forthcoming
+ceremony.
+
+"The crook of Osiris!" I whispered to Leo.
+
+"Look here," he answered, "I don't want to impersonate any Egyptian
+god, or to be mixed up in their heathen idolatries; in fact, I won't."
+
+"Better go through with it," I suggested, "probably it is only
+something symbolical."
+
+But Leo, who, notwithstanding the strange circumstances connected with
+his life, retained the religious principles in which I had educated
+him, very strongly indeed, refused to move an inch until the nature of
+this service was made clear to him. Indeed he expressed himself upon
+the subject with vigour to Oros. At first the priest seemed puzzled
+what to do, then explained that the forthcoming ceremony was one of
+betrothal.
+
+On learning this Leo raised no further objections, asking only with
+some nervousness whether the Khania would be present. Oros answered
+"No," as she had already departed to Kaloon, vowing war and vengeance.
+
+Then we were led through long passages, till finally we emerged into
+the gallery immediately in front of the great wooden doors of the
+apse. At our approach these swung open and we entered it, Oros going
+first, then Leo, then myself, and following us, the procession of
+attendant priests.
+
+As soon as our eyes became accustomed to the dazzling glare of the
+flaming pillars, we saw that some great rite was in progress in the
+temple, for in front of the divine statue of Motherhood, white-robed
+and arranged in serried ranks, stood the company of the priests to the
+number of over two hundred, and behind these the company of the
+priestesses. Facing this congregation and a little in advance of the
+two pillars of fire that flared on either side of the shrine, Ayesha
+herself was seated in a raised chair so that she could be seen of all,
+while to her right stood a similar chair of which I could guess the
+purpose.
+
+She was unveiled and gorgeously apparelled, though save for the white
+beneath, her robes were those of a queen rather than of a priestess.
+About her radiant brow ran a narrow band of gold, whence rose the head
+of a hooded asp cut out of a single, crimson jewel, beneath which in
+endless profusion the glorious waving hair flowed down and around,
+hiding even the folds of her purple cloak.
+
+This cloak, opening in front, revealed an undertunic of white silk cut
+low upon her bosom and kept in place by a golden girdle, a double-
+headed snake, so like to that which She had worn in Kor that it might
+have been the same. Her naked arms were bare of ornament, and in her
+right hand she held the jewelled sistrum set with its gems and bells.
+
+No empress could have looked more royal and no woman was ever half so
+lovely, for to Ayesha's human beauty was added a spiritual glory, her
+heritage alone. Seeing her we could see naught else. The rhythmic
+movement of the bodies of the worshippers, the rolling grandeur of
+their chant of welcome echoed from the mighty roof, the fearful
+torches of living flame; all these things were lost on us. For there
+re-born, enthroned, her arms stretched out in gracious welcome, sat
+that perfect and immortal woman, the appointed bride of one of us, the
+friend and lady of the other, her divine presence breathing power,
+mystery and love.
+
+On we marched between the ranks of hierophants, till Oros and the
+priests left us and we stood alone face to face with Ayesha. Now she
+lifted her sceptre and the chant ceased. In the midst of the following
+silence, she rose from her seat and gliding down its steps, came to
+where Leo stood and touched him on the forehead with her sistrum,
+crying in a loud, sweet voice--
+
+"Behold the Chosen of the Hesea!" whereon all that audience echoed in
+a shout of thunder--
+
+"Welcome to the Chosen of the Hesea!"
+
+Then while the echoes of that glad cry yet rang round the rocky walls,
+Ayesha motioned to me to stand at her side, and taking Leo by the hand
+drew him towards her, so that now he faced the white-robed company.
+Holding him thus she began to speak in clear and silvery tones.
+
+"Priests and priestesses of Hes, servants with her of the Mother of
+the world, hear me. Now for the first time I appear among you as /I/
+am, you who heretofore have looked but on a hooded shape, not knowing
+its form or fashion. Learn now the reason that I draw my veil. Ye see
+this man, whom ye believed a stranger that with his companion had
+wandered to our shrine. I tell you that he is no stranger; that of
+old, in lives forgotten, he was my lord who now comes to seek his love
+again. Say, is it not so, Kallikrates?"
+
+"It is so," answered Leo.
+
+"Priests and priestesses of Hes, as ye know, from the beginning it has
+been the right and custom of her who holds my place to choose one to
+be her lord. Is it not so?"
+
+"It is so, O Hes," they answered.
+
+She paused a while, then with a gesture of infinite sweetness turned
+to Leo, bent towards him thrice and slowly sank upon her knee.
+
+"Say thou," Ayesha said, looking up at him with her wondrous eyes,
+"say before these here gathered, and all those witnesses whom thou
+canst not see, dost thou again accept me as thy affianced bride?"
+
+"Aye, Lady," he answered, in a deep but shaken voice, "now and for
+ever."
+
+Then while all watched, in the midst of a great silence, Ayesha rose,
+cast down her sistrum sceptre that rang upon the rocky floor, and
+stretched out her arms towards him.
+
+Leo also bent towards her, and would have kissed her upon the lips.
+But I who watched, saw his face grow white as it drew near to hers.
+While the radiance crept from her brow to his, turning his bright hair
+to gold, I saw also that this strong man trembled like a reed and
+seemed as though he were about to fall.
+
+I think that Ayesha noted it too, for ere ever their lips met, she
+thrust him from her and again that grey mist of fear gathered on her
+face.
+
+In an instant it passed. She had slipped from him and with her hand
+held his hand as though to support him. Thus they stood till his feet
+grew firm and his strength returned.
+
+Oros restored the sceptre to her, and lifting it she said--
+
+"O love and lord, take thou the place prepared for thee, where thou
+shalt sit for ever at my side, for with myself I give thee more than
+thou canst know or than I will tell thee now. Mount thy throne, O
+Affianced of Hes, and receive the worship of thy priests."
+
+"Nay," he answered with a start as that word fell upon his ears. "Here
+and now I say it once and for all. I am but a man who know nothing of
+strange gods, their attributes and ceremonials. None shall bow the
+knee to me and on earth, Ayesha, I bow mine to thee alone."
+
+Now at this bold speech some of those who heard it looked astonished
+and whispered to each other, while a voice called--
+
+"Beware, thou Chosen, of the anger of the Mother!"
+
+Again for a moment Ayesha looked afraid, then with a little laugh,
+swept the thing aside, saying--
+
+"Surely with that I should be content. For me, O Love, thy adoration
+for thee the betrothal song, no more."
+
+So having no choice Leo mounted the throne, where notwithstanding his
+splendid presence, enhanced as it was by those glittering robes, he
+looked ill enough at ease, as indeed must any man of his faith and
+race. Happily however, if some act of semi-idolatrous homage had been
+proposed, Ayesha found a means to prevent its celebration, and soon
+all such matters were forgotten both by the singers who sang, and us
+who listened to the majestic chant that followed.
+
+Of its words unfortunately we were able to understand but little, both
+because of the volume of sound and of the secret, priestly language in
+which it was given, though its general purport could not be mistaken.
+
+The female voices began it, singing very low, and conveying a strange
+impression of time and distance. Now followed bursts of gladness
+alternating with melancholy chords suggesting sighs and tears and
+sorrows long endured, and at the end a joyous, triumphant paean thrown
+to and fro between the men and women singers, terminating in one
+united chorus repeated again and again, louder and yet louder, till it
+culminated in a veritable crash of melody, then of a sudden ceased.
+
+Ayesha rose and waved her sceptre, whereon all the company bowed
+thrice, then turned and breaking into some sweet, low chant that
+sounded like a lullaby, marched, rank after rank, across the width of
+the Sanctuary and through the carven doors which closed behind the
+last of them.
+
+When all had gone, leaving us alone, save for the priest Oros and the
+priestess Papave, who remained in attendance on their mistress,
+Ayesha, who sat gazing before her with dreaming, empty eyes, seemed to
+awake, for she rose and said--
+
+"A noble chant, is it not, and an ancient? It was the wedding song of
+the feast of Isis and Osiris at Behbit in Egypt, and there I heard it
+before ever I saw the darksome Caves of Kor. Often have I observed, my
+Holly, that music lingers longer than aught else in this changeful
+world, though it is rare that the very words should remain unvaried.
+Come, beloved--tell me, by what name shall I call thee? Thou art
+Kallikrates and yet----"
+
+"Call me Leo, Ayesha," he answered, "as I was christened in the only
+life of which I have any knowledge. This Kallikrates seems to have
+been an unlucky man, and the deeds he did, if in truth he was aught
+other than a tool in the hand of destiny, have bred no good to the
+inheritors of his body--or his spirit, whichever it may be--or to
+those women with whom his life was intertwined. Call me Leo, then, for
+of Kallikrates I have had enough since that night when I looked upon
+the last of him in Kor."
+
+"Ah! I remember," she answered, "when thou sawest thyself lying in
+that narrow bed, and I sang thee a song, did I not, of the past and of
+the future? I can recall two lines of it; the rest I have forgotten--
+
+
+"'Onward, never weary, clad with splendour for a robe!
+  Till accomplished be our fate, and the night is rushing down.'
+
+
+"Yes, my Leo, now indeed we are 'clad with splendour for a robe,' and
+now our fate draws near to its accomplishment. Then perchance will
+come the down-rushing of the night;" and she sighed, looked up
+tenderly and said, "See, I am talking to thee in Arabic. Hast thou
+forgotten it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then let it be our tongue, for I love it best of all, who lisped it
+at my mother's knee. Now leave me here alone awhile; I would think.
+Also," she added thoughtfully, and speaking with a strange and
+impressive inflexion of the voice, "there are some to whom I must give
+audience."
+
+So we went, all of us, supposing that Ayesha was about to receive a
+deputation of the Chiefs of the Mountain Tribes who came to felicitate
+her upon her betrothal.
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XVIII
+
+                           THE THIRD ORDEAL
+
+An hour, two hours passed, while we strove to rest in our sleeping
+place, but could not, for some influence disturbed us.
+
+"Why does not Ayesha come?" asked Leo at length, pausing in his walk
+up and down the room. "I want to see her again; I cannot bear to be
+apart from her. I feel as though she were drawing me to her."
+
+"How can I tell you? Ask Oros; he is outside the door."
+
+So he went and asked him, but Oros only smiled, and answered that the
+Hesea had not entered her chamber, so doubtless she must still remain
+in the Sanctuary.
+
+"Then I am going to look for her. Come, Oros, and you too, Horace."
+
+Oros bowed, but declined, saying that he was bidden to bide at our
+door, adding that we, "to whom all the paths were open," could return
+to the Sanctuary if we thought well.
+
+"I do think well," replied Leo sharply. "Will you come, Horace, or
+shall I go without you?"
+
+I hesitated. The Sanctuary was a public place, it is true, but Ayesha
+had said that she desired to be alone there for awhile. Without more
+words, however, Leo shrugged his shoulders and started.
+
+"You will never find your way," I said, and followed him.
+
+We went down the long passages that were dimly lighted with lamps and
+came to the gallery. Here we found no lamps; still we groped our way
+to the great wooden doors. They were shut, but Leo pushed upon them
+impatiently, and one of them swung open a little, so that we could
+squeeze ourselves between them. As we passed it closed noiselessly
+behind us.
+
+Now we should have been in the Sanctuary, and in the full blaze of
+those awful columns of living fire. But they were out, or we had
+strayed elsewhere; at least the darkness was intense. We tried to work
+our way back to the doors again, but could not. We were lost.
+
+More, something oppressed us; we did not dare to speak. We went on a
+few paces and stopped, for we became aware that we were not alone.
+Indeed, it seemed to me that we stood in the midst of a thronging
+multitude, but not of men and women. Beings pressed about us; we could
+feel their robes, yet could not touch them; we could feel their
+breath, but it was /cold/. The air stirred all round us as they passed
+to and fro, passed in endless numbers. It was as though we had entered
+a cathedral filled with the vast congregation of all the dead who once
+had worshipped there. We grew afraid--my face was damp with fear, the
+hair stood up upon my head. We seemed to have wandered into a hall of
+the Shades.
+
+At length light appeared far away, and we saw that it emanated from
+the two pillars of fire which had burned on either side of the Shrine,
+that of a sudden became luminous. So we were in the Sanctuary, and
+still near to the doors. Now those pillars were not bright; they were
+low and lurid; the rays from them scarcely reached us standing in the
+dense shadow.
+
+But if we could not be seen in them we still could see. Look! Yonder
+sat Ayesha on a throne, and oh! she was awful in her death-like
+majesty. The blue light of the sunken columns played upon her, and in
+it she sat erect, with such a face and mien of pride as no human
+creature ever wore. Power seemed to flow from her; yes, it flowed from
+those wide-set, glittering eyes like light from jewels.
+
+She seemed a Queen of Death receiving homage from the dead. More, she
+/was/ receiving homage from dead or living--I know not which--for, as
+I thought it, a shadowy Shape arose before the throne and bent the
+knee to her, then another, and another, and another.
+
+As each vague Being appeared and bowed its starry head she raised her
+sceptre in answering salutation. We could hear the distant tinkle of
+the sistrum bells, the only sound in all that place, yes, and see her
+lips move, though no whisper reached us from them. Surely spirits were
+worshipping her!
+
+We gripped each other. We shrank back and found the door. It gave to
+our push. Now we were in the passages again, and now we had reached
+our room.
+
+At its entrance Oros was standing as we had left him. He greeted us
+with his fixed smile, taking no note of the terror written on our
+faces. We passed him, and entering the room stared at each other.
+
+"What is she?" gasped Leo. "An angel?"
+
+"Yes," I answered, "something of that sort." But to myself I thought
+that there are doubtless many kinds of angels.
+
+"And what were those--those /shadows/--doing?" he asked again.
+
+"Welcoming her after her transformation, I suppose. But perhaps they
+were not shadows--only priests disguised and conducting some secret
+ceremonial!"
+
+Leo shrugged his shoulders but made no other answer.
+
+At length the door opened, and Oros, entering, said that the Hesea
+commanded our presence in her chamber.
+
+So, still oppressed with fear and wonder--for what we had seen was
+perhaps more dreadful than anything that had gone before--we went, to
+find Ayesha seated and looking somewhat weary, but otherwise
+unchanged. With her was the priestess Papave, who had just unrobed her
+of the royal mantle which she wore in the Sanctuary.
+
+Ayesha beckoned Leo to her, taking his hand and searching his face
+with her eyes, not without anxiety as I thought.
+
+Now I turned, purposing to leave them alone, but she saw, and said to
+me, smiling--
+
+"Why wouldst thou forsake us, Holly? To go back to the Sanctuary once
+more?" and she looked at me with meaning in her glance. "Hast thou
+questions to ask of the statue of the Mother yonder that thou lovest
+the place so much? They say it speaks, telling of the future to those
+who dare to kneel beside it uncompanioned from night till dawn. Yet I
+have often done so, but to me it has never spoken, though none long to
+learn the future more."
+
+I made no answer, nor did she seem to expect any, for she went on at
+once--
+
+"Nay, bide here and let us have done with all sad and solemn thoughts.
+We three will sup together as of old, and for awhile forget our fears
+and cares, and be happy as children who know not sin and death, or
+that change which is death indeed. Oros, await my lord without.
+Papave, I will call thee later to disrobe me. Till then let none
+disturb us."
+
+The room that Ayesha inhabited was not very large, as we saw by the
+hanging lamps with which it was lighted. It was plainly though richly
+furnished, the rock walls being covered with tapestries, and the
+tables and chairs inlaid with silver, but the only token that here a
+woman had her home was that about it stood several bowls of flowers.
+One of these, I remember, was filled with the delicate harebells I had
+admired, dug up roots and all, and set in moss.
+
+"A poor place," said Ayesha, "yet better than that in which I dwelt
+those two thousand years awaiting thy coming, Leo, for, see, beyond it
+is a garden, wherein I sit," and she sank down upon a couch by the
+table, motioning to us to take our places opposite to her.
+
+The meal was simple; for us, eggs boiled hard and cold venison; for
+her, milk, some little cakes of flour, and mountain berries.
+
+Presently Leo rose and threw off his gorgeous, purple-broidered robe,
+which he still wore, and cast upon a chair the crook-headed sceptre
+that Oros had again thrust into his hand. Ayesha smiled as he did so,
+saying--
+
+"It would seem that thou holdest these sacred emblems in but small
+respect."
+
+"Very small," he answered. "Thou heardest my words in the Sanctuary,
+Ayesha, so let us make a pact. Thy religion I do not understand, but I
+understand my own, and not even for thy sake will I take part in what
+I hold to be idolatry."
+
+Now I thought that she would be angered by this plain speaking, but
+she only bowed her head and answered meekly--
+
+"Thy will is mine, Leo, though it will not be easy always to explain
+thy absence from the ceremonies in the temple. Yet thou hast a right
+to thine own faith, which doubtless is mine also."
+
+"How can that be?" he asked, looking up.
+
+"Because all great Faiths are the same, changed a little to suit the
+needs of passing times and peoples. What taught that of Egypt, which,
+in a fashion, we still follow here? That hidden in a multitude of
+manifestations, one Power great and good, rules all the universes:
+that the holy shall inherit a life eternal and the vile, eternal
+death: that men shall be shaped and judged by their own hearts and
+deeds, and here and hereafter drink of the cup which they have brewed:
+that their real home is not on earth, but beyond the earth, where all
+riddles shall be answered and all sorrows cease. Say, dost thou
+believe these things, as I do?"
+
+"Aye, Ayesha, but Hes or Isis is thy goddess, for hast thou not told
+us tales of thy dealings with her in the past, and did we not hear
+thee make thy prayer to her? Who, then, is this goddess Hes?"
+
+"Know, Leo, that she is what I named her--Nature's soul, no divinity,
+but the secret spirit of the world; that universal Motherhood, whose
+symbol thou hast seen yonder, and in whose mysteries lie hid all
+earthly life and knowledge."
+
+"Does, then, this merciful Motherhood follow her votaries with death
+and evil, as thou sayest she has followed thee for thy disobedience,
+and me--and another--because of some unnatural vows broken long ago?"
+Leo asked quietly.
+
+Resting her arm upon the table, Ayesha looked at him with sombre eyes
+and answered--
+
+"In that Faith of thine of which thou speakest are there perchance two
+gods, each having many ministers: a god of good and a god of evil, an
+Osiris and a Set?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"I thought it. And the god of ill is strong, is he not, and can put on
+the shape of good? Tell me, then, Leo, in the world that is to-day,
+whereof I know so little, hast thou ever heard of frail souls who for
+some earthly bribe have sold themselves to that evil one, or to his
+minister, and been paid their price in bitterness and anguish?"
+
+"All wicked folk do as much in this form or in that," he answered.
+
+"And if once there lived a woman who was mad with the thirst for
+beauty, for life, for wisdom, and for love, might she not--oh! might
+she not perchance----"
+
+"Sell herself to the god called Set, or one of his angels? Ayesha,
+dost thou mean"--and Leo rose, speaking in a voice that was full of
+fear--"that thou art such a woman?"
+
+"And if so?" she asked, also rising and drawing slowly near to him.
+
+"If so," he answered hoarsely, "if so, I think that perhaps we had
+best fulfil our fates apart----"
+
+"Ah!" she said, with a little scream of pain as though a knife had
+stabbed her, "wouldst thou away to Atene? I tell thee that thou canst
+not leave me. I have power--above all men thou shouldst know it, whom
+once I slew. Nay, thou hast no memory, poor creature of a breath, and
+I--I remember too well. I will not hold thee dead again--I'll hold
+thee living. Look now on my beauty, Leo"--and she bent her swaying
+form towards him, compelling him with her glorious, alluring eyes--
+"and begone if thou canst. Why, thou drawest nearer to me. Man, that
+is not the path of flight.
+
+"Nay, I will not tempt thee with these common lures. Go, Leo, if thou
+wilt. Go, my love, and leave me to my loneliness and my sin. Now--at
+once. Atene will shelter thee till spring, when thou canst cross the
+mountains and return to thine own world again, and to those things of
+common life which are thy joy. See, Leo, I veil myself that thou
+mayest not be tempted," and she flung the corner of her cloak about
+her head, then asked a sudden question through it--
+
+"Didst thou not but now return to the Sanctuary with Holly after I
+bade thee leave me there alone? Methought I saw the two of you
+standing by its doors."
+
+"Yes, we came to seek thee," he answered.
+
+"And found more than ye sought, as often chances to the bold--is it
+not so? Well, I willed that ye should come and see, and protected you
+where others might have died."
+
+"What didst thou there upon the throne, and whose were those forms
+which we saw bending before thee?" he asked coldly.
+
+"I have ruled in many shapes and lands, Leo. Perchance they were
+ancient companions and servitors of mine come to greet me once again
+and to hear my tidings. Or perchance they were but shadows of thy
+brain, pictures like those upon the fire, that it pleased me to summon
+to thy sight, to try thy strength and constancy.
+
+"Leo Vincey, know now the truth; that all things are illusions, even
+that there exists no future and no past, that what has been and what
+shall be already /is/ eternally. Know that I, Ayesha, am but a magic
+wraith, foul when thou seest me foul, fair when thou seest me fair; a
+spirit-bubble reflecting a thousand lights in the sunshine of thy
+smile, grey as dust and gone in the shadow of thy frown. Think of the
+throned Queen before whom the shadowy Powers bowed and worship, for
+that is I. Think of the hideous, withered Thing thou sawest naked on
+the rock, and flee away, for that is I. Or keep me lovely, and adore,
+knowing all evil centred in my spirit, for that is I. Now, Leo, thou
+hast the truth. Put me from thee for ever and for ever if thou wilt,
+and be safe; or clasp me, clasp me to thy heart, and in payment for my
+lips and love take my sin upon thy head! Nay, Holly, be thou silent,
+for now he must judge alone."
+
+Leo turned, as I thought, at first, to find the door. But it was not
+so, for he did but walk up and down the room awhile. Then he came back
+to where Ayesha stood, and spoke quite simply and in a very quiet
+voice, such as men of his nature often assume in moments of great
+emotion.
+
+"Ayesha," he said, "when I saw thee as thou wast, aged and--thou
+knowest how--I clung to thee. Now, when thou hast told me the secret
+of this unholy pact of thine, when with my eyes, at least, I have seen
+thee reigning a mistress of spirits good or ill, yet I cling to thee.
+Let thy sin, great or little--whate'er it is--be my sin also. In
+truth, I feel its weight sink to my soul and become a part of me, and
+although I have no vision or power of prophecy, I am sure that I shall
+not escape its punishment. Well, though I be innocent, let me bear it
+for thy sake. I am content."
+
+Ayesha heard, the cloak slipped from her head, and for a moment she
+stood silent like one amazed, then burst into a passion of sudden
+tears. Down she went before him, and clinging to his garments, she
+bowed her stately shape until her forehead touched the ground. Yes,
+that proud being, who was more than mortal, whose nostrils but now had
+drunk the incense of the homage of ghosts or spirits, humbled herself
+at this man's feet.
+
+With an exclamation of horror, half-maddened at the piteous sight, Leo
+sprang to one side, then stooping, lifted and led her still weeping to
+the couch.
+
+"Thou knowest not what thou hast done," Ayesha said at last. "Let all
+thou sawest on the Mountain's crest or in the Sanctuary be but visions
+of the night; let that tale of an offended goddess be a parable, a
+fable, if thou wilt. This at least is true, that ages since I sinned
+for thee and against thee and another; that ages since I bought beauty
+and life indefinite wherewith I might win thee and endow thee at a
+cost which few would dare; that I have paid interest on the debt, in
+mockery, utter loneliness, and daily pain which scarce could be
+endured, until the bond fell due at last and must be satisfied.
+
+"Yes, how I may not tell thee, thou and thou alone stoodst between me
+and the full discharge of this most dreadful debt--for know that in
+mercy it is given to us to redeem one another."
+
+Now he would have spoken, but with a motion of her hand she bade him
+be silent, and continued--
+
+"See now, Leo, three great dangers has thy body passed of late upon
+its journey to my side; the Death-hounds, the Mountains, and the
+Precipice. Know that these were but types and ordained foreshadowings
+of the last threefold trial of thy soul. From the pursuing passions of
+Atene which must have undone us both, thou hast escaped victorious.
+Thou hast endured the desert loneliness of the sands and snows
+starving for a comfort that never came. Even when the avalanche
+thundered round thee thy faith stood fast as it stood above the Pit of
+flame, while after bitter years of doubt a rushing flood of horror
+swallowed up thy hopes. As thou didst descend the glacier's steep, not
+knowing what lay beneath that fearful path, so but now and of thine
+own choice, for very love of me, thou hast plunged headlong into an
+abyss that is deeper far, to share its terrors with my spirit. Dost
+thou understand at last?"
+
+"Something, not all, I think," he answered slowly.
+
+"Surely thou art wrapped in a double veil of blindness," she cried
+impatiently. "Listen again:
+
+"Hadst thou yielded to Nature's crying and rejected me but yesterday,
+in that foul shape I must perchance have lingered for uncounted time,
+playing the poor part of priestess of a forgotten faith. This was the
+first temptation, the ordeal of thy flesh--nay, not the first--the
+second, for Atene and her lurings were the first. But thou wast loyal,
+and in the magic of thy conquering love my beauty and my womanhood
+were re-born.
+
+"Hadst thou rejected me to-night, when, as I was bidden to do, I
+showed thee that vision in the Sanctuary and confessed to thee my
+soul's black crime, then hopeless and helpless, unshielded by my
+earthly power, I must have wandered on into the deep and endless night
+of solitude. This was the third appointed test, the trial of thy
+spirit, and by thy steadfastness, Leo, thou hast loosed the hand of
+Destiny from about my throat. Now I am regenerate in thee--through
+thee may hope again for some true life beyond, which thou shalt share.
+And yet, and yet, if thou shouldst suffer, as well may chance----"
+
+"Then I suffer, and there's an end," broke in Leo serenely. "Save for
+a few things my mind is clear, and there must be justice for us all at
+last. If I have broken the bond that bound thee, if I have freed thee
+from some threatening, spiritual ill by taking a risk upon my head,
+well, I have not lived, and if need be, shall not die in vain. So let
+us have done with all these problems, or rather first answer thou me
+one. Ayesha, how wast thou changed upon that peak?"
+
+"In flame I left thee, Leo, and in flame I did return, as in flame,
+mayhap, we shall both depart. Or perhaps the change was in the eyes of
+all of you who watched, and not in this shape of mine. I have
+answered. Seek to learn no more."
+
+"One thing I do still seek to learn. Ayesha, we were betrothed
+to-night. When wilt thou marry me?"
+
+"Not yet, not yet," she answered hurriedly, her voice quivering as she
+spoke. "Leo, thou must put that hope from thy thoughts awhile, and for
+some few months, a year perchance, be content to play the part of
+friend and lover."
+
+"Why so?" he asked, with bitter disappointment. "Ayesha, those parts
+have been mine for many a day; more, I grow no younger, and, unlike
+thee, shall soon be old. Also, life is fleeting, and sometimes I think
+that I near its end."
+
+"Speak no such evil-omened words," she said, springing from the couch
+and stamping her sandalled foot upon the ground in anger born of fear.
+"Yet thou sayest truth; thou art unfortified against the accidents of
+time and chance. Oh! horrible, horrible; thou mightest die again, and
+leave me living."
+
+"Then give me of thy life, Ayesha."
+
+"That would I gladly, all of it, couldst thou but repay me with the
+boon of death to come.
+
+"Oh! ye poor mortals," she went on, with a sudden burst of passion;
+"ye beseech your gods for the gift of many years, being ignorant that
+ye would sow a seed within your breasts whence ye must garner ten
+thousand miseries. Know ye not that this world is indeed the wide
+house of hell, in whose chambers from time to time the spirit tarries
+a little while, then, weary and aghast, speeds wailing to the peace
+that it has won.
+
+"Think then what it is to live on here eternally and yet be human; to
+age in soul and see our beloved die and pass to lands whither we may
+not hope to follow; to wait while drop by drop the curse of the long
+centuries falls upon our imperishable being, like water slow dripping
+on a diamond that it cannot wear, till they be born anew forgetful of
+us, and again sink from our helpless arms into the void unknowable.
+
+"Think what it is to see the sins we sin, the tempting look, the word
+idle or unkind--aye, even the selfish thought or struggle, multiplied
+ten thousandfold and more eternal than ourselves, spring up upon the
+universal bosom of the earth to be the bane of a million destinies,
+whilst the everlasting Finger writes its endless count, and a cold
+voice of Justice cries in our conscience-haunted solitude, 'Oh! soul
+unshriven, behold the ripening harvest thy wanton hand did scatter,
+and long in vain for the waters of forgetfulness.'
+
+"Think what it is to have every earthly wisdom, yet to burn
+unsatisfied for the deeper and forbidden draught; to gather up all
+wealth and power and let them slip again, like children weary of a
+painted toy; to sweep the harp of fame, and, maddened by its jangling
+music, to stamp it small beneath our feet; to snatch at pleasure's
+goblet and find its wine is sand, and at length, outworn, to cast us
+down and pray the pitiless gods with whose stolen garment we have
+wrapped ourselves, to take it back again, and suffer us to slink naked
+to the grave.
+
+"Such is the life thou askest, Leo. Say, wilt thou have it now?"
+
+"If it may be shared with thee," he answered. "These woes are born of
+loneliness, but then our perfect fellowship would turn them into joy."
+
+"Aye," she said, "while it was permitted to endure. So be it, Leo. In
+the spring, when the snows melt, we will journey together to Libya,
+and there thou shalt be bathed in the Fount of Life, that forbidden
+Essence of which once thou didst fear to drink. Afterwards I will wed
+thee."
+
+"That place is closed for ever, Ayesha."
+
+"Not to my feet and thine," she answered. "Fear not, my love, were
+this mountain heaped thereon, I would blast a path through it with
+mine eyes and lay its secret bare. Oh! would that thou wast as I am,
+for then before tomorrow's sun we'd watch the rolling pillar thunder
+by, and thou shouldst taste its glory.
+
+"But it may not be. Hunger or cold can starve thee, and waters drown;
+swords can slay thee, or sickness sap away thy strength. Had it not
+been for the false Atene, who disobeyed my words, as it was foredoomed
+that she should do, by this day we were across the mountains, or had
+travelled northward through the frozen desert and the rivers. Now we
+must await the melting of the snows, for winter is at hand, and in it,
+as thou knowest, no man can live upon their heights."
+
+"Eight months till April before we can start, and how long to cross
+the mountains and all the vast distances beyond, and the seas, and the
+swamps of Kor? Why, at the best, Ayesha, two years must go by before
+we can even find the place;" and he fell to entreating her to let them
+be wed at once and journey afterwards.
+
+But she said, Nay, and nay, and nay, it should not be, till at length,
+as though fearing his pleading, or that of her own heart, she rose and
+dismissed us.
+
+"Ah! my Holly," she said to me as we three parted, "I promised thee
+and myself some few hours of rest and of the happiness of quiet, and
+thou seest how my desire has been fulfilled. Those old Egyptians were
+wont to share their feasts with one grizzly skeleton, but here I
+counted four to-night that you both could see, and they are named
+Fear, Suspense, Foreboding, and Love-denied. Doubtless also, when
+these are buried others will come to haunt us, and snatch the poor
+morsel from our lips.
+
+"So hath it ever been with me, whose feet misfortune dogs. Yet I hope
+on, and now many a barrier lies behind us; and Leo, thou hast been
+tried in the appointed, triple fires and yet proved true. Sweet be thy
+slumbers, O my love, and sweeter still thy dreams, for know, my soul
+shall share them. I vow to thee that to-morrow we'll be happy, aye,
+to-morrow without fail."
+
+"Why will she not marry me at once?" asked Leo, when we were alone in
+our chamber. "Because she is afraid," I answered.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIX
+
+                         LEO AND THE LEOPARD
+
+During the weeks that followed these momentous days often and often I
+wondered to myself whether a more truly wretched being had ever lived
+than the woman, or the spirit, whom we knew as She, Hes, and Ayesha.
+Whether in fact also, or in our imagination only, she had arisen from
+the ashes of her hideous age into the full bloom of perpetual life and
+beauty inconceivable.
+
+These things at least were certain: Ayesha had achieved the secret of
+an existence so enduring that for all human purposes it might be
+called unending. Within certain limitations--such as her utter
+inability to foresee the future--undoubtedly also, she was endued with
+powers that can only be described as supernatural.
+
+Her rule over the strange community amongst whom she lived was
+absolute; indeed, its members regarded her as a goddess, and as such
+she was worshipped. After marvellous adventures, the man who was her
+very life, I might almost say her soul, whose being was so
+mysteriously intertwined with hers, whom she loved also with the
+intensest human passion of which woman can be capable, had sought her
+out in this hidden corner of the world.
+
+More, thrice he had proved his unalterable fidelity to her. First, by
+his rejection of the royal and beautiful, if undisciplined, Atene.
+Secondly, by clinging to Ayesha when she seemed to be repulsive to
+every natural sense. Thirdly, after that homage scene in the Sanctuary
+--though with her unutterable perfections before his eyes this did not
+appear to be so wonderful--by steadfastness in the face of her
+terrible avowal, true or false, that she had won her gifts and him
+through some dim, unholy pact with the powers of evil, in the unknown
+fruits and consequences of which he must be involved as the price of
+her possession.
+
+Yet Ayesha was miserable. Even in her lightest moods it was clear to
+me that those skeletons at the feast of which she had spoken were her
+continual companions. Indeed, when we were alone she would acknowledge
+it in dark hints and veiled allegories or allusions. Crushed though
+her rival the Khania Atene might be, also she was still jealous of
+her.
+
+Perhaps "afraid" would be a better word, for some instinct seemed to
+warn Ayesha that soon or late her hour would come to Atene again, and
+that then it would be her own turn to drink of the bitter waters of
+despair.
+
+What troubled her more a thousandfold, however, were her fears for
+Leo. As may well be understood, to stand in his intimate relationship
+to this half divine and marvellous being, and yet not to be allowed so
+much as to touch her lips, did not conduce to his physical or mental
+well-being, especially as he knew that the wall of separation must not
+be climbed for at least two years. Little wonder that Leo lost
+appetite, grew thin and pale, and could not sleep, or that he implored
+her continually to rescind her decree and marry him.
+
+But on this point Ayesha was immovable. Instigated thereto by Leo, and
+I may add my own curiosity, when we were alone I questioned her again
+as to the reasons of this self-denying ordinance. All she would tell
+me, however, was that between them rose the barrier of Leo's
+mortality, and that until his physical being had been impregnated with
+the mysterious virtue of the Vapour of Life, it was not wise that she
+should take him as a husband.
+
+I asked her why, seeing that though a long-lived one, she was still a
+woman, whereon her face assumed a calm but terrifying smile, and she
+answered--
+
+"Art so sure, my Holly? Tell me, do your women wear such jewels as
+that set upon my brow?" and she pointed to the faint but lambent light
+which glowed about her forehead.
+
+More, she began slowly to stroke her abundant hair, then her breast
+and body. Wherever her fingers passed the mystic light was born, until
+in that darkened room--for the dusk was gathering--she shimmered from
+head to foot like the water of a phosphorescent sea, a being glorious
+yet fearful to behold. Then she waved her hand, and, save for the
+gentle radiance on her brow, became as she had been.
+
+"Art so sure, my Holly?" Ayesha repeated. "Nay, shrink not; that flame
+will not burn thee. Mayhap thou didst but imagine it, as I have noted
+thou dost imagine many things; for surely no woman could clothe
+herself in light and live, nor has so much as the smell of fire passed
+upon my garments."
+
+Then at length my patience was outworn, and I grew angry.
+
+"I am sure of nothing, Ayesha," I answered, "except that thou wilt
+make us mad with all these tricks and changes. Say, art thou a spirit
+then?"
+
+"We are all spirits," she said reflectively, "and I, perhaps, more
+than some. Who can be certain?"
+
+"Not I," I answered. "Yet I implore, woman or spirit, tell me one
+thing. Tell me the truth. In the beginning what wast thou to Leo, and
+what was he to thee?"
+
+She looked at me very solemnly and answered--
+
+"Does my memory deceive me, Holly, or is it written in the first book
+of the Law of the Hebrews, which once I used to study, that the sons
+of Heaven came down to the daughters of men, and found that they were
+fair?"
+
+"It is so written," I answered.
+
+"Then, Holly, might it not have chanced that once a daughter of Heaven
+came down to a man of Earth and loved him well? Might it not chance
+that for her great sin, she, this high, fallen star, who had befouled
+her immortal state for him, was doomed to suffer till at length his
+love, made divine by pain and faithful even to a memory, was permitted
+to redeem her?"
+
+Now at length I saw light and sprang up eagerly, but in a cold voice
+she added:
+
+"Nay, Holly, cease to question me, for there are things of which I can
+but speak to thee in figures and in parables, not to mock and bewilder
+thee, but because I must. Interpret them as thou wilt. Still, Atene
+thought me no mortal, since she told us that man and spirit may not
+mate; and there are matters in which I let her judgment weigh with me,
+as without doubt now, as in other lives, she and that old Shaman, her
+uncle, have wisdom, aye, and foresight. So bid my lord press me no
+more to wed him, for it gives me pain to say him nay--ah! thou knowest
+not how much.
+
+"Moreover, I will declare myself to thee, old friend; whatever else I
+be, at least I am too womanly to listen to the pleadings of my best
+beloved and not myself be moved. See, I have set a curb upon desire
+and drawn it until my heart bleeds; but if he pursues me with
+continual words and looks of burning love, who knoweth but that I
+shall kindle in his flame and throw the reins of reason to the winds?
+
+"Oh, then together we might race adown our passions' steep; together
+dare the torrent that rages at its foot, and there perchance be
+whelmed or torn asunder. Nay, nay, another space of journeying, but a
+little space, and we reach the bridge my wisdom found, and cross it
+safely, and beyond for ever ride on at ease through the happy meadows
+of our love."
+
+Then she was silent, nor would she speak more upon the matter. Also--
+and this was the worst of it--even now I was not sure that she told me
+the truth, or, at any rate, all of it, for to Ayesha's mind truth
+seemed many coloured as are the rays of light thrown from the
+different faces of a cut jewel. We never could be certain which shade
+of it she was pleased to present, who, whether by preference or of
+necessity, as she herself had said, spoke of such secrets in figures
+of speech and parables.
+
+It is a fact that to this hour I do not know whether Ayesha is spirit
+or woman, or, as I suspect, a blend of both. I do not know the limits
+of her powers, or if that elaborate story of the beginning of her love
+for Leo was true--which personally I doubt--or but a fable, invented
+by her mind, and through it, as she had hinted, pictured on the flame
+for her own hidden purposes.
+
+I do not know whether when first we saw her on the Mountain she was
+really old and hideous, or did but put on that shape in our eyes in
+order to test her lover. I do not know whether, as the priest Oros
+bore witness--which he may well have been bidden to do--her spirit
+passed into the body of the dead priestess of Hes, or whether when she
+seemed to perish there so miserably, her body and her soul were wafted
+straightway from the Caves of Kor to this Central Asian peak.
+
+I do not know why, as she was so powerful, she did not come to seek
+us, instead of leaving us to seek her through so many weary years,
+though I suggest that some superior force forbade her to do more than
+companion us unseen, watching our every act, reading our every
+thought, until at length we reached the predestined place and hour.
+Also, as will appear, there were other things of which this is not the
+time to speak, whereby I am still more tortured and perplexed.
+
+In short, I know nothing, except that my existence has been
+intertangled with one of the great mysteries of the world; that the
+glorious being called Ayesha won the secret of life from whatever
+power holds it in its keeping; that she alleged--although of this,
+remember, we have no actual proof--such life was to be attained by
+bathing in a certain emanation, vapour or essence; that she was
+possessed by a passion not easy to understand, but terrific in its
+force and immortal in its nature, concentrated upon one other being
+and one alone. That through this passion also some angry fate smote
+her again, again, and yet again, making of her countless days a
+burden, and leading the power and the wisdom which knew all but could
+foreknow nothing, into abysses of anguish, suspense, and
+disappointment such as--Heaven be thanked!--we common men and women
+are not called upon to plumb.
+
+For the rest, should human eyes ever fall upon it, each reader must
+form his own opinion of this history, its true interpretation and
+significance. These and the exact parts played by Atene and myself in
+its development I hope to solve shortly, though not here.
+
+Well, as I have said, the upshot of it all was that Ayesha was
+devoured with anxiety about Leo. Except in this matter of marriage,
+his every wish was satisfied, and indeed forestalled. Thus he was
+never again asked to share in any of the ceremonies of the Sanctuary,
+though, indeed, stripped of its rites and spiritual symbols, the
+religion of the College of Hes proved pure and harmless enough. It was
+but a diluted version of the Osiris and Isis worship of old Egypt,
+from which it had been inherited, mixed with the Central Asian belief
+in the transmigration or reincarnation of souls and the possibility of
+drawing near to the ultimate Godhead by holiness of thought and life.
+
+In fact, the head priestess and Oracle was only worshipped as a
+representative of the Divinity, while the temporal aims of the College
+in practice were confined to good works, although it is true that they
+still sighed for their lost authority over the country of Kaloon. Thus
+they had hospitals, and during the long and severe winters, when the
+Tribes of the Mountain slopes were often driven to the verge of
+starvation, gave liberally to the destitute from their stores of food.
+
+Leo liked to be with Ayesha continually, so we spent each evening in
+her company, and much of the day also, until she found that this
+inactivity told upon him who for years had been accustomed to endure
+every rigour of climate in the open air. After this came home to her--
+although she was always haunted by terror lest any accident should
+befall him--Ayesha insisted upon his going out to kill the wild sheep
+and the ibex, which lived in numbers on the mountain ridges, placing
+him in the charge of the chiefs and huntsmen of the Tribes, with whom
+thus he became well acquainted. In this exercise, however, I
+accompanied him but rarely, as, if used too much, my arm still gave me
+pain.
+
+Once indeed such an accident did happen. I was seated in the garden
+with Ayesha and watching her. Her head rested on her hand, and she was
+looking with her wide eyes, across which the swift thoughts passed
+like clouds over a windy sky, or dreams through the mind of a sleeper
+--looking out vacantly towards the mountain snows. Seen thus her
+loveliness was inexpressible, amazing; merely to gaze upon it was an
+intoxication. Contemplating it, I understood indeed that, like to that
+of the fabled Helen, this gift of hers alone--and it was but one of
+many--must have caused infinite sorrows, had she ever been permitted
+to display it to the world. It would have driven humanity to madness:
+the men with longings and the women with jealousy and hate.
+
+And yet in what did her surpassing beauty lie? Ayesha's face and form
+were perfect, it is true; but so are those of some other women. Not in
+these then did it live alone, but rather, I think, especially while
+what I may call her human moods were on her, in the soft mystery that
+dwelt upon her features and gathered and changed in her splendid eyes.
+Some such mystery may be seen, however faintly, on the faces of
+certain of the masterpieces of the Greek sculptors, but Ayesha it
+clothed like an ever-present atmosphere, suggesting a glory that was
+not of earth, making her divine.
+
+As I gazed at her and wondered thus, of a sudden she became terribly
+agitated, and, pointing to a shoulder of the Mountain miles and miles
+away, said--
+
+"Look!"
+
+I looked, but saw nothing except a sheet of distant snow.
+
+"Blind fool, canst thou not see that my lord is in danger of his
+life?" she cried. "Nay, I forgot, thou hast no vision. Take it now
+from me and look again;" and laying her hand, from which a strange,
+numbing current seemed to flow, upon my head, she muttered some swift
+words.
+
+Instantly my eyes were opened, and, not upon the distant Mountain, but
+in the air before me as it were, I saw Leo rolling over and over at
+grips with a great snow-leopard, whilst the chief and huntsmen with
+him ran round and round, seeking an opportunity to pierce the savage
+brute with their spears and yet leave him unharmed.
+
+Ayesha, rigid with terror, swayed to and fro at my side, till
+presently the end came, for I could see Leo drive his long knife into
+the bowels of the leopard, which at once grew limp, separated from
+him, and after a struggle or two in the bloodstained snow, lay still.
+Then he rose, laughing and pointing to his rent garments, whilst one
+of the huntsmen came forward and began to bandage some wounds in his
+hands and thigh with strips of linen torn from his under-robe.
+
+The vision vanished suddenly as it had come, and I felt Ayesha leaning
+heavily upon my shoulder like any other frightened woman, and heard
+her gasp--
+
+"That danger also has passed by, but how many are there to follow? Oh!
+tormented heart, how long canst thou endure!"
+
+Then her wrath flamed up against the chief and his huntsmen, and she
+summoned messengers and sent them out at speed with a litter and
+ointments, bidding them to bear back the lord Leo and to bring his
+companions to her very presence.
+
+"Thou seest what days are mine, my Holly, aye, and have been these
+many years," she said; "but those hounds shall pay me for this agony."
+
+Nor would she suffer me to reason with her.
+
+Four hours later Leo returned, limping after the litter in which,
+instead of himself, for whom it was sent, lay a mountain sheep and the
+skin of the snow-leopard that he had placed there to save the huntsmen
+the labour of carrying them. Ayesha was waiting for him in the hall of
+her dwelling, and gliding to him--I cannot say she walked--overwhelmed
+him with mingled solicitude and reproaches. He listened awhile, then
+asked--
+
+"How dost thou know anything of this matter? The leopard skin has not
+yet been brought to thee."
+
+"I know because I saw," she answered. "The worst hurt was above thy
+knee; hast thou dressed it with the salve I sent?"
+
+"Not I," he said. "But thou hast not left this Sanctuary; how didst
+thou see? By thy magic?"
+
+"If thou wilt, at least I saw, and Holly also saw thee rolling in the
+snow with that fierce brute, while those curs ran round like scared
+children."
+
+"I am weary of this magic," interrupted Leo crossly. "Cannot a man be
+left alone for an hour even with a leopard of the mountain? As for
+those brave men----"
+
+At this moment Oros entered and whispered something, bowing low.
+
+"As for those 'brave men,' I will deal with them," said Ayesha with
+bitter emphasis, and covering herself--for she never appeared unveiled
+to the people of the Mountain--she swept from the place.
+
+"Where has she gone, Horace?" asked Leo. "To one of her services in
+the Sanctuary?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered; "but if so, I think it will be that
+chief's burial service."
+
+"Will it?" he exclaimed, and instantly limped after her.
+
+A minute or two later I thought it wise to follow. In the Sanctuary a
+curious scene was in progress. Ayesha was seated in front of the
+statue. Before her, very much frightened, knelt a brawny, red-haired
+chieftain and five of his followers, who still carried their hunting
+spears, while with folded arms and an exceedingly grim look upon his
+face, Leo, who, as I learned afterwards, had already interfered and
+been silenced, stood upon one side listening to what passed. At a
+little distance behind were a dozen or more of the temple guards, men
+armed with swords and picked for their strength and stature.
+
+Ayesha, in her sweetest voice, was questioning the men as to how the
+leopard, of which the skin lay before her, had come to attack Leo. The
+chief answered that they had tracked the brute to its lair between two
+rocks; that one of them had gone in and wounded it, whereon it sprang
+upon him and struck him down; that then the lord Leo had engaged it
+while the man escaped, and was also struck down, after which, rolling
+with it on the ground, he stabbed and slew the animal. That was all.
+
+"No, not all," said Ayesha; "for you forget, cowards that you are,
+that, keeping yourselves in safety, you left my lord to the fury of
+this beast. Good. Drive them out on to the Mountain, there to perish
+also at the fangs of beasts, and make it known that he who gives them
+food or shelter dies."
+
+Offering no prayer for pity or excuse, the chief and his followers
+rose, bowed, and turned to go.
+
+"Stay a moment, comrades," said Leo, "and, chief, give me your arm; my
+scratch grows stiff; I cannot walk fast. We will finish this hunt
+together."
+
+"What doest thou? Art mad?" asked Ayesha.
+
+"I know not whether I am mad," he answered, "but I know that thou art
+wicked and unjust. Look now, than these hunters none braver ever
+breathed. That man"--and he pointed to the one whom the leopard had
+struck down--"took my place and went in before me because I ordered
+that we should attack the creature, and thus was felled. As thou seest
+all, thou mightest have seen this also. Then it sprang on me, and the
+rest of these, my friends, ran round waiting a chance to strike, which
+at first they could not do unless they would have killed me with it,
+since I and the brute rolled over and over in the snow. As it was, one
+of them seized it with his bare hands: look at the teeth marks on his
+arm. So if they are to perish on the Mountain, I, who am the man to
+blame, perish with them."
+
+Now, while the hunters looked at him with fervent gratitude in their
+eyes, Ayesha thought a little, then said cleverly enough--
+
+"In truth, my lord Leo, had I known all the tale, well mightest thou
+have named me wicked and unjust; but I knew only what I saw, and out
+of their own mouths did I condemn them. My servants, my lord here has
+pleaded for you, and you are forgiven; more, he who rushed in upon the
+leopard and he who seized it with his hands shall be rewarded and
+advanced. Go; but I warn you if you suffer my lord to come into more
+danger, you shall not escape so easily again."
+
+So they bowed and went, still blessing Leo with their eyes, since
+death by exposure on the Mountain snows was the most terrible form of
+punishment known to these people, and one only inflicted by the direct
+order of Hes upon murderers or other great criminals.
+
+When we had left the Sanctuary and were alone again in the hall, the
+storm that I had seen gathering upon Leo's face broke in earnest.
+Ayesha renewed her inquiries about his wounds, and wished to call
+Oros, the physician, to dress them, and as he refused this, offered to
+do so herself. He begged that she would leave his wounds alone, and
+then, his great beard bristling with wrath, asked her solmenly if he
+was a child in arms, a query so absurd that I could not help laughing.
+
+Then he scolded her--yes, he scolded Ayesha! Wishing to know what she
+meant (1) by spying upon him with her magic, an evil gift that he had
+always disliked and mistrusted; (2) by condemning brave and excellent
+men, his good friends, to a death of fiendish cruelty upon such
+evidence, or rather out of temper, on no evidence at all; and (3) by
+giving him into charge of them, as though he were a little boy, and
+telling them that they would have to answer for it if he were hurt: he
+who, in his time, had killed every sort of big game known and passed
+through some perils and encounters?
+
+Thus he beat her with his words, and, wonderful to say, Ayesha, this
+being more than woman, submitted to the chastisement meekly. Yet had
+any other man dared to address her with roughness even, I doubt not
+that his speech and his life would have come to a swift and
+simultaneous end, for I knew that now, as of old, she could slay by
+the mere effort of her will. But she did not slay; she did not even
+threaten, only, as any other loving woman might have done, she began
+to cry. Yes, great tears gathered in those lovely eyes of hers and,
+rolling one by one down her face, fell--for her head was bent humbly
+forward--like heavy raindrops on the marble floor.
+
+At the sight of this touching evidence of her human, loving heart all
+Leo's anger melted. Now it was he who grew penitent and prayed her
+pardon humbly. She gave him her hand in token of forgiveness, saying--
+
+"Let others speak to me as they will" (sorry should I have been to try
+it!) "but from thee, Leo, I cannot bear harsh words. Oh, thou art
+cruel, cruel. In what have I offended? Can I help it if my spirit
+keeps its watch upon thee, as indeed, though thou knewest it not, it
+has done ever since we parted yonder in the Place of Life? Can I help
+it if, like some mother who sees her little child at play upon a
+mountain's edge, my soul is torn with agony when I know thee in
+dangers that I am powerless to prevent or share? What are the lives of
+a few half-wild huntsmen that I should let them weigh for a single
+breath against thy safety, seeing that if I slew these, others would
+be more careful of thee? Whereas if I slay them not, they or their
+fellows may even lead thee into perils that would bring about--thy
+/death/," and she gasped with horror at the word.
+
+"Listen, beloved," said Leo. "The life of the humblest of those men is
+of as much value to him as mine is to me, and thou hast no more right
+to kill him than thou hast to kill me. It is evil that because thou
+carest for me thou shouldst suffer thy love to draw thee into cruelty
+and crime. If thou art afraid for me, then clothe me with that
+immortality of thine, which, although I dread it somewhat, holding it
+a thing unholy, and, on this earth, not permitted by my Faith, I
+should still rejoice to inherit for thy dear sake, knowing that then
+we could never more be parted. Or, if as thou sayest, this as yet thou
+canst not do, then let us be wed and take what fortune gives us. All
+men must die; but at least before I die I shall have been happy with
+thee for a while--yes, if only for a single hour."
+
+"Would that I dared," Ayesha answered with a little piteous motion of
+her hand. "Oh! urge me no more, Leo, lest that at last I should take
+the risk and lead thee down a dreadful road. Leo, hast thou never
+heard of the love which slays, or of the poison that may lurk in a cup
+of joy too perfect?"
+
+Then, as though she feared herself, Ayesha turned from him and fled.
+
+Thus this matter ended. In itself it was not a great one, for Leo's
+hurts were mere scratches, and the hunters, instead of being killed,
+were promoted to be members of his body-guard. Yet it told us many
+things. For instance, that whenever she chose to do so, Ayesha had the
+power of perceiving all Leo's movements from afar, and even of
+communicating her strength of mental vision to others, although to
+help him in any predicament she appeared to have no power, which, of
+course, accounted for the hideous and ever-present might of her
+anxiety.
+
+Think what it would be to any one of us were we mysteriously
+acquainted with every open danger, every risk of sickness, every
+secret peril through which our best-beloved must pass. To see the rock
+trembling to its fall and they loitering beneath it; to see them drink
+of water and know it full of foulest poison; to see them embark upon a
+ship and be aware that it was doomed to sink, but not to be able to
+warn them or to prevent them. Surely no mortal brain could endure such
+constant terrors, since hour by hour the arrows of death flit unseen
+and unheard past the breasts of each of us, till at length one finds
+its home there.
+
+What then must Ayesha have suffered, watching with her spirit's eyes
+all the hair-breadth escapes of our journeyings? When, for instance,
+in the beginning she saw Leo at my house in Cumberland about to kill
+himself in his madness and despair, and by some mighty effort of her
+superhuman will, wrung from whatever Power it was that held her in its
+fearful thraldom, the strength to hurl her soul across the world and
+thereby in his sleep reveal to him the secret of the hiding-place
+where he would find her.
+
+Or to take one more example out of many--when she saw him hanging by
+that slender thread of yak's hide from the face of the waterfall of
+ice and herself remained unable to save him, or even to look forward
+for a single moment and learn whether or no he was about to meet a
+hideous death, in which event she must live on alone until in some dim
+age he was born again.
+
+Nor can her sorrows have ended with these more material fears, since
+others as piercing must have haunted her. Imagine, for instance, the
+agonies of her jealous heart when she knew her lover to be exposed to
+the temptations incident to his solitary existence, and more
+especially to those of her ancient rival Atene, who, by Ayesha's own
+account, had once been his wife. Imagine also her fears lest time and
+human change should do their natural work on him, so that by degrees
+the memory of her wisdom and her strength, and the image of her
+loveliness faded from his thought, and with them his desire for her
+company; thus leaving her who had endured so long, forgotten and alone
+at last.
+
+Truly, the Power that limited our perceptions did so in purest mercy,
+for were it otherwise with us, our race would go mad and perish raving
+in its terrors.
+
+Thus it would seem that Ayesha, great tormented soul, thinking to win
+life and love eternal and most glorious, was in truth but another
+blind Pandora. From her stolen casket of beauty and super-human power
+had leapt into her bosom, there to dwell unceasingly, a hundred
+torturing demons, of whose wings mere mortal kind do but feel the far-
+off, icy shadowing.
+
+Yes; and that the parallel might be complete, Hope alone still
+lingered in that rifled chest.
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX
+
+                           AYESHA'S ALCHEMY
+
+It was shortly after this incident of the snow-leopard that one of
+these demon familiars of Ayesha's, her infinite ambition, made its
+formidable appearance. When we had dined with her in the evening,
+Ayesha's habit was to discuss plans for our mighty and unending
+future, that awful inheritance which she had promised to us.
+
+Here I must explain, if I have not done so already, that she had
+graciously informed me that notwithstanding my refusal in past years
+of such a priceless opportunity, I also was to be allowed to bathe my
+superannuated self in the vital fires, though in what guise I should
+emerge from them, like Herodotus when he treats of the mysteries of
+old Egypt, if she knew, she did not think it lawful to reveal.
+
+Secretly I hoped that my outward man might change for the better, as
+the prospect of being fixed for ever in the shape of my present and
+somewhat unpleasing personality, did not appeal to me as attractive.
+In truth, so far as I was concerned, the matter had an academic rather
+than an actual interest, such as we take in a fairy tale, since I did
+not believe that I should ever put on this kind of immortality. Nor, I
+may add, now as before, was I at all certain that I wished to do so.
+
+These plans of Ayesha's were far reaching and indeed terrific. Her
+acquaintance with the modern world, its political and social
+developments, was still strictly limited; for if she had the power to
+follow its growth and activities, certainly it was one of which she
+made no use.
+
+In practice her knowledge seemed to be confined to what she had
+gathered during the few brief talks which took place between us upon
+this subject in past time at Kor. Now her thirst for information
+proved insatiable, although it is true that ours was scarcely up to
+date, seeing that ever since we lost touch with the civilized peoples,
+namely, for the last fifteen years or so, we had been as much buried
+as she was herself.
+
+Still we were able to describe to her the condition of the nations and
+their affairs as they were at the period when we bade them farewell,
+and, more or less incorrectly, to draw maps of the various countries
+and their boundaries, over which she pondered long.
+
+The Chinese were the people in whom she proved to be most interested,
+perhaps because she was acquainted with the Mongolian type, and like
+ourselves, understood a good many of their dialects. Also she had a
+motive for her studies, which one night she revealed to us in the most
+matter-of-fact fashion.
+
+Those who have read the first part of her history, which I left in
+England to be published, may remember that when we found her at Kor,
+/She/ horrified us by expressing a determination to possess herself of
+Great Britain, for the simple reason that we belonged to that country.
+Now, however, like her powers, her ideas had grown, for she purposed
+to make Leo the absolute monarch of the world. In vain did he assure
+her most earnestly that he desired no such empire. She merely laughed
+at him and said--
+
+"If I arise amidst the Peoples, I must rule the Peoples, for how can
+Ayesha take a second place among mortal men? And thou, my Leo, rulest
+me, yes, mark the truth, thou art my master! Therefore it is plain
+that thou wilt be the master of this earth, aye, and perchance of
+others which do not yet appear, for of these also I know something,
+and, I think, can reach them if I will, though hitherto I have had no
+mind that way. My true life has not yet begun. Its little space within
+this world has been filled with thought and care for thee; in waiting
+till thou wast born again, and during these last years of separation,
+until thou didst return.
+
+"But now a few more months, and the days of preparation past, endowed
+with energy eternal, with all the wisdom of the ages, and with a
+strength that can bend the mountains or turn the ocean from its bed,
+and we begin to be. Oh! how I sicken for that hour when first, like
+twin stars new to the firmament of heaven, we break in our immortal
+splendour upon the astonished sight of men. It will please me, I tell
+thee, Leo, it will please me, to see Powers, Principalities and
+Dominions, marshalled by their kings and governors, bow themselves
+before our thrones and humbly crave the liberty to do our will. At
+least," she added, "it will please me for a little time, until we seek
+higher things."
+
+So she spoke, while the radiance upon her brow increased and spread
+itself, gleaming above her like a golden fan, and her slumbrous eyes
+took fire from it till, to my thought, they became glowing mirrors in
+which I saw pomp enthroned and suppliant peoples pass.
+
+"And how," asked Leo, with something like a groan--for this vision of
+universal rule viewed from afar did not seem to charm him--"how,
+Ayesha, wilt thou bring these things about?"
+
+"How, my Leo? Why, easily enough. For many nights I have listened to
+the wise discourses of our Holly here, at least he thinks them wise
+who still has so much to learn, and pored over his crooked maps,
+comparing them with those that are written in my memory, who of late
+have had no time for the study of such little matters. Also I have
+weighed and pondered your reports of the races of this world; their
+various follies, their futile struggling for wealth and small
+supremacies, and I have determined that it would be wise and kind to
+weld them to one whole, setting ourselves at the head of them to
+direct their destinies, and cause wars, sickness, and poverty to
+cease, so that these creatures of a little day (ephemeridae was the
+word she used) may live happy from the cradle to the grave.
+
+"Now, were it not because of thy strange shrinking from bloodshed,
+however politic and needful--for my Leo, as yet thou art no true
+philosopher--this were quickly done, since I can command a weapon
+which would crush their armouries and whelm their navies in the deep;
+yes, I, whom even the lightnings and Nature's elemental powers must
+obey. But thou shrinkest from the sight of death, and thou believest
+that Heaven would be displeased because I make myself--or am chosen--
+the instrument of Heaven. Well, so let it be, for thy will is mine,
+and therefore we will tread a gentler path."
+
+"And how wilt thou persuade the kings of the earth to place their
+crowns upon thy head?" I asked, astonished.
+
+"By causing their peoples to offer them to us," she answered suavely.
+"Oh! Holly, Holly, how narrow is thy mind, how strained the quality of
+thine imagination! Set its poor gates ajar, I pray, and bethink thee.
+When we appear among men, scattering gold to satisfy their want, clad
+in terrifying power, in dazzling beauty and in immortality of days,
+will they not cry, 'Be ye our monarchs and rule over us!'"
+
+"Perhaps," I answered dubiously, "but where wilt thou appear?"
+
+She took a map of the eastern hemisphere which I had drawn and,
+placing her finger upon Pekin, said--
+
+"There is the place that shall be our home for some few centuries, say
+three, or five, or seven, should it take so long to shape this people
+to my liking and our purposes. I have chosen these Chinese because
+thou tellest me that their numbers are uncountable, that they are
+brave, subtle, and patient, and though now powerless because ill-ruled
+and untaught, able with their multitudes to flood the little western
+nations. Therefore among them we will begin our reign and for some few
+ages be at rest while they learn wisdom from us, and thou, my Holly,
+makest their armies unconquerable and givest their land good
+government, wealth, peace, and a new religion."
+
+What the new religion was to be I did not ask. It seemed unnecessary,
+since I was convinced that in practice it would prove a form of
+Ayesha-worship, Indeed, my mind was so occupied with conjectures, some
+of them quaint and absurd enough, as to what would happen at the first
+appearance of Ayesha in China that I forgot this subsidiary
+development of our future rule.
+
+"And if the 'little western nations' will not wait to be flooded?"
+suggested Leo with irritation, for her contemptuous tone angered him,
+one of a prominent western nation. "If they combine, for instance, and
+attack thee first?"
+
+"Ah!" she said, with a flash of her eyes. "I have thought of it, and
+for my part hope that it will chance, since then thou canst not blame
+me if I put out my strength. Oh! then the East, that has slept so
+long, shall awake--shall awake, and upon battlefield after battlefield
+such as history cannot tell of, thou shalt see my flaming standards
+sweep on to victory. One by one thou shalt watch the nations fall and
+perish, until at length I build thy throne upon the hecatombs of their
+countless dead and crown thee emperor of a world regenerate in blood
+and fire."
+
+Leo, whom this new gospel of regeneration seemed to appall, who was,
+in fact, a hater of absolute monarchies and somewhat republican in his
+views and sympathies, continued the argument, but I took no further
+heed. The thing was grotesque in its tremendous and fantastic
+absurdity; Ayesha's ambitions were such as no imperial-minded madman
+could conceive.
+
+Yet--here came the rub--I had not the slightest doubt but that she was
+well able to put them into practice and carry them to some marvellous
+and awful conclusion. Why not? Death could not touch her; she had
+triumphed over death. Her beauty--that "cup of madness" in her eyes,
+as she named it once to me--and her reckless will would compel the
+hosts of men to follow her. Her piercing intelligence would enable her
+to invent new weapons with which the most highly-trained army could
+not possibly compete. Indeed, it might be as she said, and as I for
+one believed, with good reason, it proved, that she held at her
+command the elemental forces of Nature, such as those that lie hid in
+electricity, which would give all living beings to her for a prey.
+
+Ayesha was still woman enough to have worldly ambitions, and the most
+dread circumstance about her superhuman powers was that they appeared
+to be unrestrained by any responsibility to God or man. She was as we
+might well imagine a fallen angel to be, if indeed, as she herself
+once hinted and as Atene and the old Shaman believed, this were not
+her true place in creation. By only two things that I was able to
+discover could she be moved--her love for Leo and, in a very small
+degree, her friendship for myself.
+
+Yet her devouring passion for this one man, inexplicable in its
+endurance and intensity, would, I felt sure even then, in the future
+as in the past, prove to be her heel of Achilles. When Ayesha was
+dipped in the waters of Dominion and Deathlessness, this human love
+left her heart mortal, that through it she might be rendered harmless
+as a child, who otherwise would have devastated the universe.
+
+I was right.
+
+Whilst I was still indulging myself in these reflections and hoping
+that Ayesha would not take the trouble to read them in my mind, I
+became aware that Oros was bowing to the earth before her.
+
+"Thy business, priest?" she asked sharply; for when she was with Leo
+Ayesha did not like to be disturbed.
+
+"Hes, the spies are returned."
+
+"Why didst thou send them out?" she asked indifferently. "What need
+have I of thy spies?"
+
+"Hes, thou didst command me."
+
+"Well, their report?"
+
+"Hes, it is most grave. The people of Kaloon are desperate because of
+the drought which has caused their crops to fail, so that starvation
+stares them in the eyes, and this they lay to the charge of the
+strangers who came into their land and fled to thee. The Khania Atene
+also is mad with rage against thee and our holy College. Labouring
+night and day, she has gathered two great armies, one of forty, and
+one of twenty thousand men, and the latter of these she sends against
+the Mountain under the command of her uncle, Simbri the Shaman. In
+case it should be defeated she purposes to remain with the second and
+greater army on the plains about Kaloon."
+
+"Tidings indeed," said Ayesha with a scornful laugh. "Has her hate
+made this woman mad that she dares thus to match herself against me?
+My Holly, it crossed thy mind but now that it was I who am mad,
+boasting of what I have no power to perform. Well, within six days
+thou shalt learn--oh! verily thou shalt learn, and, though the issue
+be so very small, in such a fashion that thou wilt doubt no more for
+ever. Stay, I will look, though the effort of it wearies me, for those
+spies may be but victims to their own fears, or to the falsehoods of
+Atene."
+
+Then suddenly, as was common with her when thus Ayesha threw her sight
+afar, which either from indolence, or because, as she said, it
+exhausted her, she did but rarely, her lovely face grew rigid like
+that of a person in a trance; the light faded from her brow, and the
+great pupils of her eyes contracted themselves and lost their colour.
+
+In a little while, five minutes perhaps, she sighed like one awakening
+from a deep sleep, passed her hand across her forehead and was as she
+had been, though somewhat languid, as though strength had left her.
+
+"It is true enough," she said, "and soon I must be stirring lest many
+of my people should be killed. My lord, wouldst thou see war? Nay,
+thou shalt bide here in safety whilst I go forward--to visit Atene as
+I promised."
+
+"Where thou goest, I go," said Leo angrily, his face flushing to the
+roots of his hair with shame.
+
+"I pray thee not, I pray thee not," she answered, yet without
+venturing to forbid him. "We will talk of it hereafter. Oros, away!
+Send round the Fire of Hes to every chief. Three nights hence at the
+moonrise bid the Tribes gather--nay, not all, twenty thousand of their
+best will be enough, the rest shall stay to guard the Mountain and
+this Sanctuary. Let them bring food with them for fifteen days. I join
+them at the following dawn. Go."
+
+He bowed and went, whereon, dismissing the matter from her mind,
+Ayesha began to question me again about the Chinese and their customs.
+
+It was in course of a somewhat similar conversation on the following
+night, of which, however, I forget the exact details, that a remark of
+Leo's led to another exhibition of Ayesha's marvellous powers.
+
+Leo--who had been considering her plans for conquest, and again
+combating them as best he could, for they were entirely repugnant to
+his religious, social and political views--said suddenly that after
+all they must break down, since they would involve the expenditure of
+sums of money so vast that even Ayesha herself would be unable to
+provide them by any known methods of taxation. She looked at him and
+laughed a little.
+
+"Verily, Leo," she said, "to thee, yes; and to Holly here I must seem
+as some madcap girl blown to and fro by every wind of fancy, and
+building me a palace wherein to dwell out of dew and vapours, or from
+the substance of the sunset fires. Thinkest thou then that I would
+enter on this war--one woman against all the world"--and as she spoke
+her shape grew royal and in her awful eyes there came a look that
+chilled my blood--"and make no preparation for its necessities? Why,
+since last we spoke upon this matter, foreseeing all, I have
+considered in my mind, and now thou shalt learn how, without cost to
+those we rule--and for that reason alone shall they love us dearly--I
+will glut the treasuries of the Empress of the Earth.
+
+"Dost remember, Leo, how in Kor I found but a single pleasure during
+all those weary ages--that of forcing my mother Nature one by one to
+yield me up her choicest secrets; I, who am a student of all things
+which are and of the forces that cause them to be born. Now follow me,
+both of you, and ye shall look on what mortal eyes have not yet
+beheld."
+
+"What are we to see?" I asked doubtfully, having a lively recollection
+of Ayesha's powers as a chemist.
+
+"That thou shalt learn, or shalt not learn if it pleases thee to stay
+behind. Come, Leo, my love, my love, and leave this wise philosopher
+first to find his riddle and next to guess it."
+
+Then turning her back to me she smiled on him so sweetly that although
+really he was more loth to go than I, Leo would have followed her
+through a furnace door, as indeed, had he but known it, he was about
+to do.
+
+So they started, and I accompanied them since with Ayesha it was
+useless to indulge in any foolish pride, or to make oneself a victim
+to consistency. Also I was anxious to see her new marvel, and did not
+care to rely for an account of it upon Leo's descriptive skill, which
+at its best was never more than moderate.
+
+She took us down passages that we had not passed before, to a door
+which she signed to Leo to open. He obeyed, and from the cave within
+issued a flood of light. As we guessed at once, the place was her
+laboratory, for about it stood metal flasks and various strange-shaped
+instruments. Moreover, there was a furnace in it, one of the best
+conceivable, for it needed neither fuel nor stoking, whose gaseous
+fires, like those of the twisted columns in the Sanctuary, sprang from
+the womb of the volcano beneath our feet.
+
+When we entered two priests were at work there: one of them stirring a
+cauldron with an iron rod and the other receiving its molten contents
+into a mould of clay. They stopped to salute Ayesha, but she bade them
+to continue their task, asking them if all went well.
+
+"Very well, O Hes," they answered; and we passed through that cave and
+sundry doors and passages to a little chamber cut in the rock. There
+was no lamp or flame of fire in it, and yet the place was filled with
+a gentle light which seemed to flow from the opposing wall.
+
+"What were those priests doing?" I said, more to break the silence
+than for any other reason.
+
+"Why waste breath upon foolish questions?" she replied. "Are no metals
+smelted in thy country, O Holly? Now hadst thou sought to know what I
+am doing--But that, without seeing, thou wouldst not believe, so,
+Doubter, thou shalt see."
+
+Then she pointed to and bade us don, two strange garments that hung
+upon the wall, made of a material which seemed to be half cloth and
+half wood and having headpieces not unlike a diver's helmet.
+
+So under her directions Leo helped me into mine, lacing it up behind,
+after which, or so I gathered from the sounds--for no light came
+through the helmet--she did the same service for him,
+
+"I seem very much in the dark," I said presently; for now there was
+silence again, and beneath this extinguisher I felt alarmed and wished
+to be sure that I was not left alone.
+
+"Aye Holly," I heard Ayesha's mocking voice make answer, "in the dark,
+as thou wast ever, the thick dark of ignorance and unbelief. Well,
+now, as ever also, I will give thee light." As she spoke I heard
+something roll back; I suppose that it must have been a stone door.
+
+Then, indeed, there was light, yes, even through the thicknesses of
+that prepared garment, such light as seemed to blind me. By it I saw
+that the wall opposite to us had opened and that we were all three of
+us, on the threshold of another chamber. At the end of it stood
+something like a little altar of hard, black stone, and on this altar
+lay a mass of substance of the size of a child's head, but fashioned,
+I suppose from fantasy, to the oblong shape of a human eye.
+
+Out of this eye there poured that blistering and intolerable light. It
+was shut round by thick, funnel-shaped screens of a material that
+looked like fire-brick, yet it pierced them as though they were but
+muslin. More, the rays thus directed upwards struck full upon a lump
+of metal held in place above them by a massive frame-work.
+
+And what rays they were! If all the cut diamonds of the world were
+brought together and set beneath a mighty burning-glass, the light
+flashed from them would not have been a thousandth part so brilliant.
+They scorched my eyes and caused the skin of my face and limbs to
+smart, yet Ayesha stood there unshielded from them. Aye, she even went
+down the length of the room and, throwing back her veil, bent over
+them, as it seemed a woman of molten steel in whose body the bones
+were visible, and examined the mass that was supported by the hanging
+cradle.
+
+"It is ready and somewhat sooner than I thought," she said. Then as
+though it were but a feather weight, she lifted the lump in her bare
+hands and glided back with it to where we stood, laughing and saying--
+
+"Tell me now, O thou well-read Holly, if thou hast ever heard of a
+better alchemist than this poor priestess of a forgotten faith?" And
+she thrust the glowing substance up almost to the mask that hid my
+face.
+
+Then I turned and ran, or rather waddled, for in that gear I could not
+run, out of the chamber until the rock wall beyond stayed me, and
+there, with my back towards her, thrust my helmeted head against it,
+for I felt as though red-hot bradawls had been plunged into my eyes.
+So I stood while she laughed and mocked behind me until at length I
+heard the door close and the blessed darkness came like a gift from
+Heaven.
+
+Then Ayesha began to loose Leo from his ray-proof armour, if so it can
+be called, and he in turn loosed me; and there in that gentle radiance
+we stood blinking at each other like owls in the sunlight, while the
+tears streamed down our faces.
+
+"Well, art satisfied, my Holly?" she asked.
+
+"Satisfied with what?" I answered angrily, for the smarting of my eyes
+was unbearable. "Yes, with burnings and bedevilments I am well
+satisfied."
+
+"And I also," grumbled Leo, who was swearing softly but continuously
+to himself in the other corner of the place.
+
+But Ayesha only laughed, oh! she laughed until she seemed the goddess
+of all merriment come to earth, laughed till she also wept, then
+said--
+
+"Why, what ingratitude is this? Thou, my Leo, didst wish to see the
+wonders that I work, and thou, O Holly, didst come unbidden after I
+bade thee stay behind, and now both of you are rude and angry, aye,
+and weeping like a child with a burnt finger. Here take this," and she
+gave us some salve that stood upon a shelf, "and rub it on your eyes
+and the smart will pass away."
+
+So we did, and the pain went from them, though, for hours afterwards,
+mine remained red as blood.
+
+"And what are these wonders?" I asked her presently. "If thou meanest
+that unbearable flame----"
+
+"Nay, I mean what is born of the flame, as, in thine ignorance thou
+dost call that mighty agent. Look now;" and she pointed to the
+metallic lump she had brought with her, which, still gleaming faintly,
+lay upon the floor. "Nay, it has no heat. Thinkest thou that I would
+wish to burn my tender hands and so make them unsightly? Touch it,
+Holly."
+
+But I would not, who thought to myself that Ayesha might be well
+accustomed to the hottest fires, and feared her impish mischief. I
+looked, however, long and earnestly.
+
+"Well, what is it, Holly?"
+
+"Gold," I said, then corrected myself and added, "Copper," for the
+dull, red glow might have been that of either metal.
+
+"Nay, nay," she answered, "it is gold, pure gold."
+
+"The ore in this place must be rich," said Leo, incredulously, for I
+would not speak any more.
+
+"Yes, my Leo, the iron ore is rich."
+
+"Iron ore?" and he looked at her.
+
+"Surely," she answered, "for from what mine do men dig out gold in
+such great masses? Iron ore, beloved, that by my alchemy I change to
+gold, which soon shall serve us in our need."
+
+Now Leo stared and I groaned, for I did not believe that it was gold,
+and still less that she could make that metal. Then, reading my
+thought, with one of those sudden changes of mood that were common to
+her, Ayesha grew very angry.
+
+"By Nature's self!" she cried; "wert thou not my friend, Holly, the
+fool whom it pleases me to cherish, I would bind that right hand of
+thine in those secret rays till the very bones within it were turned
+to gold. Nay, why should I be vexed with thee, who art both blind and
+deaf? Yet thou /shalt/ be persuaded," and leaving us, she passed down
+the passages, called something to the priests who were labouring in
+the workshop, then returned to us.
+
+Presently they followed her, carrying on a kind of stretcher between
+them an ingot of iron ore that seemed to be as much as they could
+lift.
+
+"Now," she said, "how wilt thou that I mark this mass which as thou
+must admit is only iron? With the sign of Life? Good," and at her
+bidding the priests took cold-chisels and hammers and roughly cut upon
+its surface the symbol of the looped cross--the /crux ansata/.
+
+"It is not enough," she said when they had finished. "Holly, lend me
+that knife of thine, to-morrow I will return it to thee, and of more
+value."
+
+So I drew my hunting knife, an Indian-made thing, that had a handle of
+plated iron, and gave it her.
+
+"Thou knowest the marks on it," and she pointed to various dents and
+to the maker's name upon the blade; for though the hilt was Indian
+work the steel was of Sheffield manufacture.
+
+I nodded. Then she bade the priests put on the ray-proof armour that
+we had discarded, and told us to go without the chamber and lie in the
+darkness of the passage with our faces against the floor.
+
+This we did, and remained so until, a few minutes later, she called us
+again. We rose and returned into the chamber to find the priests, who
+had removed the protecting garments, gasping and rubbing the salve
+upon their eyes; to find also that the lump of iron ore and my knife
+were gone. Next she commanded them to place the block of gold-coloured
+metal upon their stretcher and to bring it with them. They obeyed, and
+we noted that, although those priests were both of them strong men
+they groaned beneath its weight.
+
+"How came it," said Leo, "that thou, a woman, couldst carry what these
+men find so heavy?"
+
+"It is one of the properties of that force which thou callest fire,"
+she answered sweetly, "to make what has been exposed to it, if for a
+little while only, as light as thistle-down. Else, how could I, who am
+so frail, have borne yonder block of gold?"
+
+"Quite so! I understand now," answered Leo.
+
+Well, that was the end of it. The lump of metal was hid away in a kind
+of rock pit, with an iron cover, and we returned to Ayesha's
+apartments.
+
+"So all wealth is thine, as well as all power," said Leo, presently,
+for remembering Ayesha's awful threat I scarcely dared to open my
+mouth.
+
+"It seems so," she answered wearily, "since centuries ago I discovered
+that great secret, though until ye came I had put it to no use. Holly
+here, after his common fashion, believes that this is magic, but I
+tell thee again that there is no magic, only knowledge which I have
+chanced to win."
+
+"Of course," said Leo, "looked at in the right way, that is in thy
+way, the thing is simple." I think he would have liked to add, "as
+lying," but as the phrase would have involved explanations, did not.
+"Yet, Ayesha," he went on, "hast thou thought that this discovery of
+thine will wreck the world?"
+
+"Leo," she answered, "is there then nothing that I can do which will
+not wreck this world, for which thou hast such tender care, who
+shouldst keep all thy care--for me?"
+
+I smiled, but remembering in time, turned the smile into a frown at
+Leo, then fearing lest that also might anger her, made my countenance
+as blank as possible.
+
+"If so," she continued, "well, let the world be wrecked. But what
+meanest thou? Oh! my lord, Leo, forgive me if I am so dull that I
+cannot always follow thy quick thought--I who have lived these many
+years alone, without converse with nobler minds, or even those to
+which mine own is equal."
+
+"It pleases thee to mock me," said Leo, in a vexed voice, "and that is
+not too brave."
+
+Now Ayesha turned on him fiercely, and I looked towards the door. But
+he did not shrink, only folded his arms and stared her straight in the
+face. She contemplated him a little, then said--
+
+"After that great ordained reason which thou dost not know, I think,
+Leo, that why I love thee so madly is that thou alone art not afraid
+of me. Not like Holly there, who, ever since I threatened to turn his
+bones to gold--which, indeed, I was minded to do," and she laughed--
+"trembles at my footsteps and cowers beneath my softest glance.
+
+"Oh! my lord, how good thou art to me, how patient with my moods and
+woman's weaknesses," and she made as though she were about to embrace
+him. Then suddenly remembering herself, with a little start that
+somehow conveyed more than the most tragic gesture, she pointed to the
+couch in token that he should seat himself. When he had done so she
+drew a footstool to his feet and sank upon it, looking up into his
+face with attentive eyes, like a child who listens for a story.
+
+"Thy reasons, Leo, give me thy reasons. Doubtless they are good, and,
+oh! be sure I'll weigh them well."
+
+"Here they are in brief," he answered. "The world, as thou knewest in
+thy--" and he stopped.
+
+"Thy earlier wanderings there," she suggested.
+
+"Yes--thy earlier wanderings there, has set up gold as the standard of
+its wealth. On it all civilizations are founded. Make it as common as
+it seems thou canst, and these must fall to pieces. Credit will fail
+and, like their savage forefathers, men must once more take to barter
+to supply their needs as they do in Kaloon to-day."
+
+"Why not?" she asked. "It would be more simple and bring them closer
+to the time when they were good and knew not luxury and greed."
+
+"And smashed in each other's heads with stone axes," added Leo.
+
+"Who now pierce each other's hearts with steel, or those leaden
+missiles of which thou hast told me. Oh! Leo, when the nations are
+beggared and their golden god is down; when the usurer and the fat
+merchant tremble and turn white as chalk because their hoards are but
+useless dross; when I have made the bankrupt Exchanges of the world my
+mock, and laugh across the ruin of its richest markets, why, then,
+will not true worth come to its heritage again?
+
+"What of it if I do discomfort those who think more of pelf than of
+courage and of virtue; those who, as that Hebrew prophet wrote, lay
+field to field and house to house, until the wretched whom they have
+robbed find no place left whereon to dwell? What if I proved your
+sagest chapmen fools, and gorge your greedy moneychangers with the
+gold that they desire until they loathe its very sight and touch? What
+if I uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed against the
+ravening lusts of Mammon? Why, will not this world of yours be happier
+then?"
+
+"I do not know," answered Leo. "All that I know is that it would be a
+different world, one shaped upon a new plan, governed by untried laws
+and seeking other ends. In so strange a place who can say what might
+or might not chance?"
+
+"That we shall learn in its season, Leo. Or, rather, if it be against
+thy wish, we will not turn this hidden page. Since thou dost desire
+it, that old evil, the love of lucre, shall still hold its mastery
+upon the earth. Let the peoples keep their yellow king, I'll not crown
+another in his place, as I was minded--such as that living Strength
+thou sawest burning eternally but now; that Power whereof I am the
+mistress, which can give health to men, or even change the character
+of metals, and in truth, if I so desire, obedient to my word, destroy
+a city or rend this Mountain from its roots.
+
+"But see, Holly is wearied with much wondering and needs his rest. Oh,
+Holly! thou wast born a critic of things done, not a doer of them. I
+know thy tribe for even in my day the colleges of Alexandria echoed
+with their wranglings and already the winds blew thick with the dust
+of their forgotten bones. Holly, I tell thee that at times those who
+create and act are impatient of such petty doubts and cavillings. Yet
+fear not, old friend, nor take my anger ill. Already thy heart is gold
+without alloy, so what need have I to gild thy bones?"
+
+I thanked Ayesha for her compliment, and went to my bed wondering
+which was real, her kindness or her wrath, or if both were but
+assumed. Also I wondered in what way she had fallen foul of the
+critics of Alexandria. Perhaps once she had published a poem or a
+system of philosophy and been roughly handled by them! It is quite
+possible, only if Ayesha had ever written poetry I think that it would
+have endured, like Sappho's.
+
+In the morning I discovered that whatever else about her might be
+false, Ayesha was a true chemist, the very greatest, I suppose, who
+ever lived. For as I dressed myself, those priests whom we had seen in
+the laboratory, staggered into the room carrying between them a heavy
+burden, that was covered with a cloth, and, directed by Oros, placed
+it upon the floor.
+
+"What is that?" I asked of Oros.
+
+"A peace-offering sent by the Hesea," he said, "with whom, as I am
+told, you dared to quarrel yesterday."
+
+Then he withdrew the cloth, and there beneath it shone that great lump
+of metal which, in the presence of myself and Leo, had been marked
+with the Symbol of Life, that still appeared upon its surface. Only
+now it was gold, not iron, gold so good and soft that I could write my
+name upon it with a nail. My knife lay with it also, and of that too
+the handle, though not the blade, had been changed from iron into
+gold.
+
+Ayesha asked to see this afterwards and was but ill-pleased with the
+result of her experiment. She pointed out to me that lines and blotches
+of gold ran for an inch or more down the substance of the steel, which
+she feared that they might weaken or distemper, whereas it had been her
+purpose that the hilt only should be altered.[*]
+
+[*] I proved in after days how real were Ayesha's alchemy, and the
+    knowledge which enabled her to solve the secret that chemists have
+    hunted for in vain, and, like Nature's self, to transmute the
+    commonest into the most precious of the metals. At the first town
+    that I reached on the frontiers of India, I took this knife to a
+    jeweller, a native, who was as clever as he proved dishonest, and
+    asked him to test the handle. He did so with acids and by other
+    means, and told me that it was of very pure gold, twenty-four
+    carats, I think he said. Also he pointed out that this gold became
+    gradually merged into the steel of the blade in a way which was
+    quite inexplicable to him, and asked me to clear up the matter. Of
+    course I could not, but at his request I left the knife in his
+    shop to give him an opportunity of examining it further. The next
+    day I was taken ill with one of the heart-attacks to which I have
+    been liable of late, and when I became able to move about again a
+    while afterwards, I found that this jeweller had gone, none knew
+    whither. So had my knife.--L. H. H.
+
+Often since that time I have marvelled how Ayesha performed this
+miracle, and from what substances she gathered or compounded the
+lightning-like material, which was her servant in the work; also,
+whether or no it had been impregnated with the immortalizing fire of
+Life that burned in the caves of Kor.[*] Yet to this hour I have found
+no answer to the problem, for it is beyond my guessing.
+
+[*] Recent discoveries would appear to suggest that this mysterious
+    "Fire of Life," which, whatever else it may have been, was
+    evidently a force and no true fire, since it did not burn, owed
+    its origin to the emanations from radium, or some kindred
+    substance. Although in the year 1885, Mr. Holly would have known
+    nothing of the properties of these marvellous rays or emanations,
+    doubtless Ayesha was familiar with them and their enormous
+    possibilities, of which our chemists and scientific men have, at
+    present, but explored the fringe.--Editor.
+
+I suppose that, in preparation for her conquest of the inhabitants of
+this globe--to which, indeed, it would have sufficed unaided by any
+other power--the manufacture of gold from iron went on in the cave
+unceasingly.
+
+However this may be, during the few days that we remained together
+Ayesha never so much as spoke of it again. It seemed to have served
+her purpose for the while, or in the press of other and more urgent
+matters to have been forgotten or thrust from her mind. Still, amongst
+others, of which I have said nothing, since it is necessary to select,
+I record this strange incident, and our conversations concerning it at
+length, for the reason that it made a great impression upon me and
+furnishes a striking example of Ayesha's dominion over the hidden
+forces of Nature whereof we were soon to experience a more fearful
+instance.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXI
+
+                        THE PROPHECY OF ATENE
+
+On the day following this strange experience of the iron that was
+turned to gold some great service was held in the Sanctuary, as we
+understood, "to consecrate the war." We did not attend it, but that
+night we ate together as usual. Ayesha was moody at the meal, that is,
+she varied from sullenness to laughter.
+
+"Know you," she said, "that to-day I was an Oracle, and those fools of
+the Mountain sent their medicine-men to ask of the Hesea how the
+battle would go and which of them would be slain, and which gain
+honour. And I--I could not tell them, but juggled with my words, so
+that they might take them as they would. How the battle will go I know
+well, for I shall direct it, but the future--ah! that I cannot read
+better than thou canst, my Holly, and that is ill indeed. For me the
+past and all the present lie bathed in light reflected from that black
+wall--the future."
+
+Then she fell to brooding, and looking up at length with an air of
+entreaty, said to Leo--
+
+"Wilt thou not hear my prayer and bide where thou art for some few
+days, or even go a-hunting? Do so, and I will stay with thee, and send
+Holly and Oros to command the Tribes in this petty fray."
+
+"I will not," answered Leo, trembling with indignation, for this plan
+of hers that I should be sent out to war, while he bided in safety in
+a temple, moved him, a man brave to rashness, who, although he
+disapproved of it in theory, loved fighting for its own sake also, to
+absolute rage.
+
+"I say, Ayesha, that I will not," he repeated; "moreover, that if thou
+leavest me here I will find my way down the mountain alone, and join
+the battle."
+
+"Then come," she answered, "and on thine own head be it. Nay, not on
+thine beloved, on mine, on mine."
+
+After this, by some strange reaction, she became like a merry girl,
+laughing more than I have ever seen her do, and telling us many tales
+of the far, far past, but none that were sad or tragic. It was very
+strange to sit and listen to her while she spoke of people, one or two
+of them known as names in history and many others who never have been
+heard of, that had trod this earth and with whom she was familiar over
+two thousand years ago. Yet she told us anecdotes of their loves and
+hates, their strength or weaknesses, all of them touched with some
+tinge of humorous satire, or illustrating the comic vanity of human
+aims and aspirations.
+
+At length her talk took a deeper and more personal note. She spoke of
+her searchings after truth; of how, aching for wisdom, she had
+explored the religions of her day and refused them one by one; of how
+she had preached in Jerusalem and been stoned by the Doctors of the
+Law. Of how also she had wandered back to Arabia and, being rejected
+by her own people as a reformer, had travelled on to Egypt, and at the
+court of the Pharaoh of that time met a famous magician, half
+charlatan and half seer who, because she was far-seeing,
+'clairvoyante' we should call it, instructed her in his art so well
+that soon she became his master and forced him to obey her.
+
+Then, as though she were unwilling to reveal too much, suddenly
+Ayesha's history passed from Egypt to Kor. She spoke to Leo of his
+arrival there, a wanderer who was named Kallikrates, hunted by savages
+and accompanied by the Egyptian Amenartas, whom she appeared to have
+known and hated in her own country, and of how she entertained them.
+Yes, she even told of a supper that the three of them had eaten
+together on the evening before they started to discover the Place of
+Life, and of an evil prophecy that this royal Amenartas had made as to
+the issue of their journey.
+
+"Aye," Ayesha said, "it was such a silent night as this and such a
+meal as this we ate, and Leo, not so greatly changed, save that he was
+beardless then and younger, was at my side. Where thou sittest, Holly,
+sat the royal Amenartas, a very fair woman; yes, even more beautiful
+than I before I dipped me in the Essence, fore-sighted also, though
+not so learned as I had grown. From the first we hated each other, and
+more than ever now, when she guessed how I had learned to look upon
+thee, her lover, Leo; for her husband thou never wast, who didst flee
+too fast for marriage. She knew also that the struggle between us
+which had begun of old and afar was for centuries and generations, and
+that until the end should declare itself neither of us could harm the
+other, who both had sinned to win thee, that wast appointed by fate to
+be the lodestone of our souls. Then Amenartas spoke and said--
+
+"'Lo! to my sight, Kallikrates, the wine in thy cup is turned to
+blood, and that knife in thy hand, O daughter of Yarab'--for so she
+named me--'drips red blood. Aye, and this place is a sepulchre, and
+thou, O Kallikrates, sleepest here, nor can she, thy murderess, kiss
+back the breath of life into those cold lips of thine.'
+
+"So indeed it came about as was ordained," added Ayesha reflectively,
+"for I slew thee in yonder Place of Life, yes, in my madness I slew
+thee because thou wouldst not or couldst not understand the change
+that had come over me, and shrankest from my loveliness like a blind
+bat from the splendour of flame, hiding thy face in the tresses of her
+dusky hair--Why, what is it now, thou Oros? Can I never be rid of thee
+for an hour?"
+
+"O Hes, a writing from the Khania Atene," the priest said with his
+deprecating bow.
+
+"Break the seal and read," she answered carelessly. "Perchance she has
+repented of her folly and makes submission."
+
+So he read--
+
+
+ "To the Hesea of the College on the Mountain, known as Ayesha upon
+  earth, and in the household of the Over-world whence she has been
+  permitted to wander, as 'Star-that-hath-fallen--'"
+
+
+"A pretty sounding name, forsooth," broke in Ayesha; "ah! but, Atene,
+set stars rise again--even from the Under-world. Read on, thou Oros."
+
+
+ "Greetings, O Ayesha. Thou who art very old, hast gathered much
+  wisdom in the passing of the centuries, and with other powers,
+  that of making thyself seem fair in the eyes of men blinded by
+  thine arts. Yet one thing thou lackest that I have--vision of
+  those happenings which are not yet. Know, O Ayesha, that I and my
+  uncle, the great seer, have searched the heavenly books to learn
+  what is written there of the issue of this war.
+
+ "This is written:--For me, death, whereat I rejoice. For thee a
+  spear cast by thine own hand. For the land of Kaloon blood and
+  ruin bred of thee!
+
+ "Atene,
+
+ "Khania of Kaloon."
+
+
+Ayesha listened in silence, but her lips did not tremble, nor her
+cheek pale. To Oros she said proudly--
+
+"Say to the messenger of Atene that I have received her message, and
+ere long will answer it, face to face with her in her palace of
+Kaloon. Go, priest, and disturb me no more."
+
+When Oros had departed she turned to us and said--
+
+"That tale of mine of long ago was well fitted to this hour, for as
+Amenartas prophesied of ill, so does Atene prophesy of ill, and
+Amenartas and Atene are one. Well, let the spear fall, if fall it
+must, and I will not flinch from it who know that I shall surely
+triumph at the last. Perhaps the Khania does but think to frighten me
+with a cunning lie, but if she has read aright, then be sure, beloved,
+that it is still well with us, since none can escape their destiny,
+nor can our bond of union which was fashioned with the universe that
+bears us, ever be undone."
+
+She paused awhile then went on with a sudden outburst of poetic
+thought and imagery.
+
+"I tell thee, Leo, that out of the confusions of our lives and deaths
+order shall yet be born. Behind the mask of cruelty shine Mercy's
+tender eyes; and the wrongs of this rough and twisted world are but
+hot, blinding sparks which stream from the all-righting sword of pure,
+eternal Justice. The heavy lives we see and know are only links in a
+golden chain that shall draw us safe to the haven of our rest; steep
+and painful steps are they whereby we climb to the alloted palace of
+our joy. Henceforth I fear no more, and fight no more against that
+which must befall. For I say we are but winged seeds blown down the
+gales of fate and change to the appointed garden where we shall grow,
+filling its blest air with the immortal fragrance of our bloom.
+
+"Leave me now, Leo, and sleep awhile, for we ride at dawn."
+
+It was midday on the morrow when we moved down the mountain-side with
+the army of the Tribes, fierce and savage-looking men. The scouts were
+out before us, then came the great body of their cavalry mounted on
+wiry horses, while to right and left and behind, the foot soldiers
+marched in regiments, each under the command of its own chief.
+
+Ayesha, veiled now--for she would not show her beauty to these wild
+folk--rode in the midst of the horse-men on a white mare of matchless
+speed and shape. With her went Leo and myself, Leo on the Khan's black
+horse, and I on another not unlike it, though thicker built. About us
+were a bodyguard of armed priests and a regiment of chosen soldiers,
+among them those hunters that Leo had saved from Ayesha's wrath, and
+who were now attached to his person.
+
+We were merry, all of us, for in the crisp air of late autumn flooded
+with sunlight, the fears and forebodings that had haunted us in those
+gloomy, firelit caves were forgotten. Moreover, the tramp of thousands
+of armed men and the excitement of coming battle thrilled our nerves.
+
+Not for many a day had I seen Leo look so vigorous and happy. Of late
+he had grown somewhat thin and pale, probably from causes that I have
+suggested, but now his cheeks were red and his eyes shone bright
+again. Ayesha also seemed joyous, for the moods of this strange woman
+were as fickle as those of Nature's self, and varied as a landscape
+varies under the sunshine or the shadow. Now she was noon and now dark
+night; now dawn, now evening, and now thoughts came and went in the
+blue depths of her eyes like vapours wafted across the summer sky, and
+in the press of them her sweet face changed and shimmered as broken
+water shimmers beneath the beaming stars.
+
+"Too long," she said, with a little thrilling laugh, "have I been shut
+in the bowels of sombre mountains, accompanied only by mutes and
+savages or by melancholy, chanting priests, and now I am glad to look
+upon the world again. How beautiful are the snows above, and the brown
+slopes below, and the broad plains beyond that roll away to those
+bordering hills! How glorious is the sun, eternal as myself; how sweet
+the keen air of heaven.
+
+"Believe me, Leo, more than twenty centuries have gone by since I was
+seated on a steed, and yet thou seest I have not forgot my
+horsemanship, though this beast cannot match those Arabs that I rode
+in the wide deserts of Arabia. Oh! I remember how at my father's side
+I galloped down to war against the marauding Bedouins, and how with my
+own hand I speared their chieftain and made him cry for mercy. One day
+I will tell thee of that father of mine, for I was his darling, and
+though we have been long apart, I hold his memory dear and look
+forward to our meeting.
+
+"See, yonder is the mouth of that gorge where lived the cat-
+worshipping sorcerer, who would have murdered both of you because
+thou, Leo, didst throw his familiar to the fire. It is strange, but
+several of the tribes of this Mountain and of the lands behind it make
+cats their gods or divine by means of them. I think that the first
+Rassen, the general of Alexander, must have brought the practice here
+from Egypt. Of this Macedonian Alexander I could tell thee much, for
+he was almost a contemporary of mine, and when I last was born the
+world still rang with the fame of his great deeds.
+
+"It was Rassen who on the Mountain supplanted the primeval fire-
+worship whereof the flaming pillars which light its Sanctuary remain
+as monuments, by that of Hes, or Isis, or rather blended the two in
+one. Doubtless among the priests in his army were some of Pasht or
+Sekket the Cat-headed, and these brought with them their secret cult,
+that to-day has dwindled down to the vulgar divinations of savage
+sorcerers. Indeed I remember dimly that it was so, for I was the first
+Hesea of this Temple, and journeyed hither with that same general
+Rassen, a relative of mine."
+
+Now both Leo and I looked at her wonderingly, and I could see that she
+was watching us through her veil. As usual, however, it was I whom she
+reproved, since Leo might think and do what he willed and still escape
+her anger.
+
+"Thou, Holly," she said quickly, "who art ever of a cavilling and
+suspicious mind, remembering what I said but now, believest that I lie
+to thee."
+
+I protested that I was only reflecting upon an apparent variation
+between two statements.
+
+"Play not with words," she answered; "in thy heart thou didst write me
+down a liar, and I take that ill. Know, foolish man, that when I said
+that the Macedonian Alexander lived before me, I meant before this
+present life of mine. In the existence that preceded it, though I
+outlasted him by thirty years, we were born in the same summer, and I
+knew him well, for I was the Oracle whom he consulted most upon his
+wars, and to my wisdom he owed his victories. Afterwards we
+quarrelled, and I left him and pushed forward with Rassen. From that
+day the bright star of Alexander began to wane." At this Leo made a
+sound that resembled a whistle. In a very agony of apprehension,
+beating back the criticisms and certain recollections of the strange
+tale of the old abbot, Kou-en, which would rise within me, I asked
+quickly--
+
+"And dost thou, Ayesha, remember well all that befell thee in this
+former life?"
+
+"Nay, not well," she answered, meditatively, "only the greater facts,
+and those I have for the most part recovered by that study of secret
+things which thou callest vision or magic. For instance, my Holly, I
+recall that thou wast living in that life. Indeed I seem to see an
+ugly philosopher clad in a dirty robe and filled both with wine and
+the learning of others, who disputed with Alexander till he grew wroth
+with him and caused him to be banished, or drowned: I forget which."
+
+"I suppose that I was not called Diogenes?" I asked tartly,
+suspecting, perhaps not without cause, that Ayesha was amusing herself
+by fooling me.
+
+"No," she replied gravely, "I do not think that was thy name. The
+Diogenes thou speakest of was a much more famous man, one of real if
+crabbed wisdom; moreover, he did not indulge in wine. I am mindful of
+very little of that life, however, not of more indeed than are many of
+the followers of the prophet Buddha, whose doctrines I have studied
+and of whom thou, Holly, hast spoken to me so much. Maybe we did not
+meet while it endured. Still I recollect that the Valley of Bones,
+where I found thee, my Leo, was the place where a great battle was
+fought between the Fire-priests with their vassals, the Tribes of the
+Mountain and the army of Rassen aided by the people of Kaloon. For
+between these and the Mountain, in old days as now, there was enmity,
+since in this present war history does but rewrite itself."
+
+"So thou thyself wast our guide," said Leo, looking at her sharply.
+
+"Aye, Leo, who else? though it is not wonderful that thou didst not
+know me beneath those deathly wrappings. I was minded to wait and
+receive thee in the Sanctuary, yet when I learned that at length both
+of you had escaped Atene and drew near, I could restrain myself no
+more, but came forth thus hideously disguised. Yes, I was with you
+even at the river's bank, and though you saw me not, there sheltered
+you from harm.
+
+"Leo, I yearned to look upon thee and to be certain that thy heart had
+not changed, although until the alloted time thou mightest not hear my
+voice or see my face who wert doomed to undergo that sore trial of thy
+faith. Of Holly also I desired to learn whether his wisdom could
+pierce through my disguise, and how near he stood to truth. It was for
+this reason that I suffered him to see me draw the lock from the
+satchel on thy breast and to hear me wail over thee yonder in the
+Rest-house. Well he did not guess so ill, but thou, thou knewest me--
+in thy sleep--knewest me as I am, and not as I seemed to be, yes," she
+added softly, "and didst say certain sweet words which I remember
+well."
+
+"Then beneath that shroud was thine own face," asked Leo again, for he
+was very curious on this point, "the same lovely face I see to-day?"
+
+"Mayhap--as thou wilt," she answered coldly; "also it is the spirit
+that matters, not the outward seeming, though men in their blindness
+think otherwise. Perchance my face is but as thy heart fashions it, or
+as my will presents it to the sight and fancy of its beholders. But
+hark! The scouts have touched."
+
+As Ayesha spoke a sound of distant shouting was borne upon the wind,
+and presently we saw a fringe of horsemen falling back slowly upon our
+foremost line. It was only to report, however, that the skirmishers of
+Atene were in full retreat. Indeed, a prisoner whom they brought with
+them, on being questioned by the priests, confessed at once that the
+Khania had no mind to meet us upon the holy Mountain. She proposed to
+give battle on the river's farther bank, having for a defence its
+waters which we must ford, a decision that showed good military
+judgment.
+
+So it happened that on this day there was no fighting.
+
+All that afternoon we descended the slopes of the Mountain, more
+swiftly by far than we had climbed them after our long flight from the
+city of Kaloon. Before sunset we came to our prepared camping ground,
+a wide and sloping plain that ended at the crest of the Valley of Dead
+Bones, where in past days we had met our mysterious guide. This,
+however, we did not reach through the secret mountain tunnel along
+which she had led us, the shortest way by miles, as Ayesha told us
+now, since it was unsuited to the passage of an army.
+
+Bending to the left, we circled round a number of unclimbable koppies,
+beneath which that tunnel passed, and so at length arrived upon the
+brow of the dark ravine where we could sleep safe from attack by
+night.
+
+Here a tent was pitched for Ayesha, but as it was the only one, Leo
+and I with our guard bivouacked among some rocks at a distance of a
+few hundred yards. When she found that this must be so, Ayesha was
+very angry and spoke bitter words to the chief who had charge of the
+food and baggage, although, he, poor man, knew nothing of tents.
+
+Also she blamed Oros, who replied meekly that he had thought us
+captains accustomed to war and its hardships. But most of all she was
+angry with herself, who had forgotten this detail, and until Leo
+stopped her with a laugh of vexation, went on to suggest that we
+should sleep in the tent, since she had no fear of the rigours of the
+mountain cold.
+
+The end of it was that we supped together outside, or rather Leo and I
+supped, for as there were guards around us Ayesha did not even lift
+her veil.
+
+That evening Ayesha was disturbed and ill at ease, as though new fears
+which she could not overcome assailed her. At length she seemed to
+conquer them by some effort of her will and announced that she was
+minded to sleep and thus refresh her soul; the only part of her, I
+think, which ever needed rest. Her last words to us were--
+
+"Sleep you also, sleep sound, but be not astonished, my Leo, if I send
+to summon both of you during the night, since in my slumbers I may
+find new counsels and need to speak of them to thee ere we break camp
+at dawn."
+
+Thus we parted, but ah! little did we guess how and where the three of
+us would meet again.
+
+We were weary and soon fell fast asleep beside our camp-fire, for,
+knowing that the whole army guarded us, we had no fear. I remember
+watching the bright stars which shone in the immense vault above me
+until they paled in the pure light of the risen moon, now somewhat
+past her full, and hearing Leo mutter drowsily from beneath his fur
+rug that Ayesha was quite right, and that it was pleasant to be in the
+open air again, as he was tired of caves.
+
+After that I knew no more until I was awakened by the challenge of a
+sentry in the distance; then after a pause, a second challenge from
+the officer of our own guard. Another pause, and a priest stood bowing
+before us, the flickering light from the fire playing upon his shaven
+head and face, which I seemed to recognize.
+
+"I"--and he gave a name that was familiar to me, but which I forget--
+"am sent, my lords, by Oros, who commands me to say that the Hesea
+would speak with you both and at once."
+
+Now Leo sat up yawning and asked what was the matter. I told him,
+whereon he said he wished that Ayesha could have waited till daylight,
+then added--
+
+"Well, there is no help for it. Come on, Horace," and he rose to
+follow the messenger.
+
+The priest bowed again and said--
+
+"The commands of the Hesea are that my lords should bring their
+weapons and their guard."
+
+"What," grumbled Leo, "to protect us for a walk of a hundred yards
+through the heart of an army?"
+
+"The Hesea," explained the man, "has left her tent; she is in the
+gorge yonder, studying the line of advance."
+
+"How do you know that?" I asked.
+
+"I do not know it," he replied. "Oros told me so, that is all, and
+therefore the Hesea bade my lords bring their guard, for she is
+alone."
+
+"Is she mad," ejaculated Leo, "to wander about in such a place at
+midnight? Well, it is like her."
+
+I too thought it was like her, who did nothing that others would have
+done, and yet I hesitated. Then I remembered that Ayesha had said she
+might send for us; also I was sure that if any trick had been intended
+we should not have been warned to bring an escort. So we called the
+guard--there were twelve of them--took our spears and swords and
+started.
+
+We were challenged by both the first and second lines of sentries, and
+I noticed that as we gave them the password the last picket, who of
+course recognized us, looked astonished. Still, if they had doubts
+they did not dare to express them. So we went on.
+
+Now we began to descend the sides of the ravine by a very steep path,
+with which the priest, our guide, seemed to be curiously familiar, for
+he went down it as though it were the stairway of his own house.
+
+"A strange place to take us to at night," said Leo doubtfully, when we
+were near the bottom and the chief of the bodyguard, that great red-
+bearded hunter who had been mixed up in the matter of the snow-leopard
+also muttered some words of remonstrance. Whilst I was trying to catch
+what he said, of a sudden something white walked into the patch of
+moonlight at the foot of the ravine, and we saw that it was the veiled
+figure of Ayesha herself. The chief saw her also and said
+contentedly--
+
+"Hes! Hes!"
+
+"Look at her," grumbled Leo, "strolling about in that haunted hole as
+though it were Hyde Park;" and on he went at a run.
+
+The figure turned and beckoned to us to follow her as she glided
+forward, picking her way through the skeletons which were scattered
+about upon the lava bed of the cleft. Thus she went on into the shadow
+of the opposing cliff that the moonlight did not reach. Here in the
+wet season a stream trickled down a path which it had cut through the
+rock in the course of centuries, and the grit that it had brought with
+it was spread about the lava floor of the ravine, so that many of the
+bones were almost completely buried in the sand.
+
+These, I noticed, as we stepped into the shadow, were more numerous
+than usual just here, for on all sides I saw the white crowns of
+skulls, or the projecting ends of ribs and thigh bones. Doubtless, I
+thought to myself, that streamway made a road to the plain above, and
+in some past battle, the fighting around it was very fierce and the
+slaughter great.
+
+Here Ayesha had halted and was engaged in the contemplation of this
+boulder-strewn path, as though she meditated making use of it that
+day. Now we drew near to her, and the priest who guided us fell back
+with our guard, leaving us to go forward alone, since they dared not
+approach the Hesea unbidden. Leo was somewhat in advance of me, seven
+or eight yards perhaps, and I heard him say--
+
+"Why dost thou venture into such places at night, Ayesha, unless
+indeed it is not possible for any harm to come to thee?"
+
+She made no answer, only turned and opened her arms wide, then let
+them fall to her side again. Whilst I wondered what this signal of
+hers might mean, from the shadows about us came a strange, rustling
+sound.
+
+I looked, and lo! everywhere the skeletons were rising from their
+sandy beds. I saw their white skulls, their gleaming arm and leg
+bones, their hollow ribs. The long-slain army had come to life again,
+and look! in their hands were the ghosts of spears.
+
+Of course I knew at once that this was but another manifestation of
+Ayesha's magic powers, which some whim of hers had drawn us from our
+beds to witness. Yet I confess that I felt frightened. Even the
+boldest of men, however free from superstition, might be excused
+should their nerve fail them if, when standing in a churchyard at
+midnight, suddenly on every side they saw the dead arising from their
+graves. Also our surroundings were wilder and more eerie than those of
+any civilized burying-place.
+
+"What new devilment of thine is this?" cried Leo in a scared and angry
+voice. But Ayesha made no answer. I heard a noise behind me and looked
+round. The skeletons were springing upon our body-guard, who for their
+part, poor men, paralysed with terror, had thrown down their weapons
+and fallen, some of them, to their knees. Now the ghosts began to stab
+at them with their phantom spears, and I saw that beneath the blows
+they rolled over. The veiled figure above me pointed with her hand at
+Leo and said--
+
+"Seize him, but I charge you, harm him not."
+
+I knew the voice; /it was that of Atene!/
+
+Then too late I understood the trap into which we had fallen.
+
+"Treachery!" I began to cry, and before the word was out of my lips, a
+particularly able-bodied skeleton silenced me with a violent blow upon
+the head. But though I could not speak, my senses still stayed with me
+for a little. I saw Leo fighting furiously with a number of men who
+strove to pull him down, so furiously, indeed that his frightful
+efforts caused the blood to gush out of his mouth from some burst
+vessel in the lungs.
+
+Then sight and hearing failed me, and thinking that this was death, I
+fell and remembered no more.
+
+Why I was not killed outright I do not know, unless in their hurry the
+disguised soldiers thought me already dead, or perhaps that my life
+was to be spared also. At least, beyond the knock upon the head I
+received no injury.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII
+
+                      THE LOOSING OF THE POWERS
+
+When I came to myself again, it was daylight. I saw the calm, gentle
+face of Qros bending over me as he poured some strong fluid down my
+throat that seemed to shoot through all my body, and melt a curtain in
+my mind. I saw also that beside him stood Ayesha.
+
+"Speak, man, speak," she said in a terrible voice. "What hast chanced
+here? Thou livest, then where is my lord? Where hast thou hid my lord?
+Tell me--or die."
+
+It was the vision that I saw when my senses left me in the snow of the
+avalanche, fulfilled to the last detail!
+
+"Atene has taken him," I answered.
+
+"Atene has taken him and thou art left alive?"
+
+"Do not be wrath with me," I answered, "it is no fault of mine. Little
+wonder we were deceived after thou hadst said that thou mightest
+summon us ere dawn."
+
+Then as briefly as I could I told the story.
+
+She listened, went to where our murdered guards lay with unstained
+spears, and looked at them.
+
+"Well for these that they are dead," she exclaimed. "Now, Holly, thou
+seest what is the fruit of mercy. The men whose lives I gave my lord
+have failed him at his need."
+
+Then she passed forward to the spot where Leo was captured. Here lay a
+broken sword--Leo's--that had been the Khan Rassen's, and two dead
+men. Both of these were clothed in some tight-fitting black garments,
+having their heads and faces whitened with chalk and upon their vests
+a rude imitation of a human skeleton, also daubed in chalk.
+
+"A trick fit to frighten fools with," she said contemptuously. "But
+oh! that Atene should have dared to play the part of Ayesha, that she
+should have dared!" and she clenched her little hand. "See, surprised
+and overwhelmed, yet he fought well. Say! was he hurt, Holly? It comes
+upon me--no, tell me that I see amiss."
+
+"Not much, I think," I answered doubtfully, "a little blood was
+running from his mouth, no more. Look, there go the stains of it upon
+that rock."
+
+"For every drop I'll take a hundred lives. By myself I swear it,"
+Ayesha muttered with a groan. Then she cried in a ringing voice,
+
+"Back and to horse, for I have deeds to do this day. Nay, bide thou
+here, Holly; we go a shorter path while the army skirts the gorge.
+Oros, give him food and drink and bathe that hurt upon his head. It is
+but a bruise, for his hood and hair are thick."
+
+So while Oros rubbed some stinging lotion on my scalp, I ate and drank
+as best I could till my brain ceased to swim, for the blow, though
+heavy, had not fractured the bone. When I was ready they brought the
+horses to us, and mounting them, slowly we scrambled up the steep bed
+of the water-course.
+
+"See," Ayesha said, pointing to tracks and hoof-prints on the plain at
+its head, "there was a chariot awaiting him, and harnessed to it were
+four swift horses. Atene's scheme was clever and well laid, and I,
+grown oversure and careless, slept through it all!"
+
+On this plain the army of the Tribes that had broken camp before the
+dawn was already gathering fast; indeed, the cavalry, if I may call
+them so, were assembled there to the number of about five thousand
+men, each of whom had a led horse. Ayesha summoned the chiefs and
+captains, and addressed them. "Servants of Hes," she said, "the
+stranger lord, my betrothed and guest, has been tricked by a false
+priest and, falling into a cunning snare, captured as a hostage. It is
+necessary that I follow him fast, before harm comes--to him. We move
+down to attack the army of the Khania beyond the river. When its
+passage is forced I pass on with the horsemen, for I must sleep in the
+city of Kaloon to-night. What sayest thou, Oros? That a second and
+greater army defends its walls? Man, I know it, and if there is need,
+that army I will destroy. Nay, stare not at me. Already they are as
+dead. Horsemen, you accompany me.
+
+"Captains of the Tribes, you follow, and woe be to that man who hangs
+back in the hour of battle, for death and eternal shame shall be his
+portion, but wealth and honour to those who bear them bravely. Yes, I
+tell you, theirs shall be the fair land of Kaloon. You have your
+orders for the passing of yonder river. I, with the horsemen, take the
+central ford. Let the wings advance."
+
+The chiefs answered with a cheer, for they were fierce men whose
+ancestors had loved war for generations. Moreover, mad as seemed the
+enterprise, they trusted in their Oracle, the Hesea, and, like all
+hill peoples, were easily fired by the promise of rich plunder.
+
+An hour's steady march down the slopes brought the army to the edge of
+the marsh lands. These, as it chanced, proved no obstacle to our
+progress, for in that season of great drought they were quite dry, and
+for the same reason the shrunken river was not so impassable a defence
+as I feared that it would be. Still, because of its rocky bottom and
+steep, opposing banks, it looked formidable enough, while on the
+crests of those banks, in squadrons and companies of horse and foot,
+were gathered the regiments of Atene.
+
+While the wings of footmen deployed to right and left, the cavalry
+halted in the marshes and let their horses fill themselves with the
+long grass, now a little browned by frost, that grew on this boggy
+soil, and afterwards drink some water.
+
+All this time Ayesha stood silent, for she also had dismounted, that
+the mare she rode and her two led horses might graze with the others.
+Indeed, she spoke but once, saying--
+
+"Thou thinkest this adventure mad, my Holly? Say, art afraid?"
+
+"Not with thee for captain," I answered. "Still, that second army----"
+
+"Shall melt before me like mist before the gale," she replied in a low
+and thrilling voice. "Holly, I tell thee thou shalt see things such as
+no man upon the earth has ever seen. Remember my words when I /loose
+the Powers/ and thou followest the rent veil of Ayesha through the
+smitten squadrons of Kaloon. Only--what if Atene should dare to murder
+him? Oh, if she should dare!"
+
+"Be comforted," I replied, wondering what she might mean by this
+loosing of the Powers. "I think that she loves him too well."
+
+"I bless thee for the words, Holly, yet--I know he will refuse her,
+and then her hate for me and her jealous rage may overcome her love
+for him. Should this be so, what will avail my vengeance? Eat and
+drink again, Holly--nay, I touch no food until I sit in the palace of
+Kaloon--and look well to girth and bridle, for thou ridest far and on
+a wild errand. Mount thee on Leo's horse, which is swift and sure; if
+it dies the guards will bring thee others."
+
+I obeyed her as best I could, and once more bathed my head in a pool,
+and with the help of Oros tied a rag soaked in the liniment on the
+bruise, after which I felt sound enough. Indeed, the mad excitement of
+those minutes of waiting, and some foreshadowing of the terrible
+wonders that were about to befall, made me forget my hurts.
+
+Now, Ayesha was standing staring upwards, so that although I could not
+see her veiled face, I guessed that her eyes must be fixed on the sky
+above the mountain top. I was certain, also, that she was
+concentrating her fearful will upon an unknown object, for her whole
+frame quivered like a reed shaken in the wind.
+
+It was a very strange morning--cold and clear, yet curiously still,
+and with a heaviness in the air such as precedes a great fall of snow,
+although for much snow the season was yet too early. Once or twice,
+too, in that utter calm, I thought that I felt everything shudder; not
+the ordinary trembling of earthquake, however, for the shuddering
+seemed to be of the atmosphere quite as much as of the land. It was as
+though all Nature around us were a living creature which is very much
+afraid.
+
+Following Ayesha's earnest gaze, I perceived that thick, smoky clouds
+were gathering one by one in the clear sky above the peak, and that
+they were edged, each of them, with a fiery rim. Watching these
+fantastic and ominous clouds, I ventured to say to her that it looked
+as though the weather would change--not a very original remark, but
+one which the circumstances suggested.
+
+"Aye," she answered, "ere night the weather will be wilder even than
+my heart. No longer shall they cry for water in Kaloon! Mount, Holly,
+mount! The advance begins!" and unaided she sprang to the saddle of
+the mare that Oros brought her.
+
+Then, in the midst of the five thousand horsemen, we moved down upon
+the ford. As we reached its brink I noted that the two divisions of
+tribesmen were already entering the stream half a mile to the right
+and left of us. Of what befell them I can tell nothing from
+observation, although I learned later that they forced it after great
+slaughter on both sides.
+
+In front of us was gathered the main body of the Khania's army, massed
+by regiments upon the further bank, while hundreds of picked men stood
+up to their middles in the water, waiting to spear or hamstring our
+horses as we advanced.
+
+Now, uttering their wild, whistling cry, our leading companies dashed
+into the river, leaving us upon the bank, and soon were engaged hotly
+with the footmen in midstream. While this fray went on, Oros came to
+Ayesha, told her a spy had reported that Leo, bound in a two-wheeled
+carriage and accompanied by Atene, Simbri and a guard, had passed
+through the enemy's camp at night, galloping furiously towards Kaloon.
+
+"Spare thy words, I know it," she answered, and he fell back behind
+her.
+
+Our squadrons gained the bank, having destroyed most of the men in the
+water, but as they set foot upon it the enemy charged them and drove
+them back with loss. Thrice they returned to the attack, and thrice
+were repulsed in this fashion. At length Ayesha grew impatient.
+
+"They need a leader, and I will give them one," she said. "Come with
+me, my Holly," and, followed by the main body of the horsemen, she
+rode a little way into the river, and there waited until the shattered
+troops had fallen back upon us. Oros whispered to me--
+
+"It is madness, the Hesea will be slain."
+
+"Thinkest thou so?" I answered. "More like that we shall be slain," a
+saying at which he smiled a little more than usual and shrugged his
+shoulders, since for all his soft ways, Oros was a brave man. Also I
+believe that he spoke to try me, knowing that his mistress would take
+no harm.
+
+Ayesha held up her hand, in which there was no weapon, and waved it
+forwards. A great cheer answered that signal to advance, and in the
+midst of it this frail, white-robed woman spoke to her horse, so that
+it plunged deep into the water.
+
+Two minutes later, and spears and arrows were flying about us so
+thickly that they seemed to darken the sky. I saw men and horses fall
+to right and left, but nothing touched me or the white robes that
+floated a yard or two ahead. Five minutes and we were gaining the
+further bank, and there the worst fight began.
+
+It was fierce indeed, yet never an inch did the white robes give back,
+and where they went men would follow them or fall. We were up the bank
+and the enemy was packed about us, but through them we passed slowly,
+like a boat through an adverse sea that buffets but cannot stay it.
+Yes, further and further, till at last the lines ahead grew thin as
+the living wedge of horsemen forced its path between them--grew thin,
+broke and vanished.
+
+We had passed through the heart of the host, and leaving the tribesmen
+who followed to deal with its flying fragments, rode on half a mile or
+so and mustered. Many were dead and more were hurt, but the command
+was issued that all sore-wounded men should fall out and give their
+horses to replace those that had been killed.
+
+This was done, and presently we moved on, three thousand of us now,
+not more, heading for Kaloon. The trot grew to a canter, and the
+canter to a gallop, as we rushed forward across that endless plain,
+till at midday, or a little after--for this route was far shorter than
+that taken by Leo and myself in our devious flight from Rassen and his
+death-hounds--we dimly saw the city of Kaloon set upon its hill.
+
+Now a halt was ordered, for here was a reservoir in which was still
+some water, whereof the horses drank, while the men ate of the food
+they carried with them; dried meat and barley meal. Here, too, more
+spies met us, who said that the great army of Atene was posted
+guarding the city bridges, and that to attack it with our little force
+would mean destruction. But Ayesha took no heed of their words;
+indeed, she scarcely seemed to hear them. Only she ordered that all
+wearied horses should be abandoned and fresh ones mounted.
+
+Forward again for hour after hour, in perfect silence save for the
+thunder of our horses' hoofs. No word spoke Ayesha, nor did her wild
+escort speak, only from time to time they looked over their shoulders
+and pointed with their red spears at the red sky behind.
+
+I looked also, nor shall I forget its aspect. The dreadful, fire-edged
+clouds had grown and gathered so that beneath their shadows the plain
+lay almost black. They marched above us like an army in the heavens,
+while from time to time vaporous points shot forward, thin like
+swords, or massed like charging horse.
+
+Under them a vast stillness reigned. It was as though the earth lay
+dead beneath their pall.
+
+Kaloon, lit in a lurid light, grew nearer. The pickets of the foe flew
+homeward before us, shaking their javelins, and their mocking laughter
+reached us in hollow echoes. Now we saw the vast array, posted rank on
+rank with silken banners drooping in that stirless air, flanked and
+screened by glittering regiments of horse.
+
+An embassy approached us, and at the signal of Ayesha's uplifted arm
+we halted. It was headed by a lord of the court whose face I knew. He
+pulled rein and spoke boldly.
+
+"Listen, Hes, to the words of Atene. Ere now the stranger lord, thy
+darling, is prisoner in her palace. Advance, and we destroy thee and
+thy little band; but if by any miracle thou shouldst conquer, then he
+dies. Get thee gone to thy Mountain fastness and the Khania gives thee
+peace, and thy people their lives. What answer to the words of the
+Khania?"
+
+Ayesha whispered to Oros, who called aloud--
+
+"There is no answer. Go, if ye love life, for death draws near to
+you."
+
+So they went fast as their swift steeds would carry them, but for a
+little while Ayesha still sat lost in thought.
+
+Presently she turned and through her thin veil I saw that her face was
+white and terrible and that the eyes in it glowed like those of a
+lioness at night. She said to, me--hissing the words between her
+clenched teeth--
+
+"Holly, prepare thyself to look into the mouth of hell. I desired to
+spare them if I could, I swear it, but my heart bids me be bold, to
+put off human pity, and use all my secret might if I would see Leo
+living. Holly, I tell thee they are about /to murder him!/"
+
+Then she cried aloud, "Fear nothing, Captains. Ye are but few, yet
+with you goes the strength of ten thousand thousand. Now follow the
+Hesea, and whate'er ye meet, be not dismayed. Repeat it to the
+soldiers, that fearing nothing they follow the Hesea through yonder
+host and across the bridge and into the city of Kaloon."
+
+So the chiefs rode hither and thither, crying out her words, and the
+savage tribesmen answered--
+
+"Aye, we who followed through the water, will follow across the plain.
+Onward, Hes, for darkness swallows us."
+
+Now some orders were given, and the companies fell into a formation
+that resembled a great wedge, Ayesha herself being its very point and
+apex, for though Oros and I rode on either side of her, spur as we
+would, our horses' heads never passed her saddle bow. In front of that
+dark mass she shone a single spot of white--one snowy feather on a
+black torrent's breast.
+
+A screaming bugle note--and, like giant arms, from the shelter of some
+groves of poplar trees, curved horns of cavalry shot out to surround
+us, while the broad bosom of the opposing army, shimmering with
+spears, rolled forward as a wave rolls crowned with sunlit foam, and
+behind it, line upon line, uncountable, lay a surging sea of men.
+
+Our end was near. We were lost, or so it seemed.
+
+Ayesha tore off her veil and held it on high, flowing from her like a
+pennon, and lo! upon her brow blazed that wide and mystic diadem of
+light which once only I had seen before.
+
+Denser and denser grew the rushing clouds above; brighter and brighter
+gleamed the unearthly star of light beneath. Louder and louder beat
+the sound of the falling hoofs of ten thousand horses. From the
+Mountain peak behind us went up sudden sheets of flame; it spouted
+fire as a whale spouts foam.
+
+The scene was dreadful. In front, the towers of Kaloon lurid in a
+monstrous sunset. Above, a gloom as of an eclipse. Around the
+darkling, sunburnt plain. On it Atene's advancing army, and our
+rushing wedge of horsemen destined, it would appear, to inevitable
+doom.
+
+Ayesha let fall her rein. She tossed her arms, waving the torn, white
+veil as though it were a signal cast to heaven.
+
+Instantly from the churning jaws of the unholy night above belched a
+blaze of answering flame, that also wavered like a rent and shaken
+veil in the grasp of a black hand of cloud.
+
+Then did Ayesha roll the thunder of her might upon the Children of
+Kaloon. Then she called, and the Terror came, such as men had never
+seen and perchance never more will see. Awful bursts of wind tore past
+us, lifting the very stones and soil before them, and with the wind
+went hail and level, hissing rain, made visible by the arrows of
+perpetual lightnings that leapt downwards from the sky and upwards
+from the earth.
+
+It was as she had warned me. It was as though hell had broken loose
+upon the world, yet through that hell we rushed on unharmed. For
+always these furies passed before us. No arrow flew, no javelin was
+stained. The jagged hail was a herald of our coming; the levens that
+smote and stabbed were our sword and spear, while ever the hurricane
+roared and screamed with a million separate voices which blended to
+one yell of sound, hideous and indescribable.
+
+As for the hosts about us they melted and were gone.
+
+Now the darkness was dense, like to that of thickest night; yet in the
+fierce flares of the lightnings I saw them run this way and that, and
+amidst the volleying, elemental voices I heard their shouts of horror
+and of agony. I saw horses and riders roll confused upon the ground;
+like storm-drifted leaves I saw their footmen piled in high and
+whirling heaps, while the brands of heaven struck and struck them till
+they sank together and grew still.
+
+I saw the groves of trees bend, shrivel up and vanish. I saw the high
+walls of Kaloon blown in and flee away, while the houses within the
+walls took fire, to go out beneath the torrents of the driving rain,
+and again take fire. I saw blackness sweep over us with great wings,
+and when I looked, lo! those wide wings were flame, floods of pulsing
+flame that flew upon the tormented air.
+
+Blackness, utter blackness; turmoil, doom, dismay! Beneath me the
+labouring horse; at my side the steady crest of light which sat on
+Ayesha's brow, and through the tumult a clear, exultant voice that
+sang--
+
+"I promised thee wild weather! Now, Holly, dost thou believe that I
+can loose the prisoned Powers of the world?"
+
+Lo! all was past and gone, and above us shone the quiet evening sky,
+and before us lay the empty bridge, and beyond it the flaming city of
+Kaloon. But the armies of Atene, where were they? Go, ask of those
+great cairns that hide their bones. Go, ask it of her widowed land.
+
+Yet of our wild company of horsemen not one was lost. After us they
+galloped trembling, white-lipped, like men who face to face had fought
+and conquered Death, but triumphant--ah, triumphant!
+
+On the high head of the bridge Ayesha wheeled her horse, and so for
+one proud moment stood to welcome them. At the sight of her glorious,
+star-crowned countenance, which now her Tribes beheld for the first
+time and the last, there went up such a shout as men have seldom
+heard.
+
+"/The Goddess!/" that shout thundered. "Worship the Goddess!"
+
+Then she turned her horse's head again, and they followed on through
+the long straight street of the burning city, up to the palace on its
+crest.
+
+As the sun set we sped beneath its gateway. Silence in the courtyard,
+silence everywhere, save for the distant roar of fire and the scared
+howlings of the death-hounds in their kennel.
+
+Ayesha sprang from her horse, and waving back all save Oros and
+myself, swept through the open doors into the halls beyond.
+
+They were empty, every one--all were fled or dead. Yet she never
+paused or doubted, but so swiftly that we scarce could follow her,
+flitted up the wide stone stair that led to the topmost tower. Up,
+still up, until we reached the chamber where had dwelt Simbri the
+Shaman, that same chamber whence he was wont to watch his stars, in
+which Atene had threatened us with death.
+
+Its door was shut and barred; still, at Ayesha's coming, yes, before
+the mere breath of her presence, the iron bolts snapped like twigs,
+the locks flew back, and inward burst that massive portal.
+
+Now we were within the lamp-lit chamber, and this is what we saw.
+Seated in a chair, pale-faced, bound, yet proud and defiant-looking,
+was Leo. Over him, a dagger in his withered hand--yes, about to
+strike, in the very act--stood the old Shaman, and on the floor hard
+by, gazing upward with wide-set eyes, dead and still majestic in her
+death, lay Atene, Khania of Kaloon.
+
+Ayesha waved her arm and the knife fell from Simbri's hand, clattering
+on the marble, while in an instant he who had held it was smitten to
+stillness and became like a man turned to stone.
+
+She stooped, lifted the dagger, and with a swift stroke severed Leo's
+bonds; then, as though overcome at last, sank on to a bench in
+silence. Leo rose, looking about him bewildered, and said in the
+strained voice of one who is weak with much suffering--
+
+"But just in time, Ayesha. Another second, and that murderous dog"--
+and he pointed to the Shaman--"well, it was in time. But how went the
+battle, and how earnest thou here through that awful hurricane? And,
+oh, Horace, thank heaven they did not kill you after all!"
+
+"The battle went ill for some," Ayesha answered, "and I came not
+through the hurricane, but on its wings. Tell me now, what has
+befallen thee since we parted?"
+
+"Trapped, overpowered, bound, brought here, told that I must write to
+thee and stop thy advance, or die--refused, of course, and then----"
+and he glanced at the dead body on the floor.
+
+"And then?" repeated Ayesha.
+
+"Then that fearful tempest, which seemed to drive me mad. Oh! if thou
+couldst have heard the wind howling round these battlements, tearing
+off their stones as though they were dry leaves; if thou hadst seen
+the lightnings falling thick and fast as rain----"
+
+"They were my messengers. I sent them to save thee," said Ayesha
+simply.
+
+Leo stared at her, making no comment, but after a pause, as though he
+were thinking the matter over, he went on--
+
+"Atene said as much, but I did not believe her. I thought the end of
+the world had come, that was all. Well, she returned just now more mad
+even than I was, and told me that her people were destroyed and that
+she could not fight against the strength of hell, but that she could
+send me thither, and took a knife to kill me.
+
+"I said, 'Kill on,' for I knew that wherever I went thou wouldst
+follow, and I was sick with the loss of blood from some hurt I had in
+that struggle, and weary of it all. So I shut my eyes waiting for the
+stroke, but instead I felt her lips pressed upon my forehead, and
+heard her say--
+
+"'Nay, I will not do it. Fare thee well; fulfil thou thine own
+destiny, as I fulfil mine. For this cast the dice have fallen against
+me; elsewhere it may be otherwise. I go to load them if I may.'
+
+"I opened my eyes and looked. There Atene stood, a glass in her hand--
+see, it lies beside her.
+
+"'Defeated, yet I win,' she cried, 'for I do but pass before thee to
+prepare the path that thou shalt tread, and to make ready thy place in
+the Under-world. Till we meet again I pledge thee, for I am destroyed.
+Ayesha's horsemen are in my streets, and, clothed in lightnings at
+their head, rides Ayesha's avenging self.'
+
+"So she drank, and fell dead--but now. Look, her breast still quivers.
+Afterwards, that old man would have murdered me, for, being roped, I
+could not resist him, but the door burst in and thou camest. Spare
+him, he is of her blood, and he loved her."
+
+Then Leo sank back into the chair where we had discovered him bound,
+and seemed to fall into a kind of torpor, for of a sudden he grew to
+look like an old man.
+
+"Thou art sick," said Ayesha anxiously. "Oros, thy medicine, the
+draught I bade thee bring! Be swift, I say."
+
+The priest bowed, and from some pocket in his ample robe produced a
+phial which he opened and gave to Leo, saying--
+
+"Drink, my lord; this stuff will give thee back thy health, for it is
+strong."
+
+"The stronger the better," answered Leo, rousing himself, and with
+something like his old, cheerful laugh. "I am thirsty who have touched
+nothing since last night, and have fought hard and been carried far,
+yes--and lived through that hellish storm."
+
+Then he took the draught and emptied it. There must have been virtue
+in that potion; at least, the change which it produced in him was
+wonderful. Within a minute his eyes grew bright again, and the colour
+returned into his cheeks.
+
+"Thy medicines are very good, as I have learned of old," he said to
+Ayesha; "but the best of all of them is to see thee safe and
+victorious before me, and to know that I, who looked for death, yet
+live to greet thee, my beloved. There is food," and he pointed to a
+board upon which were meats, "say, may I eat of them, for I starve?"
+
+"Aye," she answered softly, "eat, and, my Holly, eat thou also."
+
+So we fell to, yes, we fell to and ate even in the presence of that
+dead woman who looked so royal in her death; of the old magician who
+stood there powerless, like a man petrified, and of Ayesha, the
+wondrous being that could destroy an army with the fearful weapons
+which were servant to her will.
+
+Only Oros ate nothing, but remained where he was, smiling at us
+benignantly, nor did Ayesha touch any food.
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXIII
+
+                        THE YIELDING OF AYESHA
+
+When I had satisfied myself, Leo was still at his meal, for loss of
+blood or the effects of the tremendous nerve tonic which Ayesha
+ordered to be administered to him, had made him ravenous.
+
+I watched his face and became aware of a curious change in it, no
+immediate change indeed, but one, I think, that had come upon him
+gradually, although I only fully appreciated it now, after our short
+separation. In addition to the thinness of which I have spoken, his
+handsome countenance had grown more ethereal; his eyes were full of
+the shadows of things that were to come.
+
+His aspect pained me, I knew not why. It was no longer that of the Leo
+with whom I was familiar, the deep-chested, mighty-limbed, jovial,
+upright traveller, hunter and fighting-man who had chanced to love and
+be loved of a spiritual power incarnated in a mould of perfect
+womanhood and armed with all the might of Nature's self. These things
+were still present indeed, but the man was changed, and I felt sure
+that this change came from Ayesha, since the look upon his face had
+become exceeding like to that which often hovered upon hers at rest.
+
+She also was watching him, with speculative, dreamy eyes, till
+presently, as some thought swept through her, I saw those eyes blaze
+up, and the red blood pour to cheek and brow. Yes, the mighty Ayesha
+whose dead, slain for him, lay strewn by the thousand on yonder plain,
+blushed and trembled like a maiden at her first lover's kiss.
+
+Leo rose from the table. "I would that I had been with thee in the
+fray," he said.
+
+"At the drift there was fighting," she answered, "afterwards none. My
+ministers of Fire, Earth and Air smote, no more; I waked them from
+their sleep and at my command they smote for thee and saved thee."
+
+"Many lives to take for one man's safety," Leo said solemnly, as
+though the thought pained him.
+
+"Had they been millions and not thousands, I would have spent them
+every one. On my head be their deaths, not on thine. Or rather on
+hers," and she pointed to the dead Atene. "Yes, on hers who made this
+war. At least she should thank me who have sent so royal a host to
+guard her through the darkness."
+
+"Yet it is terrible," said Leo, "to think of thee, beloved, red to the
+hair with slaughter."
+
+"What reck I?" she answered with a splendid pride. "Let their blood
+suffice to wash the stain of thy blood from off these cruel hands that
+once did murder thee."
+
+"Who am I that I should blame thee?" Leo went on as though arguing
+with himself, "I who but yesterday killed two men--to save myself from
+treachery."
+
+"Speak not of it," she exclaimed in cold rage. "I saw the place and,
+Holly, thou knowest how I swore that a hundred lives should pay for
+every drop of that dear blood of thine, and I, who lie not, have kept
+the oath. Look now on that man who stands yonder struck by my will to
+stone, dead yet living, and say again what was he about to do to thee
+when I entered here?"
+
+"To take vengeance on me for the doom of his queen and of her armies,"
+answered Leo, "and Ayesha, how knowest thou that a Power higher than
+thine own will not demand it yet?"
+
+As he spoke a pale shadow flickered on Leo's face, such a shadow as
+might fall from Death's advancing wing, and in the fixed eyes of the
+Shaman there shone a stony smile.
+
+For a moment terror seemed to take Ayesha, then it was gone as quickly
+as it came.
+
+"Nay," she said. "I ordain that it shall not be, and save One who
+listeth not, what power reigns in this wide earth that dare defy my
+will?"
+
+So she spoke, and as her words of awful pride--for they were very
+awful--rang round that stone-built chamber, a vision came to me--
+Holly.
+
+I saw illimitable space peopled with shining suns, and sunk in the
+infinite void above them one vast Countenance clad in a calm so
+terrific that at its aspect my spirit sank to nothingness. Yes, and I
+knew that this was Destiny enthroned above the spheres. Those lips
+moved and obedient worlds rushed upon their course. They moved again
+and these rolling chariots of the heavens were turned or stayed,
+appeared or disappeared. I knew also that against this calm Majesty
+the being, woman or spirit, at my side had dared to hurl her passion
+and her strength. My soul reeled. I was afraid.
+
+The dread phantasm passed, and when my mind cleared again Ayesha was
+speaking in new, triumphant tones.
+
+"Nay, nay," she cried. "Past is the night of dread; dawns the day of
+victory! Look!" and she pointed through the window-places shattered by
+the hurricane, to the flaming town beneath, whence rose one continual
+wail of misery, the wail of women mourning their countless slain while
+the fire roared through their homes like some unchained and rejoicing
+demon. "Look Leo on the smoke of the first sacrifice that I offer to
+thy royal state and listen to its music. Perchance thou deemst it
+naught. Why then I'll give thee others. Thou lovest war. Good! we will
+go down to war and the rebellious cities of the earth shall be the
+torches of our march."
+
+She paused a moment, her delicate nostrils quivering, and her face
+alight with the prescience of ungarnered splendours; then like a
+swooping swallow flitted to where, by dead Atene, the gold circlet
+fallen from the Khania's hair lay upon the floor.
+
+She stooped, lifted it, and coming to Leo held it high above his head.
+Slowly she let her hand fall until the glittering coronet rested for
+an instant on his brow. Then she spoke, in her glorious voice that
+rolled out rich and low, a very paean of triumph and of power.
+
+"By this poor, earthly symbol I create thee King of Earth; yea in its
+round for thee is gathered all her rule. Be thou its king, and mine!"
+
+Again the coronet was held aloft, again it sank, and again she said or
+rather chanted--
+
+"With this unbroken ring, token of eternity, I swear to thee the boon
+of endless days. Endure thou while the world endures, and be its lord,
+and mine."
+
+A third time the coronet touched his brow.
+
+"By this golden round I do endow thee with Wisdom's perfect gold
+uncountable, that is the talisman whereat all nature's secret paths
+shall open to thy feet. Victorious, victorious, tread thou her
+wondrous ways with me, till from her topmost peak at last she wafts us
+to our immortal throne whereof the columns twain are Life and Death."
+
+Then Ayesha cast away the crown and lo! it fell upon the breast of the
+lost Atene and rested there.
+
+"Art content with these gifts of mine, my lord?" she cried.
+
+Leo looked at her sadly and shook his head.
+
+"What more wilt thou then? Ask and I swear it shall be thine."
+
+"Thou swearest; but wilt thou keep the oath?"
+
+"Aye, by myself I swear; by myself and by the Strength that bred me.
+If it be ought that I can grant--then if I refuse it to thee, may such
+destruction fall upon me as will satisfy even Atene's watching soul."
+
+I heard and I think that another heard also, at least once more the
+stony smile shone in the eyes of the Shaman.
+
+"I ask of thee nothing that thou canst not give. Ayesha, I ask of thee
+thyself--not at some distant time when I have been bathed in a
+mysterious fire, but now, now this night."
+
+She shrank back from him a little, as though dismayed.
+
+"Surely," she said slowly, "I am like that foolish philosopher who,
+walking abroad to read the destinies of nations in the stars, fell
+down a pitfall dug by idle children and broke his bones and perished
+there. Never did I guess that with all these glories stretched before
+thee like mountain top on glittering mountain top, making a stairway
+for thy mortal feet to the very dome of heaven, thou wouldst still
+clutch at thy native earth and seek of it--but the common boon of
+woman's love.
+
+"Oh! Leo, I thought that thy soul was set upon nobler aims, that thou
+wouldst pray me for wider powers, for a more vast dominion; that as
+though they were but yonder fallen door of wood and iron, I should
+break for thee the bars of Hades, and like the Eurydice of old fable
+draw thee living down the steeps of Death, or throne thee midst the
+fires of the furthest sun to watch its subject worlds at play.
+
+"Or I thought that thou wouldst bid me reveal what no woman ever told,
+the bitter, naked truth--all my sins and sorrows, all the wandering
+fancies of my fickle thought; even what thou knowest not and perchance
+ne'er shalt know, /who I am and whence I came/, and how to thy charmed
+eyes I seemed to change from foul to fair, and what is the purpose of
+my love for thee, and what the meaning of that tale of an angry
+goddess--who never was except in dreams.
+
+"I thought--nay, no matter what I thought, save that thou wert far
+other than thou art, my Leo, and in so high a moment that thou wouldst
+seek to pass the mystic gates my glory can throw wide and with me
+tread an air supernal to the hidden heart of things. Yet thy prayer is
+but the same that the whole world whispers beneath the silent moon, in
+the palace and the cottage, among the snows and on the burning
+desert's waste. 'Oh! my love, thy lips, thy lips. Oh! my love, be
+mine, now, now, beneath the moon, beneath the moon!'
+
+"Leo, I thought better, higher, of thee."
+
+"Mayhap, Ayesha, thou wouldest have thought worse of me had I been
+content with thy suns and constellations and spiritual gifts and
+dominations that I neither desire nor understand.
+
+"If I had said to thee: Be thou my angel, not my wife; divide the
+ocean that I may walk its bed; pierce the firmament and show me how
+grow the stars; tell me the origins of being and of death and instruct
+me in their issues; give up the races of mankind to my sword, and the
+wealth of all the earth to fill my treasuries. Teach me also how to
+drive the hurricane as thou canst do, and to bend the laws of nature
+to my purpose: on earth make me half a god--as thou art.
+
+"But Ayesha, I am no god; I am a man, and as a man I seek the woman
+whom I love. Oh! divest thyself of all these wrappings of thy power--
+that power which strews thy path with dead and keeps me apart from
+thee. If only for one short night forget the ambition that gnaws
+unceasingly at thy soul; I say forget thy greatness and be a woman and
+--my wife."
+
+She made no answer, only looked at him and shook her head, causing her
+glorious hair to ripple like water beneath a gentle breeze.
+
+"Thou deniest me," he went on with gathering strength, "and that thou
+canst not do, that thou mayest not do, for Ayesha, thou hast sworn,
+and I demand the fulfilment of thine oath.
+
+"Hark thou. I refuse thy gifts; I will have none of thy rule who ask
+no Pharaoh's throne and wish to do good to men and not to kill them--
+that the world may profit. I will not go with thee to Kor, nor be
+bathed in the breath of Life. I will leave thee and cross the
+mountains, or perish on them, nor with all thy strength canst thou
+hold me to thy side, who indeed needest me not. No longer will I
+endure this daily torment, the torment of thy presence and thy sweet
+words; thy loving looks, thy promises for next year, next year--next
+year. So keep thine oath or let me begone."
+
+Still Ayesha stood silent, only now her head drooped and her breast
+began to heave. Then Leo stepped forward; he seized her in his arms
+and kissed her. She broke from his embrace, I know not how, for though
+she returned it was close enough, and again stood before him but at a
+little distance.
+
+"Did I not warn Holly," she whispered with a sigh, "to bid thee beware
+lest I should catch thy human fire? Man, I say to thee, it begins to
+smoulder in my heart, and should it grow to flame----"
+
+"Why then," he answered laughing, "we will be happy for a little
+while."
+
+"Aye, Leo, but how long? Why wert thou sole lord of this loveliness of
+mine and not set above their harming, night and day a hundred jealous
+daggers would seek thy heart and--find it."
+
+"How long, Ayesha? A lifetime, a year, a month, a minute--I neither
+know nor care, and while thou art true to me I fear no stabs of envy."
+
+"Is it so? Wilt take the risk? I can promise thee nothing. Thou
+mightest--yes, in this way or in that, thou mightest--die."
+
+"And if I die, what then? Shall we be separated?"
+
+"Nay, nay, Leo, that is not possible. We never can be severed, of this
+I am sure; it is sworn to me. But then through other lives and other
+spheres, higher lives and higher spheres mayhap, our fates must force
+a painful path to their last goal of union."
+
+"Why then I take the hazard, Ayesha. Shall the life that I can risk to
+slay a leopard or a lion in the sport of an idle hour, be too great a
+price to offer for the splendours of thy breast? Thine oath! Ayesha, I
+claim thine oath."
+
+Then it was that in Ayesha there began the most mysterious and
+thrilling of her many changes. Yet how to describe it I know not
+unless it be by simile.
+
+Once in Thibet we were imprisoned for months by snows that stretched
+down from the mountain slopes into the valleys and oh! how weary did
+we grow of those arid, aching fields of purest white. At length rain
+set in, and blinding mists in which it was not safe to wander, that
+made the dark nights darker yet.
+
+So it was, until there came a morning when seeing the sun shine, we
+went to our door and looked out. Behold a miracle! Gone were the snows
+that choked the valley and in the place of them appeared vivid
+springing grass, starred everywhere with flowers, and murmuring brooks
+and birds that sang and nested in the willows. Gone was the frowning
+sky and all the blue firmament seemed one tender smile. Gone were the
+austerities of winter with his harsh winds, and in their place spring,
+companioned by her zephyrs, glided down the vale singing her song of
+love and life.
+
+There in this high chamber, in the presence of the living and the
+dead, while the last act of the great tragedy unrolled itself before
+me, looking on Ayesha that forgotten scene sprang into my mind. For on
+her face just such a change had come. Hitherto, with all her
+loveliness, the heart of Ayesha had seemed like that winter mountain
+wrapped in its unapproachable snow and before her pure brow and icy
+self-command, aspirations sank abashed and desires died.
+
+She swore she loved and her love fulfilled itself in death and many a
+mysterious way. Yet it was hard to believe that this passion of hers
+was more than a spoken part, for how can the star seek the moth
+although the moth may seek the star? Though the man may worship the
+goddess, for all her smiles divine, how can the goddess love the man?
+
+But now everything was altered! Look! Ayesha grew human; I could see
+her heart beat beneath her robes and hear her breath come in soft,
+sweet sobs, while o'er her upturned face and in her alluring eyes
+there spread itself that look which is born of love alone. Radiant and
+more radiant did she seem to grow, sweeter and more sweet, no longer
+the veiled Hermit of the Caves, no longer the Oracle of the Sanctuary,
+no longer the Valkyrie of the battle-plain, but only the loveliest and
+most happy bride that ever gladdened a husband's eyes.
+
+She spoke, and it was of little things, for thus Ayesha proclaimed the
+conquest of herself.
+
+"Fie!" she said, showing her white robes torn with spears and stained
+by the dust and dew of war; "Fie, my lord, what marriage garments are
+these in which at last I come to thee, who would have been adorned in
+regal gems and raiment befitting to my state and thine?"
+
+"I seek the woman not her garment," said Leo, his burning eyes fixed
+upon her face.
+
+"Thou seekest the woman. Ah! there it lies. Tell me, Leo, am I woman
+or spirit? Say that I am woman, for now the prophecy of this dead
+Atene lies heavy on my soul, Atene who said that mortal and immortal
+may not mate."
+
+"Thou must be woman, or thou wouldst not have tormented me as thou
+hast done these many weeks."
+
+"I thank thee for the comfort of thy words. Yet, was it /woman/ whose
+breath wrought destruction upon yonder plain? Was it to a /woman/ that
+Blast and Lightning bowed and said, 'We are here: Command us, we
+obey'? Did that dead thing (and she pointed to the shattered door)
+break inward at a /woman's/ will? Or could a /woman/ charm this man to
+stone?
+
+"Oh! Leo, would that I were woman! I tell thee that I'd lay all my
+grandeur down, a wedding offering at thy feet, could I be sure that
+for one short year I should be naught but /woman/ and--thy happy wife.
+
+"Thou sayest that I did torment thee, but it is I who have known
+torment, I who desired to yield and dared not. Aye, I tell thee, Leo,
+were I not sure that thy little stream of life is draining dry into
+the great ocean of my life, drawn thither as the sea draws its rivers,
+or as the sun draws mists, e'en now I would not yield. But I know, for
+my wisdom tells it me, ere ever we could reach the shores of Libya,
+the ill work would be done, and thou dead of thine own longing, thou
+dead and I widowed who never was a wife.
+
+"Therefore see! like lost Atene I take the dice and cast them, not
+knowing how they shall fall. Not knowing how they shall fall, for good
+or ill I cast," and she made a wild motion as of some desperate
+gamester throwing his last throw.
+
+"So," Ayesha went on, "the thing is done and the number summed for
+aye, though it be hidden from my sight. I have made an end of doubts
+and fears, and come death, come life, I'll meet it bravely.
+
+"Say, how shall we be wed? I have it. Holly here must join our hands;
+who else? He that ever was our guide shall give me unto thee, and thee
+to me. This burning city is our altar, the dead and living are our
+witnesses on earth and heaven. In place of rites and ceremonials for
+this first time I lay my lips on thine, and when 'tis done, for music
+I'll sing thee a nuptial chant of love such as mortal poet has not
+written nor have mortal lovers heard.
+
+"Come, Holly, do now thy part and give this maiden to this man."
+
+Like one in a dream I obeyed her and took Ayesha's outstretched hand
+and Leo's. As I held them thus, I tell the truth:--it was as though
+some fire rushed through my veins from her to him, shaking and
+shattering me with swift waves of burning and unearthly Bliss. With
+the fire too came glorious visions and sounds of mighty music, and a
+sense as though my brain, filled with over-flowing life, must burst
+asunder beneath its weight.
+
+I joined their hands; I know not how; I blessed them, I know not in
+what words. Then I reeled back against the wall and watched.
+
+This is what I saw.
+
+With an abandonment and a passion so splendid and intense that it
+seemed more than human, with a murmured cry of "Husband!" Ayesha cast
+her arms about her lover's neck and drawing down his head to hers so
+that the gold hair was mingled with her raven locks, she kissed him on
+the lips.
+
+Thus they clung a little while, and as they clung the gentle diadem of
+light from her brow spread to his brow also, and through the white
+wrappings of her robe became visible her perfect shape shining with
+faint fire. With a little happy laugh she left him, saying,
+
+"Thus, Leo Vincey, oh! thus for the second time do I give myself to
+thee, and with this flesh and spirit all I swore to thee, there in the
+dim Caves of Kor and here in the palace of Kaloon. Know thou this,
+come what may, never, never more shall we be separate who are ordained
+one. Whilst thou livest I live at thy side, and when thou diest, if
+die thy must, I'll follow thee through worlds and firmaments, nor
+shall all the doors of heaven or hell avail against my love. Where
+thou goest, thither I will go. When thou sleepest, with thee will I
+sleep and it is my voice that thou shalt hear murmuring through the
+dreams of life and death; my voice that shall summon thee to awaken in
+the last hour of everlasting dawn, when all this night of misery hath
+furled her wings for aye.
+
+"Listen now while I sing to thee and hear that song aright, for in its
+melody at length thou shalt learn the truth, which unwed I might not
+tell to thee. Thou shalt learn who and what /I/ am, and who and what
+/thou/ art, and of the high purposes of our love, and this dead
+woman's hate, and of all that I have hid from thee in veiled,
+bewildering words and visions.
+
+"Listen then, my love and lord, to the burden of the Song of Fate."
+
+She ceased speaking and gazed heavenwards with a rapt look as though
+she waited for some inspiration to fall upon her, and never, never--
+not even in the fires of Kor had Ayesha seemed so divine as she did
+now in this moment of the ripe harvest of her love.
+
+My eyes wandered from her to Leo, who stood before her pale and still,
+still as the death-like figure of the Shaman, still as the Khania's
+icy shape which stared upwards from the ground. What was passing in
+his mind, I wondered, that he could remain thus insensible while in
+all her might and awful beauty this proud being worshipped him.
+
+Hark! she began to sing in a voice so rich and perfect that its honied
+notes seemed to cloy my blood and stop my breath.
+
+
+ "The world was not, was not, and in the womb of Silence
+  Slept the souls of men. Yet I was and thou----"
+
+
+Suddenly Ayesha stopped, and I felt rather than saw the horror on her
+face.
+
+Look! Leo swayed to and fro as though the stones beneath him were but
+a rocking boat. To and fro he swayed, stretched out his blind arms to
+clasp her--then suddenly fell backwards, and lay still.
+
+Oh! what a shriek was that she gave! Surely it must have wakened the
+very corpses upon the plain. Surely it must have echoed in the stars.
+One shriek only--then throbbing silence.
+
+I sprang to him, and there, withered in Ayesha's kiss, slain by the
+fire of her love, Leo lay dead--lay dead upon the breast of dead
+Atene!
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV
+
+                        THE PASSING OF AYESHA
+
+I heard Ayesha say presently, and the words struck me as dreadful in
+their hopeless acceptance of a doom against which even she had no
+strength to struggle.
+
+"It seems that my lord has left me for awhile; I must hasten to my
+lord afar."
+
+After that I do not quite know what happened. I had lost the man who
+was all in all to me, friend and child in one, and I was crushed as I
+had never been before. It seemed so sad that I, old and outworn,
+should still live on whilst he in the flower of his age, snatched from
+joy and greatness such as no man hath known, lay thus asleep.
+
+I think that by an afterthought, Ayesha and Oros tried to restore him,
+tried without result, for here her powers were of no avail. Indeed my
+conviction is that although some lingering life still kept him on his
+feet, Leo had really died at the moment of her embrace, since when I
+looked at him before he fell, his face was that of a dead man.
+
+Yes, I believe that last speech of hers, although she knew it not, was
+addressed to his spirit, for in her burning kiss his flesh had
+perished.
+
+When at length I recovered myself a little, it was to hear Ayesha in a
+cold, calm voice--her face I could not see for she had veiled herself
+--commanding certain priests who had been summoned to "bear away the
+body of that accursed woman and bury her as befits her rank." Even
+then I bethought me, I remember, of the tale of Jehu and Jezebel.
+
+Leo, looking strangely calm and happy, lay now upon a couch, the arms
+folded on his breast. When the priests had tramped away carrying their
+royal burden, Ayesha, who sat by his body brooding, seemed to awake,
+for she rose and said--
+
+"I need a messenger, and for no common journey, since he must search
+out the habitations of the Shades," and she turned herself towards
+Oros and appeared to look at him.
+
+Now for the first time I saw that priest change countenance a little,
+for the eternal smile, of which even this scene had not quite rid it,
+left his face and he grew pale and trembled.
+
+"Thou art afraid," she said contemptuously. "Be at rest, Oros, I will
+not send one who is afraid. Holly, wilt thou go for me--and him?"
+
+"Aye," I answered. "I am weary of life and desire no other end. Only
+let it be swift and painless."
+
+She mused a while, then said--
+
+"Nay, thy time is not yet, thou still hast work to do. Endure, my
+Holly, 'tis only for a breath."
+
+Then she looked at the Shaman, the man turned to stone who all this
+while had stood there as a statue stands, and cried--
+
+"Awake!"
+
+Instantly he seemed to thaw into life, his limbs relaxed, his breast
+heaved, he was as he had always been: ancient, gnarled, malevolent.
+
+"I hear thee, mistress," he said, bowing as a man bows to the power
+that he hates.
+
+"Thou seest, Simbri," and she waved her hand.
+
+"I see. Things have befallen as Atene and I foretold, have they not?
+'Ere long the corpse of a new-crowned Khan of Kaloon,'" and he pointed
+to the gold circlet that Ayesha had set on Leo's brow, "'will lie upon
+the brink of the Pit of Flame'--as I foretold." An evil smile crept
+into his eyes and he went on--
+
+"Hadst thou not smote me dumb, I who watched could have warned thee
+that they would so befall; but, great mistress, it pleased thee to
+smite me dumb. And so it seems, O Hes, that thou hast overshot thyself
+and liest broken at the foot of that pinnacle which step by step thou
+hast climbed for more than two thousand weary years. See what thou
+hast bought at the price of countless lives that now before the throne
+of Judgment bring accusations against thy powers misused, and cry out
+for justice on thy head," and he looked at the dead form of Leo.
+
+"I sorrow for them, yet, Simbri, they were well spent," Ayesha
+answered reflectively, "who by their forewritten doom, as it was
+decreed, held thy knife from falling and thus won me my husband. Aye
+and I am happy--happier than such blind bats as thou can see or guess.
+For know that now with him I have re-wed my wandering soul divorced by
+sin from me, and that of our marriage kiss which burned his life away
+there shall still be born to us children of Forgiveness and eternal
+Grace and all things that are pure and fair.
+
+"Look thou, Simbri, I will honour thee. Thou shalt be my messenger,
+and beware! beware I say how thou dost fulfil thine office, since of
+every syllable thou must render an account.
+
+"Go thou down the dark paths of Death, and, since even my thought may
+not reach to where he sleeps tonight, search out my lord and say to
+him that the feet of his spouse Ayesha are following fast. Bid him
+have no fear for me who by this last sorrow have atoned my crimes and
+am in his embrace regenerate. Tell him that thus it was appointed, and
+thus is best, since now he is dipped indeed in the eternal Flame of
+Life; now for him the mortal night is done and the everlasting day
+arises. Command him that he await me in the Gate of Death where it is
+granted that I greet him presently. Thou hearest?"
+
+"I hear, O Queen, Mighty-from-of-Old."
+
+"One message more. Say to Atene that I forgive her. Her heart was high
+and greatly did she play her part. There in the Gates we will balance
+our account. Thou hearest?"
+
+"I hear, O Eternal Star that hath conquered Night."
+
+"Then, man, /begone!/"
+
+As the word left Ayesha's lips Simbri leapt from the floor, grasping
+at the air as though he would clutch his own departing soul, staggered
+back against the board where Leo and I had eaten, overthrowing it, and
+amid a ruin of gold and silver vessels, fell down and died.
+
+She looked at him, then said to me--
+
+"See, though he ever hated me, this magician who has known Ayesha from
+the first, did homage to my ancient majesty at last, when lies and
+defiance would serve his end no more. No longer now do I hear the name
+that his dead mistress gave to me. The 'Star-that-hath-fallen' in his
+lips and in very truth is become the 'Star-which-hath-burst-the-bonds-
+of-Night,' and, re-arisen, shines for ever--shines with its twin
+immortal to set no more--my Holly. Well, he is gone, and ere now,
+those that serve me in the Under-world--dost remember?--thou sawest
+their captains in the Sanctuary--bend the head at great Ayesha's word
+and make her place ready near her spouse.
+
+"But oh, what folly has been mine. When even here my wrath can show
+such power, how could I hope that my lord would outlive the fires of
+my love? Still it was better so, for he sought not the pomp I would
+have given him, nor desired the death of men. Yet such pomp must have
+been his portion in this poor shadow of a world, and the steps that
+encircle an usurper's throne are ever slippery with blood.
+
+"Thou art weary, my Holly, go rest thee. To-morrow night we journey to
+the Mountain, there to celebrate these obsequies."
+
+I crept into the room adjoining--it had been Simbri's--and laid me
+down upon his bed, but to sleep I was not able. Its door was open, and
+in the light of the burning city that shone through the casements I
+could see Ayesha watching by her dead. Hour after hour she watched,
+her head resting on her hand, silent, stirless. She wept not, no sigh
+escaped her; only watched as a tender woman watches a slumbering babe
+that she knows will awake at dawn.
+
+Her face was unveiled and I perceived that it had greatly changed. All
+pride and anger were departed from it; it was grown soft, wistful, yet
+full of confidence and quietness. For a while I could not think of
+what it reminded me, till suddenly I remembered. Now it was like,
+indeed the counterpart almost, of the holy and majestic semblance of
+the statue of the Mother in the Sanctuary. Yes, with just such a look
+of love and power as that mother cast upon her frightened child new-
+risen from its dream of death, did Ayesha gaze upon her dead, while
+her parted lips also seemed to whisper "some tale of hope, sure and
+immortal."
+
+At length she rose and came into my chamber.
+
+"Thou thinkest me fallen and dost grieve for me, my Holly," she said
+in a gentle voice, "knowing my fears lest some such fate should
+overtake my lord."
+
+"Ay, Ayesha, I grieve for thee as for myself."
+
+"Spare then thy pity, Holly, since although the human part of me would
+have kept him on the earth, now my spirit doth rejoice that for a
+while he has burst his mortal bonds. For many an age, although I knew
+it not, in my proud defiance of the Universal Law, I have fought
+against his true weal and mine. Thrice have I and the angel wrestled,
+matching strength with strength, and thrice has he conquered me. Yet
+as he bore away his prize this night he whispered wisdom in my ear.
+This was his message: That in death is love's home, in death its
+strength; that from the charnel-house of life this love springs again
+glorified and pure, to reign a conqueror forever. Therefore I wipe
+away my tears and, crowned once more a queen of peace, I go to join
+him whom we have lost, there where he awaits us, as it is granted to
+me that I shall do.
+
+"But I am selfish, and forgot. Thou needest rest. Sleep, friend, I bid
+thee sleep."
+
+And I slept wondering as my eyes closed whence Ayesha drew this
+strange confidence and comfort. I know not but it was there, real and
+not assumed. I can only suppose therefore that some illumination had
+fallen on her soul, and that, as she stated, the love and end of Leo
+in a way unknown, did suffice to satisfy her court of sins.
+
+At the least those sins and all the load of death that lay at her door
+never seemed to trouble her at all. She appeared to look upon them
+merely as events which were destined to occur, as inevitable fruits of
+a seed sowed long ago by the hand of Fate for whose workings she was
+not responsible. The fears and considerations which weigh with mortals
+did not affect or oppress her. In this as in other matters, Ayesha was
+a law unto herself.
+
+When I awoke it was day, and through the window-place I saw the rain
+that the people of Kaloon had so long desired falling in one straight
+sheet. I saw also that Ayesha, seated by the shrouded form of Leo, was
+giving orders to her priests and captains and to some nobles, who had
+survived the slaughter of Kaloon, as to the new government of the
+land. Then I slept again.
+
+It was evening, and Ayesha stood at my bedside.
+
+"All is prepared," she said. "Awake and ride with me."
+
+So we went, escorted by a thousand cavalry, for the rest stayed to
+occupy, or perchance to plunder, the land of Kaloon. In front the body
+of Leo was borne by relays of priests, and behind it rode the veiled
+Ayesha, I at her side.
+
+Strange was the contrast between this departure, and our arrival.
+
+Then the rushing squadrons, the elements that raved, the perpetual
+sheen of lightnings seen through the swinging curtains of the hail;
+the voices of despair from an army rolled in blood beneath the chariot
+wheels of thunder.
+
+Now the white-draped corpse, the slow-pacing horses, the riders with
+their spears reversed, and on either side, seen in that melancholy
+moonlight, the women of Kaloon burying their innumerable dead.
+
+And Ayesha herself, yesterday a Valkyrie crested with the star of
+flame, to-day but a bereaved woman humbly following her husband to the
+tomb.
+
+Yet how they feared her! Some widow standing on the grave mould she
+had dug, pointed as we passed to the body of Leo, uttering bitter
+words which I could not catch. Thereon her companions flung themselves
+upon her and felling her with fist and spade, prostrated themselves
+upon the ground, throwing dust on their hair in token of their
+submission to the priestess of Death.
+
+Ayesha saw them, and said to me with something of her ancient fire and
+pride--
+
+"I tread the plain of Kaloon no more, yet as a parting gift have I
+read this high-stomached people a lesson that they needed long. Not
+for many a generation, O Holly, will they dare to lift spear against
+the College of Hes and its subject Tribes."
+
+Again it was night, and where once lay that of the Khan, the man whom
+he had killed, flanked by the burning pillars, the bier of Leo stood
+in the inmost Sanctuary before the statue of the Mother whose gentle,
+unchanging eyes seemed to search his quiet face.
+
+On her throne sat the veiled Hesea, giving commands to her priests and
+priestesses.
+
+"I am weary," she said, "and it may be that I leave you for a while to
+rest--beyond the mountains. A year, or a thousand years--I cannot say.
+If so, let Papave, with Oros as her counsellor and husband and their
+seed, hold my place till I return again.
+
+"Priests and priestesses of the College of Hes, over new territories
+have I held my hand; take them as an heritage from me, and rule them
+well and gently. Henceforth let the Hesea of the Mountain be also the
+Khania of Kaloon.
+
+"Priests and priestesses of our ancient faith, learn to look through
+its rites and tokens, outward and visible, to the in-forming Spirit.
+If Hes the goddess never ruled on earth, still pitying Nature rules.
+If the name of Isis never rang through the courts of heaven, still in
+heaven, with all love fulfilled, nursing her human children on her
+breast, dwells the mighty Motherhood where of this statue is the
+symbol, that Motherhood which bore us, and, unforgetting, faithful,
+will receive us at the end.
+
+"For of the bread of bitterness we shall not always eat, of the water
+of tears we shall not always drink. Beyond the night the royal suns
+ride on; ever the rainbow shines around the rain. Though they slip
+from our clutching hands like melted snow, the lives we lose shall yet
+be found immortal, and from the burnt-out fires of our human hopes
+will spring a heavenly star."
+
+She paused and waved her hand as though to dismiss them, then added by
+an after-thought, pointing to myself--
+
+"This man is my beloved friend and guest. Let him be yours also. It is
+my will that you tend and guard him here, and when the snows have
+melted and summer is at hand, that you fashion a way for him through
+the gulf and bring him across the mountains by which he came, till you
+leave him in safety. Hear and forget not, for be sure that to me you
+shall give account of him."
+
+The night drew towards the dawn, and we stood upon the peak above the
+gulf of fire, four of us only--Ayesha and I, and Oros and Papave. For
+the bearers had laid down the body of Leo upon its edge and gone their
+way. The curtain of flame flared in front of us, its crest bent over
+like a billow in the gale, and to leeward, one by one, floated the
+torn-off clouds and pinnacles of fire. By the dead Leo knelt Ayesha,
+gazing at that icy, smiling face, but speaking no single word. At
+length she rose, and said,--
+
+"Darkness draws near, my Holly, that deep darkness which foreruns the
+glory of the dawn. Now fare thee well for one little hour. When thou
+art about to die, but not before, call me, and I will come to thee.
+Stir not and speak not till all be done, lest when I am no longer here
+to be thy guard some Presence should pass on and slay thee.
+
+"Think not that I am conquered, for now my name is Victory! Think not
+that Ayesha's strength is spent or her tale is done, for of it thou
+readest but a single page. Think not even that I am today that thing
+of sin and pride, the Ayesha thou didst adore and fear, I who in my
+lord's love and sacrifice have again conceived my soul. For know that
+now once more as at the beginning, his soul and mine are /one/."
+
+She thought awhile and added,
+
+"Friend take this sceptre in memory of me, but beware how thou usest
+it save at the last to summon me, for it has virtues," and she gave me
+the jewelled Sistrum that she bore--then said,
+
+"So kiss his brow, stand back, and be still."
+
+Now as once before the darkness gathered on the pit, and presently,
+although I heard no prayer, though now no mighty music broke upon the
+silence, through that darkness, beating up the gale, came the two-
+winged flame and hovered where Ayesha stood.
+
+It appeared, it vanished, and one by one the long minutes crept away
+until the first spear of dawn lit upon the point of rock.
+
+Lo! it was empty, utterly empty and lonesome. Gone was the corpse of
+Leo, and gone too was Ayesha the imperial, the divine.
+
+Whither had she gone? I know not. But this I know, that as the light
+returned and the broad sheet of flame flared out to meet it, I seemed
+to see two glorious shapes sweeping upward on its bosom, and the faces
+that they wore were those of Leo and of Ayesha.
+
+Often and often during the weary months that followed, whilst I
+wandered through the temple or amid the winter snows upon the Mountain
+side, did I seek to solve this question--Whither had She gone? I asked
+it of my heart; I asked it of the skies; I asked it of the spirit of
+Leo which often was so near to me.
+
+But no sure answer ever came, nor will I hazard one. As mystery
+wrapped Ayesha's origin and lives--for the truth of these things I
+never learned--so did mystery wrap her deaths, or rather her
+departings, for I cannot think her dead. Surely she still is, if not
+on earth, then in some other sphere?
+
+So I believe; and when my own hour comes, and it draws near swiftly, I
+shall know whether I believe in vain, or whether she will appear to be
+my guide as, with her last words, she swore that she would do. Then,
+too, I shall learn what she was about to reveal to Leo when he died,
+the purposes of their being and of their love.
+
+So I can wait in patience who must not wait for long, though my heart
+is broken and I am desolate.
+
+Oros and all the priests were very good to me. Indeed, even had it
+been their wish, they would have feared to be otherwise, who
+remembered and were sure that in some time to come they must render an
+account of this matter to their dread queen. By way of return, I
+helped them as I was best able to draw up a scheme for the government
+of the conquered country of Kaloon, and with my advice upon many other
+questions.
+
+And so at length the long months wore away, till at the approach of
+summer the snows melted. Then I said that I must be gone. They gave me
+of their treasures in precious stones, lest I should need money for my
+faring, since the gold of which I had such plenty was too heavy to be
+carried by one man alone. They led me across the plains of Kaloon,
+where now the husbandmen, those that were left of them, ploughed the
+land and scattered seed, and so on to its city. But amidst those
+blackened ruins over which Atene's palace still frowned unharmed, I
+would not enter, for to me it was, and always must remain, a home of
+death. So I camped outside the walls by the river just where Leo and I
+had landed after that poor mad Khan set us free, or rather loosed us
+to be hunted by his death-hounds.
+
+Next day we took boat and rowed up the river, past the place where we
+had seen Atene's cousin murdered, till we came to the Gate-house. Here
+once again I slept, or rather did not sleep.
+
+On the following morning I went down into the ravine and found to my
+surprise that the rapid torrent--shallow enough now--had been roughly
+bridged, and that in preparation for my coming rude but sufficient
+ladders were built on the face of the opposing precipice. At the foot
+of these I bade farewell to Oros, who at our parting smiled
+benignantly as on the day we met.
+
+"We have seen strange things together," I said to him, not knowing
+what else to say.
+
+"Very strange," he answered.
+
+"At least, friend Oros," I went on awkwardly enough, "events have
+shaped themselves to your advantage, for you inherit a royal mantle."
+
+"I wrap myself in a mantle of borrowed royalty," he answered with
+precision, "of which doubtless one day I shall be stripped."
+
+"You mean that the great Ayesha is not dead?"
+
+"I mean that She never dies. She changes, that is all. As the wind
+blows now hence, now hither, so she comes and goes, and who can tell
+at what spot upon the earth, or beyond it, for a while that wind lies
+sleeping? But at sunset or at dawn, at noon or at midnight, it will
+begin to blow again, and then woe to those who stand across its path.
+
+"Remember the dead heaped upon the plains of Kaloon. Remember the
+departing of the Shaman Simbri with his message and the words that she
+spoke then. Remember the passing of the Hesea from the Mountain point.
+Stranger from the West, surely as to-morrow's sun must rise, as she
+went, so she will return again, and in my borrowed garment I await her
+advent."
+
+"I also await her advent," I answered, and thus we parted.
+
+Accompanied by twenty picked men bearing provisions and arms, I
+climbed the ladders easily enough, and now that I had food and
+shelter, crossed the mountains without mishap. They even escorted me
+through the desert beyond, till one night we camped within sight of
+the gigantic Buddha that sits before the monastery, gazing eternally
+across the sands and snows.
+
+When I awoke next morning the priests were gone. So I took up my pack
+and pursued my journey alone, and walking slowly came at sunset to the
+distant lamasery. At its door an ancient figure, wrapped in a tattered
+cloak, was sitting, engaged apparently in contemplation of the skies.
+It was our old friend Kou-en. Adjusting his horn spectacles on his
+nose he looked at me.
+
+"I was awaiting you, brother of the Monastery called 'the World,'" he
+said in a voice, measured, very ineffectually, to conceal his evident
+delight. "Have you grown hungry there that you return to this poor
+place?"
+
+"Aye, most excellent Kou-en," I answered, "hungry for rest."
+
+"It shall be yours for all the days of this incarnation. But say,
+where is the other brother?"
+
+"Dead," I answered.
+
+"And therefore re-born elsewhere or perhaps, dreaming in Devachan for
+a while. Well, doubtless we shall meet him later on. Come, eat, and
+afterwards tell me your story."
+
+So I ate, and that night I told him all. Kou-en listened with
+respectful attention, but the tale, strange as it might seem to most
+people, excited no particular wonder in his mind. Indeed, he explained
+it to me at such length by aid of some marvellous theory of
+re-incarnations, that at last I began to doze.
+
+"At least," I said sleepily, "it would seem that we are all winning
+merit on the Everlasting Plane," for I thought that favourite
+catchword would please him.
+
+"Yes, brother of the Monastery called the World," Kou-en answered in a
+severe voice, "doubtless you are all winning merit, but, if I may
+venture to say so, you are winning it very slowly, especially the
+woman--or the sorceress--or the mighty evil spirit--whose names I
+understand you to tell me are She, Hes, and Ayesha upon earth and in
+/Avitchi/, Star-that-hath-Fallen----"
+
+/(Here Mr. Holly's manuscript ends, its outer sheets having been
+burnt when he threw it on to the fire at his house in Cumberland.)/
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ayesha, by H. Rider Haggard
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AYESHA ***
+
+This file should be named aysha10.txt or aysha10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, aysha11.txt
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+Etext prepared by David Moynihan,
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+              and John Bickers, jbickers@ihug.co.nz
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