The Project Gutenberg EBook of She, by H. Rider Haggard
#33 in our series by H. Rider Haggard

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.

This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.

Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.


**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****


Title: She

Author: H. Rider Haggard

Release Date: April, 2002 [EBook #3155]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on March 7, 2004]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: Unicode UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHE ***




Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@ihug.co.nz
and Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
Unicode by William Kyngesburye




SHE
By H. Rider Haggard




First Published 1886.




                      IN EARTH AND SKIE AND SEA
                      STRANGE THYNGS THER BE
                                      Doggerel couplet from the
                                      Sherd of Amenartas



                      I inscribe this history to

                             ANDREW LANG

                     in token of personal regard
                                and of
         my sincere admiration for his learning and his works



                           PREPARER'S NOTE

  This text was prepared from an 1888 edition published by Longmans,
  Green, and Co., London. A number of fragments of Greek text, and
  sketches, have been omitted due to the difficulty of representing
  them as plain text. However, small fragments of Greek have been
  transcribed in brackets "{}" using an Oxford English Dictionary
  alphabet table, without diacritical marks.


                   PREPARER'S NOTE - UNICODE EDITION

  A number of fragments of Greek and other text, omitted from the
  original posting, have been restored in this Unicode text.
  Sketches, however, have not yet been restored.





                                 SHE



                             INTRODUCTION

In giving to the world the record of what, looked at as an adventure
only, is I suppose one of the most wonderful and mysterious
experiences ever undergone by mortal men, I feel it incumbent on me to
explain what my exact connection with it is. And so I may as well say
at once that I am not the narrator but only the editor of this
extraordinary history, and then go on to tell how it found its way
into my hands.

Some years ago I, the editor, was stopping with a friend, "/vir
doctissimus et amicus neus/," at a certain University, which for the
purposes of this history we will call Cambridge, and was one day much
struck with the appearance of two persons whom I saw going arm-in-arm
down the street. One of these gentlemen was I think, without
exception, the handsomest young fellow I have ever seen. He was very
tall, very broad, and had a look of power and a grace of bearing that
seemed as native to him as it is to a wild stag. In addition his face
was almost without flaw--a good face as well as a beautiful one, and
when he lifted his hat, which he did just then to a passing lady, I
saw that his head was covered with little golden curls growing close
to the scalp.

"Good gracious!" I said to my friend, with whom I was walking, "why,
that fellow looks like a statue of Apollo come to life. What a
splendid man he is!"

"Yes," he answered, "he is the handsomest man in the University, and
one of the nicest too. They call him 'the Greek god'; but look at the
other one, he's Vincey's (that's the god's name) guardian, and
supposed to be full of every kind of information. They call him
'Charon.'" I looked, and found the older man quite as interesting in
his way as the glorified specimen of humanity at his side. He appeared
to be about forty years of age, and was I think as ugly as his
companion was handsome. To begin with, he was shortish, rather bow-
legged, very deep chested, and with unusually long arms. He had dark
hair and small eyes, and the hair grew right down on his forehead, and
his whiskers grew right up to his hair, so that there was uncommonly
little of his countenance to be seen. Altogether he reminded me
forcibly of a gorilla, and yet there was something very pleasing and
genial about the man's eye. I remember saying that I should like to
know him.

"All right," answered my friend, "nothing easier. I know Vincey; I'll
introduce you," and he did, and for some minutes we stood chatting--
about the Zulu people, I think, for I had just returned from the Cape
at the time. Presently, however, a stoutish lady, whose name I do not
remember, came along the pavement, accompanied by a pretty fair-haired
girl, and these two Mr. Vincey, who clearly knew them well, at once
joined, walking off in their company. I remember being rather amused
because of the change in the expression of the elder man, whose name I
discovered was Holly, when he saw the ladies advancing. He suddenly
stopped short in his talk, cast a reproachful look at his companion,
and, with an abrupt nod to myself, turned and marched off alone across
the street. I heard afterwards that he was popularly supposed to be as
much afraid of a woman as most people are of a mad dog, which
accounted for his precipitate retreat. I cannot say, however, that
young Vincey showed much aversion to feminine society on this
occasion. Indeed I remember laughing, and remarking to my friend at
the time that he was not the sort of man whom it would be desirable to
introduce to the lady one was going to marry, since it was exceedingly
probable that the acquaintance would end in a transfer of her
affections. He was altogether too good-looking, and, what is more, he
had none of that consciousness and conceit about him which usually
afflicts handsome men, and makes them deservedly disliked by their
fellows.

That same evening my visit came to an end, and this was the last I saw
or heard of "Charon" and "the Greek god" for many a long day. Indeed,
I have never seen either of them from that hour to this, and do not
think it probable that I shall. But a month ago I received a letter
and two packets, one of manuscript, and on opening the first found
that it was signed by "Horace Holly," a name that at the moment was
not familiar to me. It ran as follows:--

                             "---- College, Cambridge, May 1, 18--

 "My dear Sir,--You will be surprised, considering the very slight
  nature of our acquaintance, to get a letter from me. Indeed, I
  think I had better begin by reminding you that we once met, now
  some five years ago, when I and my ward Leo Vincey were introduced
  to you in the street at Cambridge. To be brief and come to my
  business. I have recently read with much interest a book of yours
  describing a Central African adventure. I take it that this book
  is partly true, and partly an effort of the imagination. However
  this may be, it has given me an idea. It happens, how you will see
  in the accompanying manuscript (which together with the Scarab,
  the 'Royal Son of the Sun,' and the original sherd, I am sending
  to you by hand), that my ward, or rather my adopted son Leo Vincey
  and myself have recently passed through a real African adventure,
  of a nature so much more marvellous than the one which you
  describe, that to tell the truth I am almost ashamed to submit it
  to you lest you should disbelieve my tale. You will see it stated
  in this manuscript that I, or rather we, had made up our minds not
  to make this history public during our joint lives. Nor should we
  alter our determination were it not for a circumstance which has
  recently arisen. We are for reasons that, after perusing this
  manuscript, you may be able to guess, going away again this time
  to Central Asia where, if anywhere upon this earth, wisdom is to
  be found, and we anticipate that our sojourn there will be a long
  one. Possibly we shall not return. Under these altered conditions
  it has become a question whether we are justified in withholding
  from the world an account of a phenomenon which we believe to be
  of unparalleled interest, merely because our private life is
  involved, or because we are afraid of ridicule and doubt being
  cast upon our statements. I hold one view about this matter, and
  Leo holds another, and finally, after much discussion, we have
  come to a compromise, namely, to send the history to you, giving
  you full leave to publish it if you think fit, the only
  stipulation being that you shall disguise our real names, and as
  much concerning our personal identity as is consistent with the
  maintenance of the /bona fides/ of the narrative.

 "And now what am I to say further? I really do not know beyond once
  more repeating that everything is described in the accompanying
  manuscript exactly as it happened. As regards /She/ herself I have
  nothing to add. Day by day we gave greater occasion to regret that
  we did not better avail ourselves of our opportunities to obtain
  more information from that marvellous woman. Who was she? How did
  she first come to the Caves of Kôr, and what was her real
  religion? We never ascertained, and now, alas! we never shall, at
  least not yet. These and many other questions arise in my mind,
  but what is the good of asking them now?

 "Will you undertake the task? We give you complete freedom, and as
  a reward you will, we believe, have the credit of presenting to
  the world the most wonderful history, as distinguished from
  romance, that its records can show. Read the manuscript (which I
  have copied out fairly for your benefit), and let me know.

                            "Believe me, very truly yours,
                                              "L. Horace Holly.[*]

 "P.S.--Of course, if any profit results from the sale of the
  writing should you care to undertake its publication, you can do
  what you like with it, but if there is a loss I will leave
  instructions with my lawyers, Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, to
  meet it. We entrust the sherd, the scarab, and the parchments to
  your keeping, till such time as we demand them back again.
  --L. H. H."

[*] This name is varied throughout in accordance with the writer's
    request.--Editor.

This letter, as may be imagined, astonished me considerably, but when
I came to look at the MS., which the pressure of other work prevented
me from doing for a fortnight, I was still more astonished, as I think
the reader will be also, and at once made up my mind to press on with
the matter. I wrote to this effect to Mr. Holly, but a week afterwards
received a letter from that gentleman's lawyers, returning my own,
with the information that their client and Mr. Leo Vincey had already
left this country for Thibet, and they did not at present know their
address.

Well, that is all I have to say. Of the history itself the reader must
judge. I give it him, with the exception of a very few alterations,
made with the object of concealing the identity of the actors from the
general public, exactly as it came to me. Personally I have made up my
mind to refrain from comments. At first I was inclined to believe that
this history of a woman on whom, clothed in the majesty of her almost
endless years, the shadow of Eternity itself lay like the dark wing of
Night, was some gigantic allegory of which I could not catch the
meaning. Then I thought that it might be a bold attempt to portray the
possible results of practical immortality, informing the substance of
a mortal who yet drew her strength from Earth, and in whose human
bosom passions yet rose and fell and beat as in the undying world
around her the winds and the tides rise and fall and beat unceasingly.
But as I went on I abandoned that idea also. To me the story seems to
bear the stamp of truth upon its face. Its explanation I must leave to
others, and with this slight preface, which circumstances make
necessary, I introduce the world to Ayesha and the Caves of Kôr.--The
Editor.

P.S.--There is on consideration one circumstance that, after a
reperusal of this history, struck me with so much force that I cannot
resist calling the attention of the reader to it. He will observe that
so far as we are made acquainted with him there appears to be nothing
in the character of Leo Vincey which in the opinion of most people
would have been likely to attract an intellect so powerful as that of
Ayesha. He is not even, at any rate to my view, particularly
interesting. Indeed, one might imagine that Mr. Holly would under
ordinary circumstances have easily outstripped him in the favour of
/She/. Can it be that extremes meet, and that the very excess and
splendour of her mind led her by means of some strange physical
reaction to worship at the shrine of matter? Was that ancient
Kallikrates nothing but a splendid animal loved for his hereditary
Greek beauty? Or is the true explanation what I believe it to be--
namely, that Ayesha, seeing further than we can see, perceived the
germ and smouldering spark of greatness which lay hid within her
lover's soul, and well knew that under the influence of her gift of
life, watered by her wisdom, and shone upon with the sunshine of her
presence, it would bloom like a flower and flash out like a star,
filling the world with light and fragrance?

Here also I am not able to answer, but must leave the reader to form
his own judgment on the facts before him, as detailed by Mr. Holly in
the following pages.



                                  I

                              MY VISITOR

There are some events of which each circumstance and surrounding
detail seems to be graven on the memory in such fashion that we cannot
forget it, and so it is with the scene that I am about to describe. It
rises as clearly before my mind at this moment as thought it had
happened but yesterday.

It was in this very month something over twenty years ago that I,
Ludwig Horace Holly, was sitting one night in my rooms at Cambridge,
grinding away at some mathematical work, I forget what. I was to go up
for my fellowship within a week, and was expected by my tutor and my
college generally to distinguish myself. At last, wearied out, I flung
my book down, and, going to the mantelpiece, took down a pipe and
filled it. There was a candle burning on the mantelpiece, and a long,
narrow glass at the back of it; and as I was in the act of lighting
the pipe I caught sight of my own countenance in the glass, and paused
to reflect. The lighted match burnt away till it scorched my fingers,
forcing me to drop it; but still I stood and stared at myself in the
glass, and reflected.

"Well," I said aloud, at last, "it is to be hoped that I shall be able
to do something with the inside of my head, for I shall certainly
never do anything by the help of the outside."

This remark will doubtless strike anybody who reads it as being
slightly obscure, but I was in reality alluding to my physical
deficiencies. Most men of twenty-two are endowed at any rate with some
share of the comeliness of youth, but to me even this was denied.
Short, thick-set, and deep-chested almost to deformity, with long
sinewy arms, heavy features, deep-set grey eyes, a low brow half
overgrown with a mop of thick black hair, like a deserted clearing on
which the forest had once more begun to encroach; such was my
appearance nearly a quarter of a century ago, and such, with some
modification, it is to this day. Like Cain, I was branded--branded by
Nature with the stamp of abnormal ugliness, as I was gifted by Nature
with iron and abnormal strength and considerable intellectual powers.
So ugly was I that the spruce young men of my College, though they
were proud enough of my feats of endurance and physical prowess, did
not even care to be seen walking with me. Was it wonderful that I was
misanthropic and sullen? Was it wonderful that I brooded and worked
alone, and had no friends--at least, only one? I was set apart by
Nature to live alone, and draw comfort from her breast, and hers only.
Women hated the sight of me. Only a week before I had heard one call
me a "monster" when she thought I was out of hearing, and say that I
had converted her to the monkey theory. Once, indeed, a woman
pretended to care for me, and I lavished all the pent-up affection of
my nature upon her. Then money that was to have come to me went
elsewhere, and she discarded me. I pleaded with her as I have never
pleaded with any living creature before or since, for I was caught by
her sweet face, and loved her; and in the end by way of answer she
took me to the glass, and stood side by side with me, and looked into
it.

"Now," she said, "if I am Beauty, who are you?" That was when I was
only twenty.

And so I stood and stared, and felt a sort of grim satisfaction in the
sense of my own loneliness; for I had neither father, nor mother, nor
brother; and as I did so there came a knock at my door.

I listened before I went to open it, for it was nearly twelve o'clock
at night, and I was in no mood to admit any stranger. I had but one
friend in the College, or, indeed, in the world--perhaps it was he.

Just then the person outside the door coughed, and I hastened to open
it, for I knew the cough.

A tall man of about thirty, with the remains of great personal beauty,
came hurrying in, staggering beneath the weight of a massive iron box
which he carried by a handle with his right hand. He placed the box
upon the table, and then fell into an awful fit of coughing. He
coughed and coughed till his face became quite purple, and at last he
sank into a chair and began to spit up blood. I poured out some whisky
into a tumbler, and gave it to him. He drank it, and seemed better;
though his better was very bad indeed.

"Why did you keep me standing there in the cold?" he asked pettishly.
"You know the draughts are death to me."

"I did not know who it was," I answered. "You are a late visitor."

"Yes; and I verily believe it is my last visit," he answered, with a
ghastly attempt at a smile. "I am done for, Holly. I am done for. I do
not believe that I shall see to-morrow."

"Nonsense!" I said. "Let me go for a doctor."

He waved me back imperiously with his hand. "It is sober sense; but I
want no doctors. I have studied medicine and I know all about it. No
doctors can help me. My last hour has come! For a year past I have
only lived by a miracle. Now listen to me as you have never listened
to anybody before; for you will not have the opportunity of getting me
to repeat my words. We have been friends for two years; now tell me
how much do you know about me?"

"I know that you are rich, and have had a fancy to come to College
long after the age that most men leave it. I know that you have been
married, and that your wife died; and that you have been the best,
indeed almost the only friend I ever had."

"Did you know that I have a son?"

"No."

"I have. He is five years old. He cost me his mother's life, and I
have never been able to bear to look upon his face in consequence.
Holly, if you will accept the trust, I am going to leave you that
boy's sole guardian."

I sprang almost out of my chair. "/Me!/" I said.

"Yes, you. I have not studied you for two years for nothing. I have
known for some time that I could not last, and since I realised the
fact I have been searching for some one to whom I could confide the
boy and this," and he tapped the iron box. "You are the man, Holly;
for, like a rugged tree, you are hard and sound at core. Listen; the
boy will be the only representative of one of the most ancient
families in the world, that is, so far as families can be traced. You
will laugh at me when I say it, but one day it will be proved to you
beyond a doubt, that my sixty-fifth or sixty-sixth lineal ancestor was
an Egyptian priest of Isis, though he was himself of Grecian
extraction, and was called Kallikrates.[*] His father was one of the
Greek mercenaries raised by Hak-Hor, a Mendesian Pharaoh of the
twenty-ninth dynasty, and his grandfather or great-grandfather, I
believe, was that very Kallikrates mentioned by Herodotus.[+] In or
about the year 339 before Christ, just at the time of the final fall
of the Pharaohs, this Kallikrates (the priest) broke his vows of
celibacy and fled from Egypt with a Princess of Royal blood who had
fallen in love with him, and was finally wrecked upon the coast of
Africa, somewhere, as I believe, in the neighbourhood of where Delagoa
Bay now is, or rather to the north of it, he and his wife being saved,
and all the remainder of their company destroyed in one way or
another. Here they endured great hardships, but were at last
entertained by the mighty Queen of a savage people, a white woman of
peculiar loveliness, who, under circumstances which I cannot enter
into, but which you will one day learn, if you live, from the contents
of the box, finally murdered my ancestor Kallikrates. His wife,
however, escaped, how, I know not, to Athens, bearing a child with
her, whom she named Tisisthenes, or the Mighty Avenger. Five hundred
years or more afterwards, the family migrated to Rome under
circumstances of which no trace remains, and here, probably with the
idea of preserving the idea of vengeance which we find set out in the
name of Tisisthenes, they appear to have pretty regularly assumed the
cognomen of Vindex, or Avenger. Here, too, they remained for another
five centuries or more, till about 770 A.D., when Charlemagne invaded
Lombardy, where they were then settled, whereon the head of the family
seems to have attached himself to the great Emperor, and to have
returned with him across the Alps, and finally to have settled in
Brittany. Eight generations later his lineal representative crossed to
England in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and in the time of
William the Conqueror was advanced to great honour and power. From
that time to the present day I can trace my descent without a break.
Not that the Vinceys--for that was the final corruption of the name
after its bearers took root in English soil--have been particularly
distinguished--they never came much to the fore. Sometimes they were
soldiers, sometimes merchants, but on the whole they have preserved a
dead level of respectability, and a still deader level of mediocrity.
From the time of Charles II. till the beginning of the present century
they were merchants. About 1790 by grandfather made a considerable
fortune out of brewing, and retired. In 1821 he died, and my father
succeeded him, and dissipated most of the money. Ten years ago he died
also, leaving me a net income of about two thousand a year. Then it
was that I undertook an expedition in connection with /that/," and he
pointed to the iron chest, "which ended disastrously enough. On my way
back I travelled in the South of Europe, and finally reached Athens.
There I met my beloved wife, who might well also have been called the
'Beautiful,' like my old Greek ancestor. There I married her, and
there, a year afterwards, when my boy was born, she died."

[*] The Strong and Beautiful, or, more accurately, the Beautiful in
    strength.

[+] The Kallikrates here referred to by my friend was a Spartan,
    spoken of by Herodotus (Herod. ix. 72) as being remarkable for his
    beauty. He fell at the glorious battle of Platæa (September 22,
    B.C. 479), when the Lacedæmonians and Athenians under Pausanias
    routed the Persians, putting nearly 300,000 of them to the sword.
    The following is a translation of the passage, "For Kallikrates
    died out of the battle, he came to the army the most beautiful man
    of the Greeks of that day--not only of the Lacedæmonians
    themselves, but of the other Greeks also. He when Pausanias was
    sacrificing was wounded in the side by an arrow; and then they
    fought, but on being carried off he regretted his death, and said
    to Arimnestus, a Platæan, that he did not grieve at dying for
    Greece, but at not having struck a blow, or, although he desired
    so to do, performed any deed worthy of himself." This Kallikrates,
    who appears to have been as brave as he was beautiful, is
    subsequently mentioned by Herodotus as having been buried among
    the ἰρένες (young commanders), apart from the other Spartans and
    the Helots.--L. H. H.

He paused a while, his head sunk upon his hand, and then continued--

"My marriage had diverted me from a project which I cannot enter into
now. I have no time, Holly--I have no time! One day, if you accept my
trust, you will learn all about it. After my wife's death I turned my
mind to it again. But first it was necessary, or, at least, I
conceived that it was necessary, that I should attain to a perfect
knowledge of Eastern dialects, especially Arabic. It was to facilitate
my studies that I came here. Very soon, however, my disease developed
itself, and now there is an end of me." And as though to emphasise his
words he burst into another terrible fit of coughing.

I gave him some more whisky, and after resting he went on--

"I have never seen my boy, Leo, since he was a tiny baby. I never
could bear to see him, but they tell me that he is a quick and
handsome child. In this envelope," and he produced a letter from his
pocket addressed to myself, "I have jotted down the course I wish
followed in the boy's education. It is a somewhat peculiar one. At any
rate, I could not entrust it to a stranger. Once more, will you
undertake it?"

"I must first know what I am to undertake," I answered.

"You are to undertake to have the boy, Leo, to live with you till he
is twenty-five years of age--not to send him to school, remember. On
his twenty-fifth birthday your guardianship will end, and you will
then, with the keys that I give you now" (and he placed them on the
table) "open the iron box, and let him see and read the contents, and
say whether or no he is willing to undertake the quest. There is no
obligation on him to do so. Now, as regards terms. My present income
is two thousand two hundred a year. Half of that income I have secured
to you by will for life, contingently on your undertaking the
guardianship--that is, one thousand a year remuneration to yourself,
for you will have to give up your life to it, and one hundred a year
to pay for the board of the boy. The rest is to accumulate till Leo is
twenty-five, so that there may be a sum in hand should he wish to
undertake the quest of which I spoke."

"And suppose I were to die?" I asked.

"Then the boy must become a ward of Chancery and take his chance. Only
be careful that the iron chest is passed on to him by your will.
Listen, Holly, don't refuse me. Believe me, this is to your advantage.
You are not fit to mix with the world--it would only embitter you. In
a few weeks you will become a Fellow of your College, and the income
that you will derive from that combined with what I have left you will
enable you to live a life of learned leisure, alternated with the
sport of which you are so fond, such as will exactly suit you."

He paused and looked at me anxiously, but I still hesitated. The
charge seemed so very strange.

"For my sake, Holly. We have been good friends, and I have no time to
make other arrangements."

"Very well," I said, "I will do it, provided there is nothing in this
paper to make me change my mind," and I touched the envelope he had
put upon the table by the keys.

"Thank you, Holly, thank you. There is nothing at all. Swear to me by
God that you will be a father to the boy, and follow my directions to
the letter."

"I swear it," I answered solemnly.

"Very well, remember that perhaps one day I shall ask for the account
of your oath, for though I am dead and forgotten, yet I shall live.
There is no such thing as death, Holly, only a change, and, as you may
perhaps learn in time to come, I believe that even that change could
under certain circumstances be indefinitely postponed," and again he
broke into one of his dreadful fits of coughing.

"There," he said, "I must go, you have the chest, and my will will be
found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be
handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you
are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you."

I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak.

He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had
been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the
worms," he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be
stiff and cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me,
Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in
love--at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has
the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden
access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the
forehead, and then turned to go.

"Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had
better let me fetch a doctor."

"No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to
die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone."

"I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I
answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was
gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had
been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave
it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew
that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible
that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain
that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution
surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy
iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me
utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many
things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man
would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This
is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man
would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was
a tiny infant? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death
so accurately? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for
more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly
confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his
fortune, to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was
either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in
the sealed iron chest?

The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last
I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I
jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left
away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large
portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep.

As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I
was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it
was broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact.

"Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who
waited on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a
ghost!"

"Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse,
which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there
he lies stark and dead!"



                                  II

                          THE YEARS ROLL BY

As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir
in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a
satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no
inquest. They were not so particular about inquests in those days as
they are now; indeed, they were generally disliked, because of the
scandal. Under all these circumstances, being asked no questions, I
did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our
interview on the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had
come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the
funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's
remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects,
except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping.
For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my
attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my
Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or
seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I
came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy
consciousness that I had got through it very fairly.

Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed
them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the
events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself
what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the
matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the
curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began
to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious
midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the
solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to
answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide?
It looked like it. And what was the quest of which he spoke? The
circumstances were uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means
nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the
bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing
to do with them. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years
afterwards!

As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in
a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it
was a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected
with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:--

 "Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th
  instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of
  which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the
  executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-
  interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now
  invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the
  guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant,
  aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question
  in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both
  personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had
  very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you
  that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we
  should have bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery
  to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed
  desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator
  or otherwise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is,
  knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest
  intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no relations
  living to whom he could have confided the guardianship of the
  child, we do not feel justified in taking this course.

 "Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the
  delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the
  dividends due to you,

                          "We remain, Sir, faithfully yours,
                                               "Geoffrey and Jordan.

 "Horace L. Holly, Esq."

I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which
appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the
strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it
exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his
death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I
remembered the letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched
and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already
given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday,
and laid down the outlines of the boy's education, which was to
include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and /Arabic/. At the end there
was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of
twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I
was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw
fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no
account was I to pass them on to a stranger.

As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly
raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had
promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open
to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my
acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence
my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the
authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story
as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable
difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in
the event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty
certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their
consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my
rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some
difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to
the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this
point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over
me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old
enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a
suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a
most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a
hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen
and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself
quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived.
Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands
deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and
management of children and read them, first to myself, and then aloud
to Job--that was the young man's name--and waited.

At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who
wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed,
I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since.
His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that
early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But
perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in
colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little
when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never
shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the
window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye,
whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and
stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job,
in the corner, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing
from his previous experience, or from the analogy of the hen, he
judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the
youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness
backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This
went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched
out both his little arms and ran to me.

"I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good."

Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter,
with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but
I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and
forbade it.

In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the
boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and
regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in and
out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were
relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number,
and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow,
now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the
University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered,
when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a
strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of
enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited
quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing
about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his
age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what
was right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose
the row.

But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which
memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they
passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons
have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and
continuous affection that Leo bears to me.

The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one
by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so
did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was
about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me
they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us
when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once
Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because
he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I
walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting,
when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of
the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a
little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called
me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation
with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow
more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its
fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the
youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody
so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant
and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary
for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards
his education strictly enough, and on the whole the results,
especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic, were satisfactory. I
learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but
after five years of it he knew it as well as I did--almost as well as
the professor who instructed us both. I always was a great sportsman--
it is my one passion--and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting
or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to
Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me.

When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at
my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable
degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first
time, told him something of his own story, and of the mystery that
loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I
explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present.
After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get
himself called to the Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and
only going up to London to eat his dinners.

I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman
who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on
falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not
enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On
the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that.

And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth
birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history
really begins.



                                 III

                        THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS

On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to
London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had
deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by
the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having
hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had
difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs.

In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and
I think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got
that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived
in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once
proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy
curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very
well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an
unusually sharp nine--we breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my
own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into
Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the
contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the
handle off my Sèvres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that
Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath.

At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request,
fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly
fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the
room.

"Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should
prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be
relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak."

"Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to
call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat
disrespectfully by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular
relative."

Job touched his head, not having a hat on.

"Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box."

He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's
father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of
them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an
exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the
sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a
strip of solid silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle,
and leaving some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a
model of an antediluvian railway key than anything else.

"Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to
fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some
salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands
were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and
caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the
hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case
covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any
difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a
clothes-brush.

It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black
wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its
antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in
parts actually commencing to crumble from age.

"Now for it," I said, inserting the second key.

Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I
flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for
inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve
inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian
workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-
shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course
much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound
condition.

I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the
most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and
pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the
casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown
shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of
which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to
the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an
ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of
my dead friend Vincey.

        "/To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket./"

I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put
it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the
casket.

The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I
unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and
headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put
it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of
parchment, that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of
years. This I also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same
Greek original, but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance
from the style and character appeared to me to date from somewhere
about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this
roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and
reposing upon another layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and
carefully we unrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but
undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd
had in my judgment, once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium
size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by
seven in width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely
covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with
writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but
for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently
been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such
as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that in some
remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and
rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were
numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most
erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in
many different ages, and of them, together with the writings on the
parchments, I shall have to speak presently.

                              [plate 1]

                 FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS

                             One 1/2 size

          Greatest length of the original    10½ inches
          Greatest breadth                   7 inches
          Weight                             1lb 5½ oz

                              [plate 2]

                 FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS

                             One 1/2 size

"Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper.

I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen
bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon
ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition
/scarabæus/, marked thus:--

                           [sketch omitted]

symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is
being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a
picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the
back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved
wife."

"That is all," I said.

"Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had
been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and
without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:--

 "My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you
  will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough
  dead to be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in
  reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know
  may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and paper,
  I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my
  voice speaks to you from the silence of the grave. Though I am
  dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you
  in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have
  scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the
  life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and
  the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time
  have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to
  live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can
  bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your
  future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period
  to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not
  live more than another year."

"So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so."

 "And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What
  has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead,
  and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my
  friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention
  to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary
  antiquity of your race. In the contents of this casket you will
  find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find
  inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was
  communicated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong
  hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years of age I
  determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about
  the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that
  befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On
  the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some
  distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea,
  there is a headland, at the extremity of which a peak towers up,
  shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the
  writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering
  native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime
  which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains,
  shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I
  learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and
  are ruled over by a /beautiful white woman/ who is seldom seen by
  them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and
  dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever
  contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of
  provisions and by symptoms of an illness which afterwards
  prostrated me to take to my dhow again.

 "Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak.
  I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some
  months afterwards by an English ship that brought me to Aden,
  whence I started for England, intending to prosecute my search as
  soon as I had made sufficient preparations. On my way I stopped in
  Greece, and there, for 'Omnia vincit amor,' I met your beloved
  mother, and married her, and there you were born and she died.
  Then it was that my last illness seized me, and I returned hither
  to die. But still I hoped against hope, and set myself to work to
  learn Arabic, with the intention, should I ever get better, of
  returning to the coast of Africa, and solving the mystery of which
  the tradition has lived so many centuries in our family. But I
  have not got better, and, so far as I am concerned, the story is
  at an end.

 "For you, however, my son, it is not at an end, and to you I hand
  on these the results of my labour, together with the hereditary
  proofs of its origin. It is my intention to provide that they
  shall not be put into your hands until you have reached an age
  when you will be able to judge for yourself whether or no you will
  choose to investigate what, if it is true, must be the greatest
  mystery in the world, or to put it by as an idle fable,
  originating in the first place in a woman's disordered brain.

 "I do not believe that it is a fable; I believe that if it can only
  be re-discovered there is a spot where the vital forces of the
  world visibly exist. Life exists; why therefore should not the
  means of preserving it indefinitely exist also? But I have no wish
  to prejudice your mind about the matter. Read and judge for
  yourself. If you are inclined to undertake the search, I have so
  provided that you will not lack for means. If, on the other hand,
  you are satisfied that the whole thing is a chimera, then, I
  adjure you, destroy the potsherd and the writings, and let a cause
  of troubling be removed from our race for ever. Perhaps that will
  be wisest. The unknown is generally taken to be terrible, not as
  the proverb would infer, from the inherent superstition of man,
  but because it so often /is/ terrible. He who would tamper with
  the vast and secret forces that animate the world may well fall a
  victim to them. And if the end were attained, if at last you
  emerged from the trial ever beautiful and ever young, defying time
  and evil, and lifted above the natural decay of flesh and
  intellect, who shall say that the awesome change would prove a
  happy one? Choose, my son, and may the Power who rules all things,
  and who says 'thus far shalt thou go, and thus much shalt thou
  learn,' direct the choice to your own happiness and the happiness
  of the world, which, in the event of your success, you would one
  day certainly rule by the pure force of accumulated experience.--
  Farewell!"

Thus the letter, which was unsigned and undated, abruptly ended.

"What do you make of that, Uncle Holly," said Leo, with a sort of
gasp, as he replaced it on the table. "We have been looking for a
mystery, and we certainly seem to have found one."

"What do I make of it? Why, that your poor dear father was off his
head, of course," I answered, testily. "I guessed as much that night,
twenty years ago, when he came into my room. You see he evidently
hurried his own end, poor man. It is absolute balderdash."

"That's it, sir!" said Job, solemnly. Job was a most matter-of-fact
specimen of a matter-of-fact class.

"Well, let's see what the potsherd has to say, at any rate," said Leo,
taking up the translation in his father's writing, and commencing to
read:--

 "/I, Amenartas, of the Royal House of the Pharaohs of Egypt, wife of
  Kallikrates (the Beautiful in Strength), a Priest of Isis whom the
  gods cherish and the demons obey, being about to die, to my little
  son Tisisthenes (the Mighty Avenger). I fled with thy father from
  Egypt in the days of Nectanebes,[*] causing him through love to
  break the vows that he had vowed. We fled southward, across the
  waters, and we wandered for twice twelve moons on the coast of
  Libya (Africa) that looks towards the rising sun, where by a river
  is a great rock carven like the head of an Ethiopian. Four days on
  the water from the mouth of a mighty river were we cast away, and
  some were drowned and some died of sickness. But us wild men took
  through wastes and marshes, where the sea fowl hid the sky,
  bearing us ten days' journey till we came to a hollow mountain,
  where a great city had been and fallen, and where there are caves
  of which no man hath seen the end; and they brought us to the
  Queen of the people who place pots upon the heads of strangers,
  who is a magician having a knowledge of all things, and life and
  loveliness that does not die. And she cast eyes of love upon thy
  father, Kallikrates, and would have slain me, and taken him to
  husband, but he loved me and feared her, and would not. Then did
  she take us, and lead us by terrible ways, by means of dark magic,
  to where the great pit is, in the mouth of which the old
  philosopher lay dead, and showed to us the rolling Pillar of Life
  that dies not, whereof the voice is as the voice of thunder; and
  she did stand in the flames, and come forth unharmed, and yet more
  beautiful. Then did she swear to make thy father undying even as
  she is, if he would but slay me, and give himself to her, for me
  she could not slay because of the magic of my own people that I
  have, and that prevailed thus far against her. And he held his
  hand before his eyes to hide her beauty, and would not. Then in
  her rage did she smite him by her magic, and he died; but she wept
  over him, and bore him thence with lamentations: and being afraid,
  me she sent to the mouth of the great river where the ships come,
  and I was carried far away on the ships where I gave thee birth,
  and hither to Athens I came at last after many wanderings. Now I
  say to thee, my son, Tisisthenes, seek out the woman, and learn
  the secret of Life, and if thou mayest find a way slay her,
  because of thy father Kallikrates; and if thou dost fear or fail,
  this I say to all thy seed who come after thee, till at last a
  brave man be found among them who shall bathe in the fire and sit
  in the place of the Pharaohs. I speak of those things, that though
  they be past belief, yet I have known, and I lie not./"

[*] Nekht-nebf, or Nectanebo II., the last native Pharaoh of Egypt,
    fled from Ochus to Ethiopia, B.C. 339.--Editor.

"May the Lord forgive her for that," groaned Job, who had been
listening to this marvellous composition with his mouth open.

As for myself, I said nothing: my first idea being that my poor
friend, being demented, had composed the whole thing, though it
scarcely seemed likely that such a story could have been invented by
anybody. It was too original. To solve my doubts I took up the
potsherd and began to read the close uncial Greek writing on it; and
very good Greek of the period it is, considering that it came from the
pen of an Egyptian born. Here is an exact transcript of it:--

ΑΜΕΝΑΡΤΑΣΤΟΥΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΟΥΓΕΝΟΥΣΤΟΥΑΙΓΥΠΤΙΟΥΗΤΟΥΚΑΛΛΙΚΡΑΤΟΥΣΙΣΙΔΟΣΙΕΡΕΩΣΗΝΟ
ΙΜΕΝΘΕΟΙΤΡΕΦΟΥΣΙΤΑΔΕΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΑΥΠΟΤΑΣΣΕΤΑΙΗΔΗΤΕΛΕΥΤΩΣΑΤΙΣΙΣΘΕΝΕΙΤΩΠΑΙΔΙΕΠ
ΙΣΤΕΛΛΕΙΤΑΔΕΣΥΝΕΦΥΓΟΝΓΑΡΠΟΤΕΕΚΤΗΣΑΙΓΥΠΤΙΑΣΕΠΙΝΕΚΤΑΝΕΒΟΥΜΕΤΑΤΟΥΣΟΥΠΑΤΡΟ
ΣΔΙΑΤΟΝΕΡΩΤΑΤΟΝΕΜΟΝΕΠΙΟΡΚΗΣΑΝΤΟΣΦΥΓΟΝΤΕΣΔΕΠΡΟΣΝΟΤΟΝΔΙΑΠΟΝΤΙΟΙΚΑΙΚΔΜΗΝΑ
ΣΚΑΤΑΤΑΠΑΡΑΘΑΛΑΣΣΙΑΤΗΣΛΙΒΥΗΣΤΑΠΡΟΣΗΛΙΟΥΑΝΑΤΟΛΑΣΠΛΑΝΗΘΕΝΤΕΣΕΝΘΑΠΕΡΠΕΤΡΑ
ΤΙΣΜΕΓΑΛΗΓΛΥΠΤΟΝΟΜΟΙΩΜΑΑΙΘΙΟΠΟΣΚΕΦΑΛΗΣΕΙΤΑΗΜΕΡΑΣΔΑΠΟΣΤΟΜΑΤΟΣΠΟΤΑΜΟΥΜΕΓ
ΑΛΟΥΕΚΠΕΣΟΝΤΕΣΟΙΜΕΝΚΑΤΕΠΟΝΤΙΣΘΗΜΕΝΟΙΔΕΝΟΣΩΙΑΠΕΘΑΝΟΜΕΝΤΕΛΟΣΔΕΥΠΑΓΡΙΩΝΑΝ
ΘΡΩΠΩΝΕΦΕΡΟΜΕΘΑΔΙΑΕΛΕΩΝΤΕΚΑΙΤΕΝΑΓΕΩΝΕΝΘΑΠΕΡΠΤΗΝΩΝΠΛΗΘΟΣΑΠΟΚΡΥΠΤΕΙΤΟΝΟΥ
ΡΑΝΟΝΗΜΕΡΑΣΙΕΩΣΗΛΘΟΜΕΝΕΙΣΚΟΙΛΟΝΤΙΟΡΟΣΕΝΘΑΠΟΤΕΜΕΓΑΛΗΜΕΝΠΟΛΙΣΗΝΑΝΤΡΑΔΕΑΠ
ΕΙΡΟΝΑΗΓΑΓΟΝΔΕΩΣΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΑΝΤΗΝΤΩΝΞΕΝΟΥΣΧΥΤΡΑΙΣΣΤΕΦΑΝΟΥΝΤΩΝΗΤΙΣΜΑΓΕΙΑΜΕΝΕ
ΧΡΗΤΟΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΗΔΕΠΑΝΤΩΝΚΑΙΔΗΚΑΙΚΑΛΛΟΣΚΑΙΡΩΜΗΝΑΓΗΡΩΣΗΝΗΔΕΚΑΛΛΙΚΡΑΤΟΥΣΤΟΥΣ
ΟΥΠΑΤΡΟΣΕΡΑΣΘΕΙΣΑΤΟΜΕΝΠΡΩΤΟΝΣΥΝΟΙΚΕΙΝΕΒΟΥΛΕΤΟΕΜΕΔΕΑΝΕΛΕΙΝΕΠΕΙΤΑΩΣΟΥΚΑΝ
ΕΠΕΙΘΕΝΕΜΕΓΑΡΥΠΕΡΕΦΙΛΕΙΚΑΙΤΗΝΞΕΝΗΝΕΦΟΒΕΙΤΟΑΠΗΓΑΓΕΝΗΜΑΣΥΠΟΜΑΓΕΙΑΣΚΑΘΟΔΟ
ΥΣΣΦΑΛΕΡΑΣΕΝΘΑΤΟΒΑΡΑΘΡΟΝΤΟΜΕΓΑΟΥΚΑΤΑΣΤΟΜΑΕΚΕΙΤΟΟΓΕΡΩΝΟΦΙΛΟΣΟΦΟΣΤΕΘΝΕΩΣ
ΑΦΙΚΟΜΕΝΟΙΣΔΕΔΕΙΞΕΦΩΣΤΟΥΒΙΟΥΕΥΘΥΟΙΟΝΚΙΟΝΑΕΛΙΣΣΟΜΕΝΟΝΦΩΝΗΝΙΕΝΤΑΚΑΘΑΠΕΡΒ
ΡΟΝΤΗΣΕΙΤΑΔΙΑΠΥΡΟΣΒΕΒΗΚΥΙΑΑΒΛΑΒΗΣΚΑΙΕΤΙΚΑΛΛΙΩΝΑΥΤΗΕΑΥΤΗΣΕΞΕΦΑΝΗΕΚΔΕΤΟΥ
ΤΩΝΩΜΟΣΕΚΑΙΤΟΝΣΟΝΠΑΤΕΡΑΑΘΑΝΑΤΟΝΑΠΟΔΕΙΞΕΙΝΕΙΣΥΝΟΙΚΕΙΝΟΙΒΟΥΛΟΙΤΟΕΜΕΔΕΑΝΕ
ΛΕΙΝΟΥΓΑΡΟΥΝΑΥΤΗΑΝΕΛΕΙΝΙΣΧΥΕΝΥΠΟΤΩΝΗΜΕΔΑΠΩΝΗΝΚΑΙΑΥΤΗΕΧΩΜΑΓΕΙΑΣΟΔΟΥΔΕΝΤ
ΙΜΑΛΛΟΝΗΘΕΛΕΤΩΧΕΙΡΕΤΩΝΟΜΜΑΤΩΝΠΡΟΙΣΧΩΝΙΝΑΔΗΤΟΤΗΣΓΥΝΑΙΚΟΣΚΑΛΛΟΣΜΗΟΡΩΗΕΠΕ
ΙΤΑΟΡΓΙΣΘΕΙΣΑΚΑΤΕΓΟΗΤΕΥΣΕΜΕΝΑΥΤΟΝΑΠΟΛΟΜΕΝΟΝΜΕΝΤΟΙΚΛΑΟΥΣΑΚΑΙΟΔΥΡΟΜΕΝΗΕΚ
ΕΙΘΕΝΑΠΗΝΕΓΚΕΝΕΜΕΔΕΦΟΒΩΙΑΦΗΚΕΝΕΙΣΣΤΟΜΑΤΟΥΜΕΓΑΛΟΥΠΟΤΑΜΟΥΤΟΥΝΑΥΣΙΠΟΡΟΥΠΟ
ΡΡΩΔΕΝΑΥΣΙΝΕΦΩΝΠΕΡΠΛΕΟΥΣΑΕΤΕΚΟΝΣΕΑΠΟΠΛΕΥΣΑΣΑΜΟΛΙΣΠΟΤΕΔΕΥΡΟΑΘΗΝΑΖΕΚΑΤΗΓ
ΑΓΟΜΗΝΣΥΔΕΩΤΙΣΙΣΘΕΝΕΣΩΝΕΠΙΣΤΕΛΛΩΜΗΟΛΙΓΩΡΕΙΔΕΙΓΑΡΤΗΝΓΥΝΑΙΚΑΑΝΑΖΗΤΕΙΝΗΝΠ
ΩΣΤΟΤΟΥΒΙΟΥΜΥΣΤΗΡΙΟΝΑΝΕΥΡΗΣΚΑΙΑΝΑΙΡΕΙΝΗΝΠΟΥΠΑΡΑΣΧΗΔΙΑΤΟΝΣΟΝΠΑΤΕΡΑΚΑΛΛΙ
ΚΡΑΤΗΝΕΙΔΕΦΟΒΟΥΜΕΝΟΣΗΔΙΑΑΛΛΟΤΙΑΥΤΟΣΛΕΙΠΕΙΤΟΥΕΡΓΟΥΠΑΣΙΤΟΙΣΥΣΤΕΡΟΝΑΥΤΟΤΟ
ΥΤΟΕΠΙΣΤΕΛΛΩΕΩΣΠΟΤΕΑΓΑΘΟΣΤΙΣΓΕΝΟΜΕΝΟΣΤΩΠΥΡΙΛΟΥΣΑΣΘΑΙΤΟΛΜΗΣΕΙΚΑΙΤΑΑΡΙΣΤ
ΕΙΑΕΧΩΝΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣΑΙΤΩΝΑΝΘΡΩΠΩΝΑΠΙΣΤΑΜΕΝΔΗΤΑΤΟΙΑΥΤΑΛΕΓΩΟΜΩΣΔΕΑΑΥΤΗΕΓΝΩΚΑΟ
ΥΚΕΨΕΥΣΑΜΗΝ

The general convenience in reading, I have here accurately transcribed
this inscription into the cursive character.

Ἀμενάρτας, τοῦ βασικοῦ γένους τοῦ Αἰγυπτίου, ἡ τοῦ Καλλικράτους Ἴσιδος
ἱερέως, ἣν οἱ μὲν θεοὶ τρέφουσι τὰ δὲ δαιμονια ὑποτάσσεται, ἤδη
τελευτῶσα Τισισθένει τῷ παιδὶ ἐπιστέλλει τάδε· συνέφυγον γάρ ποτε ἐκ
τῆς Αἰγυπτίας ἐπὶ Νεκτανέβου μετὰ τοῦ σοῦ πατρός, διὰ τὸν ἔρωτα τὸν
ἐμὸν ἐπιορκήσαντος. φυγόντες δὲ πρὸς νότον διαπόντιοι καὶ κʹδʹ μῆνας
κατὰ τὰ παραθαλάσσια τῆς Αιβύης τὰ πρός ἡλίου ἀνατολὰς πλανηθέντες,
ἔνθαπερ πέτρα τις μελάλη, γλυπτὸν ὁμοίωμα Αἰθίοπος κεφαλῆς, εἶτα
ἡμέρας δʹ ἀπὸ στόματος ποταμοῦ μεγάλου ἐκπεσόντες, οἱ μέν
κατεποντίσθημεν, οἱ δὲ νόσῳ ἀπεθάνομεν· τέλος δὲ ὑπ᾽ ἀλρίων ἀνθρώπων
ἐφερόμεθα διὰ ἐλέων τε καὶ τεναλέων ἔνθαπερ πτηνῶν πλῆθος ἀποκρύπτει
τὸν οὐρανὸν, ἡμέρας ί, ἕως ἤλθομεν εἰς κοῖλόν τι ὄρος, ἔνθα ποτὲ
μεγάλη μὲν πόλις ἦν, ἄντρα δὲ ἀπείρονα· ἤγαγον δὲ ὡς βασίλειαν τὴν τῶν
ξένους χύτραις στεφανούντων, ἥτις μαλεία μὲν ἐχρῆτο ἐπιστήμη δὲ πάντων
καὶ δὴ καὶ κάλλός καὶ ῥώμην ἀλήρως ἦν· ἡ δὲ Καλλικράτους τοῦ πατρὸς
ἐρασθεῖδα τὸ μὲν πρῶτον συνοικεῖν ἐβούλετο ἐμὲ δὲ ἀνελεῖν· ἔπειτα, ὡς
οὐκ ἀνέπειθεν, ἐμὲ γὰρ ὑπερεφίλει καὶ τὴν ξένην ἐφοβεῖτο, ἀπήγαγεν
ἡμᾶς ὑπὸ μαγείας καθʹ ὁδοὺς σφαλερὰς ἔνθα τὸ βάραθρον τὸ μέγα, οὗ κατὰ
στόμα ἔκειτο ὁ γέρων ὁ φιλόσοφος τεθνεώς, ἀφικομένοις δʹ ἔδειξε φῶς
τοῦ βίου εὐθύ, οἷον κίονα ἑλισσόμενον φώνην ἱέντα καθάπερ βροντῆς,
εἶτα διὰ πυρὸς βεβηκυῖα ἀβλαβὴς καὶ ἔτι καλλίων αὐτὴ ἑαυτῆς ἐξεφάνη.
ἐκ δὲ τούτων ὤμοσε καὶ τὸν σὸν πατέρα ἀθάνατον ἀποδείξειν, εἰ
συνοικεῖν οἱ βούλοιτο ἐμὲ δε ὰνελεῖν, οὐ γὰρ οὖν αὐτὴ ἀνελεῖν ἴσχυεν
ὑπὸ τῶν ἡμεδαπῶν ἣν καὶ αὐτὴ ἔχω μαγείας. ὁ δʹ οὐδέν τι μᾶλλον ἤθελε,
τὼ χεῖρε τῶν ὀμμάτων προίσχων ἵνα δὴ τὸ τῆς γυναικὸς κάλλος μὴ ὁρῴη·
ἔπειτα ὀργισθεῖσα κατεγοήτευσε μὲν αὐτόν, ἀπολόμενον μέντοι κλάουσα
καὶ ὀδυρμένη ἐκεῖθεν ἀπήνεγκεν, ἐμὲ δὲ φόβῳ ἀφῆκεν εἰς στόμα τοῦ
μεγάλου ποταμοῦ τοῦ ναυσιπόρου, πόδδω δὲ ναυσίν, ἐφʹ ὧνπερ πλέουσα
ἔτεκόν σε, ἀποπλεύσασα μόλις ποτὲ δεῦρο Ἀθηνάζε κατηγαγόν. σὺ δέ, ὦ
Τισίσθενες, ὧν ἐπιστέλλω μὴ ὀλιγώρει· δεῖ γὰρ τῆν γυναῖκα ἀναζητεῖν ἤν
πως τῦ βίου μυστήριον ἀνεύρῃς, καὶ ἀναιρεῖν, ἤν που παρασχῇ, διὰ τὸν
πατέρα Καλλικράτους. εἐ δὲ φοβούμενος ἢ διὰ ἄλλο τι αὐτὸς λείπει τοῦ
ἔργου, πᾶσι τοῖς ὕστερον αὐτὸ τοῦτο ἐπιστέλλω, ἕως ποτὲ ἀγαθός τις
γενόμενος τῷ πυρὶ λούσασθαι τολμήσει καὶ τὰ ἀριστεῖα ἔχων βασιλεῦσαι
τῶν ἀνθρώπων· ἄπιστα μὲν δὴ τὰ τοιαῦτα λέγω, ὅμως δὲ ἃ αὐτὴ ἔγνωκα οὐκ
ἐψευσάμην.

The English translation was, as I discovered on further investigation,
and as the reader may easily see by comparison, both accurate and
elegant.

Besides the uncial writing on the convex side of the sherd at the top,
painted in dull red, on what had once been the lip of the amphora, was
the cartouche already mentioned as being on the /scarabæus/, which we
had also found in the casket. The hieroglyphics or symbols, however,
were reversed, just as though they had been pressed on wax. Whether
this was the cartouche of the original Kallikrates,[*] or of some
Prince or Pharaoh from whom his wife Amenartas was descended, I am not
sure, nor can I tell if it was drawn upon the sherd at the same time
that the uncial Greek was inscribed, or copied on more recently from
the Scarab by some other member of the family. Nor was this all. At
the foot of the writing, painted in the same dull red, was the faint
outline of a somewhat rude drawing of the head and shoulders of a
Sphinx wearing two feathers, symbols of majesty, which, though common
enough upon the effigies of sacred bulls and gods, I have never before
met with on a Sphinx.

[*] The cartouche, if it be a true cartouche, cannot have been that of
    Kallikrates, as Mr. Holly suggests. Kallikrates was a priest and
    not entitled to a cartouche, which was the prerogative of Egyptian
    royalty, though he might have inscribed his name or title upon an
    /oval/.--Editor.

Also on the right-hand side of this surface of the sherd, painted
obliquely in red on the space not covered by the uncial characters,
and signed in blue paint, was the following quaint inscription:--

    IN EARTH AND SKIE AND SEA
    STRANGE THYNGES THER BE.
  HOC FECIT
    DOROTHEA VINCEY.

Perfectly bewildered, I turned the relic over. It was covered from top
to bottom with notes and signatures in Greek, Latin, and English. The
first in uncial Greek was by Tisisthenes, the son to whom the writing
was addressed. It was, "I could not go. Tisisthenes to his son,
Kallikrates." Here it is in fac-simile with its cursive equivalent:--

  ΟΥΚΑΝΔΥΝΑΙΜΗΝΠΟΡΕΥΕϹΘΑΙΤΙϹΙϹΘΕΝΗϹΚΑΛΛΙΚΡΑΤΕΙΤΩΙΠΑΙΔΙ

    οὐκ ἂν δυναίμην πορεύεσθαι.
        Τισισθένης Καλλικράτει τῷ παιδί.

This Kallikrates (probably, in the Greek fashion, so named after his
grandfather) evidently made some attempt to start on the quest, for
his entry written in very faint and almost illegible uncial is, "I
ceased from my going, the gods being against me. Kallikrates to his
son." Here it is also:--

  ΤΩΝΘΕΩΝΑΝΤΙΣΤΑΝΤΩΝΕΠΑΥΣΑΜΗΝΤΗΣΠΟΡΕΙΑΣΑΛΛΙΚΡΑΤΗΣΤΩΙΠΑΙΔΙ

    τῶν θεῶν ἀντιστάντων ἐπαυσάμην τῆς πορείας.
        Καλλικράτης τῷ παιδί.

Between these two ancient writings, the second of which was inscribed
upside down and was so faint and worn that, had it not been for the
transcript of it executed by Vincey, I should scarcely have been able
to read it, since, owing to its having been written on that portion of
the tile which had, in the course of ages, undergone the most
handling, it was nearly rubbed out--was the bold, modern-looking
signature of one Lionel Vincey, "Ætate sua 17," which was written
thereon, I think, by Leo's grandfather. To the right of this were the
initials "J. B. V.," and below came a variety of Greek signatures, in
uncial and cursive character, and what appeared to be some carelessly
executed repetitions of the sentence τῷ παιδί (to my son), showing
that the relic was religiously passed on from generation to
generation.

The next legible thing after the Greek signatures was the word "Romae,
A.U.C.," showing that the family had now migrated to Rome.
Unfortunately, however, with the exception of its termination (evi)
the date of their settlement there is for ever lost, for just where it
had been placed a piece of the potsherd is broken away.

Then followed twelve Latin signatures, jotted about here and there,
wherever there was a space upon the tile suitable to their
inscription. These signatures, with three exceptions only, ended with
the name "Vindex" or "the Avenger," which seems to have been adopted
by the family after its migration to Rome as a kind of equivalent to
the Greek "Tisisthenes," which also means an avenger. Ultimately, as
might be expected, this Latin cognomen of Vindex was transformed first
into De Vincey, and then into the plain, modern Vincey. It is very
curious to observe how the idea of revenge, inspired by an Egyptian
who lived before the time of Christ, is thus, as it were, embalmed in
an English family name.

A few of the Roman names inscribed upon the sherd I have actually
since found mentioned in history and other records. They were, if I
remember right,

  MVSSIVS. VINDEX
  SEX. VARIVS MARVLLVS
  C. FVFIDIVS. C. F. VINDEX

and

  LABERIA POMPEIANA. CONIVX. MACRINI. VINDICIS

this last being, of course, the name of a Roman lady.

The following list, however, comprises all the Latin names upon the
sherd:--

  C. CAECILIVS VINDEX
  M. AIMILIVS VINDEX
  SEX. VARIVS. MARVLLVS
  Q. SOSIVS PRISCVS SENECIO VINDEX
  L. VALERIVS COMINIVS VINDEX
  SEX. OTACILIVS. M. F.
  L. ATTIVS. VINDEX
  MVSSIVS VINDEX
  C. FVFIDIVS. C. F. VINDEX
  LICINIVS FAVSTVS
  LABERIA POMPEIANA CONIVX MACRINI VINDICIS
  MANILIA LVCILLA CONIVX MARVLLI VINDICIS

After the Roman names there is evidently a gap of very many centuries.
Nobody will ever know now what was the history of the relic during
those dark ages, or how it came to have been preserved in the family.
My poor friend Vincey had, it will be remembered, told me that his
Roman ancestors finally settled in Lombardy, and when Charlemagne
invaded it, returned with him across the Alps, and made their home in
Brittany, whence they crossed to England in the reign of Edward the
Confessor. How he knew this I am not aware, for there is no reference
to Lombardy or Charlemagne upon the tile, though, as will presently be
seen, there is a reference to Brittany. To continue: the next entries
on the sherd, if I may except a long splash either of blood or red
colouring matter of some sort, consist of two crosses drawn in red
pigment, and probably representing Crusaders' swords, and a rather
neat monogram ("D. V.") in scarlet and blue, perhaps executed by that
same Dorothea Vincey who wrote, or rather painted, the doggrel
couplet. To the left of this, inscribed in faint blue, were the
initials A. V., and after them a date, 1800.

Then came what was perhaps as curious an entry as anything upon this
extraordinary relic of the past. It is executed in black letter,
written over the crosses or Crusaders' swords, and dated fourteen
hundred and forty-five. As the best plan will be to allow it to speak
for itself, I here give the black-letter fac-simile, together with the
original Latin without the contractions, from which it will be seen
that the writer was a fair mediæval Latinist. Also we discovered what
is still more curious, an English version of the black-letter Latin.
This, also written in black letter, we found inscribed on a second
parchment that was in the coffer, apparently somewhat older in date
than that on which was inscribed the mediæval Latin translation of the
uncial Greek of which I shall speak presently. This I also give in
full.

 /Fac-simile of Black-Letter Inscription on the Sherd of Amenartas./

 "Iſta reliq̅ia eſt valde miſticu̅ et myrificu̅ op̅s q̅d maiores mei ex
  Armorica ſſ Brittania mi̅ore ſecu̅ co̅veheba̅t et q̅dm ſc̅s cleric̅s
  ſe̅per p̅ri meo in manu ferebat q̅d pe̅itus illvd deſtrueret,
  affirma̅s q̅d eſſet ab ipſo ſathana co̅flatu̅ preſtigioſa et dyabolica
  arte q̅re p̅ter mevs co̅fregit illvd i̅ dvas p̅tes q̅s q̅dm ego Johs̅
  de Vi̅ceto ſalvas ſervavi et adaptavi ſicut ap̅paret die lu̅e p̅r̅
  poſt feſt beate Mrie vir{g} anni gr̅e mccccxlv."

      /Expanded Version of the above Black-Letter Inscription./

 "Ista reliquia est valde misticum et myrificum opus, quod majores
  mei ex Armorica, scilicet Britannia Minore, secum convehebant; et
  et quidam sanctus clericus semper patri meo in manu ferebat quod
  penitus illud destrueret, affirmans quod esset ab ipso Sathana
  conflatum prestigiosa et dyabolica arte, quare pater meus
  confregit illud in duas partes, quas quidem ego Johannes de
  Vinceto salvas servavi et adaptavi sicut apparet die lune proximo
  post festum beate Marie Virginis anni gratie MCCCCXLV."

   /Fac-simile of the Old English Black-Letter Translation of the
     above Latin Inscription from the Sherd of Amenartas found
                     inscribed upon a parchment./

 "Thys rellike ys a ryghte mistycall worke & a marvaylous yᵉ whyche myne
  aunceteres afore tyme dyd conveigh hider wᵗ yᵐ ffrom Armoryke whᵉ ys
  to ſeien Britaine yᵉ leſſe & a certayne holye clerke ſhoulde allweyes
  beare my ffadir on honde yᵗ he owghte uttirly ffor to ffruſſhe yᵉ ſame
  affyrmynge yᵗ yt was ffourmyd & confflatyd off ſathanas hym ſelffe by
  arte magike & dyvellyſſhe wherefore my ffadir dyd take yᵉ ſame & to
  braſt yt yn tweyne but I John de Vincey dyd ſave whool yᵉ tweye p̄tes
  therof & topeecyd yᵐ togydder agayne ſoe as yee ſe on y{s} daye
  mondaye next ffolowynge after yᵉ ffeeste of ſeynte Marye yᵉ bleſſed
  vyrgyne yn yᵉ yeere of ſalvacioun ffowertene hundreth & ffyve &
  ffowrti."

     /Modernised Version of the above Black-Letter Translation./

 "Thys rellike ys a ryghte mistycall worke and a marvaylous, ye
  whyche myne aunceteres aforetyme dyd conveigh hider with them from
  Armoryke which ys to seien Britaine ye Lesse and a certayne holye
  clerke should allweyes beare my fadir on honde that he owghte
  uttirly for to frusshe ye same, affyrmynge that yt was fourmed and
  conflatyed of Sathanas hym selfe by arte magike and dyvellysshe
  wherefore my fadir dyd take ye same and tobrast yt yn tweyne, but
  I, John de Vincey, dyd save whool ye tweye partes therof and
  topeecyd them togydder agayne soe as yee se, on this daye mondaye
  next followynge after ye feeste of Seynte Marye ye Blessed Vyrgyne
  yn ye yeere of Salvacioun fowertene hundreth and fyve and
  fowerti."

The next and, save one, last entry was Elizabethan, and dated 1564. "A
most strange historie, and one that did cost my father his life; for
in seekynge for the place upon the east coast of Africa, his pinnance
was sunk by a Portuguese galleon off Lorenzo Marquez, and he himself
perished.--John Vincey."

Then came the last entry, apparently, to judge by the style of
writing, made by some representative of the family in the middle of
the eighteenth century. It was a misquotation of the well-known lines
in Hamlet, and ran thus: "There are more things in Heaven and earth
than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio."[*]

[*] Another thing that makes me fix the date of this entry at the
    middle of the eighteenth century is that, curiously enough, I have
    an acting copy of "Hamlet," written about 1740, in which these two
    lines are misquoted almost exactly in the same way, and I have
    little doubt but that the Vincey who wrote them on the potsherd
    heard them so misquoted at that date. Of course, the lines really
    run:--

      There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
      Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.--L. H. H.

And now there remained but one more document to be examined--namely,
the ancient black-letter transcription into mediæval Latin of the
uncial inscription on the sherd. As will be seen, this translation was
executed and subscribed in the year 1495, by a certain "learned man,"
Edmundus de Prato (Edmund Pratt) by name, licentiate in Canon Law, of
Exeter College, Oxford, who had actually been a pupil of Grocyn, the
first scholar who taught Greek in England.[*] No doubt, on the fame of
this new learning reaching his ears, the Vincey of the day, perhaps
that same John de Vincey who years before had saved the relic from
destruction and made the black-letter entry on the sherd in 1445,
hurried off to Oxford to see if perchance it might avail to dissolve
the secret of the mysterious inscription. Nor was he disappointed, for
the learned Edmundus was equal to the task. Indeed his rendering is so
excellent an example of mediæval learning and latinity that, even at
the risk of sating the learned reader with too many antiquities, I
have made up my mind to give it in fac-simile, together with an
expanded version for the benefit of those who find the contractions
troublesome. The translation has several peculiarities on which this
is not the place to dwell, but I would in passing call the attention
of scholars to the passage "duxerunt autem nos ad reginam
/advenaslasaniscoronantium/," which strikes me as a delightful
rendering of the original, "ἤγαγον δὲ ὡς βασίλειαν τὴν τῶν ξένους
χύτραις στεφανούντων."

[*] Grocyn, the instructor of Erasmus, studied Greek under
    Chalcondylas the Byzantine at Florence, and first lectured in the
    Hall of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1491.--Editor.

       /Mediæval Black-Letter Latin Translation of the Uncial
               Inscription on the Sherd of Amenartas/

Amenartas e gen. reg. Egyptii uxor Callicratis ſacerdot̅ Iſidis qua̅
dei fove̅t demonia atte̅du̅t filiol’ ſuo Tiſiſtheni ia̅ moribu̅da ita
ma̅dat: Effugi quo̅da̅ ex Egypto regna̅te Nectanebo cu̅ patre tuo,
p̃pter mei amore̅ pejerato. Fugie̅tes aute̅ v’ſus Notu̅ trans mare et
xxiiij me̅ſes p’r litora Libye v’ſus Orie̅te̅ errant̃ ubi eſt petra
queda̅ m̃gna ſculpta inſtar Ethiop̃ capit̃, deinde dies iiij ab oſt̃
flum̃ m̃gni eiecti p’tim ſubmerſi ſumus p’tim morbo mortui ſum̃: in
fine aute̅ a fer̃ ho̅i̅bs portabamur p̃r palud̃ et vada. ubi aviu̅
m’titudo celu̅ obu̅brat dies x. donec advenim̃ ad cavu̅ que̅da̅
monte̅, ubi olim m̃gna urbs erat, caverne quoq̃ im̅e̅ſe: duxeru̅t
aute̅ nos ad regina̅ Advenaſlaſaniſcorona̅tiu̅ que magic̃ utebat̃ et
peritia omniu̅ rer̃ et ſalte̅ pulcrit̃ et vigore i̅ſe̅eſcibil’ erat.
Hec m̃gno patr̃ tui amore p̃culſa p’mu̅ q’de̅ ei con̅ubiu̅ michi
morte̅ parabat. poſtea v’ro recuſa̅te Callicrate amore mei et timore
regine affecto nos p̃r magica̅ abduxit p’r vias horribil’ ubi eſt
puteus ille p̃fu̅dus, cuius iuxta aditu̅ iacebat ſenior̃ philoſophi
cadaver, et adve̅ie̅tib̃ mo̅ſtravit flam̅a̅ Vite erecta̅, i̅star
columne voluta̅tis, voces emitte̅te̅ q̃ſi tonitrus: tu̅c p̃r igne̅
i̅petu nociuo expers tra̅ſiit et ia̅ ipsa ſeſe formoſior viſa eſt.

Quib̃ fact̃ iuravit ſe patre̅ tuu̅ quoq̃ im̅ortale̅ oſte̅ſura̅ eſſe,
ſi me prius occiſa regine co̅tuberniu̅ mallet; neq̃ eni̅ ipſa me
occidere valuit, p̃pter noſtratu̅ m̃gica̅ cuius egomet p̃tem habeo.
Ille vero nichil huius geñ maluit, manib ante ocul̃ paſſis ne mulier̃
formoſitate̅ adſpiceret: poſtea eu̅ m̃gica p̃cuſſit arte, at mortuu̅
efferebat i̅de cu̅ fletib̃ et vagitib̃, me p̃r timore̅ expulit ad
oſtiu̅ m̃gni flumiñ veliuoli porro in nave in qua te peperi, uix poſt
dies hvc Athenas invecta ſu̅. At tu, O Tiſiſtheñ, ne q’d quoru̅ ma̅do
nauci fac: neceſſe eni̅ eſt muliere̅ exquirere ſi qva Vite myſteriu̅
i̅petres et vi̅dicare, qua̅tu̅ in te eſt, patre̅ tuu̅ Callierat̃ in
regine morte. Sin timore ſue aliq̃ cavſa re̅ reli̅quis i̅fecta̅, hoc
ipſu̅ oi̅b̃ poſter̃ ma̅do du̅ bonvs q̃s inveniatur qvi ignis lauacru̅
no̅ p̃rhorreſcet et p̃tentia digñ do̅i̅abit̃ ho̅i̅u̅.

Talia dico incredibilia q̃de̅ at min̅e ñcta de reb̃ michi cognitis.

Hec Grece scripta Latine reddidit vir doctus Edm̅ds de Prato, in
Decretis Licenciatus e Coll. Exon: Oxon: doctiſſimi Grocyni quondam e
pupillis, Id. Apr. Aᵒ. Dn̅i. MCCCCLXXXXV°.

      /Expanded Version of the above Mediæval Latin Translation/

  Amenartas, e genere regio Egyptii, uxor Callicratis, sacerdotis
  Isidis, quam dei fovent demonia attendunt, filiolo suo Tisistheni
  jam moribunda ita mandat: Effugi quodam ex Egypto, regnante
  Nectanebo, cum patre tuo, propter mei amorem pejerato. Fugientes
  autem versus Notum trans mare, et viginti quatuor menses per
  litora Libye versus Orientem errantes, ubi est petra quedam magna
  sculpta instar Ethiopis capitis, deinde dies quatuor ab ostio
  fluminis magni ejecti partim submersi sumus partim morbo mortui
  sumus: in fine autem a feris hominibus portabamur per paludes et
  vada, ubi avium multitudo celum obumbrat, dies decem, donec
  advenimus ad cavum quendam montem, ubi olim magna urbs erat,
  caverne quoque immense; duxerunt autem nos ad reginam
  Advenaslasaniscoronantium, que magicâ utebatur et peritiá omnium
  rerum, et saltem pulcritudine et vigore insenescibilis erat. Hec
  magno patris tui amore perculsa, primum quidem ei connubium michi
  mortem parabat; postea vero, recusante Callicrate, amore mei et
  timore regine affecto, nos per magicam abduxit per vias horribiles
  ubi est puteus ille profundus, cujus juxta aditum jacebat senioris
  philosophi cadaver, et advenientibus monstravit flammam Vite
  erectam, instar columne voluntantis, voces emittentem quasi
  tonitrus: tunc per ignem impetu nocivo expers transiit et jam ipsa
  sese formosior visa est.

  Quibus factis juravit se patrem tuum quoque immortalem ostensuram
  esse, si me prius occisa regine contubernium mallet; neque enim
  ipsa me occidere valuit, propter nostratum magicam cujus egomet
  partem habeo. Ille vero nichil hujus generis malebat, manibus ante
  oculos passis, ne mulieris formositatem adspiceret: postea illum
  magica percussit arte, at mortuum efferebat inde cum fletibus et
  vagitibus, et me per timorem expulit ad ostium magni fluminis,
  velivoli, porro in nave, in qua te peperi, vix post dies huc
  Athenas vecta sum. At tu, O Tisisthenes, ne quid quorum mando
  nauci fac: necesse enim est mulierem exquirere si qua Vite
  mysterium impetres et vindicare, quautum in te est, patrem tuum
  Callieratem in regine morte. Sin timore sue aliqua causa rem
  reliquis infectam, hoc ipsum omnibus posteris mando, dum bonus
  quis inveniatur qui ignis lavacrum non perhorrescet, et potentia
  dignus dominabitur hominum.

  Talia dico incredibilia quidem at minime ficta de rebus michi
  cognitis.

  Hec Grece scripta Latine reddidit vir doctus Edmundus de Prato, in
  Descretis Licenciatus, e Collegio Exoniensi Oxoniensi doctissimi
  Grocyni quondam e pupillis, Idibus Aprilis Anno Domini
  MCCCCLXXXXV°.

"Well," I said, when at length I had read out and carefully examined
these writings and paragraphs, at least those of them that were still
easily legible, "that is the conclusion of the whole matter, Leo, and
now you can form your own opinion on it. I have already formed mine."

"And what is it?" he asked, in his quick way.

"It is this. I believe that potsherd to be perfectly genuine, and
that, wonderful as it may seem, it has come down in your family from
since the fourth century before Christ. The entries absolutely prove
it, and therefore, however improbable it may seem, it must be
accepted. But there I stop. That your remote ancestress, the Egyptian
princess, or some scribe under her direction, wrote that which we see
on the sherd I have no doubt, nor have I the slightest doubt but that
her sufferings and the loss of her husband had turned her head, and
that she was not right in her mind when she did write it."

"How do you account for what my father saw and heard there?" asked
Leo.

"Coincidence. No doubt there are bluffs on the coast of Africa that
look something like a man's head, and plenty of people who speak
bastard Arabic. Also, I believe that there are lots of swamps. Another
thing is, Leo, and I am sorry to say it, but I do not believe that
your poor father was quite right when he wrote that letter. He had met
with a great trouble, and also he had allowed this story to prey on
his imagination, and he was a very imaginative man. Anyway, I believe
that the whole thing is the most unmitigated rubbish. I know that
there are curious things and forces in nature which we rarely meet
with, and, when we do meet them, cannot understand. But until I see it
with my own eyes, which I am not likely to, I never will believe that
there is any means of avoiding death, even for a time, or that there
is or was a white sorceress living in the heart of an African swamp.
It is bosh, my boy, all bosh!--What do you say, Job?"

"I say, sir, that it is a lie, and, if it is true, I hope Mr. Leo
won't meddle with no such things, for no good can't come of it."

"Perhaps you are both right," said Leo, very quietly. "I express no
opinion. But I say this. I am going to set the matter at rest once and
for all, and if you won't come with me I will go by myself."

I looked at the young man, and saw that he meant what he said. When
Leo means what he says he always puts on a curious look about the
mouth. It has been a trick of his from a child. Now, as a matter of
fact, I had no intention of allowing Leo to go anywhere by himself,
for my own sake, if not for his. I was far too attached to him for
that. I am not a man of many ties or affections. Circumstances have
been against me in this respect, and men and women shrink from me, or
at least, I fancy that they do, which comes to the same thing,
thinking, perhaps, that my somewhat forbidding exterior is a key to my
character. Rather than endure this, I have, to a great extent,
secluded myself from the world, and cut myself off from those
opportunities which with most men result in the formation of relations
more or less intimate. Therefore Leo was all the world to me--brother,
child, and friend--and until he wearied of me, where he went there I
should go too. But, of course, it would not do to let him see how
great a hold he had over me; so I cast about for some means whereby I
might let myself down easy.

"Yes, I shall go, Uncle; and if I don't find the 'rolling Pillar of
Life,' at any rate I shall get some first-class shooting."

Here was my opportunity, and I took it.

"Shooting?" I said. "Ah! yes; I never thought of that. It must be a
very wild stretch of country, and full of big game. I have always
wanted to kill a buffalo before I die. Do you know, my boy, I don't
believe in the quest, but I do believe in big game, and really on the
whole, if, after thinking it over, you make up your mind to go, I will
take a holiday, and come with you."

"Ah," said Leo, "I thought that you would not lose such a chance. But
how about money? We shall want a good lot."

"You need not trouble about that," I answered. "There is all your
income that has been accumulating for years, and besides that I have
saved two-thirds of what your father left to me, as I consider, in
trust for you. There is plenty of cash."

"Very well, then, we may as well stow these things away and go up to
town to see about our guns. By the way, Job, are you coming too? It's
time you began to see the world."

"Well, sir," answered Job, stolidly, "I don't hold much with foreign
parts, but if both you gentlemen are going you will want somebody to
look after you, and I am not the man to stop behind after serving you
for twenty years."

"That's right, Job," said I. "You won't find out anything wonderful,
but you will get some good shooting. And now look here, both of you. I
won't have a word said to a living soul about this nonsense," and I
pointed to the potsherd. "If it got out, and anything happened to me,
my next of kin would dispute my will on the ground of insanity, and I
should become the laughing stock of Cambridge."

That day three months we were on the ocean, bound for Zanzibar.



                                  IV

                              THE SQUALL

How different is the scene that I have now to tell from that which has
just been told! Gone are the quiet college rooms, gone the wind-swayed
English elms, the cawing rooks, and the familiar volumes on the
shelves, and in their place there rises a vision of the great calm
ocean gleaming in shaded silver lights beneath the beams of the full
African moon. A gentle breeze fills the huge sail of our dhow, and
draws us through the water that ripples musically against her sides.
Most of the men are sleeping forward, for it is near midnight, but a
stout swarthy Arab, Mahomed by name, stands at the tiller, lazily
steering by the stars. Three miles or more to our starboard is a low
dim line. It is the Eastern shore of Central Africa. We are running to
the southward, before the North East Monsoon, between the mainland and
the reef that for hundreds of miles fringes this perilous coast. The
night is quiet, so quiet that a whisper can be heard fore and aft the
dhow; so quiet that a faint booming sound rolls across the water to us
from the distant land.

The Arab at the tiller holds up his hand, and says one word:--"/Simba/
(lion)!"

We all sit up and listen. Then it comes again, a slow, majestic sound,
that thrills us to the marrow.

"To-morrow by ten o'clock," I say, "we ought, if the Captain is not
out in his reckoning, which I think very probable, to make this
mysterious rock with a man's head, and begin our shooting."

"And begin our search for the ruined city and the Fire of Life,"
corrected Leo, taking his pipe from his mouth, and laughing a little.

"Nonsense!" I answered. "You were airing your Arabic with that man at
the tiller this afternoon. What did he tell you? He has been trading
(slave-trading, probably) up and down these latitudes for half of his
iniquitous life, and once landed on this very "man" rock. Did he ever
hear anything of the ruined city or the caves?"

"No," answered Leo. "He says that the country is all swamp behind, and
full of snakes, especially pythons, and game, and that no man lives
there. But then there is a belt of swamp all along the East African
coast, so that does not go for much."

"Yes," I said, "it does--it goes for malaria. You see what sort of an
opinion these gentry have of the country. Not one of them will go with
us. They think that we are mad, and upon my word I believe that they
are right. If ever we see old England again I shall be astonished.
However, it does not greatly matter to me at my age, but I am anxious
for you, Leo, and for Job. It's a Tom Fool's business, my boy."

"All right, Uncle Horace. So far as I am concerned, I am willing to
take my chance. Look! What is that cloud?" and he pointed to a dark
blotch upon the starry sky, some miles astern of us.

"Go and ask the man at the tiller," I said.

He rose, stretched his arms, and went. Presently he returned.

"He says it is a squall, but it will pass far on one side of us."

Just then Job came up, looking very stout and English in his shooting-
suit of brown flannel, and with a sort of perplexed appearance upon
his honest round face that had been very common with him since he got
into these strange waters.

"Please, sir," he said, touching his sun hat, which was stuck on to
the back of his head in a somewhat ludicrous fashion, "as we have got
all those guns and things in the whale-boat astern, to say nothing of
the provisions in the lockers, I think it would be best if I got down
and slept in her. I don't like the looks" (here he dropped his voice
to a portentous whisper) "of these black gentry; they have such a
wonderful thievish way about them. Supposing now that some of them
were to slip into the boat at night and cut the cable, and make off
with her? That would be a pretty go, that would."

The whale-boat, I may explain, was one specially built for us at
Dundee, in Scotland. We had brought it with us, as we knew that this
coast was a network of creeks, and that we might require something to
navigate them with. She was a beautiful boat, thirty-feet in length,
with a centre-board for sailing, copper-bottomed to keep the worm out
of her, and full of water-tight compartments. The Captain of the dhow
had told us that when we reached the rock, which he knew, and which
appeared to be identical with the one described upon the sherd and by
Leo's father, he would probably not be able to run up to it on account
of the shallows and breakers. Therefore we had employed three hours
that very morning, whilst we were totally becalmed, the wind having
dropped at sunrise, in transferring most of our goods and chattels to
the whale-boat, and placing the guns, ammunition, and preserved
provisions in the water-tight lockers specially prepared for them, so
that when we did sight the fabled rock we should have nothing to do
but step into the boat, and run her ashore. Another reason that
induced us to take this precautionary step was that Arab captains are
apt to run past the point that they are making, either from
carelessness or owing to a mistake in its identity. Now, as sailors
know, it is quite impossible for a dhow which is only rigged to run
before the monsoon to beat back against it. Therefore we got our boat
ready to row for the rock at any moment.

"Well, Job," I said, "perhaps it would be as well. There are lots of
blankets there, only be careful to keep out of the moon, or it may
turn your head or blind you."

"Lord, sir! I don't think it would much matter if it did; it is that
turned already with the sight of these blackamoors and their filthy,
thieving ways. They are only fit for muck, they are; and they smell
bad enough for it already."

Job, it will be perceived, was no admirer of the manners and customs
of our dark-skinned brothers.

Accordingly we hauled up the boat by the tow-rope till it was right
under the stern of the dhow, and Job bundled into her with all the
grace of a falling sack of potatoes. Then we returned and sat down on
the deck again, and smoked and talked in little gusts and jerks. The
night was so lovely, and our brains were so full of suppressed
excitement of one sort and another, that we did not feel inclined to
turn in. For nearly an hour we sat thus, and then, I think, we both
dozed off. At least I have a faint recollection of Leo sleepily
explaining that the head was not a bad place to hit a buffalo, if you
could catch him exactly between the horns, or send your bullet down
his throat, or some nonsense of the sort.

Then I remember no more; till suddenly--a frightful roar of wind, a
shriek of terror from the awakening crew, and a whip-like sting of
water in our faces. Some of the men ran to let go the haulyards and
lower the sail, but the parrel jammed and the yard would not come
down. I sprang to my feet and hung on to a rope. The sky aft was dark
as pitch, but the moon still shone brightly ahead of us and lit up the
blackness. Beneath its sheen a huge white-topped breaker, twenty feet
high or more, was rushing on to us. It was on the break--the moon
shone on its crest and tipped its foam with light. On it rushed
beneath the inky sky, driven by the awful squall behind it. Suddenly,
in the twinkling of an eye, I saw the black shape of the whale-boat
cast high into the air on the crest of the breaking wave. Then--a
shock of water, a wild rush of boiling foam, and I was clinging for my
life to the shroud, ay, swept straight out from it like a flag in a
gale.

We were pooped.

The wave passed. It seemed to me that I was under water for minutes--
really it was seconds. I looked forward. The blast had torn out the
great sail, and high in the air it was fluttering away to leeward like
a huge wounded bird. Then for a moment there was comparative calm, and
in it I heard Job's voice yelling wildly, "Come here to the boat."

Bewildered and half-drowned as I was, I had the sense to rush aft. I
felt the dhow sinking under me--she was full of water. Under her
counter the whale-boat was tossing furiously, and I saw the Arab
Mahomed, who had been steering, leap into her. I gave one desperate
pull at the tow-rope to bring the boat alongside. Wildly I sprang
also, Job caught me by the arm and I rolled into the bottom of the
boat. Down went the dhow bodily, and as she did so Mahomed drew his
curved knife and severed the fibre-rope by which we were fast to her,
and in another second we were driving before the storm over the place
where the dhow had been.

"Great God!" I shrieked, "where is Leo? /Leo! Leo!/"

"He's gone, sir, God help him!" roared Job into my ear; and such was
the fury of the squall that his voice sounded like a whisper.

I wrung my hands in agony. Leo was drowned, and I was left alive to
mourn him.

"Look out," yelled Job; "here comes another."

I turned; a second huge wave was overtaking us. I half hoped that it
would drown me. With a curious fascination I watched its awful advent.
The moon was nearly hidden now by the wreaths of the rushing storm,
but a little light still caught the crest of the devouring breaker.
There was something dark on it--a piece of wreckage. It was on us now,
and the boat was nearly full of water. But she was built in air-tight
compartments--Heaven bless the man who invented them!--and lifted up
through it like a swan. Through the foam and turmoil I saw the black
thing on the wave hurrying right at me. I put out my right arm to ward
it from me, and my hand closed on another arm, the wrist of which my
fingers gripped like a vice. I am a very strong man, and had something
to hold to, but my arm was nearly torn from its socket by the strain
and weight of the floating body. Had the rush lasted another two
seconds I might either have let go or gone with it. But it passed,
leaving us up to our knees in water.

"Bail out! bail out!" shouted Job, suiting the action to the word.

But I could not bail just then, for as the moon went out and left us
in total darkness, one faint, flying ray of light lit upon the face of
the man I had gripped, who was now half lying, half floating in the
bottom of the boat.

It was Leo. Leo brought back by the wave--back, dead or alive, from
the very jaws of Death.

"Bail out! bail out!" yelled Job, "or we shall founder."

I seized a large tin bowl with a handle to it, which was fixed under
one of the seats, and the three of us bailed away for dear life. The
furious tempest drove over and round us, flinging the boat this way
and that, the wind and the storm wreaths and the sheets of stinging
spray blinded and bewildered us, but through it all we worked like
demons with the wild exhilaration of despair, for even despair can
exhilarate. One minute! three minutes! six minutes! The boat began to
lighten, and no fresh wave swamped us. Five minutes more, and she was
fairly clear. Then, suddenly, above the awful shriekings of the
hurricane came a duller, deeper roar. Great Heavens! It was the voice
of breakers!

At that moment the moon began to shine forth again--this time behind
the path of the squall. Out far across the torn bosom of the ocean
shot the ragged arrows of her light, and there, half a mile ahead of
us, was a white line of foam, then a little space of open-mouthed
blackness, and then another line of white. It was the breakers, and
their roar grew clearer and yet more clear as we sped down upon them
like a swallow. There they were, boiling up in snowy spouts of spray,
smiting and gnashing together like the gleaming teeth of hell.

"Take the tiller, Mahomed!" I roared in Arabic. "We must try and shoot
them." At the same moment I seized an oar, and got it out, motioning
to Job to do likewise.

Mahomed clambered aft, and got hold of the tiller, and with some
difficulty Job, who had sometimes pulled a tub upon the homely Cam,
got out his oar. In another minute the boat's head was straight on to
the ever-nearing foam, towards which she plunged and tore with the
speed of a racehorse. Just in front of us the first line of breakers
seemed a little thinner than to the right or left--there was a cap of
rather deeper water. I turned and pointed to it.

"Steer for your life, Mahomed!" I yelled. He was a skilful steersman,
and well acquainted with the dangers of this most perilous coast, and
I saw him grip the tiller, bend his heavy frame forward, and stare at
the foaming terror till his big round eyes looked as though they would
start out of his head. The send of the sea was driving the boat's head
round to starboard. If we struck the line of breakers fifty yards to
starboard of the gap we must sink. It was a great field of twisting,
spouting waves. Mahomed planted his foot against the seat before him,
and, glancing at him, I saw his brown toes spread out like a hand with
the weight he put upon them as he took the strain of the tiller. She
came round a bit, but not enough. I roared to Job to back water,
whilst I dragged and laboured at my oar. She answered now, and none
too soon.

Heavens, we were in them! And then followed a couple of minutes of
heart-breaking excitement such as I cannot hope to describe. All that
I remember is a shrieking sea of foam, out of which the billows rose
here, there, and everywhere like avenging ghosts from their ocean
grave. Once we were turned right round, but either by chance, or
through Mahomed's skilful steering, the boat's head came straight
again before a breaker filled us. One more--a monster. We were through
it or over it--more through than over--and then, with a wild yell of
exultation from the Arab, we shot out into the comparative smooth
water of the mouth of sea between the teeth-like lines of gnashing
waves.

But we were nearly full of water again, and not more than half a mile
ahead was the second line of breakers. Again we set to and bailed
furiously. Fortunately the storm had now quite gone by, and the moon
shone brightly, revealing a rocky headland running half a mile or more
out into the sea, of which this second line of breakers appeared to be
a continuation. At any rate, they boiled around its foot. Probably the
ridge that formed the headland ran out into the ocean, only at a lower
level, and made the reef also. This headland was terminated by a
curious peak that seemed not to be more than a mile away from us. Just
as we got the boat pretty clear for the second time, Leo, to my
immense relief, opened his eyes and remarked that the clothes had
tumbled off the bed, and that he supposed it was time to get up for
chapel. I told him to shut his eyes and keep quiet, which he did
without in the slightest degree realizing the position. As for myself,
his reference to chapel made me reflect, with a sort of sick longing,
on my comfortable rooms at Cambridge. Why had I been such a fool as to
leave them? This is a reflection that has several times recurred to me
since, and with an ever-increasing force.

But now again we were drifting down on the breakers, though with
lessened speed, for the wind had fallen, and only the current or the
tide (it afterwards turned out to be the tide) was driving us.

Another minute, and with a sort of howl to Allah from the Arab, a
pious ejaculation from myself, and something that was not pious from
Job, we were in them. And then the whole scene, down to our final
escape, repeated itself, only not quite so violently. Mahomed's
skilful steering and the air-tight compartments saved our lives. In
five minutes we were through, and drifting--for we were too exhausted
to do anything to help ourselves except keep her head straight--with
the most startling rapidity round the headland which I have described.

Round we went with the tide, until we got well under the lee of the
point, and then suddenly the speed slackened, we ceased to make way,
and finally appeared to be in dead water. The storm had entirely
passed, leaving a clean-washed sky behind it; the headland intercepted
the heavy sea that had been occasioned by the squall, and the tide,
which had been running so fiercely up the river (for we were now in
the mouth of a river), was sluggish before it turned, so we floated
quietly, and before the moon went down managed to bail out the boat
thoroughly and get her a little ship-shape. Leo was sleeping
profoundly, and on the whole I thought it wise not to wake him. It was
true he was sleeping in wet clothes, but the night was now so warm
that I thought (and so did Job) that they were not likely to injure a
man of his unusually vigorous constitution. Besides, we had no dry
ones at hand.

Presently the moon went down, and left us floating on the waters, now
only heaving like some troubled woman's breast, with leisure to
reflect upon all that we had gone through and all that we had escaped.
Job stationed himself at the bow, Mahomed kept his post at the tiller,
and I sat on a seat in the middle of the boat close to where Leo was
lying.

The moon went slowly down in chastened loveliness; she departed like
some sweet bride into her chamber, and long veil-like shadows crept up
the sky through which the stars peeped shyly out. Soon, however, they
too began to pale before a splendour in the east, and then the
quivering footsteps of the dawn came rushing across the new-born blue,
and shook the high stars from their places. Quieter and yet more quiet
grew the sea, quiet as the soft mist that brooded on her bosom, and
covered up her troubling, as the illusive wreaths of sleep brood upon
a pain-racked mind, causing it to forget its sorrow. From the east to
the west sped the angels of the Dawn, from sea to sea, from mountain-
top to mountain-top, scattering light with both their hands. On they
sped out of the darkness, perfect, glorious, like spirits of the just
breaking from the tomb; on, over the quiet sea, over the low
coastline, and the swamps beyond, and the mountains above them; over
those who slept in peace and those who woke in sorrow; over the evil
and the good; over the living and the dead; over the wide world and
all that breathes or has breathed thereon.

It was a wonderfully beautiful sight, and yet sad, perhaps, from the
very excess of its beauty. The arising sun; the setting sun! There we
have the symbol and the type of humanity, and all things with which
humanity has to do. The symbol and the type, yes, and the earthly
beginning, and the end also. And on that morning this came home to me
with a peculiar force. The sun that rose to-day for us had set last
night for eighteen of our fellow-voyagers!--had set everlastingly for
eighteen whom we knew!

The dhow had gone down with them, they were tossing about among the
rocks and seaweed, so much human drift on the great ocean of Death!
And we four were saved. But one day a sunrise will come when we shall
be among those who are lost, and then others will watch those glorious
rays, and grow sad in the midst of beauty, and dream of Death in the
full glow of arising Life!

For this is the lot of man.



                                  V

                      THE HEAD OF THE ETHIOPIAN

At length the heralds and forerunners of the royal sun had done their
work, and, searching out the shadows, had caused them to flee away.
Then up he came in glory from his ocean-bed, and flooded the earth
with warmth and light. I sat there in the boat listening to the gentle
lapping of the water and watched him rise, till presently the slight
drift of the boat brought the odd-shaped rock, or peak, at the end of
the promontory which we had weathered with so much peril, between me
and the majestic sight, and blotted it from my view. I still
continued, however, to stare at the rock, absently enough, till
presently it became edged with the fire of the growing light behind
it, and then I started, as well I might, for I perceived that the top
of the peak, which was about eighty feet high by one hundred and fifty
feet thick at its base, was shaped like a negro's head and face,
whereon was stamped a most fiendish and terrifying expression. There
was no doubt about it; there were the thick lips, the fat cheeks, and
the squat nose standing out with startling clearness against the
flaming background. There, too, was the round skull, washed into shape
perhaps by thousands of years of wind and weather, and, to complete
the resemblance, there was a scrubby growth of weeds or lichen upon
it, which against the sun looked for all the world like the wool on a
colossal negro's head. It certainly was very odd; so odd that now I
believe it is not a mere freak of nature but a gigantic monument
fashioned, like the well-known Egyptian Sphinx, by a forgotten people
out of a pile of rock that lent itself to their design, perhaps as an
emblem of warning and defiance to any enemies who approached the
harbour. Unfortunately we were never able to ascertain whether or not
this was the case, inasmuch as the rock was difficult of access both
from the land and the waterside, and we had other things to attend to.
Myself, considering the matter by the light of what we afterwards saw,
I believe that it was fashioned by man, but whether or not this is so,
there it stands, and sullenly stares from age to age out across the
changing sea--there it stood two thousand years and more ago, when
Amenartas, the Egyptian princess, and the wife of Leo's remote
ancestor Kallikrates, gazed upon its devilish face--and there I have
no doubt it will still stand when as many centuries as are numbered
between her day and our own are added to the year that bore us to
oblivion.

"What do you think of that, Job?" I asked of our retainer, who was
sitting on the edge of the boat, trying to get as much sunshine as
possible, and generally looking uncommonly wretched, and I pointed to
the fiery and demonical head.

"Oh Lord, sir," answered Job, who now perceived the object for the
first time, "I think that the old geneleman must have been sitting for
his portrait on them rocks."

I laughed, and the laugh woke up Leo.

"Hullo," he said, "what's the matter with me? I am all stiff--where is
the dhow? Give me some brandy, please."

"You may be thankful that you are not stiffer, my boy," I answered.
"The dhow is sunk, everybody on board her is drowned with the
exception of us four, and your own life was only saved by a miracle";
and whilst Job, now that it was light enough, searched about in a
locker for the brandy for which Leo asked, I told him the history of
our night's adventure.

"Great Heavens!" he said faintly; "and to think that we should have
been chosen to live through it!"

By this time the brandy was forthcoming, and we all had a good pull at
it, and thankful enough we were for it. Also the sun was beginning to
get strength, and warm our chilled bones, for we had been wet through
for five hours or more.

"Why," said Leo, with a gasp as he put down the brandy bottle, "there
is the head the writing talks of, the 'rock carven like the head of an
Ethiopian.'"

"Yes," I said, "there it is."

"Well, then," he answered, "the whole thing is true."

"I don't see at all that that follows," I answered. "We knew this head
was here: your father saw it. Very likely it is not the same head that
the writing talks of; or if it is, it proves nothing."

Leo smiled at me in a superior way. "You are an unbelieving Jew, Uncle
Horace," he said. "Those who live will see."

"Exactly so," I answered, "and now perhaps you will observe that we
are drifting across a sandbank into the mouth of the river. Get hold
of your oar, Job, and we will row in and see if we can find a place to
land."

The river mouth which we were entering did not appear to be a very
wide one, though as yet the long banks of steaming mist that clung
about its shores had not lifted sufficiently to enable us to see its
exact measure. There was, as is the case with nearly every East
African river, a considerable bar at the mouth, which, no doubt, when
the wind was on shore and the tide running out, was absolutely
impassable even for a boat drawing only a few inches. But as things
were it was manageable enough, and we did not ship a cupful of water.
In twenty minutes we were well across it, with but slight assistance
from ourselves, and being carried by a strong though somewhat variable
breeze well up the harbour. By this time the mist was being sucked up
by the sun, which was getting uncomfortably hot, and we saw that the
mouth of the little estuary was here about half a mile across, and
that the banks were very marshy, and crowded with crocodiles lying
about on the mud like logs. About a mile ahead of us, however, was
what appeared to be a strip of firm land, and for this we steered. In
another quarter of an hour we were there, and making the boat fast to
a beautiful tree with broad shining leaves, and flowers of the
magnolia species, only they were rose-coloured and not white,[*] which
hung over the water, we disembarked. This done we undressed, washed
ourselves, and spread our clothes, together with the contents of the
boat, in the sun to dry, which they very quickly did. Then, taking
shelter from the sun under some trees, we made a hearty breakfast off
a "Paysandu" potted tongue, of which we had brought a good quantity
with us, congratulating ourselves loudly on our good fortune in having
loaded and provisioned the boat on the previous day before the
hurricane destroyed the dhow. By the time that we had finished our
meal our clothes were quite dry, and we hastened to get into them,
feeling not a little refreshed. Indeed, with the exception of
weariness and a few bruises, none of us were the worse for the
terrifying adventure which had been fatal to all our companions. Leo,
it is true, had been half-drowned, but that is no great matter to a
vigorous young athlete of five-and-twenty.

[*] There is a known species of magnolia with pink flowers. It is
    indigenous in Sikkim, and known as /Magnolia Campbellii/.--Editor.

After breakfast we started to look about us. We were on a strip of dry
land about two hundred yards broad by five hundred long, bordered on
one side by the river, and on the other three by endless desolate
swamps, that stretched as far as the eye could reach. This strip of
land was raised about twenty-five feet above the plain of the
surrounding swamps and the river level: indeed it had every appearance
of having been made by the hand of man.

"This place has been a wharf," said Leo, dogmatically.

"Nonsense," I answered. "Who would be stupid enough to build a wharf
in the middle of these dreadful marshes in a country inhabited by
savages--that is, if it is inhabited at all?"

"Perhaps it was not always marsh, and perhaps the people were not
always savage," he said drily, looking down the steep bank, for we
were standing by the river. "Look there," he went on, pointing to a
spot where the hurricane of the previous night had torn up one of the
magnolia trees by the roots, which had grown on the extreme edge of
the bank just where it sloped down to the water, and lifted a large
cake of earth with them. "Is not that stonework? If not, it is very
like it."

"Nonsense," I said again, but we clambered down to the spot, and got
between the upturned roots and the bank.

"Well?" he said.

But I did not answer this time. I only whistled. For there, laid bare
by the removal of the earth, was an undoubted facing of solid stone
laid in large blocks and bound together with brown cement, so hard
that I could make no impression on it with the file in my shooting-
knife. Nor was this all; seeing something projecting through the soil
at the bottom of the bared patch of walling, I removed the loose earth
with my hands, and revealed a huge stone ring, a foot or more in
diameter, and about three inches thick. This fairly staggered me.

"Looks rather like a wharf where good-sized vessels have been moored,
does it not, Uncle Horace?" said Leo, with an excited grin.

I tried to say "Nonsense" again, but the word stuck in my throat--the
ring spoke for itself. In some past age vessels /had/ been moored
there, and this stone wall was undoubtedly the remnant of a solidly
constructed wharf. Probably the city to which it had belonged lay
buried beneath the swamp behind it.

"Begins to look as though there were something in the story after all,
Uncle Horace," said the exultant Leo; and reflecting on the mysterious
negro's head and the equally mysterious stonework, I made no direct
reply.

"A country like Africa," I said, "is sure to be full of the relics of
long dead and forgotten civilisations. Nobody knows the age of the
Egyptian civilisation, and very likely it had offshoots. Then there
were the Babylonians and the Phœnicians, and the Persians, and all
manner of people, all more or less civilised, to say nothing of the
Jews whom everybody 'wants' nowadays. It is possible that they, or any
one of them, may have had colonies or trading stations about here.
Remember those buried Persian cities that the consul showed us at
Kilwa."[*]

[*] Near Kilwa, on the East Coast of Africa, about 400 miles south of
    Zanzibar, is a cliff which has been recently washed by the waves.
    On the top of this cliff are Persian tombs known to be at least
    seven centuries old by the dates still legible upon them. Beneath
    these tombs is a layer of /débris/ representing a city. Farther
    down the cliff is a second layer representing an older city, and
    farther down still a third layer, the remains of yet another city
    of vast and unknown antiquity. Beneath the bottom city were
    recently found some specimens of glazed earthenware, such as are
    occasionally to be met with on that coast to this day. I believe
    that they are now in the possession of Sir John Kirk.--Editor.

"Quite so," said Leo, "but that is not what you said before."

"Well, what is to be done now?" I asked, turning the conversation.

As no answer was forthcoming we walked to the edge of the swamp, and
looked over it. It was apparently boundless, and vast flocks of every
sort of waterfowl flew from its recesses, till it was sometimes
difficult to see the sky. Now that the sun was getting high it drew
thin sickly looking clouds of poisonous vapour from the surface of the
marsh and from the scummy pools of stagnant water.

"Two things are clear to me," I said, addressing my three companions,
who stared at this spectacle in dismay: "first, that we can't go
across there" (I pointed to the swamp), "and, secondly, that if we
stop here we shall certainly die of fever."

"That's as clear as a haystack, sir," said Job.

"Very well, then; there are two alternatives before us. One is to
'bout ship, and try and run for some port in the whale-boat, which
would be a sufficiently risky proceeding, and the other to sail or row
on up the river, and see where we come to."

"I don't know what you are going to do," said Leo, setting his mouth,
"but I am going up that river."

Job turned up the whites of his eyes and groaned, and the Arab
murmured "Allah," and groaned also. As for me, I remarked sweetly that
as we seemed to be between the devil and the deep sea, it did not much
matter where we went. But in reality I was as anxious to proceed as
Leo. The colossal negro's head and the stone wharf had excited my
curiosity to an extent of which I was secretly ashamed, and I was
prepared to gratify it at any cost. Accordingly, having carefully
fitted the mast, restowed the boat, and got out our rifles, we
embarked. Fortunately the wind was blowing on shore from the ocean, so
we were able to hoist the sail. Indeed, we afterwards found out that
as a general rule the wind set on shore from daybreak for some hours,
and off shore again at sunset, and the explanation that I offer of
this is, that when the earth is cooled by the dew and the night the
hot air rises, and the draught rushes in from the sea till the sun has
once more heated it through. At least that appeared to be the rule
here.

Taking advantage of this favouring wind, we sailed merrily up the
river for three or four hours. Once we came across a school of
hippopotami, which rose, and bellowed dreadfully at us within ten or a
dozen fathoms of the boat, much to Job's alarm, and, I will confess,
to my own. These were the first hippopotami that we had ever seen,
and, to judge by their insatiable curiosity, I should judge that we
were the first white men that they had ever seen. Upon my word, I once
or twice thought that they were coming into the boat to gratify it.
Leo wanted to fire at them, but I dissuaded him, fearing the
consequences. Also, we saw hundreds of crocodiles basking on the muddy
banks, and thousands upon thousands of water-fowl. Some of these we
shot, and among them was a wild goose, which, in addition to the
sharp-curved spurs on its wings, had a spur about three-quarters of an
inch long growing from the skull just between the eyes. We never shot
another like it, so I do not know if it was a "sport" or a distinct
species. In the latter case this incident may interest naturalists.
Job named it the Unicorn Goose.

About midday the sun grew intensely hot, and the stench drawn up by it
from the marshes which the river drains was something too awful, and
caused us instantly to swallow precautionary doses of quinine. Shortly
afterwards the breeze died away altogether, and as rowing our heavy
boat against stream in the heat was out of the question, we were
thankful enough to get under the shade of a group of trees--a species
of willow--that grew by the edge of the river, and lie there and gasp
till at length the approach of sunset put a period to our miseries.
Seeing what appeared to be an open space of water straight ahead of
us, we determined to row there before settling what to do for the
night. Just as we were about to loosen the boat, however, a beautiful
waterbuck, with great horns curving forward, and a white stripe across
the rump, came down to the river to drink, without perceiving us
hidden away within fifty yards under the willows. Leo was the first to
catch sight of it, and, being an ardent sportsman, thirsting for the
blood of big game, about which he had been dreaming for months, he
instantly stiffened all over, and pointed like a setter dog. Seeing
what was the matter, I handed him his express rifle, at the same time
taking my own.

"Now then," I whispered, "mind you don't miss."

"Miss!" he whispered back contemptuously; "I could not miss it if I
tried."

He lifted the rifle, and the roan-coloured buck, having drunk his
fill, raised his head and looked out across the river. He was standing
right against the sunset sky on a little eminence, or ridge of ground,
which ran across the swamp, evidently a favourite path for game, and
there was something very beautiful about him. Indeed, I do not think
that if I live to a hundred I shall ever forget that desolate and yet
most fascinating scene; it is stamped upon my memory. To the right and
left were wide stretches of lonely death-breeding swamp, unbroken and
unrelieved so far as the eye could reach, except here and there by
ponds of black and peaty water that, mirror-like, flashed up the red
rays of the setting sun. Behind us and before stretched the vista of
the sluggish river, ending in glimpses of a reed-fringed lagoon, on
the surface of which the long lights of the evening played as the
faint breeze stirred the shadows. To the west loomed the huge red ball
of the sinking sun, now vanishing down the vapoury horizon, and
filling the great heaven, high across whose arch the cranes and
wildfowl streamed in line, square, and triangle, with flashes of
flying gold and the lurid stain of blood. And then ourselves--three
modern Englishmen in a modern English boat--seeming to jar upon and
look out of tone with that measureless desolation; and in front of us
the noble buck limned out upon a background of ruddy sky.

/Bang!/ Away he goes with a mighty bound. Leo has missed him. /Bang!/
right under him again. Now for a shot. I must have one, though he is
going like an arrow, and a hundred yards away and more. By Jove! over
and over and over! "Well, I think I've wiped your eye there, Master
Leo," I say, struggling against the ungenerous exultation that in such
a supreme moment of one's existence will rise in the best-mannered
sportsman's breast.

"Confound you, yes," growled Leo; and then, with that quick smile that
is one of his charms lighting up his handsome face like a ray of
light, "I beg your pardon, old fellow. I congratulate you; it was a
lovely shot, and mine were vile."

We got out of the boat and ran to the buck, which was shot through the
spine and stone dead. It took us a quarter of an hour or more to clean
it and cut off as much of the best meat as we could carry, and, having
packed this away, we had barely light enough to row up into the
lagoon-like space, into which, there being a hollow in the swamp, the
river here expanded. Just as the light vanished we cast anchor about
thirty fathoms from the edge of the lake. We did not dare to go
ashore, not knowing if we should find dry ground to camp on, and
greatly fearing the poisonous exhalations from the marsh, from which
we thought we should be freer on the water. So we lighted a lantern,
and made our evening meal off another potted tongue in the best
fashion that we could, and then prepared to go to sleep, only,
however, to find that sleep was impossible. For, whether they were
attracted by the lantern, or by the unaccustomed smell of a white man
for which they had been waiting for the last thousand years or so, I
know not; but certainly we were presently attacked by tens of
thousands of the most blood-thirsty, pertinacious, and huge mosquitoes
that I ever saw or read of. In clouds they came, and pinged and buzzed
and bit till we were nearly mad. Tobacco smoke only seemed to stir
them into a merrier and more active life, till at length we were
driven to covering ourselves with blankets, head and all, and sitting
to slowly stew and continually scratch and swear beneath them. And as
we sat, suddenly rolling out like thunder through the silence came the
deep roar of a lion, and then of a second lion, moving among the reeds
within sixty yards of us.

"I say," said Leo, sticking his head out from under his blanket,
"lucky we ain't on the bank, eh, Avuncular?" (Leo sometimes addressed
me in this disrespectful way.) "Curse it! a mosquito has bitten me on
the nose," and the head vanished again.

Shortly after this the moon came up, and notwithstanding every variety
of roar that echoed over the water to us from the lions on the banks,
we began, thinking ourselves perfectly secure, to gradually doze off.

I do not quite know what it was that made me poke my head out of the
friendly shelter of the blanket, perhaps because I found that the
mosquitoes were biting right through it. Anyhow, as I did so I heard
Job whisper, in a frightened voice--

"Oh, my stars, look there!"

Instantly we all of us looked, and this was what we saw in the
moonlight. Near the shore were two wide and ever-widening circles of
concentric rings rippling away across the surface of the water, and in
the heart and centre of the circles were two dark moving objects.

"What is it?" asked I.

"It is those damned lions, sir," answered Job, in a tone which was an
odd mixture of a sense of personal injury, habitual respect, and
acknowledged fear, "and they are swimming here to /heat/ us," he
added, nervously picking up an "h" in his agitation.

I looked again: there was no doubt about it; I could catch the glare
of their ferocious eyes. Attracted either by the smell of the newly
killed waterbuck meat or of ourselves, the hungry beasts were actually
storming our position.

Leo already had his rifle in his hand. I called to him to wait till
they were nearer, and meanwhile grabbed my own. Some fifteen feet from
us the water shallowed on a bank to the depth of about fifteen inches,
and presently the first of them--it was the lioness--got on to it,
shook herself, and roared. At that moment Leo fired, the bullet went
right down her open mouth and out at the back of her neck, and down
she dropped, with a splash, dead. The other lion--a full-grown male--
was some two paces behind her. At this second he got his forepaws on
to the bank, when a strange thing happened. There was a rush and
disturbance of the water, such as one sees in a pond in England when a
pike takes a little fish, only a thousand times fiercer and larger,
and suddenly the lion gave a most terrific snarling roar and sprang
forward on to the bank, dragging something black with him.

"Allah!" shouted Mahomed, "a crocodile has got him by the leg!" and
sure enough he had. We could see the long snout with its gleaming
lines of teeth and the reptile body behind it.

And then followed an extraordinary scene indeed. The lion managed to
get well on to the bank, the crocodile half standing and half
swimming, still nipping his hind leg. He roared till the air quivered
with the sound, and then, with a savage, shrieking snarl, turned round
and clawed hold of the crocodile's head. The crocodile shifted his
grip, having, as we afterwards discovered, had one of his eyes torn
out, and slightly turned over; instantly the lion got him by the
throat and held on, and then over and over they rolled upon the bank
struggling hideously. It was impossible to follow their movements, but
when next we got a clear view the tables had turned, for the
crocodile, whose head seemed to be a mass of gore, had got the lion's
body in his iron jaws just above the hips, and was squeezing him and
shaking him to and fro. For his part, the tortured brute, roaring in
agony, was clawing and biting madly at his enemy's scaly head, and
fixing his great hind claws in the crocodile's, comparatively
speaking, soft throat, ripping it open as one would rip a glove.

Then, all of a sudden, the end came. The lion's head fell forward on
the crocodile's back, and with an awful groan he died, and the
crocodile, after standing for a minute motionless, slowly rolled over
on to his side, his jaws still fixed across the carcase of the lion,
which, we afterwards found, he had bitten almost in halves.

This duel to the death was a wonderful and a shocking sight, and one
that I suppose few men have seen--and thus it ended.

When it was all over, leaving Mahomed to keep a look out, we managed
to spend the rest of the night as quietly as the mosquitoes would
allow.



                                  VI

                     AN EARLY CHRISTIAN CEREMONY

Next morning, at the earliest light of dawn, we rose, performed such
ablutions as circumstances would allow, and generally made ready to
start. I am bound to say that when there was sufficient light to
enable us to see each other's faces I, for one, burst out into a roar
of laughter. Job's fat and comfortable countenance was swollen out to
nearly twice its natural size from mosquito bites, and Leo's condition
was not much better. Indeed, of the three I had come off much the
best, probably owing to the toughness of my dark skin, and to the fact
that a good deal of it was covered by hair, for since we had started
from England I had allowed my naturally luxuriant beard to grow at its
own sweet will. But the other two were, comparatively speaking, clean
shaved, which of course gave the enemy a larger extent of open country
to operate on, though in Mahomed's case the mosquitoes, recognising
the taste of a true believer, would not touch him at any price. How
often, I wonder, during the next week or so did we wish that we were
flavoured like an Arab!

By the time that we had done laughing as heartily as our swollen lips
would allow, it was daylight, and the morning breeze was coming up
from the sea, cutting lanes through the dense marsh mists, and here
and there rolling them before it in great balls of fleecy vapour. So
we set our sail, and having first taken a look at the two dead lions
and the alligator, which we were of course unable to skin, being
destitute of means of curing the pelts, we started, and, sailing
through the lagoon, followed the course of the river on the farther
side. At midday, when the breeze dropped, we were fortunate enough to
find a convenient piece of dry land on which to camp and light a fire,
and here we cooked two wild-ducks and some of the waterbuck's flesh--
not in a very appetising way, it is true, but still sufficiently. The
rest of the buck's flesh we cut into strips and hung in the sun to dry
into "biltong," as, I believe, the South African Dutch call flesh thus
prepared. On this welcome patch of dry land we stopped till the
following dawn, and, as before, spent the night in warfare with the
mosquitoes, but without other troubles. The next day or two passed in
similar fashion, and without noticeable adventures, except that we
shot a specimen of a peculiarly graceful hornless buck, and saw many
varieties of water-lily in full bloom, some of them blue and of
exquisite beauty, though few of the flowers were perfect, owing to the
prevalence of a white water-maggot with a green head that fed upon
them.

It was on the fifth day of our journey, when we had travelled, so far
as we could reckon, about one hundred and thirty-five to a hundred and
forty miles westwards from the coast, that the first event of any real
importance occurred. On that morning the usual wind failed us about
eleven o'clock, and after pulling a little way we were forced to halt,
more or less exhausted, at what appeared to be the junction of our
stream with another of a uniform width of about fifty feet. Some trees
grew near at hand--the only trees in all this country were along the
banks of the river, and under these we rested, and then, the land
being fairly dry just here, walked a little way along the edge of the
river to prospect, and shoot a few waterfowl for food. Before we had
gone fifty yards we perceived that all hopes of getting further up the
stream in the whale-boat were at an end, for not two hundred yards
above where we had stopped were a succession of shallows and mudbanks,
with not six inches of water over them. It was a watery /cul de sac/.

Turning back, we walked some way along the banks of the other river,
and soon came to the conclusion, from various indications, that it was
not a river at all, but an ancient canal, like the one which is to be
seen above Mombasa, on the Zanzibar coast, connecting the Tana River
with the Ozy, in such a way as to enable the shipping coming down the
Tana to cross to the Ozy, and reach the sea by it, and thus avoid the
very dangerous bar that blocks the mouth of the Tana. The canal before
us had evidently been dug out by man at some remote period of the
world's history, and the results of his digging still remained in the
shape of the raised banks that had no doubt once formed towing-paths.
Except here and there, where they had been hollowed out by the water
or fallen in, these banks of stiff binding clay were at a uniform
distance from each other, and the depth of the stream also appeared to
be uniform. Current there was little or none, and, as a consequence,
the surface of the canal was choked with vegetable growth, intersected
by little paths of clear water, made, I suppose, by the constant
passage of waterfowl, iguanas, and other vermin. Now, as it was
evident that we could not proceed up the river, it became equally
evident that we must either try the canal or else return to the sea.
We could not stop where we were, to be baked by the sun and eaten up
by the mosquitoes, till we died of fever in that dreary marsh.

"Well, I suppose that we must try it," I said; and the others assented
in their various ways--Leo, as though it were the best joke in the
world; Job, in respectful disgust; and Mahomed, with an invocation to
the Prophet, and a comprehensive curse upon all unbelievers and their
ways of thought and travel.

Accordingly, as soon as the sun got low, having little or nothing more
to hope for from our friendly wind, we started. For the first hour or
so we managed to row the boat, though with great labour; but after
that the weeds got too thick to allow of it, and we were obliged to
resort to the primitive and most exhausting resource of towing her.
For two hours we laboured, Mahomed, Job, and I, who was supposed to be
strong enough to pull against the two of them, on the bank, while Leo
sat in the bow of the boat, and brushed away the weeds which collected
round the cutwater with Mahomed's sword. At dark we halted for some
hours to rest and enjoy the mosquitoes, but about midnight we went on
again, taking advantage of the comparative cool of the night. At dawn
we rested for three hours, and then started once more, and laboured on
till about ten o'clock, when a thunderstorm, accompanied by a deluge
of rain, overtook us, and we spent the next six hours practically
under water.

I do not know that there is any necessity for me to describe the next
four days of our voyage in detail, further than to say that they were,
on the whole, the most miserable that I ever spent in my life, forming
one monotonous record of heavy labour, heat, misery, and mosquitoes.
All that dreary way we passed through a region of almost endless
swamp, and I can only attribute our escape from fever and death to the
constant doses of quinine and purgatives which we took, and the
unceasing toil which we were forced to undergo. On the third day of
our journey up the canal we had sighted a round hill that loomed dimly
through the vapours of the marsh, and on the evening of the fourth
night, when we camped, this hill seemed to be within five-and-twenty
or thirty miles of us. We were by now utterly exhausted, and felt as
though our blistered hands could not pull the boat a yard farther, and
that the best thing that we could do would be to lie down and die in
that dreadful wilderness of swamp. It was an awful position, and one
in which I trust no other white man will ever be placed; and as I
threw myself down in the boat to sleep the sleep of utter exhaustion,
I bitterly cursed my folly in ever having been a party to such a mad
undertaking, which could, I saw, only end in our death in this ghastly
land. I thought, I remember, as I slowly sank into a doze, of what the
appearance of the boat and her unhappy crew would be in two or three
months' time from that night. There she would lie, with gaping seams
and half filled with fœtid water, which, when the mist-laden wind
stirred her, would wash backwards and forwards through our mouldering
bones, and that would be the end of her, and of those in her who would
follow after myths and seek out the secrets of Nature.

Already I seemed to hear the water rippling against the desiccated
bones and rattling them together, rolling my skull against Mahomed's,
and his against mine, till at last Mahomed's stood straight up upon
its vertebræ, and glared at me through its empty eyeholes, and cursed
me with its grinning jaws, because I, a dog of a Christian, disturbed
the last sleep of a true believer. I opened my eyes, and shuddered at
the horrid dream, and then shuddered again at something that was not a
dream, for two great eyes were gleaming down at me through the misty
darkness. I struggled up, and in my terror and confusion shrieked, and
shrieked again, so that the others sprang up too, reeling, and drunken
with sleep and fear. And then all of a sudden there was a flash of
cold steel, and a great spear was held against my throat, and behind
it other spears gleamed cruelly.

"Peace," said a voice, speaking in Arabic, or rather in some dialect
into which Arabic entered very largely; "who are ye who come hither
swimming on the water? Speak or ye die," and the steel pressed sharply
against my throat, sending a cold chill through me.

"We are travellers, and have come hither by chance," I answered in my
best Arabic, which appeared to be understood, for the man turned his
head, and, addressing a tall form that towered up in the background,
said, "Father, shall we slay?"

"What is the colour of the men?" said a deep voice in answer.

"White is their colour."

"Slay not," was the reply. "Four suns since was the word brought to me
from '/She-who-must-be-obeyed/,' 'White men come; if white men come,
slay them not.' Let them be brought to the house of '/She-who-must-be-
obeyed/.' Bring forth the men, and let that which they have with them
be brought forth also."

"Come," said the man, half leading and half dragging me from the boat,
and as he did so I perceived other men doing the same kind office to
my companions.

On the bank were gathered a company of some fifty men. In that light
all I could make out was that they were armed with huge spears, were
very tall, and strongly built, comparatively light in colour, and
nude, save for a leopard skin tied round the middle.

Presently Leo and Job were bundled out and placed beside me.

"What on earth is up?" said Leo, rubbing his eyes.

"Oh, Lord! sir, here's a rum go," ejaculated Job; and just at that
moment a disturbance ensued, and Mahomed came tumbling between us,
followed by a shadowy form with an uplifted spear.

"Allah! Allah!" howled Mahomed, feeling that he had little to hope
from man, "protect me! protect me!"

"Father, it is a black one," said a voice. "What said '/She-who-must-
be-obeyed/' about the black one?"

"She said naught; but slay him not. Come hither, my son."

The man advanced, and the tall shadowy form bent forward and whispered
something.

"Yes, yes," said the other, and chuckled in a rather blood-curdling
tone.

"Are the three white men there?" asked the form.

"Yes, they are there."

"Then bring up that which is made ready for them, and let the men take
all that can be brought from the thing which floats."

Hardly had he spoken when men came running up, carrying on their
shoulders neither more nor less than palanquins--four bearers and two
spare men to a palanquin--and in these it was promptly indicated we
were expected to stow ourselves.

"Well!" said Leo, "it is a blessing to find anybody to carry us after
having to carry ourselves so long."

Leo always takes a cheerful view of things.

There being no help for it, after seeing the others into theirs I
tumbled into my own litter, and very comfortable I found it. It
appeared to be manufactured of cloth woven from grass-fibre, which
stretched and yielded to every motion of the body, and, being bound
top and bottom to the bearing pole, gave a grateful support to the
head and neck.

Scarcely had I settled myself when, accompanying their steps with a
monotonous song, the bearers started at a swinging trot. For half an
hour or so I lay still, reflecting on the very remarkable experiences
that we were going through, and wondering if any of my eminently
respectable fossil friends down at Cambridge would believe me if I
were to be miraculously set at the familiar dinner-table for the
purpose of relating them. I do not want to convey any disrespectful
notion or slight when I call those good and learned men fossils, but
my experience is that people are apt to fossilise even at a University
if they follow the same paths too persistently. I was getting
fossilised myself, but of late my stock of ideas has been very much
enlarged. Well, I lay and reflected, and wondered what on earth would
be the end of it all, till at last I ceased to wonder, and went to
sleep.

I suppose I must have slept for seven or eight hours, getting the
first real rest that I had had since the night before the loss of the
dhow, for when I woke the sun was high in the heavens. We were still
journeying on at a pace of about four miles an hour. Peeping out
through the mist-like curtains of the litter, which were ingeniously
fixed to the bearing pole, I perceived to my infinite relief that we
had passed out of the region of eternal swamp, and were now travelling
over swelling grassy plains towards a cup-shaped hill. Whether or not
it was the same hill that we had seen from the canal I do not know,
and have never since been able to discover, for, as we afterwards
found out, these people will give little information upon such points.
Next I glanced at the men who were bearing me. They were of a
magnificent build, few of them being under six feet in height, and
yellowish in colour. Generally their appearance had a good deal in
common with that of the East African Somali, only their hair was not
frizzed up, but hung in thick black locks upon their shoulders. Their
features were aquiline, and in many cases exceedingly handsome, the
teeth being especially regular and beautiful. But notwithstanding
their beauty, it struck me that, on the whole, I had never seen a more
evil-looking set of faces. There was an aspect of cold and sullen
cruelty stamped upon them that revolted me, and which in some cases
was almost uncanny in its intensity.

Another thing that struck me about them was that they never seemed to
smile. Sometimes they sang the monotonous song of which I have spoken,
but when they were not singing they remained almost perfectly silent,
and the light of a laugh never came to brighten their sombre and evil
countenances. Of what race could these people be? Their language was a
bastard Arabic, and yet they were not Arabs; I was quite sure of that.
For one thing they were too dark, or rather yellow. I could not say
why, but I know that their appearance filled me with a sick fear of
which I felt ashamed. While I was still wondering another litter came
up alongside of mine. In it--for the curtains were drawn--sat an old
man, clothed in a whitish robe, made apparently from coarse linen,
that hung loosely about him, who, I at once jumped to the conclusion,
was the shadowy figure that had stood on the bank and been addressed
as "Father." He was a wonderful-looking old man, with a snowy beard,
so long that the ends of it hung over the sides of the litter, and he
had a hooked nose, above which flashed out a pair of eyes as keen as a
snake's, while his whole countenance was instinct with a look of wise
and sardonic humour impossible to describe on paper.

"Art thou awake, stranger?" he said in a deep and low voice.

"Surely, my father," I answered courteously, feeling certain that I
should do well to conciliate this ancient Mammon of Unrighteousness.

He stroked his beautiful white beard, and smiled faintly.

"From whatever country thou camest," he said, "and by the way it must
be from one where somewhat of our language is known, they teach their
children courtesy there, my stranger son. And now wherefore comest
thou unto this land, which scarce an alien foot has pressed from the
time that man knoweth? Art thou and those with thee weary of life?"

"We came to find new things," I answered boldly. "We are tired of the
old things; we have come up out of the sea to know that which is
unknown. We are of a brave race who fear not death, my very much
respected father--that is, if we can get a little information before
we die."

"Humph!" said the old gentleman, "that may be true; it is rash to
contradict, otherwise I should say that thou wast lying, my son.
However, I dare to say that '/She-who-must-be-obeyed/' will meet thy
wishes in the matter."

"Who is '/She-who-must-be-obeyed/'?" I asked, curiously.

The old man glanced at the bearers, and then answered, with a little
smile that somehow sent my blood to my heart--

"Surely, my stranger son, thou wilt learn soon enough, if it be her
pleasure to see thee at all in the flesh."

"In the flesh?" I answered. "What may my father wish to convey?"

But the old man only laughed a dreadful laugh, and made no reply.

"What is the name of my father's people?" I asked.

"The name of my people is Amahagger" (the People of the Rocks).

"And if a son might ask, what is the name of my father?"

"My name is Billali."

"And whither go we, my father?"

"That shalt thou see," and at a sign from him his bearers started
forward at a run till they reached the litter in which Job was
reposing (with one leg hanging over the side). Apparently, however, he
could not make much out of Job, for presently I saw his bearers trot
forward to Leo's litter.

And after that, as nothing fresh occurred, I yielded to the pleasant
swaying motion of the litter, and went to sleep again. I was
dreadfully tired. When I woke I found that we were passing through a
rocky defile of a lava formation with precipitous sides, in which grew
many beautiful trees and flowering shrubs.

Presently this defile took a turn, and a lovely sight unfolded itself
to my eyes. Before us was a vast cup of green from four to six miles
in extent, in the shape of a Roman amphitheatre. The sides of this
great cup were rocky, and clothed with bush, but the centre was of the
richest meadow land, studded with single trees of magnificent growth,
and watered by meandering brooks. On this rich plain grazed herds of
goats and cattle, but I saw no sheep. At first I could not imagine
what this strange spot could be, but presently it flashed upon me that
it must represent the crater of some long-extinct volcano which had
afterwards been a lake, and was ultimately drained in some unexplained
way. And here I may state that from my subsequent experience of this
and a much larger, but otherwise similar spot, which I shall have
occasion to describe by-and-by, I have every reason to believe that
this conclusion was correct. What puzzled me, however, was, that
although there were people moving about herding the goats and cattle,
I saw no signs of any human habitation. Where did they all live? I
wondered. My curiosity was soon destined to be gratified. Turning to
the left the string of litters followed the cliffy sides of the crater
for a distance of about half a mile, or perhaps a little less, and
then halted. Seeing the old gentleman, my adopted "father," Billali,
emerge from his litter, I did the same, and so did Leo and Job. The
first thing I saw was our wretched Arab companion, Mahomed, lying
exhausted on the ground. It appeared that he had not been provided
with a litter, but had been forced to run the entire distance, and, as
he was already quite worn out when we started, his condition now was
one of great prostration.

On looking round we discovered that the place where we had halted was
a platform in front of the mouth of a great cave, and piled upon this
platform were the entire contents of the whale-boat, even down to the
oars and sail. Round the cave stood groups of the men who had escorted
us, and other men of a similar stamp. They were all tall and all
handsome, though they varied in their degree of darkness of skin, some
being as dark as Mahomed, and some as yellow as a Chinese. They were
naked, except for the leopard-skin round the waist, and each of them
carried a huge spear.

There were also some women among them, who, instead of the leopard-
skin, wore a tanned hide of a small red buck, something like that of
the oribé, only rather darker in colour. These women were, as a class,
exceedingly good-looking, with large, dark eyes, well-cut features,
and a thick bush of curling hair--not crisped like a negro's--ranging
from black to chestnut in hue, with all shades of intermediate colour.
Some, but very few of them, wore a yellowish linen garment, such as I
have described as worn by Billali, but this, as we afterwards
discovered, was a mark of rank, rather than an attempt at clothing.
For the rest, their appearance was not quite so terrifying as that of
the men, and they sometimes, though rarely, smiled. As soon as we had
alighted they gathered round us and examined us with curiosity, but
without excitement. Leo's tall, athletic form and clear-cut Grecian
face, however, evidently excited their attention, and when he politely
lifted his hat to them, and showed his curling yellow hair, there was
a slight murmur of admiration. Nor did it stop there; for, after
regarding him critically from head to foot, the handsomest of the
young women--one wearing a robe, and with hair of a shade between
brown and chestnut--deliberately advanced to him, and, in a way that
would have been winning had it not been so determined, quietly put her
arm round his neck, bent forward, and kissed him on the lips.

I gave a gasp, expecting to see Leo instantly speared; and Job
ejaculated, "The hussy--well, I never!" As for Leo, he looked slightly
astonished; and then, remarking that we had clearly got into a country
where they followed the customs of the early Christians, deliberately
returned the embrace.

Again I gasped, thinking that something would happen; but, to my
surprise, though some of the young women showed traces of vexation,
the older ones and the men only smiled slightly. When we came to
understand the customs of this extraordinary people the mystery was
explained. It then appeared that, in direct opposition to the habits
of almost every other savage race in the world, women among the
Amahagger are not only upon terms of perfect equality with the men,
but are not held to them by any binding ties. Descent is traced only
through the line of the mother, and while individuals are as proud of
a long and superior female ancestry as we are of our families in
Europe, they never pay attention to, or even acknowledge, any man as
their father, even when their male parentage is perfectly well known.
There is but one titular male parent of each tribe, or, as they call
it, "Household," and he is its elected and immediate ruler, with the
title of "Father." For instance, the man Billali was the father of
this "household," which consisted of about seven thousand individuals
all told, and no other man was ever called by that name. When a woman
took a fancy to a man she signified her preference by advancing and
embracing him publicly, in the same way that this handsome and
exceedingly prompt young lady, who was called Ustane, had embraced
Leo. If he kissed her back it was a token that he accepted her, and
the arrangement continued until one of them wearied of it. I am bound,
however, to say that the change of husbands was not nearly so
frequently as might have been expected. Nor did quarrels arise out of
it, at least among the men, who, when their wives deserted them in
favour of a rival, accepted the whole thing much as we accept the
income-tax or our marriage laws, as something not to be disputed, and
as tending to the good of the community, however disagreeable they may
in particular instances prove to the individual.

It is very curious to observe how the customs of mankind on this
matter vary in different countries, making morality an affair of
latitude, and what is right and proper in one place wrong and improper
in another. It must, however, be understood that, since all civilised
nations appear to accept it as an axiom that ceremony is the
touchstone of morality, there is, even according to our canons,
nothing immoral about this Amahagger custom, seeing that the
interchange of the embrace answers to our ceremony of marriage, which,
as we know, justifies most things.



                                 VII

                             USTANE SINGS

When the kissing operation was finished--by the way, none of the young
ladies offered to pet me in this fashion, though I saw one hovering
round Job, to that respectable individual's evident alarm--the old man
Billali advanced, and graciously waved us into the cave, whither we
went, followed by Ustane, who did not seem inclined to take the hints
I gave her that we liked privacy.

Before we had gone five paces it struck me that the cave that we were
entering was none of Nature's handiwork, but, on the contrary, had
been hollowed by the hand of man. So far as we could judge it appeared
to be about one hundred feet in length by fifty wide, and very lofty,
resembling a cathedral aisle more than anything else. From this main
aisle opened passages at a distance of every twelve or fifteen feet,
leading, I supposed, to smaller chambers. About fifty feet from the
entrance of the cave, just where the light began to get dim, a fire
was burning, which threw huge shadows upon the gloomy walls around.
Here Billali halted, and asked us to be seated, saying that the people
would bring us food, and accordingly we squatted ourselves down upon
the rugs of skins which were spread for us, and waited. Presently the
food, consisting of goat's flesh boiled, fresh milk in an earthenware
pot, and boiled cobs of Indian corn, was brought by young girls. We
were almost starving, and I do not think that I ever in my life before
ate with such satisfaction. Indeed, before we had finished we
literally ate up everything that was set before us.

When we had done, our somewhat saturnine host, Billali, who had been
watching us in perfect silence, rose and addressed us. He said that it
was a wonderful thing that had happened. No man had ever known or
heard of white strangers arriving in the country of the People of the
Rocks. Sometimes, though rarely, black men had come here, and from
them they had heard of the existence of men much whiter than
themselves, who sailed on the sea in ships, but for the arrival of
such there was no precedent. We had, however, been seen dragging the
boat up the canal, and he told us frankly that he had at once given
orders for our destruction, seeing that it was unlawful for any
stranger to enter here, when a message had come from "/She-who-must-
be-obeyed/," saying that our lives were to be spared, and that we were
to be brought hither.

"Pardon me, my father," I interrupted at this point; "but if, as I
understand, '/She-who-must-be-obeyed/' lives yet farther off, how
could she have known of our approach?"

Billali turned, and seeing that we were alone--for the young lady,
Ustane, had withdrawn when he had begun to speak--said, with a curious
little laugh--

"Are there none in your land who can see without eyes and hear without
ears? Ask no questions; /She/ knew."

I shrugged my shoulders at this, and he proceeded to say that no
further instructions had been received on the subject of our disposal,
and this being so he was about to start to interview "/She-who-must-
be-obeyed/," generally spoken of, for the sake of brevity, as "Hiya"
or /She/ simply, who he gave us to understand was the Queen of the
Amahagger, and learn her wishes.

I asked him how long he proposed to be away, and he said that by
travelling hard he might be back on the fifth day, but there were many
miles of marsh to cross before he came to where /She/ was. He then
said that every arrangement would be made for our comfort during his
absence, and that, as he personally had taken a fancy to us, he
sincerely trusted that the answer he should bring from /She/ would be
one favourable to the continuation of our existence, but at the same
time he did not wish to conceal from us that he thought this doubtful,
as every stranger who had ever come into the country during his
grandmother's life, his mother's life, and his own life, had been put
to death without mercy, and in a way he would not harrow our feelings
by describing; and this had been done by the order of /She/ herself,
at least he supposed that it was by her order. At any rate, she never
interfered to save them.

"Why," I said, "but how can that be? You are an old man, and the time
you talk of must reach back three men's lives. How therefore could
/She/ have ordered the death of anybody at the beginning of the life
of your grandmother, seeing that herself she would not have been
born?"

Again he smiled--that same faint, peculiar smile, and with a deep bow
departed, without making any answer; nor did we see him again for five
days.

When we had gone we discussed the situation, which filled me with
alarm. I did not at all like the accounts of this mysterious Queen,
"/She-who-must-be-obeyed/," or more shortly /She/, who apparently
ordered the execution of any unfortunate stranger in a fashion so
unmerciful. Leo, too, was depressed about it, but consoled himself by
triumphantly pointing out that this /She/ was undoubtedly the person
referred to in the writing on the potsherd and in his father's letter,
in proof of which he advanced Billali's allusions to her age and
power. I was by this time too overwhelmed with the whole course of
events that I had not even the heart left to dispute a proposition so
absurd, so I suggested that we should try to go out and get a bath, of
which we all stood sadly in need.

Accordingly, having indicated our wish to a middle-aged individual of
an unusually saturnine cast of countenance, even among this saturnine
people, who appeared to be deputed to look after us now that the
Father of the hamlet had departed, we started in a body--having first
lit our pipes. Outside the cave we found quite a crowd of people
evidently watching for our appearance, but when they saw us come out
smoking they vanished this way and that, calling out that we were
great magicians. Indeed, nothing about us created so great a sensation
as our tobacco smoke--not even our firearms.[*] After this we
succeeded in reaching a stream that had its source in a strong ground
spring, and taking our bath in peace, though some of the women, not
excepting Ustane, showed a decided inclination to follow us even
there.

[*] We found tobacco growing in this country as it does in every other
    part of Africa, and, although they were so absolutely ignorant of
    its other blessed qualities, the Amahagger use it habitually in
    the form of snuff and also for medicinal purposes.--L. H. H.

By the time that we had finished this most refreshing bath the sun was
setting; indeed, when we got back to the big cave it had already set.
The cave itself was full of people gathered round fires--for several
more had now been lighted--and eating their evening meal by their
lurid light, and by that of various lamps which were set about or hung
upon the walls. These lamps were of a rude manufacture of baked
earthenware, and of all shapes, some of them graceful enough. The
larger ones were formed of big red earthenware pots, filled with
clarified melted fat, and having a reed wick stuck through a wooden
disk which filled the top of the pot. This sort of lamp required the
most constant attention to prevent its going out whenever the wick
burnt down, as there were no means of turning it up. The smaller hand
lamps, however, which were also made of baked clay, were fitted with
wicks manufactured from the pith of a palm-tree, or sometimes from the
stem of a very handsome variety of fern. This kind of wick was passed
through a round hole at the end of the lamp, to which a sharp piece of
hard wood was attached wherewith to pierce and draw it up whenever it
showed signs of burning low.

For a while we sat down and watched this grim people eating their
evening meal in silence as grim as themselves, till at length, getting
tired of contemplating them and the huge moving shadows on the rocky
walls, I suggested to our new keeper that we should like to go to bed.

Without a word he rose, and, taking me politely by the hand, advanced
with a lamp to one of the small passages that I had noticed opening
out of the central cave. This we followed for about five paces, when
it suddenly widened out into a small chamber, about eight feet square,
and hewn out of the living rock. On one side of this chamber was a
stone slab, about three feet from the ground, and running its entire
length like a bunk in a cabin, and on this slab he intimated that I
was to sleep. There was no window or air-hole to the chamber, and no
furniture; and, on looking at it more closely, I came to the
disturbing conclusion (in which, as I afterwards discovered, I was
quite right) that it had originally served for a sepulchre for the
dead rather than a sleeping-place for the living, the slab being
designed to receive the corpse of the departed. The thought made me
shudder in spite of myself; but, seeing that I must sleep somewhere, I
got over the feeling as best I might, and returned to the cavern to
get my blanket, which had been brought up from the boat with the other
things. There I met Job, who, having been inducted to a similar
apartment, had flatly declined to stop in it, saying that the look of
the place gave him the horrors, and that he might as well be dead and
buried in his grandfather's brick grave at once, and expressed his
determination of sleeping with me if I would allow him. This, of
course, I was only too glad to do.

The night passed very comfortably on the whole. I say on the whole,
for personally I went through a most horrible nightmare of being
buried alive, induced, no doubt, by the sepulchral nature of my
surroundings. At dawn we were aroused by a loud trumpeting sound,
produced, as we afterwards discovered, by a young Amahagger blowing
through a hole bored in its side into a hollowed elephant tusk, which
was kept for the purpose.

Taking the hint, we got up and went down to the stream to wash, after
which the morning meal was served. At breakfast one of the women, no
longer quite young, advanced and publicly kissed Job. I think it was
in its way the most delightful thing (putting its impropriety aside
for a moment) that I ever saw. Never shall I forget the respectable
Job's abject terror and disgust. Job, like myself, is a bit of a
misogynist--I fancy chiefly owing to the fact of his having been one
of a family of seventeen--and the feelings expressed upon his
countenance when he realised that he was not only being embraced
publicly, and without authorisation on his own part, but also in the
presence of his masters, were too mixed and painful to admit of
accurate description. He sprang to his feet, and pushed the woman, a
buxom person of about thirty, from him.

"Well, I never!" he gasped, whereupon probably thinking that he was
only coy, she embraced him again.

"Be off with you! Get away, you minx!" he shouted, waving the wooden
spoon, with which he was eating his breakfast, up and down before the
lady's face. "Beg your pardon, gentlemen, I am sure I haven't
encouraged her. Oh, Lord! she's coming for me again. Hold her, Mr.
Holly! please hold her! I can't stand it; I can't, indeed. This has
never happened to me before, gentlemen, never. There's nothing against
my character," and here he broke off, and ran as hard as he could go
down the cave, and for once I saw the Amahagger laugh. As for the
woman, however, she did not laugh. On the contrary, she seemed to
bristle with fury, which the mockery of the other women about only
served to intensify. She stood there literally snarling and shaking
with indignation, and, seeing her, I wished Job's scruples had been at
Jericho, forming a shrewd guess that his admirable behaviour had
endangered our throats. Nor, as the sequel shows, was I wrong.

The lady having retreated, Job returned in a great state of
nervousness, and keeping his weather eye fixed upon every woman who
came near him. I took an opportunity to explain to our hosts that Job
was a married man, and had had very unhappy experiences in his
domestic relations, which accounted for his presence here and his
terror at the sight of women, but my remarks were received in grim
silence, it being evident that our retainer's behaviour was considered
as a slight to the "household" at large, although the women, after the
manner of some of their most civilised sisters, made merry at the
rebuff of their companion.

After breakfast we took a walk and inspected the Amahagger herds, and
also their cultivated lands. They have two breeds of cattle, one large
and angular, with no horns, but yielding beautiful milk; and the
other, a red breed, very small and fat, excellent for meat, but of no
value for milking purposes. This last breed closely resembles the
Norfolk red-pole strain, only it has horns which generally curve
forward over the head, sometimes to such an extent that they have to
be cut to prevent them from growing into the bones of the skull. The
goats are long-haired, and are used for eating only, at least I never
saw them milked. As for the Amahagger cultivation, it is primitive in
the extreme, being all done by means of a spade made of iron, for
these people smelt and work iron. This spade is shaped more like a big
spear-head than anything else, and has no shoulder to it on which the
foot can be set. As a consequence, the labour of digging is very
great. It is, however, all done by the men, the women, contrary to the
habits of most savage races, being entirely exempt from manual toil.
But then, as I think I have said elsewhere, among the Amahagger the
weaker sex has established its rights.

At first we were much puzzled as to the origin and constitution of
this extraordinary race, points upon which they were singularly
uncommunicative. As the time went on--for the next four days passed
without any striking event--we learnt something from Leo's lady friend
Ustane, who, by the way, stuck to that young gentleman like his own
shadow. As to origin, they had none, at least, so far as she was
aware. There were, however, she informed us, mounds of masonry and
many pillars, near the place where /She/ lived, which was called Kôr,
and which the wise said had once been houses wherein men lived, and it
was suggested that they were descended from these men. No one,
however, dared go near these great ruins, because they were haunted:
they only looked on them from a distance. Other similar ruins were to
be seen, she had heard, in various parts of the country, that is,
wherever one of the mountains rose above the level of the swamp. Also
the caves in which they lived had been hollowed out of the rocks by
men, perhaps the same who built the cities. They themselves had no
written laws, only custom, which was, however, quite as binding as
law. If any man offended against the custom, he was put to death by
order of the Father of the "Household." I asked how he was put to
death, and she only smiled and said that I might see one day soon.

They had a Queen, however. /She/ was their Queen, but she was very
rarely seen, perhaps once in two or three years, when she came forth
to pass sentence on some offenders, and when seen was muffled up in a
big cloak, so that nobody could look upon her face. Those who waited
upon her were deaf and dumb, and therefore could tell no tales, but it
was reported that she was lovely as no other woman was lovely, or ever
had been. It was rumoured also that she was immortal, and had power
over all things, but she, Ustane, could say nothing of all that. What
she believed was that the Queen chose a husband from time to time, and
as soon as a female child was born, this husband, who was never again
seen, was put to death. Then the female child grew up and took the
place of the Queen when its mother died, and had been buried in the
great caves. But of these matters none could speak with certainty.
Only /She/ was obeyed throughout the length and breadth of the land,
and to question her command was instant death. She kept a guard, but
had no regular army, and to disobey her was to die.

I asked what size the land was, and how many people lived in it. She
answered that there were ten "Households," like this that she knew of,
including the big "Household," where the Queen was, that all the
"Households" lived in caves, in places resembling this stretch of
raised country, dotted about in a vast extent of swamp, which was only
to be threaded by secret paths. Often the "Households" made war on
each other until /She/ sent word that it was to stop, and then they
instantly ceased. That and the fever which they caught in crossing the
swamps prevented their numbers from increasing too much. They had no
connection with any other race, indeed none lived near them, or were
able to thread the vast swamps. Once an army from the direction of the
great river (presumably the Zambesi) had attempted to attack them, but
they got lost in the marshes, and at night, seeing the great balls of
fire that move about there, tried to come to them, thinking that they
marked the enemy camp, and half of them were drowned. As for the rest,
they soon died of fever and starvation, not a blow being struck at
them. The marshes, she told us, were absolutely impassable except to
those who knew the paths, adding, what I could well believe, that we
should never have reached this place where we then were had we not
been brought thither.

These and many other things we learnt from Ustane during the four
days' pause before our real adventures began, and, as may be imagined,
they gave us considerable cause for thought. The whole thing was
exceedingly remarkable, almost incredibly so, indeed, and the oddest
part of it was that so far it did more or less correspond to the
ancient writing on the sherd. And now it appeared that there was a
mysterious Queen clothed by rumour with dread and wonderful
attributes, and commonly known by the impersonal, but, to my mind,
rather awesome title of /She/. Altogether, I could not make it out,
nor could Leo, though of course he was exceedingly triumphant over me
because I had persistently mocked at the whole thing. As for Job, he
had long since abandoned any attempt to call his reason his own, and
left it to drift upon the sea of circumstance. Mahomed, the Arab, who
was, by the way, treated civilly indeed, but with chilling contempt,
by the Amahagger, was, I discovered, in a great fright, though I could
not quite make out what he was frightened about. He would sit crouched
up in a corner of the cave all day long, calling upon Allah and the
Prophet to protect him. When I pressed him about it, he said that he
was afraid because these people were not men or women at all, but
devils, and that this was an enchanted land; and, upon my word, once
or twice since then I have been inclined to agree with him. And so the
time went on, till the night of the fourth day after Billali had left,
when something happened.

We three and Ustane were sitting round a fire in the cave just before
bedtime, when suddenly the woman, who had been brooding in silence,
rose, and laid her hand upon Leo's golden curls, and addressed him.
Even now, when I shut my eyes, I can see her proud, imperial form,
clothed alternately in dense shadow and the red flickering of the
fire, as she stood, the wild centre of as weird a scene as I ever
witnessed, and delivered herself of the burden of her thoughts and
forebodings in a kind of rhythmical speech that ran something as
follows:--

  Thou art my chosen--I have waited for thee from the beginning!
  Thou art very beautiful. Who hath hair like unto thee, or skin so
    white?
  Who hath so strong an arm, who is so much a man?
  Thine eyes are the sky, and the light in them is the stars.
  Thou art perfect and of a happy face, and my heart turned itself
    towards thee.
  Ay, when mine eyes fell upon thee I did desire thee,--
  Then did I take thee to me--oh, thou Beloved,
  And hold thee fast, lest harm should come unto thee.
  Ay, I did cover thine head with mine hair, lest the sun should
    strike it;
  And altogether was I thine, and thou wast altogether mine.
  And so it went for a little space, till Time was in labour with
    an evil Day;
  And then what befell on that day? Alas! my Beloved, I know not!
  But I, I saw thee no more--I, I was lost in the blackness.
  And she who is stronger did take thee; ay, she who is fairer than
    Ustane.
  Yet didst thou turn and call upon me, and let thine eyes wander in
    the darkness.
  But, nevertheless, she prevailed by Beauty, and led thee down
    horrible places,
  And then, ah! then my Beloved----

Here this extraordinary woman broke off her speech, or chant, which
was so much musical gibberish to us, for all that we understood of
what she was talking about, and seemed to fix her flashing eyes upon
the deep shadow before her. Then in a moment they acquired a vacant,
terrified stare, as though they were striving to realise some half-
seen horror. She lifted her hand from Leo's head, and pointed into the
darkness. We all looked, and could see nothing; but she saw something,
or thought she did, and something evidently that affected even her
iron nerves, for, without another sound, down she fell senseless
between us.

Leo, who was growing really attached to this remarkable young person,
was in a great state of alarm and distress, and I, to be perfectly
candid, was in a condition not far removed from superstitious fear.
The whole scene was an uncanny one.

Presently, however, she recovered, and sat up with an extraordinary
convulsive shudder.

"What didst thou mean, Ustane?" asked Leo, who, thanks to years of
tuition, spoke Arabic very prettily.

"Nay, my chosen," she answered, with a little forced laugh. "I did but
sing unto thee after the fashion of my people. Surely, I meant
nothing. Now could I speak of that which is not yet?"

"And what didst thou see, Ustane?" I asked, looking her sharply in the
face.

"Nay," she answered again, "I saw naught. Ask me not what I saw. Why
should I fright ye?" And then, turning to Leo with a look of the most
utter tenderness that I ever saw upon the face of a woman, civilised
or savage, she took his head between her hands, and kissed him on the
forehead as a mother might.

"When I am gone from thee, my chosen," she said; "when at night thou
stretchest out thine hand and canst not find me, then shouldst thou
think at times of me, for of a truth I love thee well, though I be not
fit to wash thy feet. And now let us love and take that which is given
us, and be happy; for in the grave there is no love and no warmth, nor
any touching of the lips. Nothing perchance, or perchance but bitter
memories of what might have been. To-night the hours are our own, how
know we to whom they shall belong to-morrow?"



                                 VIII

                        THE FEAST, AND AFTER!

On the day following this remarkable scene--a scene calculated to make
a deep impression upon anybody who beheld it, more because of what it
suggested and seemed to foreshadow than of what it revealed--it was
announced to us that a feast would be held that evening in our honour.
I did my best to get out of it, saying that we were modest people, and
cared little for feasts, but my remarks being received with the
silence of displeasure, I thought it wisest to hold my tongue.

Accordingly, just before sundown, I was informed that everything was
ready, and, accompanied by Job, went into the cave, where I met Leo,
who was, as usual, followed by Ustane. These two had been out walking
somewhere, and knew nothing of the projected festivity till that
moment. When Ustane heard of it I saw an expression of horror spring
up upon her handsome features. Turning she caught a man who was
passing up the cave by the arm, and asked him something in an
imperious tone. His answer seemed to reassure her a little, for she
looked relieved, though far from satisfied. Next she appeared to
attempt some remonstrance with the man, who was a person in authority,
but he spoke angrily to her, and shook her off, and then, changing his
mind, led her by the arm, and sat her down between himself and another
man in the circle round the fire, and I perceived that for some reason
of her own she thought it best to submit.

The fire in the cave was an unusually big one that night, and in a
large circle round it were gathered about thirty-five men and two
women, Ustane and the woman to avoid whom Job had played the /rôle/ of
another Scriptural character. The men were sitting in perfect silence,
as was their custom, each with his great spear stuck upright behind
him, in a socket cut in the rock for that purpose. Only one or two
wore the yellowish linen garment of which I have spoken, the rest had
nothing on except the leopard's skin about the middle.

"What's up now, sir," said Job, doubtfully. "Bless us and save us,
there's that woman again. Now, surely, she can't be after me, seeing
that I have given her no encouragement. They give me the creeps, the
whole lot of them, and that's a fact. Why look, they have asked
Mahomed to dine, too. There, that lady of mine is talking to him in as
nice and civil a way as possible. Well, I'm glad it isn't me, that's
all."

We looked up, and sure enough the woman in question had risen, and was
escorting the wretched Mahomed from his corner, where, overcome by
some acute prescience of horror, he had been seated, shivering, and
calling on Allah. He appeared unwilling enough to come, if for no
other reason perhaps because it was an unaccustomed honour, for
hitherto his food had been given to him apart. Anyway I could see that
he was in a state of great terror, for his tottering legs would
scarcely support his stout, bulky form, and I think it was rather
owing to the resources of barbarism behind him, in the shape of a huge
Amahagger with a proportionately huge spear, than to the seductions of
the lady who led him by the hand, that he consented to come at all.

"Well," I said to the others, "I don't at all like the look of things,
but I suppose we must face it out. Have you fellows got your revolvers
on? because, if so, you had better see that they are loaded."

"I have, sir," said Job, tapping his Colt, "but Mr. Leo has only got
his hunting knife, though that is big enough, surely."

Feeling that it would not do to wait while the missing weapon was
fetched, we advanced boldly, and seated ourselves in a line, with our
backs against the side of the cave.

As soon as we were seated, an earthenware jar was passed round
containing a fermented fluid, of by no means unpleasant taste, though
apt to turn upon the stomach, made from crushed grain--not Indian
corn, but a small brown grain that grows upon its stem in clusters,
not unlike that which in the southern part of Africa is known by the
name of Kafir corn. The vase which contained this liquor was very
curious, and as it more or less resembled many hundreds of others in
use among the Amahagger I may as well describe it. These vases are of
a very ancient manufacture, and of all sizes. None such can have been
made in the country for hundreds, or rather thousands, of years. They
are found in the rock tombs, of which I shall give a description in
their proper place, and my own belief is that, after the fashion of
the Egyptians, with whom the former inhabitants of this country may
have had some connection, they were used to receive the viscera of the
dead. Leo, however, is of opinion that, as in the case of Etruscan
amphoræ, they were placed there for the spiritual use of the deceased.
They are mostly two-handled, and of all sizes, some being nearly three
feet in height, and running from that down to as many inches. In shape
they vary, but all are exceedingly beautiful and graceful, being made
of a very fine black ware, not lustrous, but slightly rough. On this
groundwork are inlaid figures much more graceful and lifelike than any
others that I have seen on antique vases. Some of these inlaid
pictures represent love-scenes with a childlike simplicity and freedom
of manner which would not commend itself to the taste of the present
day. Others again give pictures of maidens dancing, and yet others of
hunting-scenes. For instance, the very vase from which we were then
drinking had on one side a most spirited drawing of men, apparently
white in colour, attacking a bull-elephant with spears, while on the
reverse was a picture, not quite so well done, of a hunter shooting an
arrow at a running antelope, I should say from the look of it either
an eland or a koodoo.

This is a digression at a critical moment, but it is not too long for
the occasion, for the occasion itself was very long. With the
exception of the periodical passing of the vase, and the movement
necessary to throw fuel on to the fire, nothing happened for the best
part of a whole hour. Nobody spoke a word. There we all sat in perfect
silence, staring at the glare and glow of the large fire, and at the
shadows thrown by the flickering earthenware lamps (which, by the way,
were not ancient). On the open space between us and the fire lay a
large wooden tray, with four short handles to it, exactly like a
butcher's tray, only not hollowed out. By the side of the tray was a
great pair of long-handled iron pincers, and on the other side of the
fire was a similar pair. Somehow I did not at all like the appearance
of this tray and the accompanying pincers. There I sat and stared at
them and at the silent circle of the fierce moody faces of the men,
and reflected that it was all very awful, and that we were absolutely
in the power of this alarming people, who, to me at any rate, were all
the more formidable because their true character was still very much
of a mystery to us. They might be better than I thought them, or they
might be worse. I feared that they were worse, and I was not wrong. It
was a curious sort of a feast, I reflected, in appearance indeed, an
entertainment of the Barmecide stamp, for there was absolutely nothing
to eat.

At last, just as I was beginning to feel as though I were being
mesmerised, a move was made. Without the slightest warning, a man from
the other side of the circle called out in a loud voice--

"Where is the flesh that we shall eat?"

Thereon everybody in the circle answered in a deep measured tone, and
stretching out the right arm towards the fire as he spoke--

"/The flesh will come./"

"Is it a goat?" said the same man.

"/It is a goat without horns, and more than a goat, and we shall slay
it,/" they answered with one voice, and turning half round they one
and all grasped the handles of their spears with the right hand, and
then simultaneously let them go.

"Is it an ox?" said the man again.

"/It is an ox without horns, and more than an ox, and we shall slay
it,/" was the answer, and again the spears were grasped, and again let
go.

Then came a pause, and I noticed, with horror and a rising of the
hair, that the woman next to Mahomed began to fondle him, patting his
cheeks and calling him by names of endearment while her fierce eyes
played up and down his trembling form. I do not know why the sight
frightened me so, but it did frighten us all dreadfully, especially
Leo. The caressing was so snake-like, and so evidently a part of some
ghastly formula that had to be gone through.[*] I saw Mahomed turn
white under his brown skin, sickly white with fear.

[*] We afterwards learnt that its object was to pretend to the victim
    that he was the object of love and admiration, and so to sooth his
    injured feelings, and cause him to expire in a happy and contented
    frame of mind.--L. H. H.

"Is the meat ready to be cooked?" asked the voice, more rapidly.

"/It is ready; it is ready./"

"Is the pot hot to cook it?" it continued, in a sort of scream that
echoed painfully down the great recesses of the cave.

"/It is hot; it is hot./"

"Great heavens!" roared Leo, "remember the writing, '/The people who
place pots upon the heads of strangers./'"

As he said the words, before we could stir, or even take the matter
in, two great ruffians jumped up, and, seizing the long pincers,
thrust them into the heart of the fire, and the woman who had been
caressing Mahomed suddenly produced a fibre noose from under her
girdle or moocha, and, slipping it over his shoulders, ran it tight,
while the men next to him seized him by the legs. The two men with the
pincers gave a heave, and, scattering the fire this way and that upon
the rocky floor, lifted from it a large earthenware pot, heated to a
white heat. In an instant, almost with a single movement, they had
reached the spot where Mahomed was struggling. He fought like a fiend,
shrieking in the abandonment of his despair, and notwithstanding the
noose round him, and the efforts of the men who held his legs, the
advancing wretches were for the moment unable to accomplish their
purpose, which, horrible and incredible as it seems, was /to put the
red-hot pot upon his head/.

I sprang to my feet with a yell of horror, and drawing my revolver
fired it by a sort of instinct straight at the diabolical woman who
had been caressing Mahomed, and was now gripping him in her arms. The
bullet struck her in the back and killed her, and to this day I am
glad that it did, for, as it afterwards transpired, she had availed
herself of the anthropophagous customs of the Amahagger to organise
the whole thing in revenge of the slight put upon her by Job. She sank
down dead, and as she did so, to my terror and dismay, Mahomed, by a
superhuman effort, burst from his tormenters, and, springing high into
the air, fell dying upon her corpse. The heavy bullet from my pistol
had driven through the bodies of both, at once striking down the
murderess, and saving her victim from a death a hundred times more
horrible. It was an awful and yet a most merciful accident.

For a moment there was a silence of astonishment. The Amahagger had
never heard the report of a firearm before, and its effects dismayed
them. But the next a man close to us recovered himself, and seized his
spear preparatory to making a lunge with it at Leo, who was the
nearest to him.

"Run for it!" I shouted, setting the example by starting up the cave
as hard as my legs would carry me. I would have made for the open air
if it had been possible, but there were men in the way, and, besides,
I had caught sight of the forms of a crowd of people standing out
clear against the skyline beyond the entrance to the cave. Up the cave
I went, and after me came the others, and after them thundered the
whole crowd of cannibals, mad with fury at the death of the woman.
With a bound I cleared the prostrate form of Mahomed. As I flew over
him I felt the heat from the red-hot pot, which was lying close by,
strike upon my legs, and by its glow saw his hands--for he was not
quite dead--still feebly moving. At the top of the cave was a little
platform of rock three feet or so high by about eight deep, on which
two large lamps were placed at night. Whether this platform had been
left as a seat, or as a raised point afterwards to be cut away when it
had served its purpose as a standing place from which to carry on the
excavations, I do not know--at least, I did not then. At any rate, we
all three reached it, and, jumping on it, prepared to sell our lives
as dearly as we could. For a few seconds the crowd that was pressing
on our heels hung back when they saw us face round upon them. Job was
on one side of the rock to the left, Leo in the centre, and I to the
right. Behind us were the lamps. Leo bent forward, and looked down the
long lane of shadows, terminating in the fire and lighted lamps,
through which the quiet forms of our would-be murderers flitted to and
fro with the faint light glinting on their spears, for even their fury
was silent as a bulldog's. The only other thing visible was the red-
hot pot still glowing angrily in the gloom. There was a curious light
in Leo's eyes, and his handsome face was set like a stone. In his
right hand was his heavy hunting-knife. He shifted its thong a little
up his wrist and then put his arm round me and gave me a good hug.

"Good-bye, old fellow," he said, "my dear friend--my more than father.
We have no chance against those scoundrels; they will finish us in a
few minutes, and eat us afterwards, I suppose. Good-bye. I led you
into this. I hope you will forgive me. Good-bye, Job."

"God's will be done," I said, setting my teeth, as I prepared for the
end. At that moment, with an exclamation, Job lifted his revolver and
fired, and hit a man--not the man he had aimed at, by the way:
anything that Job shot /at/ was perfectly safe.

On they came with a rush, and I fired too as fast as I could, and
checked them--between us, Job and I, besides the woman, killed or
mortally wounded five men with our pistols before they were emptied.
But we had no time to reload, and they still came on in a way that was
almost splendid in its recklessness, seeing that they did not know but
that we could go on firing for ever.

A great fellow bounded up upon the platform, and Leo struck him dead
with one blow of his powerful arm, sending the knife right through
him. I did the same by another, but Job missed his stroke, and I saw a
brawny Amahagger grip him by the middle and whirl him off the rock.
The knife not being secured by a thong fell from Job's hand as he did
so, and, by a most happy accident for him, lit upon its handle on the
rock, just as the body of the Amahagger, who was undermost, struck
upon its point and was transfixed upon it. What happened to Job after
that I am sure I do not know, but my own impression is that he lay
still upon the corpse of his deceased assailant, "playing 'possum" as
the Americans say. As for myself, I was soon involved in a desperate
encounter with two ruffians, who, luckily for me, had left their
spears behind them; and for the first time in my life the great
physical power with which Nature has endowed me stood me in good
stead. I had hacked at the head of one man with my hunting-knife,
which was almost as big and heavy as a short sword, with such vigour,
that the sharp steel had split his skull down to the eyes, and was
held so fast by it that as he suddenly fell sideways the knife was
twisted right out of my hand.

Then it was that the two others sprang upon me. I saw them coming, and
got an arm round the waist of each, and down we all fell upon the
floor of the cave together, rolling over and over. They were strong
men, but I was mad with rage, and that awful lust for slaughter which
will creep into the hearts of the most civilised of us when blows are
flying, and life and death tremble on the turn. My arms were round the
two swarthy demons, and I hugged them till I heard their ribs crack
and crunch up beneath my grip. They twisted and writhed like snakes,
and clawed and battered at me with their fists, but I held on. Lying
on my back there, so that their bodies might protect me from spear
thrusts from above, I slowly crushed the life out of them, and as I
did so, strange as it may seem, I thought of what the amiable Head of
my College at Cambridge (who is a member of the Peace Society) and my
brother Fellows would say if by clairvoyance they could see me, of all
men, playing such a bloody game. Soon my assailants grew faint, and
almost ceased to struggle, their breath had failed them, and they were
dying, but still I dared not leave them, for they died very slowly. I
knew that if I relaxed my grip they would revive. The other ruffians
probably thought--for we were all three lying in the shadow of the
ledge--that we were all dead together, at any rate they did not
interfere with our little tragedy.

I turned my head, and as I lay gasping in the throes of that awful
struggle I could see that Leo was off the rock now, for the lamplight
fell full upon him. He was still on his feet, but in the centre of a
surging mass of struggling men, who were striving to pull him down as
wolves pull down a stag. Up above them towered his beautiful pale face
crowned with its bright curls (for Leo is six feet two high), and I
saw that he was fighting with a desperate abandonment and energy that
was at once splendid and hideous to behold. He drove his knife through
one man--they were so close to and mixed up with him that they could
not get at him to kill him with their big spears, and they had no
knives or sticks. The man fell, and then somehow the knife was
wrenched from his hand, leaving him defenceless, and I thought the end
had come. But no; with a desperate effort he broke loose from them,
seized the body of the man he had just slain, and lifting it high in
the air hurled it right at the mob of his assailants, so that the
shock and weight of it swept some five or six of them to the earth.
But in a minute they were all up again, except one, whose skull was
smashed, and had once more fastened upon him. And then slowly, and
with infinite labour and struggling, the wolves bore the lion down.
Once even then he recovered himself, and felled an Amahagger with his
fist, but it was more than man could do to hold his own for long
against so many, and at last he came crashing down upon the rock
floor, falling as an oak falls, and bearing with him to the earth all
those who clung about him. They gripped him by his arms and legs, and
then cleared off his body.

"A spear," cried a voice--"a spear to cut his throat, and a vessel to
catch his blood."

I shut my eyes, for I saw the man coming with a spear, and myself, I
could not stir to Leo's help, for I was growing weak, and the two men
on me were not yet dead, and a deadly sickness overcame me.

Then suddenly there was a disturbance, and involuntarily I opened my
eyes again, and looked towards the scene of murder. The girl Ustane
had thrown herself on Leo's prostrate form, covering his body with her
body, and fastening her arms about his neck. They tried to drag her
from him, but she twisted her legs round his, and hung on like a
bulldog, or rather like a creeper to a tree, and they could not. Then
they tried to stab him in the side without hurting her, but somehow
she shielded him, and he was only wounded.

At last they lost patience.

"Drive the spear through the man and the woman together," said a
voice, the same voice that had asked the questions at that ghastly
feast, "so of a verity shall they be wed."

Then I saw the man with the weapon straighten himself for the effort.
I saw the cold steel gleam on high, and once more I shut my eyes.

As I did so I heard the voice of a man thunder out in tones that rang
and echoed down the rocky ways--

"/Cease!/"

Then I fainted, and as I did so it flashed through my darkening mind
that I was passing down into the last oblivion of death.



                                  IX

                            A LITTLE FOOT

When I opened my eyes again I found myself lying on a skin mat not far
from the fire round which we had been gathered for that dreadful
feast. Near me lay Leo, still apparently in a swoon, and over him was
bending the tall form of the girl Ustane, who was washing a deep spear
wound in his side with cold water preparatory to binding it up with
linen. Leaning against the wall of the cave behind her was Job,
apparently uninjured, but bruised and trembling. On the other side of
the fire, tossed about this way and that, as though they had thrown
themselves down to sleep in some moment of absolute exhaustion, were
the bodies of those whom we had killed in our frightful struggle for
life. I counted them: there were twelve besides the woman, and the
corpse of poor Mahomed, who had died by my hand, which, the fire-
stained pot at its side, was placed at the end of the irregular line.
To the left a body of men were engaged in binding the arms of the
survivors of the cannibals behind them, and then fastening them two
and two. The villains were submitting with a look of sulky
indifference upon their faces which accorded ill with the baffled fury
that gleamed in their sombre eyes. In front of these men, directing
the operations, stood no other than our friend Billali, looking rather
tired, but particularly patriarchal with his flowing beard, and as
cool and unconcerned as though he were superintending the cutting up
of an ox.

Presently he turned, and perceiving that I was sitting up advanced to
me, and with the utmost courtesy said that he trusted that I felt
better. I answered that at present I scarcely knew how I felt, except
that I ached all over.

Then he bent down and examined Leo's wound.

"It is an evil cut," he said, "but the spear has not pierced the
entrails. He will recover."

"Thanks to thy arrival, my father," I answered. "In another minute we
should all have been beyond the reach of recovery, for those devils of
thine would have slain us as they would have slain our servant," and I
pointed towards Mahomed.

The old man ground his teeth, and I saw an extraordinary expression of
malignity light up his eyes.

"Fear not, my son," he answered. "Vengeance shall be taken on them
such as would make the flesh twist upon the bones merely to hear of
it. To /She/ shall they go, and her vengeance shall be worthy of her
greatness. That man," pointing to Mahomed, "I tell thee that man would
have died a merciful death to the death these hyæna-men shall die.
Tell me, I pray of thee, how it came about."

In a few words I sketched what had happened.

"Ah, so," he answered. "Thou seest, my son, here there is a custom
that if a stranger comes into this country he may be slain by 'the
pot,' and eaten."

"It is hospitality turned upside down," I answered feebly. "In our
country we entertain a stranger, and give him food to eat. Here ye eat
him, and are entertained."

"It is a custom," he answered, with a shrug. "Myself I think it an
evil one; but then," he added by an afterthought, "I do not like the
taste of strangers, especially after they have wandered through the
swamps and lived on wild-fowl. When /She-who-must-be-obeyed/ sent
orders that ye were to be saved alive she said naught of the black
man, therefore, being hyænas, these men lusted after his flesh, and
the woman it was, whom thou didst rightly slay, who put it into their
evil hearts to hot-pot him. Well, they will have their reward. Better
for them would it be if they had never seen the light than that they
should stand before /She/ in her terrible anger. Happy are those of
them who died by your hands."

"Ah," he went on, "it was a gallant fight that ye fought. Knowest thou
that, long-armed old baboon that thou art, thou hast crushed in the
ribs of those two who are laid out there as though they were but as
the shell on an egg? And the young one, the lion, it was a beautiful
stand that he made--one against so many--three did he slay outright,
and that one there"--and he pointed to a body that was still moving a
little--"will die anon, for his head is cracked across, and others of
those who are bound are hurt. It was a gallant fight, and thou and he
have made a friend of me by it, for I love to see a well-fought fray.
But tell me, my son, the baboon--and now I think of it thy face, too,
is hairy, and altogether like a baboon's--how was it that ye slew
those with a hole in them?--Ye made a noise, they say, and slew them--
they fell down on the faces at the noise?"

I explained to him as well as I could, but very shortly--for I was
terribly wearied, and only persuaded to talk at all through fear of
offending one so powerful if I refused to do so--what were the
properties of gunpowder, and he instantly suggested that I should
illustrate what I said by operating on the person of one of the
prisoners. One, he said, never would be counted, and it would not only
be very interesting to him, but would give me the opportunity of an
instalment of revenge. He was greatly astounded when I told him that
it was not our custom to avenge ourselves in cold blood, and that we
left vengeance to the law and a higher power, of which he knew
nothing. I added, however, that when I recovered I would take him out
shooting with us, and he should kill an animal for himself, and at
this he was as pleased as a child at the promise of a new toy.

Just then Leo opened his eyes beneath the stimulus of some brandy (of
which we still had a little) that Job had poured down his throat, and
our conversation came to an end.

After this we managed to get Leo, who was in a very poor way indeed,
and only half conscious, safely off to bed, supported by Job and that
brave girl Ustane, to whom, had I not been afraid that she might
resent it, I would certainly have given a kiss for her splendid
behaviour in saving my boy's life at the risk of her own. But Ustane
was not the sort of young person with whom one would care to take
liberties unless one were perfectly certain that they would not be
misunderstood, so I repressed my inclinations. Then, bruised and
battered, but with a sense of safety in my breast to which I had for
some days been a stranger, I crept off to my own little sepulchre, not
forgetting before I laid down in it to thank Providence from the
bottom of my heart that it was not a sepulchre indeed, as, save for a
merciful combination of events that I can only attribute to its
protection, it would certainly have been for me that night. Few men
have been nearer their end and yet escaped it than we were on that
dreadful day.

I am a bad sleeper at the best of times, and my dreams that night when
at last I got to rest were not of the pleasantest. The awful vision of
poor Mahomed struggling to escape the red-hot pot would haunt them,
and then in the background, as it were, a veiled form was always
hovering, which, from time to time, seemed to draw the coverings from
its body, revealing now the perfect shape of a lovely blooming woman,
and now again the white bones of a grinning skeleton, and which, as it
veiled and unveiled, uttered the mysterious and apparently meaningless
sentence:--

 "That which is alive and hath known death, and that which is dead
  yet can never die, for in the Circle of the Spirit life is naught
  and death is naught. Yea, all things live for ever, though at
  times they sleep and are forgotten."

The morning came at last, but when it came I found that I was too
stiff and sore to rise. About seven Job arrived, limping terribly, and
with his face the colour of a rotten apple, and told me that Leo had
slept fairly, but was very weak. Two hours afterwards Billali (Job
called him "Billy-goat," to which, indeed, his white beard gave him
some resemblance, or more familiarly, "Billy") came too, bearing a
lamp in his hand, his towering form reaching nearly to the roof of the
little chamber. I pretended to be asleep, and through the cracks of my
eyelids watched his sardonic but handsome old face. He fixed his hawk-
like eyes upon me, and stroked his glorious white beard, which, by the
way, would have been worthy a hundred a year to any London barber as
an advertisement.

"Ah!" I heard him mutter (Billali had a habit of muttering to
himself), "he is ugly--ugly as the other is beautiful--a very Baboon,
it was a good name. But I like the man. Strange now, at my age, that I
should like a man. What says the proverb--'Mistrust all men, and slay
him whom thou mistrustest overmuch; and as for women, flee from them,
for they are evil, and in the end will destroy thee.' It is a good
proverb, especially the last part of it: I think that it must have
come down from the ancients. Nevertheless I like this Baboon, and I
wonder where they taught him his tricks, and I trust that /She/ will
not bewitch him. Poor Baboon! he must be wearied after that fight. I
will go lest I should awake him."

I waited till he had turned and was nearly through the entrance,
walking softly on tiptoe, and then I called after him.

"My father," I said, "is it thou?"

"Yes, my son, it is I; but let me not disturb thee. I did but come to
see how thou didst fare, and to tell thee that those who would have
slain thee, my Baboon, are by now far on their road to /She/. /She/
said that ye also were to come at once, but I fear ye cannot yet."

"Nay," I said, "not till we have recovered a little; but have me borne
out into the daylight, I pray thee, my father. I love not this place."

"Ah, no," he answered, "it hath a sad air. I remember when I was a boy
I found the body of a fair woman lying where thou liest now, yes, on
that very bench. She was so beautiful that I was wont to creep in
hither with a lamp and gaze upon her. Had it not been for her cold
hands, almost could I think that she slept and would one day awake, so
fair and peaceful was she in her robes of white. White was she, too,
and her hair was yellow and lay down her almost to the feet. There are
many such still in the tombs at the place where /She/ is, for those
who set them there had a way I know naught of, whereby to keep their
beloved out of the crumbling hand of Decay, even when Death had slain
them. Ay, day by day I came hither, and gazed on her till at last--
laugh not at me, stranger, for I was but a silly lad--I learned to
love that dead form, that shell which once had held a life that no
more is. I would creep up to her and kiss her cold face, and wonder
how many men had lived and died since she was, and who had loved her
and embraced her in the days that long had passed away. And, my
Baboon, I think I learned wisdom from that dead one, for of a truth it
taught me of the littleness of life, and the length of Death, and how
all things that are under the sun go down one path, and are for ever
forgotten. And so I mused, and it seemed to me that wisdom flowed into
me from the dead, till one day my mother, a watchful woman, but hasty-
minded, seeing I was changed, followed me, and saw the beautiful white
one, and feared that I was bewitched, as, indeed, I was. So half in
dread, and half in anger, she took up the lamp, and standing the dead
woman up against the wall even there, set fire to her hair, and she
burnt fiercely, even down to the feet, for those who are thus kept
burn excellently well.

"See, my son, there on the roof is yet the smoke of her burning."

I looked up doubtfully, and there, sure enough, on the roof of the
sepulchre, was a peculiarly unctuous and sooty mark, three feet or
more across. Doubtless it had in the course of years been rubbed off
the sides of the little cave, but on the roof it remained, and there
was no mistaking its appearance.

"She burnt," he went on in a meditative way, "even to the feet, but
the feet I came back and saved, cutting the burnt bone from them, and
hid them under the stone bench there, wrapped up in a piece of linen.
Surely, I remember it as though it were but yesterday. Perchance they
are there, if none have found them, even to this hour. Of a truth I
have not entered this chamber from that time to this very day. Stay, I
will look," and, kneeling down, he groped about with his long arm in
the recess under the stone bench. Presently his face brightened, and
with an exclamation he pulled something forth which was caked in dust;
which he shook on to the floor. It was covered with the remains of a
rotting rag, which he undid, and revealed to my astonished gaze a
beautifully shaped and almost white woman's foot, looking as fresh and
firm as though it had but now been placed there.

"Thou seest, my son, the Baboon," he said, in a sad voice, "I spake
the truth to thee, for here is yet one foot remaining. Take it, my
son, and gaze upon it."

I took this cold fragment of mortality in my hand and looked at it in
the light of the lamp with feelings which I cannot describe, so mixed
up were they between astonishment, fear, and fascination. It was
light, much lighter I should say than it had been in the living state,
and the flesh to all appearance was still flesh, though about it there
clung a faintly aromatic odour. For the rest it was not shrunk or
shrivelled, or even black and unsightly, like the flesh of Egyptian
mummies, but plump and fair, and, except where it had been slightly
burnt, perfect as on the day of death--a very triumph of embalming.

Poor little foot! I set it down upon the stone bench where it had lain
for so many thousand years, and wondered whose was the beauty that it
had upborne through the pomp and pageantry of a forgotten civilisation
--first as a merry child's, then as a blushing maid's, and lastly as a
perfect woman's. Through what halls of Life had its soft step echoed,
and in the end, with what courage had it trodden down the dusty ways
of Death! To whose side had it stolen in the hush of night when the
black slave slept upon the marble floor, and who had listened for its
stealing? Shapely little foot! Well might it have been set upon the
proud neck of a conqueror bent at last to woman's beauty, and well
might the lips of nobles and of kings have been pressed upon its
jewelled whiteness.

I wrapped up this relic of the past in the remnants of the old linen
rag which had evidently formed a portion of its owner's grave-clothes,
for it was partially burnt, and put it away in my Gladstone bag--a
strange combination, I thought. Then with Billali's help I staggered
off to see Leo. I found him dreadfully bruised, worse even than
myself, perhaps owing to the excessive whiteness of his skin, and
faint and weak with the loss of blood from the flesh wound in his
side, but for all that cheerful as a cricket, and asking for some
breakfast. Job and Ustane got him on to the bottom, or rather the
sacking of a litter, which was removed from its pole for that purpose,
and with the aid of old Billali carried him out into the shade at the
mouth of the cave, from which, by the way, every trace of the
slaughter of the previous night had now been removed, and there we all
breakfasted, and indeed spent that day, and most of the two following
ones.

On the third morning Job and myself were practically recovered. Leo
also was so much better that I yielded to Billali's often expressed
entreaty, and agreed to start at once upon our journey to Kôr, which
we were told was the name of the place where the mysterious /She/
lived, though I still feared for its effect upon Leo, and especially
lest the motion should cause his wound, which was scarcely skinned
over, to break open again. Indeed, had it not been for Billali's
evident anxiety to get off, which led us to suspect that some
difficulty or danger might threaten us if we did not comply with it, I
would not have consented to go.



                                  X

                             SPECULATIONS

Within an hour of our finally deciding to start five litters were
brought up to the door of the cave, each accompanied by four regular
bearers and two spare hands, also a band of about fifty armed
Amahagger, who were to form the escort and carry the baggage. Three of
these litters, of course, were for us, and one for Billali, who, I was
immensely relieved to hear, was to be our companion, while the fifth I
presumed was for the use of Ustane.

"Does the lady go with us, my father?" I asked of Billali, as he stood
superintending things in general.

He shrugged his shoulders as he answered--

"If she wills. In this country the women do what they please. We
worship them, and give them their way, because without them the world
could not go on; they are the source of life."

"Ah," I said, the matter never having struck me quite in that light
before.

""We worship them," he went on, "up to a point, till at last they get
unbearable, which," he added, "they do about every second generation."

"And then what do you do?" I asked, with curiosity.

"Then," he answered, with a faint smile, "we rise, and kill the old
ones as an example to the young ones, and to show them that we are the
strongest. My poor wife was killed in that way three years ago. It was
very sad, but to tell thee the truth, my son, life has been happier
since, for my age protects me from the young ones."

"In short," I replied, quoting the saying of a great man whose wisdom
has not yet lightened the darkness of the Amahagger, "thou hast found
thy position one of greater freedom and less responsibility."

This phrase puzzled him a little at first from its vagueness, though I
think my translation hit off its sense very well, but at last he saw
it, and appreciated it.

"Yes, yes, my Baboon," he said, "I see it now, but all the
'responsibilities' are killed, at least some of them are, and that is
why there are so few old women about just now. Well, they brought it
on themselves. As for this girl," he went on, in a graver tone, "I
know not what to say. She is a brave girl, and she loves the Lion
(Leo); thou sawest how she clung to him, and saved his life. Also, she
is, according to our custom, wed to him, and has a right to go where
he goes, unless," he added significantly, "/She/ would say her no, for
her word overrides all rights."

"And if /She/ bade her leave him, and the girl refused? What then?"

"If," he said, with a shrug, "the hurricane bids the tree to bend, and
it will not; what happens?"

And then, without waiting for an answer, he turned and walked to his
litter, and in ten minutes from that time we were all well under way.

It took us an hour and more to cross the cup of the volcanic plain,
and another half-hour or so to climb the edge on the farther side.
Once there, however, the view was a very fine one. Before us was a
long steep slope of grassy plain, broken here and there by clumps of
trees mostly of the thorn tribe. At the bottom of this gentle slope,
some nine or ten miles away, we could make out a dim sea of marsh,
over which the foul vapours hung like smoke about a city. It was easy
going for the bearers down the slopes, and by midday we had reached
the borders of the dismal swamp. Here we halted to eat our midday
meal, and then, following a winding and devious path, plunged into the
morass. Presently the path, at any rate to our unaccustomed eyes, grew
so faint as to be almost indistinguishable from those made by the
aquatic beasts and birds, and it is to this day a mystery to me how
our bearers found their way across the marshes. Ahead of the cavalcade
marched two men with long poles, which they now and again plunged into
the ground before them, the reason of this being that the nature of
the soil frequently changed from causes with which I am not
acquainted, so that places which might be safe enough to cross one
month would certainly swallow the wayfarer the next. Never did I see a
more dreary and depressing scene. Miles on miles of quagmire, varied
only by bright green strips of comparatively solid ground, and by deep
and sullen pools fringed with tall rushes, in which the bitterns
boomed and the frogs croaked incessantly: miles on miles of it without
a break, unless the fever fog can be called a break. The only life in
this great morass was that of the aquatic birds, and the animals that
fed on them, of both of which there were vast numbers. Geese, cranes,
ducks, teal, coot, snipe, and plover swarmed all around us, many being
of varieties that were quite new to me, and all so tame that one could
almost have knocked them over with a stick. Among these birds I
especially noticed a very beautiful variety of painted snipe, almost
the size of a woodcock, and with a flight more resembling that bird's
than an English snipe's. In the pools, too, was a species of small
alligator or enormous iguana, I do not know which, that fed, Billali
told me, upon the waterfowl, also large quantities of a hideous black
water-snake, of which the bite is very dangerous, though not, I
gathered, so deadly as a cobra's or a puff adder's. The bull-frogs
were also very large, and with voices proportionate to their size; and
as for the mosquitoes--the "musqueteers," as Job called them--they
were, if possible, even worse than they had been on the river, and
tormented us greatly. Undoubtedly, however, the worst feature of the
swamp was the awful smell of rotting vegetation that hung about it,
which was at times positively overpowering, and the malarious
exhalations that accompanied it, which we were of course obliged to
breathe.

On we went through it all, till at last the sun sank in sullen
splendour just as we reached a spot of rising ground about two acres
in extent--a little oasis of dry in the midst of the miry wilderness--
where Billali announced that we were to camp. The camping, however,
turned out to be a very simple process, and consisted, in fact, in
sitting down on the ground round a scanty fire made of dry reeds and
some wood that had been brought with us. However, we made the best we
could of it, and smoked and ate with such appetite as the smell of
damp, stifling heat would allow, for it was very hot on this low land,
and yet, oddly enough, chilly at times. But, however hot it was, we
were glad enough to keep near the fire, because we found that the
mosquitoes did not like the smoke. Presently we rolled ourselves up in
our blankets and tried to go to sleep, but so far as I was concerned
the bull-frogs, and the extraordinary roaring and alarming sound
produced by hundreds of snipe hovering high in the air, made sleep an
impossibility, to say nothing of our other discomforts. I turned and
looked at Leo, who was next me; he was dozing, but his face had a
flushed appearance that I did not like, and by the flickering fire-
light I saw Ustane, who was lying on the other side of him, raise
herself from time to time upon her elbow, and look at him anxiously
enough.

However, I could do nothing for him, for we had all already taken a
good dose of quinine, which was the only preventive we had; so I lay
and watched the stars come out by thousands, till all the immense arch
of heaven was strewn with glittering points, and every point a world!
Here was a glorious sight by which man might well measure his own
insignificance! Soon I gave up thinking about it, for the mind wearies
easily when it strives to grapple with the Infinite, and to trace the
footsteps of the Almighty as he strides from sphere to sphere, or
deduce His purpose from His works. Such things are not for us to know.
Knowledge is to the strong, and we are weak. Too much wisdom would
perchance blind our imperfect sight, and too much strength would make
us drunk, and over-weight our feeble reason till it fell and we were
drowned in the depths of our own vanity. For what is the first result
of man's increased knowledge interpreted from Nature's book by the
persistent effort of his purblind observation? It is not but too often
to make him question the existence of his Maker, or indeed of any
intelligent purpose beyond his own? The truth is veiled, because we
could no more look upon her glory than we can upon the sun. It would
destroy us. Full knowledge is not for man as man is here, for his
capacities, which he is apt to think so great, are indeed but small.
The vessel is soon filled, and, were one-thousandth part of the
unutterable and silent wisdom that directs the rolling of those
shining spheres, and the Force which makes them roll, pressed into it,
it would be shattered into fragments. Perhaps in some other place and
time it may be otherwise, who can tell? Here the lot of man born of
the flesh is but to endure midst toil and tribulation, to catch at the
bubbles blown by Fate, which he calls pleasure, thankful if before
they burst they rest a moment in his hand, and when the tragedy is
played out, and his hour comes to perish, to pass humbly whither he
knows not.

Above me, as I lay, shone the eternal stars, and there at my feet the
impish marsh-born balls of fire rolled this way and that, vapour-
tossed and earth-desiring, and methought that in the two I saw a type
and image of what man is, and what perchance man may one day be, if
the living Force who ordained him and them should so ordain this also.
Oh, that it might be ours to rest year by year upon that high level of
the heart to which at times we momentarily attain! Oh, that we could
shake loose the prisoned pinions of the soul and soar to that superior
point, whence, like to some traveller looking out through space from
Darien's giddiest peak, we might gaze with spiritual eyes deep into
Infinity!

What would it be to cast off this earthy robe, to have done for ever
with these earthy thoughts and miserable desires; no longer, like
those corpse candles, to be tossed this way and that, by forces beyond
our control; or which, if we can theoretically control them, we are at
times driven by the exigencies of our nature to obey! Yes, to cast
them off, to have done with the foul and thorny places of the world;
and, like to those glittering points above me, to rest on high wrapped
for ever in the brightness of our better selves, that even now shines
in us as fire faintly shines within those lurid balls, and lay down
our littleness in that wide glory of our dreams, that invisible but
surrounding Good, from which all truth and beauty comes!

These and many such thoughts passed through my mind that night. They
come to torment us all at times. I say to torment, for, alas! thinking
can only serve to measure out the helplessness of thought. What is the
purpose of our feeble crying in the awful silences of space? Can our
dim intelligence read the secrets of that star-strewn sky? Does any
answer come out of it? Never any at all, nothing but echoes and
fantastic visions! And yet we believe that there is an answer, and
that upon a time a new Dawn will come blushing down the ways of our
enduring night. We believe it, for its reflected beauty even now
shines up continually in our hearts from beneath the horizon of the
grave, and we call it Hope. Without Hope we should suffer moral death,
and by the help of Hope we yet may climb to Heaven, or at the worst,
if she also prove but a kindly mockery given to hold us from despair,
be gently lowered into the abysses of eternal sleep.

Then I fell to reflecting upon the undertaking on which we were bent,
and what a wild one it was, and yet how strangely the story seemed to
fit in with what had been written centuries ago upon the sherd. Who
was this extraordinary woman, Queen over a people apparently as
extraordinary as herself, and reigning amidst the vestiges of a lost
civilisation? And what was the meaning of this story of the Fire that
gave unending life? Could it be possible that any fluid or essence
should exist which might so fortify these fleshy walls that they
should from age to age resist the mines and batterings of decay? It
was possible, though not probable. The infinite continuation of life
would not, as poor Vincey said, be so marvellous a thing as the
production of life and its temporary endurance. And if it were true,
what then? The person who found it could no doubt rule the world. He
could accumulate all the wealth in the world, and all the power, and
all the wisdom that is power. He might give a lifetime to the study of
each art or science. Well, if that were so, and this /She/ were
practically immortal, which I did not for one moment believe, how was
it that, with all these things at her feet, she preferred to remain in
a cave amongst a society of cannibals? This surely settled the
question. The whole story was monstrous, and only worthy of the
superstitious days in which it was written. At any rate I was very
sure that /I/ would not attempt to attain unending life. I had had far
too many worries and disappointments and secret bitternesses during my
forty odd years of existence to wish that this state of affairs should
be continued indefinitely. And yet I suppose that my life has been,
comparatively speaking, a happy one.

And then, reflecting that at the present moment there was far more
likelihood of our earthly careers being cut exceedingly short than of
their being unduly prolonged, I at last managed to get to sleep, a
fact for which anybody who reads this narrative, if anybody ever does,
may very probably be thankful.

When I woke again it was just dawning, and the guard and bearers were
moving about like ghosts through the dense morning mists, getting
ready for our start. The fire had died quite down, and I rose and
stretched myself, shivering in every limb from the damp cold of the
dawn. Then I looked at Leo. He was sitting up, holding his hands to
his head, and I saw that his face was flushed and his eye bright, and
yet yellow round the pupil.

"Well, Leo," I said, "how do you feel?"

"I feel as though I were going to die," he answered hoarsely. "My head
is splitting, my body is trembling, and I am as sick as a cat."

I whistled, or if I did not whistle I felt inclined to--Leo had got a
sharp attack of fever. I went to Job, and asked him for the quinine,
of which fortunately we had still a good supply, only to find that Job
himself was not much better. He complained of pains across the back,
and dizziness, and was almost incapable of helping himself. Then I did
the only thing it was possible to do under the circumstances--gave
them both about ten grains of quinine, and took a slightly smaller
dose myself as a matter of precaution. After that I found Billali, and
explained to him how matters stood, asking at the same time what he
thought had best be done. He came with me, and looked at Leo and Job
(whom, by the way, he had named the Pig on account of his fatness,
round face, and small eyes).

"Ah," he said, when we were out of earshot, "the fever! I thought so.
The Lion has it badly, but he is young, and he may live. As for the
Pig, his attack is not so bad; it is the 'little fever' which he has;
that always begins with pains across the back, it will spend itself
upon his fat."

"Can they go on, my father?" I asked.

"Nay, my son, they must go on. If they stop here they will certainly
die; also, they will be better in the litters than on the ground. By
to-night, if all goes well, we shall be across the marsh and in good
air. Come, let us lift them into the litters and start, for it is very
bad to stand still in this morning fog. We can eat our meal as we go."

This we accordingly did, and with a heavy heart I once more set out
upon our strange journey. For the first three hours all went as well
as could be expected, and then an accident happened that nearly lost
us the pleasure of the company of our venerable friend Billali, whose
litter was leading the cavalcade. We were going through a particularly
dangerous stretch of quagmire, in which the bearers sometimes sank up
to their knees. Indeed, it was a mystery to me how they contrived to
carry the heavy litters at all over such ground as that which we were
traversing, though the two spare hands, as well as the four regular
ones, had of course to put their shoulders to the pole.

Presently, as we blundered and floundered along, there was a sharp
cry, then a storm of exclamations, and, last of all, a most tremendous
splash, and the whole caravan halted.

I jumped out of my litter and ran forward. About twenty yards ahead
was the edge of one of those sullen peaty pools of which I have
spoken, the path we were following running along the top of its bank,
that, as it happened, was a steep one. Looking towards this pool, to
my horror I saw that Billali's litter was floating on it, and as for
Billali himself, he was nowhere to be seen. To make matters clear I
may as well explain at once what had happened. One of Billali's
bearers had unfortunately trodden on a basking snake, which had bitten
him in the leg, whereon he had, not unnaturally, let go of the pole,
and then, finding that he was tumbling down the bank, grasped at the
litter to save himself. The result of this was what might have been
expected. The litter was pulled over the edge of the bank, the bearers
let go, and the whole thing, including Billali and the man who had
been bitten, rolled into the slimy pool. When I got to the edge of the
water neither of them were to be seen; indeed, the unfortunate bearer
never was seen again. Either he struck his head against something, or
get wedged in the mud, or possibly the snake-bite paralyzed him. At
any rate he vanished. But though Billali was not to be seen, his
whereabouts was clear enough from the agitation of the floating
litter, in the bearing cloth and curtains of which he was entangled.

"He is there! Our father is there!" said one of the men, but he did
not stir a finger to help him, nor did any of the others. They simply
stood and stared at the water.

"Out of the way, you brutes!" I shouted in English, and throwing off
my hat I took a run and sprang well out into the horrid slimy-looking
pool. A couple of strokes took me to where Billali was struggling
beneath the cloth.

Somehow, I do not quite know how, I managed to push it free of him,
and his venerable head all covered with green slime, like that of a
yellowish Bacchus with ivy leaves, emerged upon the surface of the
water. The rest was easy, for Billali was an eminently practical
individual, and had the common sense not to grasp hold of me as
drowning people often do, so I got him by the arm, and towed him to
the bank, through the mud of which we were with difficulty dragged.
Such a filthy spectacle as we presented I have never seen before or
since, and it will perhaps give some idea of the almost superhuman
dignity of Billali's appearance when I say that, coughing, half-
drowned, and covered with mud and green slime as he was, with his
beautiful beard coming to a dripping point, like a Chinaman's freshly-
oiled pig-tail, he still looked venerable and imposing.

"Ye dogs," he said, addressing the bearers, as soon as he had
sufficiently recovered to speak, "ye left me, your father, to drown.
Had it not been for this stranger, my son the Baboon, assuredly I
should have drowned. Well, I will remember it," and he fixed them with
his gleaming though slightly watery eye, in a way I saw that they did
not like, though they tried to appear sulkily indifferent.

"As for thee, my son," the old man went on, turning towards me and
grasping my hand, "rest assured that I am thy friend through good and
evil. Thou hast saved my life: perchance a day may come when I shall
save thine."

After that we cleaned ourselves as best we could, fished out the
litter, and went on, /minus/ the man who had been drowned. I do not
know if it was owing to his being an unpopular character, or from
native indifference and selfishness of temperament, but I am bound to
say that nobody seemed to grieve much over his sudden and final
disappearance, unless, perhaps, it was the men who had to do his share
of the work.



                                  XI

                           THE PLAIN OF KÔR

About an hour before sundown we at last, to my unbounded gratitude,
emerged from the great belt of marsh on to land that swelled upwards
in a succession of rolling waves. Just on the hither side of the crest
of the first wave we halted for the night. My first act was to examine
Leo's condition. It was, if anything, worse than in the morning, and a
new and very distressing feature, vomiting, set in, and continued till
dawn. Not one wink of sleep did I get that night, for I passed it in
assisting Ustane, who was one of the most gentle and indefatigable
nurses I ever saw, to wait upon Leo and Job. However, the air here was
warm and genial without being too hot, and there were no mosquitoes to
speak of. Also we were above the level of the marsh mist, which lay
stretched beneath us like the dim smoke-pall over a city, lit up here
and there by the wandering globes of fen fire. Thus it will be seen
that we were, speaking comparatively, in clover.

By dawn on the following morning Leo was quite light-headed, and
fancied that he was divided into halves. I was dreadfully distressed,
and began to wonder with a sort of sick fear what the end of the
attack would be. Alas! I had heard but too much of how these attacks
generally terminate. As I was wondering Billali came up and said that
we must be getting on, more especially as, in his opinion, if Leo did
not reach some spot where he could be quiet, and have proper nursing,
within the next twelve hours, his life would only be a matter of a day
or two. I could not but agree with him, so we got Leo into the litter,
and started on, Ustane walking by his side to keep the flies off him,
and see that he did not throw himself out on to the ground.

Within half an hour of sunrise we had reached the top of the rise of
which I have spoken, and a most beautiful view broke upon our gaze.
Beneath us was a rich stretch of country, verdant with grass and
lovely with foliage and flowers. In the background, at a distance, so
far as I could judge, of some eighteen miles from where we then stood,
a huge and extraordinary mountain rose abruptly from the plain. The
base of this great mountain appeared to consist of a grassy slope, but
rising from this, I should say, from subsequent observation, at a
height of about five hundred feet above the level of the plain, was a
most tremendous and absolutely precipitous wall of bare rock, quite
twelve or fifteen hundred feet in height. The shape of the mountain,
which was undoubtedly of volcanic origin, was round, and of course, as
only a segment of its circle was visible, it was difficult to estimate
its exact size, which was enormous. I afterwards discovered that it
could cover less than fifty square miles of ground. Anything more
grand and imposing than the sight presented by this great natural
castle, starting in solitary grandeur from the level of the plain, I
never saw, and I suppose I never shall. Its very solitude added to its
majesty, and its towering cliffs seemed to kiss the sky. Indeed,
generally speaking, they were clothed in clouds that lay in fleecy
masses upon their broad and level battlements.

I sat up in my hammock and gazed out across the plain at this
thrilling and majestic sight, and I suppose that Billali noticed it,
for he brought his litter alongside.

"Behold the house of '/She-who-must-be-obeyed/!'" he said. "Had ever a
queen such a throne before?"

"It is wonderful, my father," I answered. "But how do we enter. Those
cliffs look hard to climb."

"Thou shalt see, my Baboon. Look now at the path below us. What
thinkest thou that it is? Thou art a wise man. Come, tell me."

I looked, and saw what appeared to be the line of roadway running
straight towards the base of the mountain, though it was covered with
turf. There were high banks on each side of it, broken here and there,
but fairly continuous on the whole, the meaning of which I did not
understand. It seemed so very odd that anybody should embank a
roadway.

"Well, my father," I answered, "I suppose that it is a road, otherwise
I should have been inclined to say that it was the bed of a river, or
rather," I added, observing the extraordinary directness of the
cutting, "of a canal."

Billali--who, by the way, was none the worse for his immersion of the
day before--nodded his head sagely as he replied--

"Thou art right, my son. It is a channel cut out by those who were
before us in this place to carry away water. Of this I am sure: within
the rocky circle of the mountain whither we journey was once a great
lake. But those who were before us, by wonderful arts of which I know
naught, hewed a path for the water through the solid rock of the
mountain, piercing even to the bed of the lake. But first they cut the
channel that thou seest across the plain. Then, when at last the water
burst out, it rushed down the channel that had been made to receive
it, and crossed this plain till it reached the low land behind the
rise, and there, perchance, it made the swamp through which we have
come. Then when the lake was drained dry, the people whereof I speak
built a mighty city on its bed, whereof naught but ruins and the name
of Kôr yet remaineth, and from age to age hewed the caves and passages
that thou wilt see."

"It may be," I answered; "but if so, how is it that the lake does not
fill up again with the rains and the water of the springs?"

"Nay, my son, the people were a wise people, and they left a drain to
keep it clear. Seest thou the river to the right?" and he pointed to a
fair-sized stream that wound away across the plain, some four miles
from us. "That is the drain, and it comes out through the mountain
wall where this cutting goes in. At first, perhaps, the water ran down
this canal, but afterwards the people turned it, and used the cutting
for a road."

"And is there then no other place where one may enter into the great
mountain," I asked, "except through that drain?"

"There is a place," he answered, "where cattle and men on foot may
cross with much labour, but it is secret. A year mightest thou search
and shouldst never find it. It is only used once a year, when the
herds of cattle that have been fatting on the slopes of the mountain,
and on this plain, are driven into the space within."

"And does /She/ live there always?" I asked, "or does she come at
times without the mountain?"

"Nay, my son, where she is, there she is."

By now we were well on to the great plain, and I was examining with
delight the varied beauty of its semi-tropical flowers and trees, the
latter of which grew singly, or at most in clumps of three or four,
much of the timber being of large size, and belonging apparently to a
variety of evergreen oak. There were also many palms, some of them
more than one hundred feet high, and the largest and most beautiful
tree ferns that I ever saw, about which hung clouds of jewelled
honeysuckers and great-winged butterflies. Wandering about among the
trees or crouching in the long and feathered grass were all varieties
of game, from rhinocerotes down. I saw a rhinoceros, buffalo (a large
herd), eland, quagga, and sable antelope, the most beautiful of all
the bucks, not to mention many smaller varieties of game, and three
ostriches which scudded away at our approach like white drift before a
gale. So plentiful was the game that at last I could stand it no
longer. I had a single barrel sporting Martini with me in the litter,
the "Express" being too cumbersome, and espying a beautiful fat eland
rubbing himself under one of the oak-like trees, I jumped out of the
litter, and proceeded to creep as near to him as I could. He let me
come within eighty yards, and then turned his head, and stared at me,
preparatory to running away. I lifted the rifle, and taking him about
midway down the shoulder, for he was side on to me, fired. I never
made a cleaner shot or a better kill in all my small experience, for
the great buck sprang right up into the air and fell dead. The
bearers, who had all halted to see the performance, gave a murmur of
surprise, an unwonted compliment from these sullen people, who never
appear to be surprised at anything, and a party of the guard at once
ran off to cut the animal up. As for myself, though I was longing to
have a look at him, I sauntered back to my litter as though I had been
in the habit of killing eland all my life, feeling that I had gone up
several degrees in the estimation of the Amahagger, who looked on the
whole thing as a very high-class manifestation of witchcraft. As a
matter of fact, however, I had never seen an eland in a wild state
before. Billali received me with enthusiasm.

"It is wonderful, my son the Baboon," he cried; "wonderful! Thou art a
very great man, though so ugly. Had I not seen, surely I would never
have believed. And thou sayest that thou wilt teach me to slay in this
fashion?"

"Certainly, my father," I said airily; "it is nothing."

But all the same I firmly made up my mind that when "my father"
Billali began to fire I would without fail lie down or take refuge
behind a tree.

After this little incident nothing happened of any note till about an
hour and a half before sundown, when we arrived beneath the shadow of
the towering volcanic mass that I have already described. It is quite
impossible for me to describe its grim grandeur as it appeared to me
while my patient bearers toiled along the bed of the ancient
watercourse towards the spot where the rich brown-hued cliff shot up
from precipice to precipice till its crown lost itself in a cloud. All
I can say is that it almost awed me by the intensity of its lonesome
and most solemn greatness. On we went up the bright and sunny slope,
till at last the creeping shadows from above swallowed up its
brightness, and presently we began to pass through a cutting hewn in
the living rock. Deeper and deeper grew this marvellous work, which
must, I should say, have employed thousands of men for many years.
Indeed, how it was ever executed at all without the aid of blasting-
powder or dynamite I cannot to this day imagine. It is and must remain
one of the mysteries of that wild land. I can only suppose that these
cuttings and the vast caves that had been hollowed out of the rocks
they pierced were the State undertakings of the people of Kôr, who
lived here in the dim lost ages of the world, and, as in the case of
the Egyptian monuments, were executed by the forced labour of tens of
thousands of captives, carried on through an indefinite number of
centuries. But who were the people?

At last we reached the face of the precipice itself, and found
ourselves looking into the mouth of a dark tunnel that forcibly
reminded me of those undertaken by our nineteenth-century engineers in
the construction of railway lines. Out of this tunnel flowed a
considerable stream of water. Indeed, though I do not think that I
have mentioned it, we had followed this stream, which ultimately
developed into the river I have already described as winding away to
the right, from the spot where the cutting in the solid rock
commenced. Half of this cutting formed a channel for the stream, and
half, which was placed on a slightly higher level--eight feet perhaps
--was devoted to the purposes of a roadway. At the termination of the
cutting, however, the stream turned off across the plain and followed
a channel of its own. At the mouth of the cave the cavalcade was
halted, and, while the men employed themselves in lighting some
earthenware lamps they had brought with them, Billali, descending from
his litter, informed me politely but firmly that the orders of /She/
were that we were now to be blindfolded, so that we should not learn
the secret of the paths through the bowels of the mountains. To this
I, of course, assented cheerfully enough, but Job, who was now very
much better, notwithstanding the journey, did not like it at all,
fancying, I believe, that it was but a preliminary step to being hot-
potted. He was, however, a little consoled when I pointed out to him
that there were no hot pots at hand, and, so far as I knew, no fire to
heat them in. As for poor Leo, after turning restlessly for hours, he
had, to my deep thankfulness, at last dropped off into a sleep or
stupor, I do not know which, so there was no need to blindfold him.
The blindfolding was performed by binding a piece of the yellowish
linen whereof those of the Amahagger who condescended to wear anything
in particular made their dresses, tightly round the eyes. This linen I
afterwards discovered was taken from the tombs, and was not, as I had
at first supposed, of native manufacture. The bandage was then knotted
at the back of the head, and finally brought down again and the ends
bound under the chin to prevent its slipping. Ustane was, by the way,
also blindfolded, I do not know why, unless it was from fear that she
should impart the secrets of the route to us.

This operation performed we started on once more, and soon, by the
echoing sound of the footsteps of the bearers and the increased noise
of the water caused by reverberation in a confined space, I knew that
we were entering into the bowels of the great mountain. It was an
eerie sensation, being borne along into the dead heart of the rock we
knew not whither, but I was getting used to eerie sensations by this
time, and by now was pretty well prepared for anything. So I lay
still, and listened to the tramp, tramp of the bearers and the rushing
of the water, and tried to believe that I was enjoying myself.
Presently the men set up the melancholy little chant that I had heard
on the first night when we were captured in the whaleboat, and the
effect produced by their voices was very curious, and quite
indescribable. After a while the air began to get exceedingly thick
and heavy, so much so, indeed, that I felt as though I were going to
choke, till at length the litter took a sharp turn, then another and
another, and the sound of the running water ceased. After this the air
was fresher again, but the turns were continuous, and to me,
blindfolded as I was, most bewildering. I tried to keep a map of them
in my mind in case it might ever be necessary for us to try and escape
by this route, but, needless to say, failed utterly. Another half-hour
or so passed, and then suddenly I became aware that we were once more
in the open air. I could see the light through my bandage and feel its
freshness on my face. A few more minutes and the caravan halted, and I
heard Billali order Ustane to remove her bandage and undo ours.
Without waiting for her attentions I got the knot of mine loose, and
looked out.

As I anticipated, we had passed right through the precipice, and were
now on the farther side, and immediately beneath its beetling face.
The first thing I noticed was that the cliff is not nearly so high
here, not so high I should say by five hundred feet, which proved that
the bed of the lake, or rather of the vast ancient crater in which we
stood, was much above the level of the surrounding plain. For the
rest, we found ourselves in a huge rock-surrounded cup, not unlike
that of the first place where we had sojourned, only ten times the
size. Indeed, I could only just make out the frowning line of the
opposite cliffs. A great portion of the plain thus enclosed by nature
was cultivated, and fenced in with walls of stone placed there to keep
the cattle and goats, of which there were large herds about, from
breaking into the gardens. Here and there rose great grass mounds, and
some miles away towards the centre I thought that I could see the
outline of colossal ruins. I had no time to observe anything more at
the moment, for we were instantly surrounded by crowds of Amahagger,
similar in every particular to those with whom we were already
familiar, who, though they spoke little, pressed round us so closely
as to obscure the view to a person lying in a hammock. Then all of a
sudden a number of armed men arranged in companies, and marshalled by
officers who held ivory wands in their hands, came running swiftly
towards us, having, so far as I could make out, emerged from the face
of the precipice like ants from their burrows. These men as well as
their officers were all robed in addition to the usual leopard skin,
and, as I gathered, formed the bodyguard of /She/ herself.

Their leader advanced to Billali, saluted him by placing his ivory
wand transversely across his forehead, and then asked some question
which I could not catch, and Billali having answered him the whole
regiment turned and marched along the side of the cliff, our cavalcade
of litters following in their track. After going thus for about half a
mile we halted once more in front of the mouth of a tremendous cave,
measuring about sixty feet in height by eighty wide, and here Billali
descended finally, and requested Job and myself to do the same. Leo,
of course, was far too ill to do anything of the sort. I did so, and
we entered the great cave, into which the light of the setting sun
penetrated for some distance, while beyond the reach of the daylight
it was faintly illuminated with lamps which seemed to me to stretch
away for an almost immeasurable distance, like the gas lights of an
empty London street. The first thing I noticed was that the walls were
covered with sculptures in bas-relief, of a sort, pictorially
speaking, similar to those that I have described upon the vases;--
love-scenes principally, then hunting pictures, pictures of
executions, and the torture of criminals by the placing of a,
presumably, red-hot pot upon the head, showing whence our hosts had
derived this pleasant practice. There were very few battle-pieces,
though many of duels, and men running and wrestling, and from this
fact I am led to believe that this people were not much subject to
attack by exterior foes, either on account of the isolation of their
position or because of their great strength. Between the pictures were
columns of stone characters of a formation absolutely new to me; at
any rate, they were neither Greek nor Egyptian, nor Hebrew, nor
Assyrian--that I am sure of. They looked more like Chinese writings
than any other that I am acquainted with. Near to the entrance of the
cave both pictures and writings were worn away, but further in they
were in many cases absolutely fresh and perfect as the day on which
the sculptor had ceased work on them.

The regiment of guards did not come further than the entrance to the
cave, where they formed up to let us pass through. On entering the
place itself we were, however, met by a man robed in white, who bowed
humbly, but said nothing, which, as it afterwards appeared that he was
a deaf mute, was not very wonderful.

Running at right angles to the great cave, at a distance of some
twenty feet from the entrance, was a smaller cave or wide gallery,
that was pierced into the rock both to the right and to the left of
the main cavern. In front of the gallery to our left stood two guards,
from which circumstance I argued that it was the entrance to the
apartments of /She/ herself. The mouth of the right-hand gallery was
unguarded, and along it the mute indicated that we were to go. Walking
a few yards down this passage, which was lighted with lamps, we came
to the entrance of a chamber having a curtain made of some grass
material, not unlike a Zanzibar mat in appearance, hung over the
doorway. This the mute drew back with another profound obeisance, and
led the way into a good-sized apartment, hewn, of course, out of the
solid rock, but to my great relief lighted by means of a shaft pierced
in the face of the precipice. In this room was a stone bedstead, pots
full of water for washing, and beautifully tanned leopard skins to
serve as blankets.

Here we left Leo, who was still sleeping heavily, and with him stopped
Ustane. I noticed that the mute gave her a very sharp look, as much as
to say, "Who are you, and by whose order do you come here?" Then he
conducted us to another similar room which Job took, and then to two
more that were respectively occupied by Billali and myself.



                                 XII

                                "SHE"

The first care of Job and myself, after seeing to Leo, was to wash
ourselves and put on clean clothing, for what we were wearing had not
been changed since the loss of the dhow. Fortunately, as I think that
I have said, by far the greater part of our personal baggage had been
packed into the whaleboat, and was therefore saved--and brought hither
by the bearers--although all the stores laid in by us for barter and
presents to the natives was lost. Nearly all our clothing was made of
a well-shrunk and very strong grey flannel, and excellent I found it
for travelling in these places, because though a Norfolk jacket,
shirt, and pair of trousers of it only weighed about four pounds, a
great consideration in a tropical country, where every extra ounce
tells on the wearer, it was warm, and offered a good resistance to the
rays of the sun, and best of all to chills, which are so apt to result
from sudden changes of temperature.

Never shall I forget the comfort of the "wash and brush-up," and of
those clean flannels. The only thing that was wanting to complete my
joy was a cake of soap, of which we had none.

Afterwards I discovered that the Amahagger, who do not reckon dirt
among their many disagreeable qualities, use a kind of burnt earth for
washing purposes, which, though unpleasant to the touch till one gets
accustomed to it, forms a very fair substitute for soap.

By the time that I was dressed, and had combed and trimmed my black
beard, the previous condition of which was certainly sufficiently
unkempt to give weight to Billali's appellation for me of "Baboon," I
began to feel most uncommonly hungry. Therefore I was by no means
sorry when, without the slightest preparatory sound or warning, the
curtain over the entrance to my cave was flung aside, and another
mute, a young girl this time, announced to me by signs that I could
not misunderstand--that is, by opening her mouth and pointing down it
--that there was something ready to eat. Accordingly I followed her
into the next chamber, which we had not yet entered, where I found
Job, who had also, to his great embarrassment, been conducted thither
by a fair mute. Job never got over the advances the former lady had
made towards him, and suspected every girl who came near to him of
similar designs.

"These young parties have a way of looking at one, sir," he would say
apologetically, "which I don't call respectable."

This chamber was twice the size of the sleeping caves, and I saw at
once that it had originally served as a refectory, and also probably
as an embalming room for the Priests of the Dead; for I may as well
say at once that these hollowed-out caves were nothing more nor less
than vast catacombs, in which for tens of ages the mortal remains of
the great extinct race whose monuments surrounded us had been first
preserved, with an art and a completeness that has never since been
equalled, and then hidden away for all time. On each side of this
particular rock-chamber was a long and solid stone table, about three
feet wide by three feet six in height, hewn out of the living rock, of
which it had formed part, and was still attached to at the base. These
tables were slightly hollowed out or curved inward, to give room for
the knees of any one sitting on the stone ledge that had been cut for
a bench along the side of the cave at a distance of about two feet
from them. Each of them, also, was so arranged that it ended right
under a shaft pierced in the rock for the admission of light and air.
On examining them carefully, however, I saw that there was a
difference between them that had at first escaped my attention, viz.
that one of the tables, that to the left as we entered the cave, had
evidently been used, not to eat upon, but for the purposes of
embalming. That this was beyond all question the case was clear from
five shallow depressions in the stone of the table, all shaped like a
human form, with a separate place for the head to lie in, and a little
bridge to support the neck, each depression being of a different size,
so as to fit bodies varying in stature from a full-grown man's to a
small child's, and with little holes bored at intervals to carry off
fluid. And, indeed, if any further confirmation was required, we had
but to look at the wall of the cave above to find it. For there,
sculptured all round the apartment, and looking nearly as fresh as the
day it was done, was the pictorial representation of the death,
embalming, and burial of an old man with a long beard, probably an
ancient king or grandee of this country.

The first picture represented his death. He was lying upon a couch
which had four short curved posts at the corners coming to a knob at
the end, in appearance something like written notes of music, and was
evidently in the very act of expiring. Gathered round the couch were
women and children weeping, the former with their hair hanging down
their backs. The next scene represented the embalmment of the body,
which lay stark upon a table with depressions in it, similar to the
one before us; probably, indeed, it was a picture of the same table.
Three men were employed at the work--one superintending, one holding a
funnel shaped exactly like a port wine strainer, of which the narrow
end was fixed in an incision in the breast, no doubt in the great
pectoral artery; while the third, who was depicted as standing
straddle-legged over the corpse, held a kind of large jug high in his
hand, and poured from it some steaming fluid which fell accurately
into the funnel. The most curious part of this sculpture is that both
the man with the funnel and the man who pours the fluid are drawn
holding their noses, either I suppose because of the stench arising
from the body, or more probably to keep out the aromatic fumes of the
hot fluid which was being forced into the dead man's veins. Another
curious thing which I am unable to explain is that all three men were
represented as having a band of linen tied round the face with holes
in it for the eyes.

The third sculpture was a picture of the burial of the deceased. There
he was, stiff and cold, clothed in a linen robe, and laid out on a
stone slab such as I had slept upon at our first sojourning-place. At
his head and feet burnt lamps, and by his side were placed several of
the beautiful painted vases that I have described, which were perhaps
supposed to be full of provisions. The little chamber was crowded with
mourners, and with musicians playing on an instrument resembling a
lyre, while near the foot of the corpse stood a man holding a sheet,
with which he was preparing to cover it from view.

These sculptures, looked at merely as works of art, were so remarkable
that I make no apology for describing them rather fully. They struck
me also as being of surpassing interest as representing, probably with
studious accuracy, the last rites of the dead as practised among an
utterly lost people, and even then I thought how envious some
antiquarian friends of my own at Cambridge would be if ever I found an
opportunity of describing these wonderful remains to them. Probably
they would say that I was exaggerating, notwithstanding that every
page of this history must bear so much internal evidence of its truth
that it would obviously have been quite impossible for me to have
invented it.

To return. As soon as I had hastily examined these sculptures, which I
think I omitted to mention were executed in relief, we sat down to a
very excellent meal of boiled goat's-flesh, fresh milk, and cakes made
of meal, the whole being served upon clean wooden platters.

When we had eaten we returned to see how Leo was getting on, Billali
saying that he must now wait upon /She/, and hear her commands. On
reaching Leo's room we found the poor boy in a very bad way. He had
woke up from his torpor, and was altogether off his head, babbling
about some boat-race on the Cam, and was inclined to be violent.
Indeed, when we entered the room Ustane was holding him down. I spoke
to him, and my voice seemed to soothe him; at any rate he grew much
quieter, and was persuaded to swallow a dose of quinine.

I had been sitting with him for an hour, perhaps--at any rate I know
that it was getting so dark that I could only just make out his head
lying like a gleam of gold upon the pillow we had extemporised out of
a bag covered with a blanket--when suddenly Billali arrived with an
air of great importance, and informed me that /She/ herself had
deigned to express a wish to see me--an honour, he added, accorded to
but very few. I think that he was a little horrified at my cool way of
taking the honour, but the fact was that I did not feel overwhelmed
with gratitude at the prospect of seeing some savage, dusky queen,
however absolute and mysterious she might be, more especially as my
mind was full of dear Leo, for whose life I began to have great fears.
However, I rose to follow him, and as I did so I caught sight of
something bright lying on the floor, which I picked up. Perhaps the
reader will remember that with the potsherd in the casket was a
composition scarabæus marked with a round O, a goose, and another
curious hieroglyphic, the meaning of which is "Suten se Ra," or "Royal
Son of the Sun." The scarab, which is a very small one, Leo had
insisted upon having set in a massive gold ring, such as is generally
used for signets, and it was this very ring that I now picked up. He
had pulled it off in the paroxysm of his fever, at least I suppose so,
and flung it down upon the rock-floor. Thinking that if I left it
about it might get lost, I slipped it on my own little finger, and
then followed Billali, leaving Job and Ustane with Leo.

We passed down the passage, crossed the great aisle-like cave, and
came to the corresponding passage on the other side, at the mouth of
which the guards stood like two statues. As we came they bowed their
heads in salutation, and then lifting their long spears placed them
transversely across their foreheads, as the leaders of the troop that
had met us had done with their ivory wands. We stepped between them,
and found ourselves in an exactly similar gallery to that which led to
our own apartments, only this passage was, comparatively speaking,
brilliantly lighted. A few paces down it we were met by four mutes--
two men and two women--who bowed low and then arranged themselves, the
women in front and the men behind of us, and in this order we
continued our procession past several doorways hung with curtains
resembling those leading to our own quarters, and which I afterwards
found opened out into chambers occupied by the mutes who attended on
/She/. A few paces more and we came to another doorway facing us, and
not to our left like the others, which seemed to mark the termination
of the passage. Here two more white-, or rather yellow-robed guards
were standing, and they too bowed, saluted, and let us pass through
heavy curtains into a great antechamber, quite forty feet long by as
many wide, in which some eight or ten women, most of them young and
handsome, with yellowish hair, sat on cushions working with ivory
needles at what had the appearance of being embroidery frames. These
women were also deaf and dumb. At the farther end of this great lamp-
lit apartment was another doorway closed in with heavy Oriental-
looking curtains, quite unlike those that hung before the doors of our
own rooms, and here stood two particularly handsome girl mutes, their
heads bowed upon their bosoms and their hands crossed in an attitude
of humble submission. As we advanced they each stretched out an arm
and drew back the curtains. Thereupon Billali did a curious thing.
Down he went, that venerable-looking old gentleman--for Billali is a
gentleman at the bottom--down on to his hands and knees, and in this
undignified position, with his long white beard trailing on the
ground, he began to creep into the apartment beyond. I followed him,
standing on my feet in the usual fashion. Looking over his shoulder he
perceived it.

"Down, my son; down, my Baboon; down on to thy hands and knees. We
enter the presence of /She/, and, if thou art not humble, of a surety
she will blast thee where thou standest."

I halted, and felt scared. Indeed, my knees began to give way of their
own mere motion; but reflection came to my aid. I was an Englishman,
and why, I asked myself, should I creep into the presence of some
savage woman as though I were a monkey in fact as well as in name? I
would not and could not do it, that is, unless I was absolutely sure
that my life or comfort depended upon it. If once I began to creep
upon my knees I should always have to do so, and it would be a patent
acknowledgment of inferiority. So, fortified by an insular prejudice
against "kootooing," which has, like most of our so-called prejudices,
a good deal of common sense to recommend it, I marched in boldly after
Billali. I found myself in another apartment, considerably smaller
than the anteroom, of which the walls were entirely hung with rich-
looking curtains of the same make as those over the door, the work, as
I subsequently discovered, of the mutes who sat in the antechamber and
wove them in strips, which were afterwards sewn together. Also, here
and there about the room, were settees of a beautiful black wood of
the ebony tribe, inlaid with ivory, and all over the floor were other
tapestries, or rather rugs. At the top end of this apartment was what
appeared to be a recess, also draped with curtains, through which
shone rays of light. There was nobody in the place except ourselves.

Painfully and slowly old Billali crept up the length of the cave, and
with the most dignified stride that I could command I followed after
him. But I felt that it was more or less of a failure. To begin with,
it is not possible to look dignified when you are following in the
wake of an old man writhing along on his stomach like a snake, and
then, in order to go sufficiently slowly, either I had to keep my leg
some seconds in the air at every step, or else to advance with a full
stop between each stride, like Mary Queen of Scots going to execution
in a play. Billali was not good at crawling, I suppose his years stood
in the way, and our progress up that apartment was a very long affair.
I was immediately behind him, and several times I was sorely tempted
to help him on with a good kick. It is so absurd to advance into the
presence of savage royalty after the fashion of an Irishman driving a
pig to market, for that is what we looked like, and the idea nearly
made me burst out laughing then and there. I had to work off my
dangerous tendency to unseemly merriment by blowing my nose, a
proceeding which filled old Billali with horror, for he looked over
his shoulder and made a ghastly face at me, and I heard him murmur,
"Oh, my poor Baboon!"

At last we reached the curtains, and here Billali collapsed flat on to
his stomach, with his hands stretched out before him as though he were
dead, and I, not knowing what to do, began to stare about the place.
But presently I clearly felt that somebody was looking at me from
behind the curtains. I could not see the person, but I could
distinctly feel his or her gaze, and, what is more, it produced a very
odd effect upon my nerves. I was frightened, I do not know why. The
place was a strange one, it is true, and looked lonely,
notwithstanding its rich hangings and the soft glow of the lamps--
indeed, these accessories added to, rather than detracted from its
loneliness, just as a lighted street at night has always a more
solitary appearance than a dark one. It was so silent in the place,
and there lay Billali like one dead before the heavy curtains, through
which the odour of perfume seemed to float up towards the gloom of the
arched roof above. Minute grew into minute, and still there was no
sign of life, nor did the curtain move; but I felt the gaze of the
unknown being sinking through and through me, and filling me with a
nameless terror, till the perspiration stood in beads upon my brow.

At length the curtain began to move. Who could be behind it?--some
naked savage queen, a languishing Oriental beauty, or a nineteenth-
century young lady, drinking afternoon tea? I had not the slightest
idea, and should not have been astonished at seeing any of the three.
I was getting beyond astonishment. The curtain agitated itself a
little, then suddenly between its folds there appeared a most
beautiful white hand (white as snow), and with long tapering fingers,
ending in the pinkest nails. The hand grasped the curtain, and drew it
aside, and as it did so I heard a voice, I think the softest and yet
most silvery voice I ever heard. It reminded me of the murmur of a
brook.

"Stranger," said the voice in Arabic, but much purer and more
classical Arabic than the Amahagger talk--"stranger, wherefore art
thou so much afraid?"

Now I flattered myself that in spite of my inward terrors I had kept a
very fair command of my countenance, and was, therefore, a little
astonished at this question. Before I had made up my mind how to
answer it, however, the curtain was drawn, and a tall figure stood
before us. I say a figure, for not only the body, but also the face
was wrapped up in soft white, gauzy material in such a way as at first
sight to remind me most forcibly of a corpse in its grave-clothes. And
yet I do not know why it should have given me that idea, seeing that
the wrappings were so thin that one could distinctly see the gleam of
the pink flesh beneath them. I suppose it was owing to the way in
which they were arranged, either accidentally, or more probably by
design. Anyhow, I felt more frightened than ever at this ghost-like
apparition, and my hair began to rise upon my head as the feeling
crept over me that I was in the presence of something that was not
canny. I could, however, clearly distinguish that the swathed mummy-
like form before me was that of a tall and lovely woman, instinct with
beauty in every part, and also with a certain snake-like grace which I
had never seen anything to equal before. When she moved a hand or foot
her entire frame seemed to undulate, and the neck did not bend, it
curved.

"Why art thou so frightened, stranger?" asked the sweet voice again--a
voice which seemed to draw the heart out of me, like the strains of
softest music. "Is there that about me that should affright a man?
Then surely are men changed from what they used to be!" And with a
little coquettish movement she turned herself, and held up one arm, so
as to show all her loveliness and the rich hair of raven blackness
that streamed in soft ripples down her snowy robes, almost to her
sandalled feet.

"It is thy beauty that makes me fear, oh Queen," I answered humbly,
scarcely knowing what to say, and I thought that as I did so I heard
old Billali, who was still lying prostrate on the floor, mutter,
"Good, my Baboon, good."

"I see that men still know how to beguile us women with false words.
Ah, stranger," she answered, with a laugh that sounded like distant
silver bells, "thou wast afraid because mine eyes were searching out
thine heart, therefore wast thou afraid. Yet being but a woman, I
forgive thee for the lie, for it was courteously said. And now tell me
how came ye hither to this land of the dwellers among the caves--a
land of swamps and evil things and dead old shadows of the dead? What
came ye for to see? How is it that ye hold your lives so cheap as to
place them in the hollow of the hand of /Hiya/, into the hand of
'/She-who-must-be-obeyed/'? Tell me also how come ye to know the
tongue I talk. It is an ancient tongue, that sweet child of the old
Syriac. Liveth it yet in the world? Thou seest I dwell among the caves
and the dead, and naught know I of the affairs of men, nor have I
cared to know. I have lived, O stranger, with my memories, and my
memories are in a grave that mine hands hollowed, for truly hath it
been said that the child of man maketh his own path evil;" and her
beautiful voice quivered, and broke in a note as soft as any wood-
bird's. Suddenly her eye fell upon the sprawling frame of Billali, and
she seemed to recollect herself.

"Ah! thou art there, old man. Tell me how it is that things have gone
wrong in thine household. Forsooth, it seems that these my guests were
set upon. Ay, and one was nigh to being slain by the hot-pot to be
eaten of those brutes, thy children, and had not the others fought
gallantly they too had been slain, and not even I could have called
back the life which had been loosed from the body. What means it, old
man? What hast thou to say that I should not give thee over to those
who execute my vengeance?"

Her voice had risen in her anger, and it rang clear and cold against
the rocky walls. Also I thought I could see her eyes flash through the
gauze that hid them. I saw poor Billali, whom I had believed to be a
very fearless person, positively quiver with terror at her words.

"Oh 'Hiya!' oh /She/!" he said, without lifting his white head from
the floor. "Oh /She/, as thou art great be merciful, for I am now as
ever thy servant to obey. It was no plan or fault of mine, oh /She/,
it was those wicked ones who are called my children. Led on by a woman
whom thy guest the Pig had scorned, they would have followed the
ancient custom of the land, and eaten the fat black stranger who came
hither with these thy guests the Baboon and the Lion who is sick,
thinking that no word had come from thee about the Black one. But when
the Baboon and the Lion saw what they would do, they slew the woman,
and slew also their servant to save him from the horror of the pot.
Then those evil ones, ay, those children of the Wicked One who lives
in the Pit, they went mad with the lust of blood, and flew at the
throats of the Lion and the Baboon and the Pig. But gallantly they
fought. Oh /Hiya/! they fought like very men, and slew many, and held
their own, and then I came and saved them, and the evildoers have I
sent on hither to Kôr to be judged of thy greatness, oh /She/! and
here they are."

"Ay, old man, I know it, and to-morrow will I sit in the great hall
and do justice upon them, fear not. And for thee, I forgive thee,
though hardly. See that thou dost keep thine household better. Go."

Billali rose upon his knees with astonishing alacrity, bowed his head
thrice, and his white beard sweeping the ground, crawled down the
apartment as he had crawled up it, till he finally vanished through
the curtains, leaving me, not a little to my alarm, alone with this
terrible but most fascinating person.



                                 XIII

                            AYESHA UNVEILS

"There," said /She/, "he has gone, the white-bearded old fool! Ah, how
little knowledge does a man acquire in his life. He gathereth it up
like water, but like water it runneth through his fingers, and yet, if
his hands be but wet as though with dew, behold a generation of fools
call out, 'See, he is a wise man!' Is it not so? But how call they
thee? 'Baboon,' he says," and she laughed; "but that is the fashion of
these savages who lack imagination, and fly to the beasts they
resemble for a name. How do they call thee in thine own country,
stranger?"

"They call me Holly, oh Queen," I answered.

"Holly," she answered, speaking the word with difficulty, and yet with
a most charming accent; "and what is 'Holly'?"

"'Holly' is a prickly tree," I said.

"So. Well, thou hast a prickly and yet a tree-like look. Strong art
thou, and ugly, but if my wisdom be not at fault, honest at the core,
and a staff to lean on. Also one who thinks. But stay, oh Holly, stand
not there, enter with me and be seated by me. I would not see thee
crawl before me like those slaves. I am aweary of their worship and
their terror; sometimes when they vex me I could blast them for very
sport, and to see the rest turn white, even to the heart." And she
held the curtain aside with her ivory hand to let me pass in.

I entered, shuddering. This woman was very terrible. Within the
curtains was a recess, about twelve feet by ten, and in the recess was
a couch and a table whereon stood fruit and sparkling water. By it, at
its end, was a vessel like a font cut in carved stone, also full of
pure water. The place was softly lit with lamps formed out of the
beautiful vessels of which I have spoken, and the air and curtains
were laden with a subtle perfume. Perfume too seemed to emanate from
the glorious hair and white-clinging vestments of /She/ herself. I
entered the little room, and there stood uncertain.

"Sit," said /She/, pointing to the couch. "As yet thou hast no cause
to fear me. If thou hast cause, thou shalt not fear for long, for I
shall slay thee. Therefore let thy heart be light."

I sat down on the foot of the couch near to the font-like basin of
water, and /She/ sank down softly on to the other end.

"Now, Holly," she said, "how comest thou to speak Arabic? It is my own
dear tongue, for Arabian am I by my birth, even 'al Arab al Ariba' (an
Arab of the Arabs), and of the race of our father Yárab, the son of
Kâhtan, for in that fair and ancient city Ozal was I born, in the
province of Yaman the Happy. Yet dost thou not speak it as we used to
speak. Thy talk doth lack the music of the sweet tongue of the tribes
of Hamyar which I was wont to hear. Some of the words too seemed
changed, even as among these Amahagger, who have debased and defiled
its purity, so that I must speak with them in what is to me another
tongue."[*]

[*] Yárab the son of Kâhtan, who lived some centuries before the time
    of Abraham, was the father of the ancient Arabs, and gave its name
    Araba to the country. In speaking of herself as "al Arab al
    Ariba," /She/ no doubt meant to convey that she was of the true
    Arab blood as distinguished from the naturalised Arabs, the
    descendants of Ismael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, who were
    known as "al Arab al mostáraba." The dialect of the Koreish was
    usually called the clear or "perspicuous" Arabic, but the
    Hamaritic dialect approached nearer to the purity of the mother
    Syriac.--L. H. H.

"I have studied it," I answered, "for many years. Also the language is
spoken in Egypt and elsewhere."

"So it is still spoken, and there is yet an Egypt? And what Pharaoh
sits upon the throne? Still one of the spawn of the Persian Ochús, or
are the Achæmenians gone, for far is it to the days of Ochús."

"The Persians have been gone for Egypt for nigh two thousand years,
and since then the Ptolemies, the Romans, and many others have
flourished and held sway upon the Nile, and fallen when their time was
ripe," I said, aghast. "What canst thou know of the Persian
Artaxerxes?"

She laughed, and made no answer, and again a cold chill went through
me. "And Greece," she said; "is there still a Greece? Ah, I loved the
Greeks. Beautiful were they as the day, and clever, but fierce at
heart and fickle, notwithstanding."

"Yes," I said, "there is a Greece; and, just now, it is once more a
people. Yet the Greeks of to-day are not what the Greeks of the old
time were, and Greece herself is but a mockery of the Greece that
was."

"So! The Hebrews, are they yet at Jerusalem? And does the Temple that
the wise king built stand, and if so what God do they worship therein?
Is their Messiah come, of whom they preached so much and prophesied so
loudly, and doth He rule the earth?"

"The Jews are broken and gone, and the fragments of their people strew
the world, and Jerusalem is no more. As for the temple that Herod
built----"

"Herod!" she said. "I know not Herod. But go on."

"The Romans burnt it, and the Roman eagles flew across its ruins, and
now Judæa is a desert."

"So, so! They were a great people, those Romans, and went straight to
their end--ay, they sped to it like Fate, or like their own eagles on
their prey!--and left peace behind them."

"Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant," I suggested.

"Ah, thou canst speak the Latin tongue, too!" she said, in surprise.
"It hath a strange ring in my ears after all these days, and it seems
to me that thy accent does not fall as the Romans put it. Who was it
wrote that? I know not the saying, but it is a true one of that great
people. It seems that I have found a learned man--one whose hands have
held the water of the world's knowledge. Knowest thou Greek also?"

"Yes, oh Queen, and something of Hebrew, but not to speak them well.
They are all dead languages now."

She clapped her hands in childish glee. "Of a truth, ugly tree that
thou art, thou growest the fruits of wisdom, oh Holly," she said; "but
of those Jews whom I hated, for they called me 'heathen' when I would
have taught them my philosophy--did their Messiah come, and doth He
rule the world?"

"Their Messiah came," I answered with reverence; "but He came poor and
lowly, and they would have none of Him. They scourged Him, and
crucified Him upon a tree, but yet His words and His works live on,
for He was the Son of God, and now of a truth He doth rule half the
world, but not with an Empire of the World."

"Ah, the fierce-hearted wolves," she said, "the followers of Sense and
many gods--greedy of gain and faction-torn. I can see their dark faces
yet. So they crucified their Messiah? Well can I believe it. That He
was a Son of the Living Spirit would be naught to them, if indeed He
was so, and of that we will talk afterwards. They would care naught
for any God if He came not with pomp and power. They, a chosen people,
a vessel of Him they call Jehovah, ay, and a vessel of Baal, and a
vessel of Astoreth, and a vessel of the gods of the Egyptians--a high-
stomached people, greedy of aught that brought them wealth and power.
So they crucified their Messiah because He came in lowly guise--and
now are they scattered about the earth? Why, if I remember, so said
one of their prophets that it should be. Well, let them go--they broke
my heart, those Jews, and made me look with evil eyes across the
world, ay, and drove me to this wilderness, this place of a people
that was before them. When I would have taught them wisdom in
Jerusalem they stoned me, ay, at the Gate of the Temple those white-
bearded hypocrites and Rabbis hounded the people on to stone me! See,
here is the mark of it to this day!" and with a sudden move she pulled
up the gauzy wrapping on her rounded arm, and pointed to a little scar
that showed red against its milky beauty.

I shrank back, horrified.

"Pardon me, oh Queen," I said, "but I am bewildered. Nigh upon two
thousand years have rolled across the earth since the Jewish Messiah
hung upon His cross at Golgotha. How then canst thou have taught thy
philosophy to the Jews before He was? Thou art a woman and no spirit.
How can a woman live two thousand years? Why dost thou befool me, oh
Queen?"

She leaned back upon the couch, and once more I felt the hidden eyes
playing upon me and searching out my heart.

"Oh man!" she said at last, speaking very slowly and deliberately, "it
seems that there are still things upon the earth of which thou knowest
naught. Dost thou still believe that all things die, even as those
very Jews believed? I tell thee that naught dies. There is no such
thing as Death, though there be a thing called Change. See," and she
pointed to some sculptures on the rocky wall. "Three times two
thousand years have passed since the last of the great race that hewed
those pictures fell before the breath of the pestilence which
destroyed them, yet are they not dead. E'en now they live; perchance
their spirits are drawn towards us at this very hour," and she glanced
round. "Of a surety it sometimes seems to me that my eyes can see
them."

"Yes, but to the world they are dead."

"Ay, for a time; but even to the world are they born again and again.
I, yes I, Ayesha[*]--for that, stranger, is my name--I say to thee
that I wait now for one I loved to be born again, and here I tarry
till he finds me, knowing of a surety that hither he will come, and
that here, and here only, shall he greet me. Why, dost thou believe
that I, who am all-powerful, I, whose loveliness is more than the
loveliness of the Grecian Helen, of whom they used to sing, and whose
wisdom is wider, ay, far more wide and deep than the wisdom of Solomon
the Wise--I, who know the secrets of the earth and its riches, and can
turn all things to my uses--I, who have even for a while overcome
Change, that ye call Death--why, I say, oh stranger, dost thou think
that I herd here with barbarians lower than the beasts?"

[*] Pronounced Assha.--L. H. H.

"I know not," I said humbly.

"Because I wait for him I love. My life has perchance been evil, I
know not--for who can say what is evil and what good?--so I fear to
die even if I could die, which I cannot until mine hour comes, to go
and seek him where he is; for between us there might rise a wall I
could not climb, at least, I dread it. Surely easy would it be also to
lose the way in seeking in those great spaces wherein the planets
wander on for ever. But the day will come, it may be when five
thousand more years have passed, and are lost and melted into the
vault of Time, even as the little clouds melt into the gloom of night,
or it may be to-morrow, when he, my love, shall be born again, and
then, following a law that is stronger than any human plan, he shall
find me /here/, where once he knew me, and of a surety his heart will
soften towards me, though I sinned against him; ay, even though he
knew me not again, yet will he love me, if only for my beauty's sake."

For a moment I was dumbfounded, and could not answer. The matter was
too overpowering for my intellect to grasp.

"But even so, oh Queen," I said at last, "even if we men be born again
and again, that is not so with thee, if thou speakest truly." Here she
looked up sharply, and once more I caught the flash of those hidden
eyes; "thou," I went on hurriedly, "who hast never died?"

"That is so," she said; "and it is so because I have, half by chance
and half by learning, solved one of the great secrets of the world.
Tell me, stranger: life is--why therefore should not life be
lengthened for a while? What are ten or twenty or fifty thousand years
in the history of life? Why in ten thousand years scarce will the rain
and storms lessen a mountain top by a span in thickness? In two
thousand years these caves have not changed, nothing has changed but
the beasts, and man, who is as the beasts. There is naught that is
wonderful about the matter, couldst thou but understand. Life is
wonderful, ay, but that it should be a little lengthened is not
wonderful. Nature hath her animating spirit as well as man, who is
Nature's child, and he who can find that spirit, and let it breathe
upon him, shall live with her life. He shall not live eternally, for
Nature is not eternal, and she herself must die, even as the nature of
the moon hath died. She herself must die, I say, or rather change and
sleep till it be time for her to live again. But when shall she die?
Not yet, I ween, and while she lives, so shall he who hath all her
secret live with her. All I have it not, yet have I some, more
perchance than any who were before me. Now, to thee I doubt not that
this thing is a great mystery, therefore I will not overcome thee with
it now. Another time I will tell thee more if the mood be on me,
though perchance I shall never speak thereof again. Dost thou wonder
how I knew that ye were coming to this land, and so saved your heads
from the hot-pot?"

"Ay, oh Queen," I answered feebly.

"Then gaze upon that water," and she pointed to the font-like vessel,
and then, bending forward, held her hand over it.

I rose and gazed, and instantly the water darkened. Then it cleared,
and I saw as distinctly as I ever saw anything in my life--I saw, I
say, our boat upon that horrible canal. There was Leo lying at the
bottom asleep in it, with a coat thrown over him to keep off the
mosquitoes, in such a fashion as to hide his face, and myself, Job,
and Mahomed towing on the bank.

I started back, aghast, and cried out that it was magic, for I
recognised the whole scene--it was one which had actually occurred.

"Nay, nay; oh Holly," she answered, "it is no magic, that is a fiction
of ignorance. There is no such thing as magic, though there is such a
thing as a knowledge of the secrets of Nature. That water is my glass;
in it I see what passes if I will to summon up the pictures, which is
not often. Therein I can show thee what thou wilt of the past, if it
be anything that hath to do with this country and with what I have
known, or anything that thou, the gazer, hast known. Think of a face
if thou wilt, and it shall be reflected from thy mind upon the water.
I know not all the secret yet--I can read nothing in the future. But
it is an old secret; I did not find it. In Arabia and in Egypt the
sorcerers knew it centuries gone. So one day I chanced to bethink me
of that old canal--some twenty ages since I sailed upon it, and I was
minded to look thereon again. So I looked, and there I saw the boat
and three men walking, and one, whose face I could not see, but a
youth of noble form, sleeping in the boat, and so I sent and saved ye.
And now farewell. But stay, tell me of this youth--the Lion, as the
old man calls him. I would look upon him, but he is sick, thou sayest
--sick with the fever, and also wounded in the fray."

"He is very sick," I answered sadly; "canst thou do nothing for him,
oh Queen! who knowest so much?"

"Of a surety I can. I can cure him; but why speakest thou so sadly?
Dost thou love the youth? Is he perchance thy son?"

"He is my adopted son, oh Queen! Shall he be brought in before thee?"

"Nay. How long hath the fever taken him?"

"This is the third day."

"Good; then let him lie another day. Then will he perchance throw it
off by his own strength, and that is better than that I should cure
him, for my medicine is of a sort to shake the life in its very
citadel. If, however, by to-morrow night, at that hour when the fever
first took him, he doth not begin to mend, then will I come to him and
cure him. Stay, who nurses him?"

"Our white servant, him whom Billali names the Pig; also," and here I
spoke with some little hesitation, "a woman named Ustane, a very
handsome woman of this country, who came and embraced him when she
first saw him, and hath stayed by him ever since, as I understand is
the fashion of thy people, oh Queen."

"My people! speak not to me of my people," she answered hastily;
"these slaves are no people of mine, they are but dogs to do my
bidding till the day of my deliverance comes; and, as for their
customs, naught have I to do with them. Also, call me not Queen--I am
weary of flattery and titles--call me Ayesha, the name hath a sweet
sound in mine ears, it is an echo from the past. As for this Ustane, I
know not. I wonder if it be she against whom I was warned, and whom I
in turn did warn? Hath she--stay, I will see;" and, bending forward,
she passed her hand over the font of water and gazed intently into it.
"See," she said quietly, "is that the woman?"

I looked into the water, and there, mirrored upon its placid surface,
was the silhouette of Ustane's stately face. She was bending forward,
with a look of infinite tenderness upon her features, watching
something beneath her, and with her chestnut locks falling on to her
right shoulder.

"It is she," I said, in a low voice, for once more I felt much
disturbed at this most uncommon sight. "She watches Leo asleep."

"Leo!" said Ayesha, in an absent voice; "why, that is 'lion' in the
Latin tongue. The old man hath named happily for once. It is very
strange," she went on, speaking to herself, "very. So like--but it is
not possible!" With an impatient gesture she passed her hand over the
water once more. It darkened, and the image vanished silently and
mysteriously as it had risen, and once more the lamplight, and the
lamplight only, shone on the placid surface of that limpid, living
mirror.

"Hast thou aught to ask me before thou goest, oh Holly?" she said,
after a few moments' reflection. "It is but a rude life that thou must
live here, for these people are savages, and know not the ways of
cultivated man. Not that I am troubled thereby, for behold my food,"
and she pointed to the fruit upon the little table. "Naught but fruit
doth ever pass my lips--fruit and cakes of flour, and a little water.
I have bidden my girls to wait upon thee. They are mutes, thou
knowest, deaf are they and dumb, and therefore the safest of servants,
save to those who can read their faces and their signs. I bred them so
--it hath taken many centuries and much trouble; but at last I have
triumphed. Once I succeeded before, but the race was too ugly, so I
let it die away; but now, as thou seest, they are otherwise. Once,
too, I reared a race of giants, but after a while Nature would no more
of it, and it died away. Hast thou aught to ask of me?"

"Ay, one thing, oh Ayesha," I said boldly; but feeling by no means as
bold as I trust I looked. "I would gaze upon thy face."

She laughed out in her bell-like notes. "Bethink thee, Holly," she
answered; "bethink thee. It seems that thou knowest the old myths of
the gods of Greece. Was there not one Actæon who perished miserably
because he looked on too much beauty? If I show thee my face,
perchance thou wouldst perish miserably also; perchance thou wouldst
eat out thy heart in impotent desire; for know I am not for thee--I am
for no man, save one, who hath been, but is not yet."

"As thou wilt, Ayesha," I said. "I fear not thy beauty. I have put my
heart away from such vanity as woman's loveliness, that passeth like a
flower."

"Nay, thou errest," she said; "that does /not/ pass. My beauty endures
even as I endure; still, if thou wilt, oh rash man, have thy will; but
blame not me if passion mount thy reason, as the Egyptian breakers
used to mount a colt, and guide it whither thou wilt not. Never may
the man to whom my beauty has been unveiled put it from his mind, and
therefore even with these savages do I go veiled, lest they vex me,
and I should slay them. Say, wilt thou see?"

"I will," I answered, my curiosity overpowering me.

She lifted her white and rounded arms--never had I seen such arms
before--and slowly, very slowly, withdrew some fastening beneath her
hair. Then all of a sudden the long, corpse-like wrappings fell from
her to the ground, and my eyes travelled up her form, now only robed
in a garb of clinging white that did but serve to show its perfect and
imperial shape, instinct with a life that was more than life, and with
a certain serpent-like grace that was more than human. On her little
feet were sandals, fastened with studs of gold. Then came ankles more
perfect than ever sculptor dreamed of. About the waist her white
kirtle was fastened by a double-headed snake of solid gold, above
which her gracious form swelled up in lines as pure as they were
lovely, till the kirtle ended on the snowy argent of her breast,
whereon her arms were folded. I gazed above them at her face, and--I
do not exaggerate--shrank back blinded and amazed. I have heard of the
beauty of celestial beings, now I saw it; only this beauty, with all
its awful loveliness and purity, was /evil/--at least, at the time, it
struck me as evil. How am I to describe it? I cannot--simply I cannot!
The man does not live whose pen could convey a sense of what I saw. I
might talk of the great changing eyes of deepest, softest black, of
the tinted face, of the broad and noble brow, on which the hair grew
low, and delicate, straight features. But, beautiful, surpassingly
beautiful as they all were, her loveliness did not lie in them. It lay
rather, if it can be said to have had any fixed abiding place, in a
visible majesty, in an imperial grace, in a godlike stamp of softened
power, which shone upon that radiant countenance like a living halo.
Never before had I guessed what beauty made sublime could be--and yet,
the sublimity was a dark one--the glory was not all of heaven--though
none the less was it glorious. Though the face before me was that of a
young woman of certainly not more than thirty years, in perfect
health, and the first flush of ripened beauty, yet it had stamped upon
it a look of unutterable experience, and of deep acquaintance with
grief and passion. Not even the lovely smile that crept about the
dimples of her mouth could hide this shadow of sin and sorrow. It
shone even in the light of the glorious eyes, it was present in the
air of majesty, and it seemed to say: "Behold me, lovely as no woman
was or is, undying and half-divine; memory haunts me from age to age,
and passion leads me by the hand--evil have I done, and from age to
age evil I shall do, and sorrow shall I know till my redemption
comes."

Drawn by some magnetic force which I could not resist, I let my eyes
rest upon her shining orbs, and felt a current pass from them to me
that bewildered and half-blinded me.

She laughed--ah, how musically! and nodded her little head at me with
an air of sublimated coquetry that would have done credit to a Venus
Victrix.

"Rash man!" she said; "like Actæon, thou hast had thy will; be careful
lest, like Actæon, thou too dost perish miserably, torn to pieces by
the ban-hounds of thine own passions. I too, oh Holly, am a virgin
goddess, not to be moved of any man, save one, and it is not thou.
Say, hast thou seen enough!"

"I have looked on beauty, and I am blinded," I said hoarsely, lifting
my hand to cover up my eyes.

"So! what did I tell thee? Beauty is like the lightning; it is lovely,
but it destroys--especially trees, oh Holly!" and again she nodded and
laughed.

Suddenly she paused, and through my fingers I saw an awful change come
over her countenance. Her great eyes suddenly fixed themselves into an
expression in which horror seemed to struggle with some tremendous
hope arising through the depths of her dark soul. The lovely face grew
rigid, and the gracious willowy form seemed to erect itself.

"Man," she half whispered, half hissed, throwing back her head like a
snake about to strike--"Man, whence hadst thou that scarab on thy
hand? Speak, or by the Spirit of Life I will blast thee where thou
standest!" and she took one light step towards me, and from her eyes
there shone such an awful light--to me it seemed almost like a flame--
that I fell, then and there, on the ground before her, babbling
confusedly in my terror.

"Peace," she said, with a sudden change of manner, and speaking in her
former soft voice. "I did affright thee! Forgive me! But at times, oh
Holly, the almost infinite mind grows impatient of the slowness of the
very finite, and am I tempted to use my power out of vexation--very
nearly wast thou dead, but I remembered----. But the scarab--about the
scarabæus!"

"I picked it up," I gurgled feebly, as I got on to my feet again, and
it is a solemn fact that my mind was so disturbed that at the moment I
could remember nothing else about the ring except that I had picked it
up in Leo's cave.

"It is very strange," she said with a sudden access of womanlike
trembling and agitation which seemed out of place in this awful woman
--"but once I knew a scarab like to that. It--hung round the neck--of
one I loved," and she gave a little sob, and I saw that after all she
was only a woman, although she might be a very old one.

"There," she went on, "it must be one like to it, and yet never did I
see one like to it, for thereto hung a history, and he who wore it
prized it much.[*] But the scarab that I knew was not set thus in the
bezel of a ring. Go now, Holly, go, and, if thou canst, try to forget
that thou hast of thy folly looked upon Ayesha's beauty," and, turning
from me, she flung herself on her couch, and buried her face in the
cushions.

[*] I am informed by a renowned and learned Egyptologist, to whom I
    have submitted this very interesting and beautifully finished
    scarab, "Suten se Ra," that he has never seen one resembling it.
    Although it bears a title frequently given to Egyptian royalty, he
    is of opinion that it is not necessarily the cartouche of a
    Pharaoh, on which either the throne or personal name of the
    monarch is generally inscribed. What the history of this
    particular scarab may have been we can now, unfortunately, never
    know, but I have little doubt but that it played some part in the
    tragic story of the Princess Amenartas and her lover Kallikrates,
    the forsworn priest of Isis.--Editor.

As for me, I stumbled from her presence, and I do not remember how I
reached my own cave.



                                 XIV

                            A SOUL IN HELL

It was nearly ten o'clock at night when I cast myself down upon my
bed, and began to gather my scattered wits, and reflect upon what I
had seen and heard. But the more I reflected the less I could make of
it. Was I mad, or drunk, or dreaming, or was I merely the victim of a
gigantic and most elaborate hoax? How was it possible that I, a
rational man, not unacquainted with the leading scientific facts of
our history, and hitherto an absolute and utter disbeliever in all the
hocus-pocus which in Europe goes by the name of the supernatural,
could believe that I had within the last few minutes been engaged in
conversation with a woman two thousand and odd years old? The thing
was contrary to the experience of human nature, and absolutely and
utterly impossible. It must be a hoax, and yet, if it were a hoax,
what was I to make of it? What, too, was to be said of the figures on
the water, of the woman's extraordinary acquaintance with the remote
past, and her ignorance, or apparent ignorance, of any subsequent
history? What, too, of her wonderful and awful loveliness? This, at
any rate, was a patent fact, and beyond the experience of the world.
No merely mortal woman could shine with such a supernatural radiance.
About that she had, at any rate, been in the right--it was not safe
for any man to look upon such beauty. I was a hardened vessel in such
matters, having, with the exception of one painful experience of my
green and tender youth, put the softer sex (I sometimes think that
this is a misnomer) almost entirely out of my thoughts. But now, to my
intense horror, I /knew/ that I could never put away the vision of
those glorious eyes; and alas! the very /diablerie/ of the woman,
whilst it horrified and repelled, attracted in even a greater degree.
A person with the experience of two thousand years at her back, with
the command of such tremendous powers, and the knowledge of a mystery
that could hold off death, was certainly worth falling in love with,
if ever woman was. But, alas! it was not a question of whether or no
she was worth it, for so far as I could judge, not being versed in
such matters, I, a fellow of my college, noted for what my
acquaintances are pleased to call my misogyny, and a respectable man
now well on in middle life, had fallen absolutely and hopelessly in
love with this white sorceress. Nonsense; it must be nonsense! She had
warned me fairly, and I had refused to take the warning. Curses on the
fatal curiosity that is ever prompting man to draw the veil from
woman, and curses on the natural impulse that begets it! It is the
cause of half--ay, and more than half--of our misfortunes. Why cannot
man be content to live alone and be happy, and let the women live
alone and be happy too? But perhaps they would not be happy, and I am
not sure that we should either. Here is a nice state of affairs. I, at
my age, to fall a victim to this modern Circe! But then she was not
modern, at least she said not. She was almost as ancient as the
original Circe.

I tore my hair, and jumped up from my couch, feeling that if I did not
do something I should go off my head. What did she mean about the
scarabæus too? It was Leo's scarabæus, and had come out of the old
coffer that Vincey had left in my rooms nearly one-and-twenty years
before. Could it be, after all, that the whole story was true, and the
writing on the sherd was /not/ a forgery, or the invention of some
crack-brained, long-forgotten individual? And if so, could it be that
/Leo/ was the man that /She/ was waiting for--the dead man who was to
be born again! Impossible! The whole thing was gibberish! Who ever
heard of a man being born again?

But if it were possible that a woman could exist for two thousand
years, this might be possible also--anything might be possible. I
myself might, for aught I knew, be a reincarnation of some other
forgotten self, or perhaps the last of a long line of ancestral
selves. Well, /vive la guerre!/ why not? Only, unfortunately, I had no
recollection of these previous conditions. The idea was so absurd to
me that I burst out laughing, and, addressing the sculptured picture
of a grim-looking warrior on the cave wall, called out to him aloud,
"Who knows, old fellow?--perhaps I was your contemporary. By Jove!
perhaps I was you and you are I," and then I laughed again at my own
folly, and the sound of my laughter rang dismally along the vaulted
roof, as though the ghost of the warrior had echoed the ghost of a
laugh.

Next I bethought me that I had not been to see how Leo was, so, taking
up one of the lamps which was burning at my bedside, I slipped off my
shoes and crept down the passage to the entrance of his sleeping cave.
The draught of the night air was lifting his curtain to and fro
gently, as though spirit hands were drawing and redrawing it. I slid
into the vault-like apartment, and looked round. There was a light by
which I could see that Leo was lying on the couch, tossing restlessly
in his fever, but asleep. At his side, half-lying on the floor, half-
leaning against the stone couch, was Ustane. She held his hand in one
of hers, but she too was dozing, and the two made a pretty, or rather
a pathetic, picture. Poor Leo! his cheek was burning red, there were
dark shadows beneath his eyes, and his breath came heavily. He was
very, very ill; and again the horrible fear seized me that he might
die, and I be left alone in the world. And yet if he lived he would
perhaps be my rival with Ayesha; even if he were not the man, what
chance should I, middle-aged and hideous, have against his bright
youth and beauty? Well, thank Heaven! my sense of right was not dead.
/She/ had not killed that yet; and, as I stood there, I prayed to
Heaven in my heart that my boy, my more than son, might live--ay, even
if he proved to be the man.

Then I went back as softly as I had come, but still I could not sleep;
the sight and thought of dear Leo lying there so ill had but added
fuel to the fire of my unrest. My wearied body and overstrained mind
awakened all my imagination into preternatural activity. Ideas,
visions, almost inspirations, floated before it with startling
vividness. Most of them were grotesque enough, some were ghastly, some
recalled thoughts and sensations that had for years been buried in the
/débris/ of my past life. But, behind and above them all, hovered the
shape of that awful woman, and through them gleamed the memory of her
entrancing loveliness. Up and down the cave I strode--up and down.

Suddenly I observed, what I had not noticed before, that there was a
narrow aperture in the rocky wall. I took up the lamp and examined it;
the aperture led to a passage. Now, I was still sufficiently sensible
to remember that it is not pleasant, in such a situation as ours was,
to have passages running into one's bed-chamber from no one knows
where. If there are passages, people can come up them; they can come
up when one is asleep. Partly to see where it went to, and partly from
a restless desire to be doing something, I followed the passage. It
led to a stone stair, which I descended; the stair ended in another
passage, or rather tunnel, also hewn out of the bed-rock, and running,
so far as I could judge, exactly beneath the gallery that led to the
entrance of our rooms, and across the great central cave. I went on
down it: it was as silent as the grave, but still, drawn by some
sensation or attraction that I cannot define, I followed on, my
stockinged feet falling without noise on the smooth and rocky floor.
When I had traversed some fifty yards of space, I came to another
passage running at right angles, and here an awful thing happened to
me: the sharp draught caught my lamp and extinguished it, leaving me
in utter darkness in the bowels of that mysterious place. I took a
couple of strides forward so as to clear the bisecting tunnel, being
terribly afraid lest I should turn up it in the dark if once I got
confused as to the direction, and then paused to think. What was I to
do? I had no match; it seemed awful to attempt that long journey back
through the utter gloom, and yet I could not stand there all night,
and, if I did, probably it would not help me much, for in the bowels
of the rock it would be as dark at midday as at midnight. I looked
back over my shoulder--not a sight or a sound. I peered forward into
the darkness: surely, far away, I saw something like the faint glow of
fire. Perhaps it was a cave where I could get a light--at any rate, it
was worth investigating. Slowly and painfully I crept along the
tunnel, keeping my hand against its wall, and feeling at every step
with my foot before I put it down, fearing lest I should fall into
some pit. Thirty paces--there was a light, a broad light that came and
went, shining through curtains! Fifty paces--it was close at hand!
Sixty--oh, great heaven!

I was at the curtains, and they did not hang close, so I could see
clearly into the little cavern beyond them. It had all the appearance
of being a tomb, and was lit up by a fire that burnt in its centre
with a whitish flame and without smoke. Indeed, there, to the left,
was a stone shelf with a little ledge to it three inches or so high,
and on the shelf lay what I took to be a corpse; at any rate, it
looked like one, with something white thrown over it. To the right was
a similar shelf, on which lay some broidered coverings. Over the fire
bent the figure of a woman; she was sideways to me and facing the
corpse, wrapped in a dark mantle that hid her like a nun's cloak. She
seemed to be staring at the flickering flame. Suddenly, as I was
trying to make up my mind what to do, with a convulsive movement that
somehow gave an impression of despairing energy, the woman rose to her
feet and cast the dark cloak from her.

It was /She/ herself!

She was clothed, as I had seen her when she unveiled, in the kirtle of
clinging white, cut low upon her bosom, and bound in at the waist with
the barbaric double-headed snake, and, as before, her rippling black
hair fell in heavy masses down her back. But her face was what caught
my eye, and held me as in a vice, not this time by the force of its
beauty, but by the power of fascinated terror. The beauty was still
there, indeed, but the agony, the blind passion, and the awful
vindictiveness displayed upon those quivering features, and in the
tortured look of the upturned eyes, were such as surpass my powers of
description.

For a moment she stood still, her hands raised high above her head,
and as she did so the white robe slipped from her down to her golden
girdle, baring the blinding loveliness of her form. She stood there,
her fingers clenched, and the awful look of malevolence gathered and
deepened on her face.

Suddenly I thought of what would happen if she discovered me, and the
reflection made me turn sick and faint. But, even if I had known that
I must die if I stopped, I do not believe that I could have moved, for
I was absolutely fascinated. But still I knew my danger. Supposing she
should hear me, or see me through the curtain, supposing I even
sneezed, or that her magic told her that she was being watched--swift
indeed would be my doom.

Down came the clenched hands to her sides, then up again above her
head, and, as I am a living and honourable man, the white flame of the
fire leapt up after them, almost to the roof, throwing a fierce and
ghastly glare upon /She/ herself, upon the white figure beneath the
covering, and every scroll and detail of the rockwork.

Down came the ivory arms again, and as they did so she spoke, or
rather hissed, in Arabic, in a note that curdled my blood, and for a
second stopped my heart.

"Curse her, may she be everlastingly accursed."

The arms fell and the flame sank. Up they went again, and the broad
tongue of fire shot up after them; and then again they fell.

"Curse her memory--accursed be the memory of the Egyptian."

Up again, and again down.

"Curse her, the daughter of the Nile, because of her beauty.

"Curse her, because her magic hath prevailed against me.

"Curse her, because she held my beloved from me."

And again the flame dwindled and shrank.

She put her hands before her eyes, and abandoning the hissing tone,
cried aloud:--

"What is the use of cursing?--she prevailed, and she is gone."

Then she recommenced with an even more frightful energy:--

"Curse her where she is. Let my curses reach her where she is and
disturb her rest.

"Curse her through the starry spaces. Let her shadow be accursed.

"Let my power find her even there.

"Let her hear me even there. Let her hide herself in the blackness.

"Let her go down into the pit of despair, because I shall one day find
her."

Again the flame fell, and again she covered her eyes with her hands.

"It is of no use--no use," she wailed; "who can reach those who sleep?
Not even I can reach them."

Then once more she began her unholy rites.

"Curse her when she shall be born again. Let her be born accursed.

"Let her be utterly accused from the hour of her birth until sleep
finds her.

"Yea, then, let her be accursed; for then shall I overtake her with my
vengeance, and utterly destroy her."

And so on. The flame rose and fell, reflecting itself in her agonised
eyes; the hissing sound of her terrible maledictions, and no words of
mine can convey how terrible they were, ran round the walls and died
away in little echoes, and the fierce light and deep gloom alternated
themselves on the white and dreadful form stretched upon that bier of
stone.

But at length she seemed to wear herself out and cease. She sat
herself down upon the rocky floor, shook the dense cloud of her
beautiful hair over her face and breast, and began to sob terribly in
the torture of a heartrending despair.

"Two thousand years," she moaned--"two thousand years have I wanted
and endured; but though century doth still creep on to century, and
time give place to time, the sting of memory hath not lessened, the
light of hope doth not shine more bright. Oh! to have lived two
thousand years, with all my passion eating out my heart, and with my
sin ever before me. Oh, that for me life cannot bring forgetfulness!
Oh, for the weary years that have been and are yet to come, and
evermore to come, endless and without end!

"My love! my love! my love! Why did that stranger bring thee back to
me after this sort? For five hundred years I have not suffered thus.
Oh, if I sinned against thee, have I not wiped away the sin? When wilt
thou come back to me who have all, and yet without thee have naught?
What is there that I can do? What? What? What? And perchance she--
perchance that Egyptian doth abide with thee where thou art, and mock
my memory. Oh, why could I not die with thee, I who slew thee? Alas,
that I cannot die! Alas! Alas!" and she flung herself prone upon the
ground, and sobbed and wept till I thought her heart must burst.

Suddenly she ceased, raised herself to her feet, rearranged her robe,
and, tossing back her long locks impatiently, swept across to where
the figure lay upon the stone.

"Oh Kallikrates," she cried, and I trembled at the name, "I must look
upon thy face again, though it be agony. It is a generation since I
looked upon thee whom I slew--slew with mine own hand," and with
trembling fingers she seized the corner of the sheet-like wrapping
that covered the form upon the stone bier, and then paused. When she
spoke again, it was in a kind of awed whisper, as though her idea were
terrible even to herself.

"Shall I raise thee," she said, apparently addressing the corpse, "so
that thou standest there before me, as of old? I /can/ do it," and she
held out her hands over the sheeted dead, while her whole frame became
rigid and terrible to see, and her eyes grew fixed and dull. I shrank
in horror behind the curtain, my hair stood up upon my head, and,
whether it was my imagination or a fact I am unable to say, but I
thought that the quiet form beneath the covering began to quiver, and
the winding sheet to lift as though it lay on the breast of one who
slept. Suddenly she withdrew her hands, and the motion of the corpse
seemed to me to cease.

"To what purpose?" she said gloomily. "Of what good is it to recall
the semblance of life when I cannot recall the spirit? Even if thou
stoodest before me thou wouldst not know me, and couldst but do what I
bid thee. The life in thee would be /my/ life, and not /thy/ life,
Kallikrates."

For a moment she stood there brooding, and then cast herself down on
her knees beside the form, and began to press her lips against the
sheet, and weep. There was something so horrible about the sight of
this awe-inspiring woman letting loose her passion on the dead--so
much more horrible even than anything that had gone before--that I
could no longer bear to look at it, and, turning, began to creep,
shaking as I was in every limb, slowly along the pitch-dark passage,
feeling in my trembling heart that I had seen a vision of a Soul in
Hell.

On I stumbled, I scarcely know how. Twice I fell, once I turned up the
bisecting passage, but fortunately found out my mistake in time. For
twenty minutes or more I crept along, till at last it occurred to me
that I must have passed the little stair by which I had descended. So,
utterly exhausted, and nearly frightened to death, I sank down at
length there on the stone flooring, and sank into oblivion.

When I came to I noticed a faint ray of light in the passage just
behind me. I crept to it, and found it was the little stair down which
the weak dawn was stealing. Passing up it, I gained my chamber in
safety, and, flinging myself on the couch, was soon lost in slumber or
rather stupor.



                                  XV

                        AYESHA GIVES JUDGMENT

The next thing that I remember was opening my eyes and perceiving the
form of Job, who had now practically recovered from his attack of
fever. He was standing in the ray of light that pierced into the cave
from the outer air, shaking out my clothes as a makeshift for brushing
them, which he could not do because there was no brush, and then
folding them up neatly and laying them on the foot of the stone couch.
This done, he got my travelling dressing-case out of the Gladstone
bag, and opened it ready for my use. First he stood it on the foot of
the couch also, then, being afraid, I suppose, that I should kick it
off, he placed it on a leopard skin on the floor, and stood back a
step or two to observe the effect. It was not satisfactory, so he shut
up the bag, turned it on end, and, having rested it against the foot
of the couch, placed the dressing-case on it. Next he looked at the
pots full of water, which constituted our washing apparatus. "Ah!" I
heard him murmur, "no hot water in this beastly place. I suppose these
poor creatures only use it to boil each other in," and he sighed
deeply.

"What is the matter, Job?" I said.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said, touching his hair. "I thought you were
asleep, sir; and I am sure you seem as though you want it. One might
think from the look of you that you had been having a night of it."

I only groaned by way of answer. I had, indeed, been having a night of
it, such as I hope never to have again.

"How is Mr. Leo, Job?"

"Much the same, sir. If he don't soon mend, he'll end, sir; and that's
all about it; though I must say that that there savage, Ustane, do do
her best for him, almost like a baptised Christian. She is always
hanging round and looking after him, and if I ventures to interfere
it's awful to see her; her hair seems to stand on end, and she curses
and swears away in her heathen talk--at least I fancy she must be
cursing, from the look of her."

"And what do you do then?"

"I make her a perlite bow, and I say, 'Young woman, your position is
one that I don't quite understand, and can't recognise. Let me tell
you that I has a duty to perform to my master as is incapacitated by
illness, and that I am going to perform it until I am incapacitated
too,' but she don't take no heed, not she--only curses and swears away
worse than ever. Last night she put her hand under that sort of night-
shirt she wears and whips out a knife with a kind of a curl in the
blade, so I whips out my revolver, and we walks round and round each
other till at last she bursts out laughing. It isn't nice treatment
for a Christian man to have to put up with from a savage, however
handsome she may be, but it is what people must expect as is /fools/
enough" (Job laid great emphasis on the "fools") "to come to such a
place to look for things no man is meant to find. It's a judgment on
us, sir--that's my view; and I, for one, is of opinion that the
judgment isn't half done yet, and when it is done we shall be done
too, and just stop in these beastly caves with the ghosts and the
corpseses for once and all. And now, sir, I must be seeing about Mr.
Leo's broth, if that wild cat will let me; and, perhaps, you would
like to get up, sir, because it's past nine o'clock."

Job's remarks were not of an exactly cheering order to a man who had
passed such a night as I had; and, what is more, they had the weight
of truth. Taking one thing with another, it appeared to me to be an
utter impossibility that we should escape from the place we were.
Supposing that Leo recovered, and supposing that /She/ would let us
go, which was exceedingly doubtful, and that she did not "blast" us in
some moment of vexation, and that we were not hot-potted by the
Amahagger, it would be quite impossible for us to find our way across
the network of marshes which, stretching for scores and scores of
miles, formed a stronger and more impassable fortification round the
various Amahagger households than any that could be built or designed
by man. No, there was but one thing to do--face it out; and, speaking
for my own part, I was so intensely interested in the whole weird
story that, so far as I was concerned, notwithstanding the shattered
state of my nerves, I asked nothing better, even if my life paid
forfeit to my curiosity. What man for whom physiology has charms could
forbear to study such a character as that of this Ayesha when the
opportunity of doing so presented itself? The very terror of the
pursuit added to its fascination, and besides, as I was forced to own
to myself even now in the sober light of day, she herself had
attractions that I could not forget. Not even the dreadful sight which
I had witnessed during the night could drive that folly from my mind;
and alas! that I should have to admit it, it has not been driven
thence to this hour.

After I had dressed myself I passed into the eating, or rather
embalming chamber, and had some food, which was as before brought to
me by the girl mutes. When I had finished I went and saw poor Leo, who
was quite off his head, and did not even know me. I asked Ustane how
she thought he was; but she only shook her head and began to cry a
little. Evidently her hopes were small; and I then and there made up
my mind that, if it were in any way possible, I would get /She/ to
come and see him. Surely she would cure him if she chose--at any rate
she said she could. While I was in the room, Billali entered, and also
shook his head.

"He will die at night," he said.

"God forbid, my father," I answered, and turned away with a heavy
heart.

"/She-who-must-be-obeyed/ commands thy presence, my Baboon," said the
old man as soon as we got to the curtain; "but, oh my dear son, be
more careful. Yesterday I made sure in my heart that /She/ would blast
thee when thou didst not crawl upon thy stomach before her. She is
sitting in the great hall even now to do justice upon those who would
have smitten thee and the Lion. Come on, my son; come swiftly."

I turned, and followed him down the passage, and when we reached the
great central cave saw that many Amahagger, some robed, and some
merely clad in the sweet simplicity of a leopard skin, were hurrying
along it. We mingled with the throng, and walked up the enormous and,
indeed, almost interminable cave. All the way its walls were
elaborately sculptured, and every twenty paces or so passages opened
out of it at right angles, leading, Billali told me, to tombs,
hollowed in the rock by "the people who were before." Nobody visited
those tombs now, he said; and I must say that my heart rejoiced when I
thought of the opportunities of antiquarian research which opened out
before me.

At last we came to the head of the cave, where there was a rock daïs
almost exactly similar to the one on which we had been so furiously
attacked, a fact that proved to me that these daïs must have been used
as altars, probably for the celebration of religious ceremonies, and
more especially of rites connected with the interment of the dead. On
either side of this daïs were passages leading, Billali informed me,
to other caves full of dead bodies. "Indeed," he added, "the whole
mountain is full of dead, and nearly all of them are perfect."

In front of the daïs were gathered a great number of people of both
sexes, who stood staring about in their peculiar gloomy fashion, which
would have reduced Mark Tapley himself to misery in about five
minutes. On the daïs was a rude chair of black wood inlaid with ivory,
having a seat made of grass fibre, and a footstool formed of a wooden
slab attached to the framework of the chair.

Suddenly there was a cry of "Hiya! Hiya!" ("/She! She!/"), and
thereupon the entire crowd of spectators instantly precipitated itself
upon the ground, and lay still as though it were individually and
collectively stricken dead, leaving me standing there like some
solitary survivor of a massacre. As it did so a long string of guards
began to defile from a passage to the left, and ranged themselves on
either side of the daïs. Then followed about a score of male mutes,
then as many women mutes bearing lamps, and then a tall white figure,
swathed from head to foot, in whom I recognised /She/ herself. She
mounted the daïs and sat down upon the chair, and spoke to me in
/Greek/, I suppose because she did not wish those present to
understand what she said.

"Come hither, oh Holly," she said, "and sit thou at my feet, and see
me do justice on those who would have slain thee. Forgive me if my
Greek doth halt like a lame man; it is so long since I have heard the
sound of it that my tongue is stiff, and will not bend rightly to the
words."

I bowed, and, mounting the daïs, sat down at her feet.

"How hast thou slept, my Holly?" she asked.

"I slept not well, oh Ayesha!" I answered with perfect truth, and with
an inward fear that perhaps she knew how I had passed the heart of the
night.

"So," she said, with a little laugh; "I, too, have not slept well.
Last night I had dreams, and methinks that thou didst call them to me,
oh Holly."

"Of what didst thou dream, Ayesha?" I asked indifferently.

"I dreamed," she answered quickly, "of one I hate and one I love," and
then, as though to turn the conversation, she addressed the captain of
her guard in Arabic: "Let the men be brought before me."

The captain bowed low, for the guard and her attendants did not
prostrate themselves, but had remained standing, and departed with his
underlings down a passage to the right.

Then came a silence. /She/ leaned her swathed head upon her hand and
appeared to be lost in thought, while the multitude before her
continued to grovel upon their stomachs, only screwing their heads
round a little so as to get a view of us with one eye. It seemed that
their Queen so rarely appeared in public that they were willing to
undergo this inconvenience, and even graver risks, to have the
opportunity of looking on her, or rather on her garments, for no
living man there except myself had ever seen her face. At last we
caught sight of the waving of lights, and heard the tramp of men
coming along the passage, and in filed the guard, and with them the
survivors of our would-be murderers, to the number of twenty or more,
on whose countenances a natural expression of sullenness struggled
with the terror that evidently filled their savage hearts. They were
ranged in front of the daïs, and would have cast themselves down on
the floor of the cave like the spectators, but /She/ stopped them.

"Nay," she said in her softest voice, "stand; I pray you stand.
Perchance the time will soon be when ye shall grow weary of being
stretched out," and she laughed melodiously.

I saw a cringe of terror run along the rank of the doomed wretches,
and, wicked villains as they were, I felt sorry for them. Some
minutes, perhaps two or three, passed before anything fresh occurred,
during which /She/ appeared from the movement of her head--for, of
course, we could not see her eyes--to be slowly and carefully
examining each delinquent. At last she spoke, addressing herself to me
in a quiet and deliberate tone.

"Dost thou, oh my guest, recognise these men?"

"Ay, oh Queen, nearly all of them," I said, and I saw them glower at
me as I said it.

"Then tell to me, and this great company, the tale whereof I have
heard."

Thus adjured, I, in as few words as I could, related the history of
the cannibal feast, and of the attempted torture of our poor servant.
The narrative was received in perfect silence, both by the accused and
by the audience, and also by /She/ herself. When I had done, Ayesha
called upon Billali by name, and, lifting his head from the ground,
but without rising, the old man confirmed my story. No further
evidence was taken.

"Ye have heard," said /She/ at length, in a cold, clear voice, very
different from her usual tones--indeed, it was one of the most
remarkable things about this extraordinary creature that her voice had
the power of suiting itself in a wonderful manner to the mood of the
moment. "What have ye to say, ye rebellious children, why vengeance
should not be done upon you?"

For some time there was no answer, but at last one of the men, a fine,
broad-chested fellow, well on in middle-life, with deep-graven
features and an eye like a hawk's, spoke, and said that the orders
that they had received were not to harm the white men; nothing was
said of their black servant, so, egged on thereto by a woman who was
now dead, they proceeded to try to hot-pot him after the ancient and
honourable custom of their country, with a view of eating him in due
course. As for their sudden attack upon ourselves, it was made in an
access of sudden fury, and they deeply regretted it. He ended by
humbly praying that they might be banished into the swamps, to live
and die as it might chance; but I saw it written on his face that he
had but little hope of mercy.

Then came a pause, and the most intense silence reigned over the whole
scene, which, illuminated as it was by the flicker of the lamps
striking out broad patterns of light and shadow upon the rocky walls,
was as strange as any I ever saw, even in that unholy land. Upon the
ground before the daïs were stretched scores of the corpselike forms
of the spectators, till at last the long lines of them were lost in
the gloomy background. Before this outstretched audience were the
knots of evil-doers, trying to cover up their natural terrors with a
brave appearance of unconcern. On the right and left stood the silent
guards, robed in white and armed with great spears and daggers, and
men and women mutes watching with hard curious eyes. Then, seated in
her barbaric chair above them all, with myself at her feet, was the
veiled white woman, whose loveliness and awesome power seemed to
visibly shine about her like a halo, or rather like the glow from some
unseen light. Never have I seen her veiled shape look more terrible
than it did in that space, while she gathered herself up for
vengeance.

At last it came.

"Dogs and serpents," /She/ began in a low voice that gradually
gathered power as she went on, till the place rang with it. "Eaters of
human flesh, two things have ye done. First, ye have attacked these
strangers, being white men, and would have slain their servant, and
for that alone death is your reward. But that is not all. Ye have
dared to disobey me. Did I not send my word unto you by Billali, my
servant, and the father of your household? Did I not bid you to
hospitably entertain these strangers, whom now ye have striven to
slay, and whom, had not they been brave and strong beyond the strength
of men, ye would cruelly have murdered? Hath it not been taught to you
from childhood that the law of /She/ is an ever fixed law, and that he
who breaketh it by so much as one jot or tittle shall perish? And is
not my lightest word a law? Have not your fathers taught you this, I
say, whilst as yet ye were but children? Do ye not know that as well
might ye bid these great caves to fall upon you, or the sun to cease
its journeying, as to hope to turn me from my courses, or make my word
light or heavy, according to your minds? Well do ye know it, ye Wicked
Ones. But ye are all evil--evil to the core--the wickedness bubbles up
in you like a fountain in the spring-time. Were it not for me,
generations since had ye ceased to be, for of your own evil way had ye
destroyed each other. And now, because ye have done this thing,
because ye have striven to put these men, my guests, to death, and yet
more because ye have dared to disobey my word, this is the doom that I
doom you to. That ye be taken to the cave of torture,[*] and given
over to the tormentors, and that on the going down of to-morrow's sun
those of you who yet remain alive be slain, even as ye would have
slain the servant of this my guest."

[*] "The cave of torture." I afterwards saw this dreadful place, also
    a legacy from the prehistoric people who lived in Kôr. The only
    objects in the cave itself were slabs of rock arranged in various
    positions to facilitate the operations of the torturers. Many of
    these slabs, which were of a porous stone, were stained quite dark
    with the blood of ancient victims that had soaked into them. Also
    in the centre of the room was a place for a furnace, with a cavity
    wherein to heat the historic pot. But the most dreadful thing
    about the cave was that over each slab was a sculptured
    illustration of the appropriate torture being applied. These
    sculptures were so awful that I will not harrow the reader by
    attempting a description of them.--L. H. H.

She ceased, and a faint murmur of horror ran round the cave. As for
the victims, as soon as they realised the full hideousness of their
doom, their stoicism forsook them, and they flung themselves down upon
the ground, and wept and implored for mercy in a way that was dreadful
to behold. I, too, turned to Ayesha, and begged her to spare them, or
at least to mete out their fate in some less awful way. But she was
hard as adamant about it.

"My Holly," she said, again speaking in Greek, which, to tell the
truth, although I have always been considered a better scholar of the
language than most men, I found it rather difficult to follow, chiefly
because of the change in the fall of the accent. Ayesha, of course,
talked with the accent of her contemporaries, whereas we have only
tradition and the modern accent to guide us as to the exact
pronunciation. "My Holly, it cannot be. Were I to show mercy to those
wolves, your lives would not be safe among this people for a day. Thou
knowest them not. They are tigers to lap blood, and even now they
hunger for your lives. How thinkest thou that I rule this people? I
have but a regiment of guards to do my bidding, therefore it is not by
force. It is by terror. My empire is of the imagination. Once in a
generation mayhap I do as I have done but now, and slay a score by
torture. Believe not that I would be cruel, or take vengeance on
anything so low. What can it profit me to be avenged on such as these?
Those who live long, my Holly, have no passions, save where they have
interests. Though I may seem to slay in wrath, or because my mood is
crossed, it is not so. Thou hast seen how in the heavens the little
clouds blow this way and that without a cause, yet behind them is the
great wind sweeping on its path whither it listeth. So it is with me,
oh Holly. My moods and changes are the little clouds, and fitfully
these seem to turn; but behind them ever blows the great wind of my
purpose. Nay, the men must die; and die as I have said." Then,
suddenly turning to the captain of the guard:--

"As my word is, so be it!"



                                 XVI

                           THE TOMBS OF KÔR

After the prisoners had been removed Ayesha waved her hand, and the
spectators turned round, and began to crawl off down the cave like a
scattered flock of sheep. When they were a fair distance from the
daïs, however, they rose and walked away, leaving the Queen and myself
alone, with the exception of the mutes and the few remaining guards,
most of whom had departed with the doomed men. Thinking this a good
opportunity, I asked /She/ to come and see Leo, telling her of his
serious condition; but she would not, saying that he certainly would
not die before the night, as people never died of that sort of fever
except at nightfall or dawn. Also she said that it would be better to
let the sickness spend its course as much as possible before she cured
it. Accordingly, I was rising to leave, when she bade me follow her,
as she would talk with me, and show me the wonders of the caves.

I was too much involved in the web of her fatal fascinations to say
her no, even if I had wished, which I did not. She rose from her
chair, and, making some signs to the mutes, descended from the daïs.
Thereon four of the girls took lamps, and ranged themselves two in
front and two behind us, but the others went away, as also did the
guards.

"Now," she said, "wouldst thou see some of the wonders of this place,
oh Holly? Look upon this great cave. Sawest thou ever the like? Yet
was it, and many more like it, hollowed by the hands of the dead race
that once lived here in the city on the plain. A great and wonderful
people must they have been, those men of Kôr, but, like the Egyptians,
they thought more of the dead than of the living. How many men,
thinkest thou, working for how many years, did it need to the
hollowing out this cave and all the galleries thereof?"

"Tens of thousands," I answered.

"So, oh Holly. This people was an old people before the Egyptians
were. A little can I read of their inscriptions, having found the key
thereto--and see, thou here, this was one of the last of the caves
that they hollowed," and, turning to the rock behind her, she motioned
the mutes to hold up the lamps. Carven over the daïs was the figure of
an old man seated in a chair, with an ivory rod in his hand. It struck
me at once that his features were exceedingly like those of the man
who was represented as being embalmed in the chamber where we took our
meals. Beneath the chair, which, by the way, was shaped exactly like
the one in which Ayesha had sat to give judgment, was a short
inscription in the extraordinary characters of which I have already
spoke, but which I do not remember sufficient of to illustrate. It
looked more like Chinese writing than any other that I am acquainted
with. This inscription Ayesha proceeded, with some difficulty and
hesitation, to read aloud and translate. It ran as follows:--

 "In the year four thousand two hundred and fifty-nine from the
  founding of the City of imperial Kôr was this cave (or burial
  place) completed by Tisno, King of Kôr, the people thereof and
  their slaves having laboured thereat for three generations, to be
  a tomb for their citizens of rank who shall come after. May the
  blessings of the heaven above the heaven rest upon their work, and
  make the sleep of Tisno, the mighty monarch, the likeness of whose
  features is graven above, a sound and happy sleep till the day of
  awakening,[*] and also the sleep of his servants, and of those of
  his race who, rising up after him, shall yet lay their heads as
  low."

[*] This phrase is remarkable, as seeming to indicate a belief in a
    future state.--Editor.

"Thou seest, oh Holly," she said, "this people founded the city, of
which the ruins yet cumber the plain yonder, four thousand years
before this cave was finished. Yet, when first mine eyes beheld it two
thousand years ago, was it even as it is now. Judge, therefore, how
old must that city have been! And now, follow thou me, and I will show
thee after what fashion this great people fell when the time was come
for it to fall," and she led the way down to the centre of the cave,
stopping at a spot where a round rock had been let into a kind of
large manhole in the flooring, accurately filling it just as the iron
plates fill the spaces in the London pavements down which the coals
are thrown. "Thou seest," she said. "Tell me, what is it?"

"Nay, I know not," I answered; whereon she crossed to the left-hand
side of the cave (looking towards the entrance) and signed to the
mutes to hold up the lamps. On the wall was something painted with a
red pigment in similar characters to those hewn beneath the sculpture
of Tisno, King of Kôr. This inscription she proceeded to translate to
me, the pigment still being fresh enough to show the form of the
letters. It ran thus:

 "I, Junis, a priest of the Great Temple of Kôr, write this upon the
  rock of the burying-place in the year four thousand eight hundred
  and three from the founding of Kôr. Kôr is fallen! No more shall
  the mighty feast in her halls, no more shall she rule the world,
  and her navies go out to commerce with the world. Kôr is fallen!
  and her mighty works and all the cities of Kôr, and all the
  harbours that she built and the canals that she made, are for the
  wolf and the owl and the wild swan, and the barbarian who comes
  after. Twenty and five moons ago did a cloud settle upon Kôr, and
  the hundred cities of Kôr, and out of the cloud came a pestilence
  that slew her people, old and young, one with another, and spared
  not. One with another they turned black and died--the young and
  the old, the rich and the poor, the man and the woman, the prince
  and the slave. The pestilence slew and slew, and ceased not by day
  or by night, and those who escaped from the pestilence were slain
  of the famine. No longer could the bodies of the children of Kôr
  be preserved according to the ancient rites, because of the number
  of the dead, therefore were they hurled into the great pit beneath
  the cave, through the hole in the floor of the cave. Then, at
  last, a remnant of this the great people, the light of the whole
  world, went down to the coast and took ship and sailed northwards;
  and now am I, the Priest Junis, who write this, the last man left
  alive of this great city of men, but whether there be any yet left
  in the other cities I know not. This do I write in misery of heart
  before I die, because Kôr the Imperial is no more, and because
  there are none to worship in her temple, and all her palaces are
  empty, and her princes and her captains and her traders and her
  fair women have passed off the face of the earth."

I gave a sigh of astonishment--the utter desolation depicted in this
rude scrawl was so overpowering. It was terrible to think of this
solitary survivor of a mighty people recording its fate before he too
went down into darkness. What must the old man have felt as, in
ghastly terrifying solitude, by the light of one lamp feebly
illuminating a little space of gloom, he in a few brief lines daubed
the history of his nation's death upon the cavern wall? What a subject
for the moralist, or the painter, or indeed for any one who can think!

"Doth it not occur to thee, oh Holly," said Ayesha, laying her hand
upon my shoulder, "that those men who sailed North may have been the
fathers of the first Egyptians?"

"Nay, I know not," I said; "it seems that the world is very old."

"Old? Yes, it is old indeed. Time after time have nations, ay, and
rich and strong nations, learned in the arts, been and passed away and
been forgotten, so that no memory of them remains. This is but one of
several; for Time eats up the works of man, unless, indeed, he digs in
caves like the people of Kôr, and then mayhap the sea swallows them,
or the earthquake shakes them in. Who knows what hath been on the
earth, or what shall be? There is no new thing under the sun, as the
wise Hebrew wrote long ago. Yet were not these people utterly
destroyed, as I think. Some few remained in the other cities, for
their cities were many. But the barbarians from the south, or
perchance my people, the Arabs, came down upon them, and took their
women to wife, and the race of the Amahagger that is now is a bastard
brood of the mighty sons of Kôr, and behold it dwelleth in the tombs
with its fathers' bones.[*] But I know not: who can know? My arts
cannot pierce so far into the blackness of Time's night. A great
people were they. They conquered till none were left to conquer, and
then they dwelt at ease within their rocky mountain walls, with their
man servants and their maid servants, their minstrels, their
sculptors, and their concubines, and traded and quarrelled, and ate
and hunted and slept and made merry till their time came. But come, I
will show thee the great pit beneath the cave whereof the writing
speaks. Never shall thine eyes witness such another sight."

[*] The name of the race Ama-hagger would seem to indicate a curious
    mingling of races such as might easily have occurred in the
    neighbourhood of the Zambesi. The prefix "Ama" is common to the
    Zulu and kindred races, and signifies "people," while "hagger" is
    an Arabic word meaning a stone.--Editor.

Accordingly I followed her to a side passage opening out of the main
cave, then down a great number of steps, and along an underground
shaft which cannot have been less than sixty feet beneath the surface
of the rock, and was ventilated by curious borings that ran upward, I
know not where. Suddenly the passage ended, and she halted and bade
the mutes hold up the lamps, and, as she had prophesied, I saw a scene
such as I was not likely to see again. We were standing in an enormous
pit, or rather on the brink of it, for it went down deeper--I do not
know how much--than the level on which we stood, and was edged in with
a low wall of rock. So far as I could judge, this pit was about the
size of the space beneath the dome of St. Paul's in London, and when
the lamps were held up I saw that it was nothing but one vast charnel-
house, being literally full of thousands of human skeletons, which lay
piled up in an enormous gleaming pyramid, formed by the slipping down
of the bodies at the apex as fresh ones were dropped in from above.
Anything more appalling than this jumbled mass of the remains of a
departed race I cannot imagine, and what made it even more dreadful
was that in this dry air a considerable number of the bodies had
simply become desiccated with the skin still on them, and now, fixed
in every conceivable position, stared at us out of the mountain of
white bones, grotesquely horrible caricatures of humanity. In my
astonishment I uttered an ejaculation, and the echoes of my voice,
ringing in the vaulted space, disturbed a skull that had been
accurately balanced for many thousands of years near the apex of the
pile. Down it came with a run, bounding along merrily towards us, and
of course bringing an avalanche of other bones after it, till at last
the whole pit rattled with their movement, even as though the
skeletons were getting up to greet us.

"Come," I said, "I have seen enough. These are the bodies of those who
died of the great sickness, is it not so?" I added, as we turned away.

"Yea. The people of Kôr ever embalmed their dead, as did the
Egyptians, but their art was greater than the art of the Egyptians,
for, whereas the Egyptians disembowelled and drew the brain, the
people of Kôr injected fluid into the veins, and thus reached every
part. But stay, thou shalt see," and she halted at haphazard at one of
the little doorways opening out of the passage along which we were
walking, and motioned to the mutes to light us in. We entered into a
small chamber similar to the one in which I had slept at our first
stopping-place, only instead of one there were two stone benches or
beds in it. On the benches lay figures covered with yellow linen,[*]
on which a fine and impalpable dust had gathered in the course of
ages, but nothing like to the extent that one would have anticipated,
for in these deep-hewn caves there is no material to turn to dust.
About the bodies on the stone shelves and floor of the tomb were many
painted vases, but I saw very few ornaments or weapons in any of the
vaults.

[*] All the linen that the Amahagger wore was taken from the tombs,
    which accounted for its yellow hue. It was well washed, however,
    and properly rebleached, it acquired its former snowy whiteness,
    and was the softest and best linen I ever saw.--L. H. H.

"Uplift the cloths, oh Holly," said Ayesha, but when I put out my hand
to do so I drew it back again. It seemed like sacrilege, and, to speak
the truth, I was awed by the dread solemnity of the place, and of the
presences before us. Then, with a little laugh at my fears, she drew
them herself, only to discover other and yet finer cloths lying over
the forms upon the stone bench. These also she withdrew, and then for
the first for thousands upon thousands of years did living eyes look
upon the face of that chilly dead. It was a woman; she might have been
thirty-five years of age, or perhaps a little less, and had certainly
been beautiful. Even now her calm clear-cut features, marked out with
delicate eyebrows and long eyelashes which threw little lines of the
shadow of the lamplight upon the ivory face, were wonderfully
beautiful. There, robed in white, down which her blue-black hair was
streaming, she slept her last long sleep, and on her arm, its face
pressed against her breast, there lay a little babe. So sweet was the
sight, although so awful, that--I confess it without shame--I could
scarcely withhold my tears. It took me back across the dim gulf of
ages to some happy home in dead Imperial Kôr, where this winsome lady
girt about with beauty had lived and died, and dying taken her last-
born with her to the tomb. There they were before us, mother and babe,
the white memories of a forgotten human history speaking more
eloquently to the heart than could any written record of their lives.
Reverently I replaced the grave-cloths, and, with a sigh that flowers
so fair should, in the purpose of the Everlasting, have only bloomed
to be gathered to the grave, I turned to the body on the opposite
shelf, and gently unveiled it. It was that of a man in advanced life,
with a long grizzled beard, and also robed in white, probably the
husband of the lady, who, after surviving her many years, came at the
last to sleep once more for good and all beside her.

We left the place and entered others. It would be too long to describe
the many things I saw in them. Each one had its occupants, for the
five hundred and odd years that had elapsed between the completion of
the cave and the destruction of the race had evidently sufficed to
fill these catacombs, numberless as they were, and all appeared to
have been undisturbed since the day when they were placed there. I
could fill a book with the description of them, but to do so would
only be to repeat what I have said, with variations.

Nearly all the bodies, so masterfully was the art with which they had
been treated, were as perfect as on the day of death thousands of
years before. Nothing came to injure them in the deep silence of the
living rock: they were beyond the reach of heat and cold and damp, and
the aromatic drugs with which they had been saturated were evidently
practically everlasting in their effect. Here and there, however, we
saw an exception, and in these cases, although the flesh looked sound
enough externally, if one touched it it fell in, and revealed the fact
that the figure was but a pile of dust. This arose, Ayesha told me,
from these particular bodies having, either owing to haste in the
burial or other causes, been soaked in the preservative,[*] instead of
its being injected into the substance of the flesh.

[*] Ayesha afterwards showed me the tree from the leaves of which this
    ancient preservative was manufactured. It is a low bush-like tree,
    that to this day grows in wonderful plenty upon the sides of the
    mountains, or rather upon the slopes leading up to the rocky
    walls. The leaves are long and narrow, a vivid green in colour,
    but turning a bright red in the autumn, and not unlike those of a
    laurel in general appearance. They have little smell when green,
    but if boiled the aromatic odour from them is so strong that one
    can hardly bear it. The best mixture, however, was made from the
    roots, and among the people of Kôr there was a law, which Ayesha
    showed me alluded to on some of the inscriptions, to the effect
    that on pain of heavy penalties no one under a certain rank was to
    be embalmed with the drugs prepared from the roots. The object and
    effect of this was, of course, to preserve the trees from
    extermination. The sale of the leaves and roots was a Government
    monopoly, and from it the Kings of Kôr derived a large proportion
    of their private revenue.--L. H. H.

About the last tomb we visited I must, however, say one word, for its
contents spoke even more eloquently to the human sympathies than those
of the first. It had but two occupants, and they lay together on a
single shelf. I withdrew the grave-cloths and there, clasped heart to
heart, were a young man and a blooming girl. Her head rested on his
arm, and his lips were pressed against her brow. I opened the man's
linen robe, and there over his heart was a dagger-wound, and beneath
the woman's fair breast was a like cruel stab, through which her life
had ebbed away. On the rock above was an inscription in three words.
Ayesha translated it. It was "/Wedded in Death/."

What was the life-story of these two, who, of a truth, were beautiful
in their lives, and in their death were not divided?

I closed my eyelids, and imagination, taking up the thread of thought,
shot its swift shuttle back across the ages, weaving a picture on
their blackness so real and vivid in its details that I could almost
for a moment think that I had triumphed o'er the Past, and that my
spirit's eyes had pierced the mystery of Time.

I seemed to see this fair girl form--the yellow hair streaming down
her, glittering against her garments snowy white, and the bosom that
was whiter than the robes, even dimming with its lustre her ornaments
of burnished gold. I seemed to see the great cave filled with
warriors, bearded and clad in mail, and, on the lighted daïs where
Ayesha had given judgment, a man standing, robed, and surrounded by
the symbols of his priestly office. And up the cave there came one
clad in purple, and before him and behind him came minstrels and fair
maidens, chanting a wedding song. White stood the maid against the
altar, fairer than the fairest there--purer than a lily, and more cold
than the dew that glistens in its heart. But as the man drew near she
shuddered. Then out of the press and throng there sprang a dark-haired
youth, and put his arms about this long-forgotten maid, and kissed her
pale face in which the blood shot up like lights of the red dawn
across the silent sky. And next there was turmoil and uproar, and a
flashing of swords, and they tore the youth from her arms, and stabbed
him, but with a cry she snatched the dagger from his belt, and drove
it into her snowy breast, home to the heart, and down she fell, and
then, with cries and wailing, and every sound of lamentation, the
pageant rolled away from the arena of my vision, and once more the
past shut to its book.

Let him who reads forgive the intrusion of a dream into a history of
fact. But it came so home to me--I saw it all so clear in a moment, as
it were; and, besides, who shall say what proportion of fact, past,
present, or to come, may lie in the imagination? What is imagination?
Perhaps it is the shadow of the intangible truth, perhaps it is the
soul's thought.

In an instant the whole thing had passed through my brain, and /She/
was addressing me.

"Behold the lot of man," said the veiled Ayesha, as she drew the
winding sheets back over the dead lovers, speaking in a solemn,
thrilling voice, which accorded well with the dream that I had
dreamed: "to the tomb, and to the forgetfulness that hides the tomb,
must we all come at last! Ay, even I who live so long. Even for me, oh
Holly, thousands upon thousands of years hence; thousands of years
after you hast gone through the gate and been lost in the mists, a day
will dawn whereon I shall die, and be even as thou art and these are.
And then what will it avail that I have lived a little longer, holding
off death by the knowledge that I have wrung from Nature, since at
last I too must die? What is a span of ten thousand years, or ten
times ten thousand years, in the history of time? It is as naught--it
is as the mists that roll up in the sunlight; it fleeth away like an
hour of sleep or a breath of the Eternal Spirit. Behold the lot of
man! Certainly it shall overtake us, and we shall sleep. Certainly,
too, we shall awake and live again, and again shall sleep, and so on
and on, through periods, spaces, and times, from æon unto æon, till
the world is dead, and the worlds beyond the world are dead, and
naught liveth but the Spirit that is Life. But for us twain and for
these dead ones shall the end of ends be Life, or shall it be Death?
As yet Death is but Life's Night, but out of the night is the Morrow
born again, and doth again beget the Night. Only when Day and Night,
and Life and Death, are ended and swallowed up in that from which they
came, what shall be our fate, oh Holly? Who can see so far? Not even
I!"

And then, with a sudden change of tone and manner--

"Hast thou seen enough, my stranger guest, or shall I show thee more
of the wonders of these tombs that are my palace halls? If thou wilt,
I can lead thee to where Tisno, the mightiest and most valorous King
of Kôr, in whose day these caves were ended, lies in a pomp that seems
to mock at nothingness, and bid the empty shadows of the past do
homage to his sculptured vanity!"

"I have seen enough, oh Queen," I answered. "My heart is overwhelmed
by the power of the present Death. Mortality is weak, and easily
broken down by a sense of the companionship that waits upon its end.
Take me hence, oh Ayesha!"



                                 XVII

                          THE BALANCE TURNS

In a few minutes, following the lamps of the mutes, which, held out
from the body as a bearer holds water in a vessel, had the appearance
of floating down the darkness by themselves, we came to a stair which
led us to /She's/ ante-room, the same that Billali had crept up upon
on all fours on the previous day. Here I would have bid the Queen
adieu, but she would not.

"Nay," she said, "enter with me, oh Holly, for of a truth thy
conversation pleaseth me. Think, oh Holly: for two thousand years have
I had none to converse with save slaves and my own thoughts, and
though of all this thinking hath much wisdom come, and many secrets
been made plain, yet am I weary of my thoughts, and have come to
loathe mine own society, for surely the food that memory gives to eat
is bitter to the taste, and it is only with the teeth of hope that we
can bear to bite it. Now, though thy thoughts are green and tender, as
becometh one so young, yet are they those of a thinking brain, and in
truth thou dost bring back to my mind certain of those old
philosophers with whom in days bygone I have disputed at Athens, and
at Becca in Arabia, for thou hast the same crabbed air and dusty look,
as though thou hadst passed thy days in reading ill-writ Greek, and
been stained dark with the grime of manuscripts. So draw the curtain,
and sit here by my side, and we will eat fruit, and talk of pleasant
things. See, I will again unveil to thee. Thou hast brought it on
thyself, oh Holly; fairly have I warned thee--and thou shalt call me
beautiful as even those old philosophers were wont to do. Fie upon
them, forgetting their philosophy!"

And without more ado she stood up and shook the white wrappings from
her, and came forth shining and splendid like some glittering snake
when she has cast her slough; ay, and fixed her wonderful eyes upon me
--more deadly than any Basilisk's--and pierced me through and through
with their beauty, and sent her light laugh ringing through the air
like chimes of silver bells.

A new mood was on her, and the very colour of her mind seemed to
change beneath it. It was no longer torture-torn and hateful, as I had
seen it when she was cursing her dead rival by the leaping flames, no
longer icily terrible as in the judgment-hall, no longer rich, and
sombre, and splendid, like a Tyrian cloth, as in the dwellings of the
dead. No, her mood now was that of Aphrodité triumphing. Life--
radiant, ecstatic, wonderful--seemed to flow from her and around her.
Softly she laughed and sighed, and swift her glances flew. She shook
her heavy tresses, and their perfume filled the place; she struck her
little sandalled foot upon the floor, and hummed a snatch of some old
Greek epithalamium. All the majesty was gone, or did but lurk and
faintly flicker through her laughing eyes, like lightning seen through
sunlight. She had cast off the terror of the leaping flame, the cold
power of judgment that was even now being done, and the wise sadness
of the tombs--cast them off and put them behind her, like the white
shroud she wore, and now stood out the incarnation of lovely tempting
womanhood, made more perfect--and in a way more spiritual--than ever
woman was before.

"So, my Holly, sit there where thou canst see me. It is by thine own
wish, remember--again I say, blame me not if thou dost wear away thy
little span with such a sick pain at the heart that thou wouldst fain
have died before ever thy curious eyes were set upon me. There, sit
so, and tell me, for in truth I am inclined for praises--tell me, am I
not beautiful? Nay, speak not so hastily; consider well the point;
take me feature by feature, forgetting not my form, and my hands and
feet, and my hair, and the whiteness of my skin, and then tell me
truly, hast thou ever known a woman who in aught, ay, in one little
portion of her beauty, in the curve of an eyelash even, or the
modelling of a shell-like ear, is justified to hold a light before my
loveliness? Now, my waist! Perchance thou thinkest it too large, but
of a truth it is not so; it is this golden snake that is too large,
and doth not bind it as it should. It is a wide snake, and knoweth
that it is ill to tie in the waist. But see, give me thy hands--so--
now press them round me, and there, with but a little force, thy
fingers touch, oh Holly."

I could bear it no longer. I am but a man, and she was more than a
woman. Heaven knows what she was--I do not! But then and there I fell
upon my knees before her, and told her in a sad mixture of languages--
for such moments confuse the thoughts--that I worshipped her as never
woman was worshipped, and that I would give my immortal soul to marry
her, which at that time I certainly would have done, and so, indeed,
would any other man, or all the race of men rolled into one. For a
moment she looked surprised, and then she began to laugh, and clap her
hands in glee.

"Oh, so soon, oh Holly!" she said. "I wondered how many minutes it
would need to bring thee to thy knees. I have not seen a man kneel
before me for so many days, and, believe me, to a woman's heart the
sight is sweet, ay, wisdom and length of days take not from that dear
pleasure which is our sex's only right.

"What wouldst thou?--what wouldst thou? Thou dost not know what thou
doest. Have I not told thee that I am not for thee? I love but one,
and thou art not the man. Ah Holly, for all thy wisdom--and in a way
thou art wise--thou art but a fool running after folly. Thou wouldst
look into mine eyes--thou wouldst kiss me! Well, if it pleaseth thee,
/look/," and she bent herself towards me, and fixed her dark and
thrilling orbs upon my own; "ay, and /kiss/ too, if thou wilt, for,
thanks be given to the scheme of things, kisses leave no marks, except
upon the heart. But if thou dost kiss, I tell thee of a surety wilt
thou eat out thy breast with love of me, and die!" and she bent yet
further towards me till her soft hair brushed my brow, and her
fragrant breath played upon my face, and made me faint and weak. Then
of a sudden, even as I stretched out my hands to clasp, she
straightened herself, and a quick change passed over her. Reaching out
her hand, she held it over my head, and it seemed to me that something
flowed from it that chilled me back to common sense, and a knowledge
of propriety and the domestic virtues.

"Enough of this wanton folly," she said with a touch of sternness.
"Listen, Holly. Thou art a good and honest man, and I fain would spare
thee; but, oh! it is so hard for woman to be merciful. I have said I
am not for thee, therefore let thy thoughts pass by me like an idle
wind, and the dust of thy imagination sink again into the depths--
well, of despair, if thou wilt. Thou dost not know me, Holly. Hadst
thou seen me but ten hours past when my passion seized me, thou hadst
shrunk from me in fear and trembling. I am of many moods, and, like
the water in that vessel, I reflect many things; but they pass, my
Holly; they pass, and are forgotten. Only the water is the water
still, and I still am I, and that which maketh the water maketh it,
and that which maketh me maketh me, nor can my quality be altered.
Therefore, pay no heed to what I seem, seeing that thou canst not know
what I am. If thou troublest me again I will veil myself, and thou
shalt behold my face no more."

I rose, and sank on the cushioned couch beside her, yet quivering with
emotion, though for a moment my mad passion had left me, as the leaves
of a tree quiver still, although the gust be gone that stirred them. I
did not dare to tell her that I /had/ seen her in that deep and
hellish mood, muttering incantations to the fire in the tomb.

"So," she went on, "now eat some fruit; believe me, it is the only
true food for man. Oh, tell me of the philosophy of that Hebrew
Messiah, who came after me, and who thou sayest doth now rule Rome,
and Greece, and Egypt, and the barbarians beyond. It must have been a
strange philosophy that He taught, for in my day the peoples would
have naught of our philosophies. Revel and lust and drink, blood and
cold steel, and the shock of men gathered in the battle--these were
the canons of their creeds."

I had recovered myself a little by now, and, feeling bitterly ashamed
of the weakness into which I had been betrayed, I did my best to
expound to her the doctrines of Christianity, to which, however, with
the single exception of our conception of Heaven and Hell, I found
that she paid but scant attention, her interest being all directed
towards the Man who taught them. Also I told her that among her own
people, the Arabs, another prophet, one Mohammed, had arisen and
preached a new faith, to which many millions of mankind now adhered.

"Ah!" she said; "I see--two new religions! I have known so many, and
doubtless there have been many more since I knew aught beyond these
caves of Kôr. Mankind asks ever of the skies to vision out what lies
behind them. It is terror for the end, and but a subtler form of
selfishness--this it is that breeds religions. Mark, my Holly, each
religion claims the future for its followers; or, at least, the good
thereof. The evil is for those benighted ones who will have none of
it; seeing the light the true believers worship, as the fishes see the
stars, but dimly. The religions come and the religions pass, and the
civilisations come and pass, and naught endures but the world and
human nature. Ah! if man would but see that hope is from within and
not from without--that he himself must work out his own salvation! He
is there, and within him is the breath of life and a knowledge of good
and evil as good and evil is to him. Thereon let him build and stand
erect, and not cast himself before the image of some unknown God,
modelled like his poor self, but with a bigger brain to think the evil
thing, and a longer arm to do it."

I thought to myself, which shows how old such reasoning is, being,
indeed, one of the recurring qualities of theological discussion, that
her argument sounded very like some that I have heard in the
nineteenth century, and in other places than the caves of Kôr, and
with which, by the way, I totally disagree, but I did not care to try
and discuss the question with her. To begin with, my mind was too
weary with all the emotions through which I had passed, and, in the
second place, I knew that I should get the worst of it. It is weary
work enough to argue with an ordinary materialist, who hurls
statistics and whole strata of geological facts at your head, whilst
you can only buffet him with deductions and instincts and the
snowflakes of faith, that are, alas! so apt to melt in the hot embers
of our troubles. How little chance, then, should I have against one
whose brain was supernaturally sharpened, and who had two thousand
years of experience, besides all manner of knowledge of the secrets of
Nature at her command! Feeling that she would be more likely to
convert me than I should to convert her, I thought it best to leave
the matter alone, and so sat silent. Many a time since then have I
bitterly regretted that I did so, for thereby I lost the only
opportunity I can remember having had of ascertaining what Ayesha
/really/ believed, and what her "philosophy" was.

"Well, my Holly," she continued, "and so those people of mine have
found a prophet, a false prophet thou sayest, for he is not thine own,
and, indeed, I doubt it not. Yet in my day was it otherwise, for then
we Arabs had many gods. Allât there was, and Saba, the Host of Heaven,
Al Uzza, and Manah the stony one, for whom the blood of victims
flowed, and Wadd and Sawâ, and Yaghûth the Lion of the dwellers in
Yaman, and Yäûk the Horse of Morad, and Nasr the Eagle of Hamyar; ay,
and many more. Oh, the folly of it all, the shame and the pitiful
folly! Yet when I rose in wisdom and spoke thereof, surely they would
have slain me in the name of their outraged gods. Well, so hath it
ever been;--but, my Holly, art thou weary of me already, that thou
dost sit so silent? Or dost thou fear lest I should teach thee my
philosophy?--for know I have a philosophy. What would a teacher be
without her own philosophy? and if thou dost vex me overmuch beware!
for I will have thee learn it, and thou shalt be my disciple, and we
twain will found a faith that shall swallow up all others. Faithless
man! And but half an hour since thou wast upon thy knees--the posture
does not suit thee, Holly--swearing that thou didst love me. What
shall we do?--Nay, I have it. I will come and see this youth, the
Lion, as the old man Billali calls him, who came with thee, and who is
so sick. The fever must have run its course by now, and if he is about
to die I will recover him. Fear not, my Holly, I shall use no magic.
Have I not told thee that there is no such thing as magic, though
there is such a thing as understanding and applying the forces which
are in Nature? Go now, and presently, when I have made the drug ready,
I will follow thee."[*]

[*] Ayesha was a great chemist, indeed chemistry appears to have been
    her only amusement and occupation. She had one of the caves fitted
    up as a laboratory, and, although her appliances were necessarily
    rude, the results that she attained were, as will become clear in
    the course of this narrative, sufficiently surprising.--L. H. H.

Accordingly I went, only to find Job and Ustane in a great state of
grief, declaring that Leo was in the throes of death, and that they
had been searching for me everywhere. I rushed to the couch, and
glanced at him: clearly he was dying. He was senseless, and breathing
heavily, but his lips were quivering, and every now and again a little
shudder ran down his frame. I knew enough of doctoring to see that in
another hour he would be beyond the reach of earthly help--perhaps in
another five minutes. How I cursed my selfishness and the folly that
had kept me lingering by Ayesha's side while my dear boy lay dying!
Alas and alas! how easily the best of us are lighted down to evil by
the gleam of a woman's eyes! What a wicked wretch was I! Actually, for
the last half-hour I had scarcely thought of Leo, and this, be it
remembered, of the man who for twenty years had been my dearest
companion, and the chief interest of my existence. And now, perhaps,
it was too late!

I wrung my hands, and glanced round. Ustane was sitting by the couch,
and in her eyes burnt the dull light of despair. Job was blubbering--I
am sorry I cannot name his distress by any more delicate word--audibly
in the corner. Seeing my eye fixed upon him, he went outside to give
way to his grief in the passage. Obviously the only hope lay in
Ayesha. She, and she alone--unless, indeed, she was an imposter, which
I could not believe--could save him. I would go and implore her to
come. As I started to do so, however, Job came flying into the room,
his hair literally standing on end with terror.

"Oh, God help us, sir!" he ejaculated in a frightened whisper, "here's
a corpse a-coming sliding down the passage!"

For a moment I was puzzled, but presently, of course, it struck me
that he must have seen Ayesha, wrapped in her grave-like garment, and
been deceived by the extraordinary undulating smoothness of her walk
into a belief that she was a white ghost gliding towards him. Indeed,
at that very moment the question was settled, for Ayesha herself was
in the apartment, or rather cave. Job turned, and saw her sheeted
form, and then, with a convulsive howl of "Here it comes!" sprang into
a corner, and jammed his face against the wall, and Ustane, guessing
whose the dread presence must be, prostrated herself upon her face.

"Thou comest in a good time, Ayesha," I said, "for my boy lies at the
point of death."

"So," she said softly; "provided he be not dead, it is no matter, for
I can bring him back to life, my Holly. Is that man there thy servant,
and is that the method wherewith thy servants greet strangers in thy
country?"

"He is frightened of thy garb--it hath a death-like air," I answered.

She laughed.

"And the girl? Ah, I see now. It is she of whom thou didst speak to
me. Well, bid them both to leave us, and we will see to this sick Lion
of thine. I love not that underlings should perceive my wisdom."

Thereon I told Ustane in Arabic and Job in English both to leave the
room; an order which the latter obeyed readily enough, and was glad to
obey, for he could not in any way subdue his fear. But it was
otherwise with Ustane.

"What does /She/ want?" she whispered, divided between her fear of the
terrible Queen and her anxiety to remain near Leo. "It is surely the
right of a wife to be near her husband when he dieth. Nay, I will not
go, my lord the Baboon."

"Why doth not that woman leave us, my Holly?" asked Ayesha from the
other end of the cave, where she was engaged in carelessly examining
some of the sculptures on the wall.

"She is not willing to leave Leo," I answered, not knowing what to
say. Ayesha wheeled round, and, pointing to the girl Ustane, said one
word, and one only, but it was quite enough, for the tone in which it
was said meant volumes.

"Go!"

And then Ustane crept past her on her hands and knees, and went.

"Thou seest, my Holly," said Ayesha, with a little laugh, "it was
needful that I should give these people a lesson in obedience. That
girl went nigh to disobeying me, but then she did not learn this morn
how I treat the disobedient. Well, she has gone; and now let me see
the youth," and she glided towards the couch on which Leo lay, with
his face in the shadow and turned towards the wall.

"He hath a noble shape," she said, as she bent over him to look upon
his face.

Next second her tall and willowy form was staggering back across the
room, as though she had been shot or stabbed, staggering back till at
last she struck the cavern wall, and then there burst from her lips
the most awful and unearthly scream that I ever heard in all my life.

"What is it, Ayesha?" I cried. "Is he dead?"

She turned, and sprang towards me like a tigress.

"Thou dog!" she said, in her terrible whisper, which sounded like the
hiss of a snake, "why didst thou hide this from me?" And she stretched
out her arm, and I thought that she was about to slay me.

"What?" I ejaculated, in the most lively terror; "what?"

"Ah!" she said, "perchance thou didst not know. Learn, my Holly,
learn: there lies--there lies my lost Kallikrates. Kallikrates, who
has come back to me at last, as I knew he would, as I knew he would;"
and she began to sob and to laugh, and generally to conduct herself
like any other lady who is a little upset, murmuring "Kallikrates,
Kallikrates!"

"Nonsense," thought I to myself, but I did not like to say it; and,
indeed, at that moment I was thinking of Leo's life, having forgotten
everything else in that terrible anxiety. What I feared now was that
he should die while she was "carrying on."

"Unless thou art able to help him, Ayesha," I put in, by way of a
reminder, "thy Kallikrates will soon be far beyond thy calling. Surely
he dieth even now."

"True," she said, with a start. "Oh, why did I not come before! I am
unnerved--my hand trembles, even mine--and yet it is very easy. Here,
thou Holly, take this phial," and she produced a tiny jar of pottery
from the folds of her garment, "and pour the liquid in it down his
throat. It will cure him if he be not dead. Swift, now! Swift! The man
dies!"

I glanced towards him; it was true enough, Leo was in his death-
struggle. I saw his poor face turning ashen, and heard the breath
begin to rattle in his throat. The phial was stoppered with a little
piece of wood. I drew it with my teeth, and a drop of the fluid within
flew out upon my tongue. It had a sweet flavour, and for a second made
my head swim, and a mist gather before my eyes, but happily the effect
passed away as swiftly as it had arisen.

When I reached Leo's side he was plainly expiring--his golden head was
slowly turning from side to side, and his mouth was slightly open. I
called to Ayesha to hold his head, and this she managed to do, though
the woman was quivering from head to foot, like an aspen-leaf or a
startled horse. Then, forcing the jaw a little more open, I poured the
contents of the phial into his mouth. Instantly a little vapour arose
from it, as happens when one disturbs nitric acid, and this sight did
not increase my hopes, already faint enough, of the efficacy of the
treatment.

One thing, however, was certain, the death throes ceased--at first I
thought because he had got beyond them, and crossed the awful river.
His face turned to a livid pallor, and his heart-beats, which had been
feeble enough before, seemed to die away altogether--only the eyelid
still twitched a little. In my doubt I looked up at Ayesha, whose
head-wrapping had slipped back in her excitement when she went reeling
across the room. She was still holding Leo's head, and, with a face as
pale as his own, watching his countenance with such an expression of
agonised anxiety as I had never seen before. Clearly she did not know
if he would live or die. Five minutes slowly passed and I saw that she
was abandoning hope; her lovely oval face seemed to fall in and grow
visibly thinner beneath the pressure of a mental agony whose pencil
drew black lines about the hollows of her eyes. The coral faded even
from her lips, till they were as white as Leo's face, and quivered
pitifully. It was shocking to see her: even in my own grief I felt for
hers.

"Is it too late?" I gasped.

She hid her face in her hands, and made no answer, and I too turned
away. But as I did so I heard a deep-drawn breath, and looking down
perceived a line of colour creeping up Leo's face, then another and
another, and then, wonder of wonders, the man we had thought dead
turned over on his side.

"Thou seest," I said in a whisper.

"I see," she answered hoarsely. "He is saved. I thought we were too
late--another moment--one little moment more--and he had been gone!"
and she burst into an awful flood of tears, sobbing as though her
heart would break, and yet looking lovelier than ever as she did it.
As last she ceased.

"Forgive me, my Holly--forgive me for my weakness," she said. "Thou
seest after all I am a very woman. Think--now think of it! This
morning didst thou speak of the place of torment appointed by this new
religion of thine. Hell or Hades thou didst call it--a place where the
vital essence lives and retains an individual memory, and where all
the errors and faults of judgment, and unsatisfied passions and the
unsubstantial terrors of the mind wherewith it hath at any time had to
do, come to mock and haunt and gibe and wring the heart for ever and
for ever with the vision of its own hopelessness. Thus, even thus,
have I lived for full two thousand years--for some six and sixty
generations, as ye reckon time--in a Hell, as thou callest it--
tormented by the memory of a crime, tortured day and night with an
unfulfilled desire--without companionship, without comfort, without
death, and led on only down my dreary road by the marsh lights of
Hope, which, though they flickered here and there, and now glowed
strong, and now were not, yet, as my skill told me, would one day lead
unto my deliverer.

"And then--think of it still, oh Holly, for never shalt thou hear such
another tale, or see such another scene, nay, not even if I give thee
ten thousand years of life--and thou shalt have it in payment if thou
wilt--think: at last my deliverer came--he for whom I had watched and
waited through the generations--at the appointed time he came to seek
me, as I knew that he must come, for my wisdom could not err, though I
knew not when or how. Yet see how ignorant I was! See how small my
knowledge, and how faint my strength! For hours he lay there sick unto
death, and I felt it not--I who had waited for him for two thousand
years--I knew it not. And then at last I see him, and behold, my
chance is gone but by a hair's breadth even before I have it, for he
is in the very jaws of death, whence no power of mine can draw him.
And if he die, surely must the Hell be lived through once more--once
more must I face the weary centuries, and wait, and wait till the time
in its fulness shall bring my Beloved back to me. And then thou gavest
him the medicine, and that five minutes dragged long before I knew if
he would live or die, and I tell thee that all the sixty generations
that are gone were not so long as that five minutes. But they passed
at length, and still he showed no sign, and I knew that if the drug
works not then, so far as I have had knowledge, it works not at all.
Then thought I that he was once more dead, and all the tortures of all
the years gathered themselves into a single venomed spear, and pierced
me through and through, because again I had lost Kallikrates! And
then, when all was done, behold! he sighed, behold! he lived, and I
knew that he would live, for none die on whom the drug takes hold.
Think of it now, my Holly--think of the wonder of it! He will sleep
for twelve hours and then the fever will have left him!"

She stopped, and laid her hand upon his golden head, and then bent
down and kissed his brow with a chastened abandonment of tenderness
that would have been beautiful to behold had not the sight cut me to
the heart--for I was jealous!



                                XVIII

                             "GO, WOMAN!"

Then followed a silence of a minute or so, during which /She/
appeared, if one might judge from the almost angelic rapture of her
face--for she looked angelic sometimes--to be plunged into a happy
ecstasy. Suddenly, however, a new thought struck her, and her
expression became the very reverse of angelic.

"Almost had I forgotten," she said, "that woman, Ustane. What is she
to Kallikrates--his servant, or----" and she paused, and her voice
trembled.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I understand that she is wed to him
according to the custom of the Amahagger," I answered; "but I know
not."

Her face grew dark as a thunder-cloud. Old as she was, Ayesha had not
outlived jealousy.

"Then there is an end," she said; "she must die, even now!"

"For what crime?" I asked, horrified. "She is guilty of naught that
thou art not guilty of thyself, oh Ayesha. She loves the man, and he
has been pleased to accept her love: where, then, is her sin?"

"Truly, oh Holly, thou art foolish," she answered, almost petulantly.
"Where is her sin? Her sin is that she stands between me and my
desire. Well, I know that I can take him from her--for dwells there a
man upon this earth, oh Holly, who could resist me if I put out my
strength? Men are faithful for so long only as temptations pass them
by. If the temptation be but strong enough, then will the man yield,
for every man, like every rope, hath his breaking strain, and passion
is to men what gold and power are to women--the weight upon their
weakness. Believe me, ill will it go with mortal woman in that heaven
of which thou speakest, if only the spirits be more fair, for their
lords will never turn to look upon them, and their Heaven will become
their Hell. For man can be bought with woman's beauty, if it be but
beautiful enough; and woman's beauty can be ever bought with gold, if
only there be gold enough. So was it in my day, and so it will be to
the end of time. The world is a great mart, my Holly, where all things
are for sale to whom who bids the highest in the currency of our
desires."

These remarks, which were as cynical as might have been expected from
a woman of Ayesha's age and experience, jarred upon me, and I
answered, testily, that in our heaven there was no marriage or giving
in marriage.

"Else would it not be heaven, dost thou mean?" she put in. "Fie on
thee, Holly, to think so ill of us poor women! Is it, then, marriage
that marks the line between thy heaven and thy hell? but enough of
this. This is no time for disputing and the challenge of our wits. Why
dost thou always dispute? Art thou also a philosopher of these latter
days? As for this woman, she must die; for, though I can take her
lover from her, yet, while she lived, might he think tenderly of her,
and that I cannot away with. No other woman shall dwell in my Lord's
thoughts; my empire shall be all my own. She hath had her day, let her
be content; for better is an hour with love than a century of
loneliness--now the night shall swallow her."

"Nay, nay," I cried, "it would be a wicked crime; and from a crime
naught comes but what is evil. For thine own sake, do not this deed."

"Is it, then, a crime, oh foolish man, to put away that which stands
between us and our ends? Then is our life one long crime, my Holly,
since day by day we destroy that we may live, since in this world none
save the strongest can endure. Those who are weak must perish; the
earth is to the strong, and the fruits thereof. For every tree that
grows a score shall wither, that the strong one may take their share.
We run to place and power over the dead bodies of those who fail and
fall; ay, we win the food we eat from out of the mouths of starving
babes. It is the scheme of things. Thou sayest, too, that a crime
breeds evil, but therein thou dost lack experience; for out of crimes
come many good things, and out of good grows much evil. The cruel rage
of the tyrant may prove a blessing to the thousands who come after
him, and the sweetheartedness of a holy man may make a nation slaves.
Man doeth this, and doeth that from the good or evil of his heart; but
he knoweth not to what end his moral sense doth prompt him; for when
he striketh he is blind to where the blow shall fall, nor can he count
the airy threads that weave the web of circumstance. Good and evil,
love and hate, night and day, sweet and bitter, man and woman, heaven
above and the earth beneath--all these things are necessary, one to
the other, and who knows the end of each? I tell thee that there is a
hand of fate that twines them up to bear the burden of its purpose,
and all things are gathered in that great rope to which all things are
needful. Therefore doth it not become us to say this thing is evil and
this good, or the dark is hateful and the light lovely; for to other
eyes than ours the evil may be the good and the darkness more
beautiful than the day, or all alike be fair. Hearest thou, my Holly?"

I felt it was hopeless to argue against casuistry of this nature,
which, if it were carried to its logical conclusion, would absolutely
destroy all morality, as we understand it. But her talk gave me a
fresh thrill of fear; for what may not be possible to a being who,
unconstrained by human law, is also absolutely unshackled by a moral
sense of right and wrong, which, however partial and conventional it
may be, is yet based, as our conscience tells us, upon the great wall
of individual responsibility that marks off mankind from the beasts?

But I was deeply anxious to save Ustane, whom I liked and respected,
from the dire fate that overshadowed her at the hands of her mighty
rival. So I made one more appeal.

"Ayesha," I said, "thou art too subtle for me; but thou thyself hast
told me that each man should be a law unto himself, and follow the
teaching of his heart. Hath thy heart no mercy towards her whose place
thou wouldst take? Bethink thee--as thou sayest--though to me the
thing is incredible--he whom thou desirest has returned to thee after
many ages, and but now thou hast, as thou sayest also, wrung him from
the jaws of death. Wilt thou celebrate his coming by the murder of one
who loved him, and whom perchance he loved--one, at the least, who
saved his life for thee when the spears of thy slaves would have made
an end thereof? Thou sayest also that in past days thou didst
grievously wrong this man, that with thine own hand thou didst slay
him because of the Egyptian Amenartas whom he loved."

"How knowest thou that, oh stranger? How knowest thou that name? I
spoke it not to thee," she broke in with a cry, catching at my arm.

"Perchance I dreamed it," I answered; "strange dreams do hover about
these caves of Kôr. It seems that the dream was, indeed, a shadow of
the truth. What came to thee of thy mad crime?--two thousand years of
waiting, was it not? And now wouldst thou repeat the history? Say what
thou wilt, I tell thee that evil will come of it; for to him who
doeth, at the least, good breeds good and evil evil, even though in
after days out of evil cometh good. Offences must needs come; but woe
to him by whom the offence cometh. So said that Messiah of whom I
spoke to thee, and it was truly said. If thou slayest this innocent
woman, I say unto thee that thou shalt be accursed, and pluck no fruit
from thine ancient tree of love. Also, what thinkest thou? How will
this man take thee red-handed from the slaughter of her who loved and
tended him?"

"As to that," she answered, "I have already answered thee. Had I slain
thee as well as her, yet should he love me, Holly, because he could
not save himself from therefrom any more than thou couldst save
thyself from dying, if by chance I slew thee, oh Holly. And yet maybe
there is truth in what thou dost say; for in some way it presseth on
my mind. If it may be, I will spare this woman; for have I not told
thee that I am not cruel for the sake of cruelty? I love not to see
suffering, or to cause it. Let her come before me--quick now, before
my mood changes," and she hastily covered her face with its gauzy
wrapping.

Well pleased to have succeeded even to this extent, I passed out into
the passage and called to Ustane, whose white garment I caught sight
of some yards away, huddled up against one of the earthenware lamps
that were placed at intervals along the tunnel. She rose, and ran
towards me.

"Is my lord dead? Oh, say not he is dead," she cried, lifting her
noble-looking face, all stained as it was with tears, up to me with an
air of infinite beseeching that went straight to my heart.

"Nay, he lives," I answered. "/She/ hath saved him. Enter."

She sighed deeply, entered, and fell upon her hands and knees, after
the custom of the Amahagger people, in the presence of the dread
/She/.

"Stand," said Ayesha, in her coldest voice, "and come hither."

Ustane obeyed, standing before her with bowed head.

Then came a pause, which Ayesha broke.

"Who is this man?" she said, pointing to the sleeping form of Leo.

"The man is my husband," she answered in a low voice.

"Who gave him to thee for a husband?"

"I took him according to the custom of our country, oh /She/."

"Thou hast done evil, woman, in taking this man, who is a stranger. He
is not a man of thine own race, and the custom fails. Listen:
perchance thou didst this thing through ignorance, therefore, woman,
do I spare thee, otherwise hadst thou died. Listen again. Go from
hence back to thine own place, and never dare to speak to or set thine
eyes upon this man again. He is not for thee. Listen a third time. If
thou breakest this my law, that moment thou diest. Go."

But Ustane did not move.

"Go, woman!"

Then she looked up, and I saw that her face was torn with passion.

"Nay, oh /She/. I will not go," she answered in a choked voice: "the
man is my husband, and I love him--I love him, and I will not leave
him. What right hast thou to command me to leave my husband?"

I saw a little quiver pass down Ayesha's frame, and shuddered myself,
fearing the worst.

"Be pitiful," I said in Latin; "it is but Nature working."

"I am pitiful," she answered coldly in the same language; "had I not
been pitiful she had been dead even now." Then, addressing Ustane:
"Woman, I say to thee, go before I destroy thee where thou art!"

"I will not go! He is mine--mine!" she cried in anguish. "I took him,
and I saved his life! Destroy me, then, if thou hast the power! I will
not give thee my husband--never--never!"

Ayesha made a movement so swift that I could scarcely follow it, but
it seemed to me that she lightly struck the poor girl upon the head
with her hand. I looked at Ustane, and then staggered back in horror,
for there upon her hair, right across her bronze-like tresses, were
three finger-marks /white as snow/. As for the girl herself, she had
put her hands to her head, and was looking dazed.

"Great heavens!" I said, perfectly aghast at this dreadful
manifestation of human power; but /She/ did but laugh a little.

"Thou thinkest, poor ignorant fool," she said to the bewildered woman,
"that I have not the power to slay. Stay, there lies a mirror," and
she pointed to Leo's round shaving-glass that had been arranged by Job
with other things upon his portmanteau; "give it to this woman, my
Holly, and let her see that which lies across her hair, and whether or
no I have power to slay."

I picked up the glass, and held it before Ustane's eyes. She gazed,
then felt at her hair, then gazed again, and then sank upon the ground
with a sort of sob.

"Now, wilt thou go, or must I strike a second time?" asked Ayesha, in
mockery. "Look, I have set my seal upon thee so that I may know thee
till thy hair is all as white as it. If I see thy face again, be sure,
too, that thy bones shall soon be whiter than my mark upon thy hair."

Utterly awed and broken down, the poor creature rose, and, marked with
that awful mark, crept from the room, sobbing bitterly.

"Look not so frighted, my Holly," said Ayesha, when she had gone. "I
tell thee I deal not in magic--there is no such thing. 'Tis only a
force that thou dost not understand. I marked her to strike terror to
her heart, else must I have slain her. And now I will bid my servants
to bear my Lord Kallikrates to a chamber near mine own, that I may
watch over him, and be ready to greet him when he wakes; and thither,
too, shalt thou come, my Holly, and the white man, thy servant. But
one thing remember at thy peril. Naught shalt thou say to Kallikrates
as to how this woman went, and as little as may be of me. Now, I have
warned thee!" and she slid away to give her orders, leaving me more
absolutely confounded than ever. Indeed, so bewildered was I, and
racked and torn with such a succession of various emotions, that I
began to think that I must be going mad. However, perhaps fortunately,
I had but little time to reflect, for presently the mutes arrived to
carry the sleeping Leo and our possessions across the central cave, so
for a while all was bustle. Our new rooms were situated immediately
behind what we used to call Ayesha's boudoir--the curtained space
where I had first seen her. Where she herself slept I did not then
know, but it was somewhere quite close.

That night I passed in Leo's room, but he slept through it like the
dead, never once stirring. I also slept fairly well, as, indeed, I
needed to do, but my sleep was full of dreams of all the horrors and
wonders I had undergone. Chiefly, however, I was haunted by that
frightful piece of /diablerie/ by which Ayesha left her finger-marks
upon her rival's hair. There was something so terrible about her
swift, snake-like movement, and the instantaneous blanching of that
threefold line, that, if the results to Ustane had been much more
tremendous, I doubt if they would have impressed me so deeply. To this
day I often dream of that awful scene, and see the weeping woman,
bereaved, and marked like Cain, cast a last look at her lover, and
creep from the presence of her dread Queen.

Another dream that troubled me originated in the huge pyramid of
bones. I dreamed that they all stood up and marched past me in
thousands and tens of thousands--in squadrons, companies, and armies--
with the sunlight shining through their hollow ribs. On they rushed
across the plain to Kôr, their imperial home; I saw the drawbridges
fall before them, and heard their bones clank through the brazen
gates. On they went, up the splendid streets, on past fountains,
palaces, and temples such as the eye of man never saw. But there was
no man to greet them in the market-place, and no woman's face appeared
at the windows--only a bodiless voice went before them, calling:
"/Fallen is Imperial Kôr!--fallen!--fallen! fallen!/" On, right
through the city, marched those gleaming phalanxes, and the rattle of
their bony tread echoed through the silent air as they pressed grimly
on. They passed through the city and clomb the wall, and marched along
the great roadway that was made upon the wall, till at length they
once more reached the drawbridge. Then, as the sun was sinking, they
returned again towards their sepulchre, and luridly his light shone in
the sockets of their empty eyes, throwing gigantic shadows of their
bones, that stretched away, and crept and crept like huge spiders'
legs as their armies wound across the plain. Then they came to the
cave, and once more one by one flung themselves in unending files
through the hole into the pit of bones, and I awoke, shuddering, to
see /She/, who had evidently been standing between my couch and Leo's,
glide like a shadow from the room.

After this I slept again, soundly this time, till morning, when I
awoke much refreshed, and got up. At last the hour drew near at which,
according to Ayesha, Leo was to awake, and with it came /She/ herself,
as usual, veiled.

"Thou shalt see, oh Holly," she said; "presently shall he awake in his
right mind, the fever having left him."

Hardly were the words out of her mouth, when Leo turned round and
stretched out his arms, yawned, opened his eyes, and, perceiving a
female form bending over him, threw his arms round her and kissed her,
mistaking her, perhaps, for Ustane. At any rate, he said, in Arabic,
"Hullo, Ustane, why have you tied your head up like that? Have you got
the toothache?" and then, in English, "I say, I'm awfully hungry. Why,
Job, you old son of a gun, where the deuce have we got to now--eh?"

"I am sure I wish I knew, Mr. Leo," said Job, edging suspiciously past
Ayesha, whom he still regarded with the utmost disgust and horror,
being by no means sure that she was not an animated corpse; "but you
mustn't talk, Mr. Leo, you've been very ill, and given us a great deal
of hanxiety, and, if this lady," looking at Ayesha, "would be so kind
as to move, I'll bring you your soup."

This turned Leo's attention to the "lady," who was standing by in
perfect silence. "Hullo!" he said; "that is not Ustane--where is
Ustane?"

Then, for the first time, Ayesha spoke to him, and her first words
were a lie. "She has gone from hence upon a visit," she said; "and,
behold, in her place am I here as thine handmaiden."

Ayesha's silver notes seemed to puzzle Leo's half-awakened intellect,
as also did her corpse-like wrappings. However, he said nothing at the
time, but drank off his soup greedily enough, and then turned over and
slept again till the evening. When he woke for the second time he saw
me, and began to question me as to what had happened, but I had to put
him off as best I could till the morrow, when he awoke almost
miraculously better. Then I told him something of his illness and of
my doings, but as Ayesha was present I could not tell him much except
that she was the Queen of the country, and well disposed towards us,
and that it was her pleasure to go veiled; for, though of course I
spoke in English, I was afraid that she might understand what we were
saying from the expression of our faces, and besides, I remembered her
warning.

On the following day Leo got up almost entirely recovered. The flesh
wound in his side was healed, and his constitution, naturally a
vigorous one, had shaken off the exhaustion consequent on his terrible
fever with a rapidity that I can only attribute to the effects of the
wonderful drug which Ayesha had given to him, and also to the fact
that his illness had been too short to reduce him very much. With his
returning health came back full recollection of all his adventures up
to the time when he had lost consciousness in the marsh, and of course
of Ustane also, to whom I had discovered he had grown considerably
attached. Indeed, he overwhelmed me with questions about the poor
girl, which I did not dare to answer, for after Leo's first awakening
/She/ had sent for me, and again warned me solemnly that I was to
reveal nothing of the story to him, delicately hinting that if I did
it would be the worse for me. She also, for the second time, cautioned
me not to tell Leo anything more than I was obliged about herself,
saying that she would reveal herself to him in her own time.

Indeed, her whole manner changed. After all that I had seen I had
expected that she would take the earliest opportunity of claiming the
man she believed to be her old-world lover, but this, for some reason
of her own, which was at the time quite inscrutable to me, she did not
do. All that she did was to attend to his wants quietly, and with a
humility which was in striking contrast with her former imperious
bearing, addressing him always in a tone of something very like
respect, and keeping him with her as much as possible. Of course his
curiosity was as much excited about this mysterious woman as my own
had been, and he was particularly anxious to see her face, which I
had, without entering into particulars, told him was as lovely as her
form and voice. This in itself was enough to raise the expectations of
any young man to a dangerous pitch, and, had it not been that he had
not as yet completely shaken off the effects of illness, and was much
troubled in his mind about Ustane, of whose affection and brave
devotion he spoke in touching terms, I have no doubt that he would
have entered into her plans, and fallen in love with her by
anticipation. As it was, however, he was simply wildly curious, and
also, like myself, considerably awed, for, though no hint had been
given to him by Ayesha of her extraordinary age, he not unnaturally
came to identify her with the woman spoken of on the potsherd. At
last, quite driven into a corner by his continual questions, which he
showered on me while he was dressing on this third morning, I referred
him to Ayesha, saying, with perfect truth, that I did not know where
Ustane was. Accordingly, after Leo had eaten a hearty breakfast, we
adjourned into /She's/ presence, for her mutes had orders to admit us
at all hours.

She was, as usual, seated in what, for want of a better term, we
called her boudoir, and on the curtains being drawn she rose from her
couch and, stretching out both hands, came forward to greet us, or
rather Leo; for I, as may be imagined, was now quite left in the cold.
It was a pretty sight to see her veiled form gliding towards the
sturdy young Englishman, dressed in his grey flannel suit; for, though
he is half a Greek in blood, Leo is, with the exception of his hair,
one of the most English-looking men I ever saw. He has nothing of the
subtle form or slippery manner of the modern Greek about him, though I
presume that he got his remarkable personal beauty from his foreign
mother, whose portrait he resembles not a little. He is very tall and
big-chested, and yet not awkward, as so many big men are, and his head
is set upon him in such a fashion as to give him a proud and vigorous
air, which was well translated in his Amahagger name of the "Lion."

"Greeting to thee, my young stranger lord," she said in her softest
voice. "Right glad am I to see thee upon thy feet. Believe me, had I
not saved thee at the last, never wouldst thou have stood upon those
feet again. But the danger is done, and it shall be my care"--and she
flung a world of meaning into the words--"that it doth return no
more."

Leo bowed to her, and then, in his best Arabic, thanked her for all
her kindness and courtesy in caring for one unknown to her.

"Nay," she answered softly, "ill could the world spare such a man.
Beauty is too rare upon it. Give me no thanks, who am made happy by
thy coming."

"Humph! old fellow," said Leo aside to me in English, "the lady is
very civil. We seem to have tumbled into clover. I hope that you have
made the most of your opportunities. By Jove! what a pair of arms she
has got!"

I nudged him in the ribs to make him keep quiet, for I caught sight of
a gleam from Ayesha's veiled eyes, which were regarding me curiously.

"I trust," went on Ayesha, "that my servants have attended well upon
thee; if there can be comfort in this poor place, be sure it waits on
thee. Is there aught that I can do for thee more?"

"Yes, oh /She/," answered Leo hastily, "I would fain know whither the
young lady who was looking after me has gone to."

"Ah," said Ayesha: "the girl--yes, I saw her. Nay, I know not; she
said that she would go, I know not whither. Perchance she will return,
perchance not. It is wearisome waiting on the sick, and these savage
women are fickle."

Leo looked both sulky and distressed at this intelligence.

"It's very odd," he said to me in English; and then, addressing /She/,
"I cannot understand," he said; "the young lady and I--well--in short,
we had a regard for each other."

Ayesha laughed a little very musically, and then turned the subject.



                                 XIX

                       "GIVE ME A BLACK GOAT!"

The conversation after this was of such a desultory order that I do
not quite recollect it. For some reason, perhaps from a desire to keep
her identity and character in reserve, Ayesha did not talk freely, as
she usually did. Presently, however, she informed Leo that she had
arranged a dance that night for our amusement. I was astonished to
hear this, as I fancied that the Amahagger were much too gloomy a folk
to indulge in any such frivolity; but, as will presently more clearly
appear, it turned out that an Amahagger dance has little in common
with such fantastic festivities in other countries, savage or
civilised. Then, as we were about to withdraw, she suggested that Leo
might like to see some of the wonders of the caves, and as he gladly
assented thither we departed, accompanied by Job and Billali. To
describe our visit would only be to repeat a great deal of what I have
already said. The tombs we entered were indeed different, for the
whole rock was a honeycomb of sepulchres,[*] but the contents were
nearly always similar. Afterwards we visited the pyramid of bones that
had haunted my dreams on the previous night, and from thence went down
a long passage to one of the great vaults occupied by the bodies of
the poorer citizens of Imperial Kôr. These bodies were not nearly so
well preserved as were those of the wealthier classes. Many of them
had no linen covering on them, also they were buried from five hundred
to one thousand in a single large vault, the corpses in some instances
being thickly piled one upon another, like a heap of slain.

[*] For a long while it puzzled me to know what could have been done
    with the enormous quantities of rock that must have been dug out
    of these vast caves; but I afterwards discovered that it was for
    the most part built into the walls and palaces of Kôr, and also
    used to line the reservoirs and sewers.--L. H. H.

Leo was of course intensely interested in this stupendous and
unequalled sight, which was, indeed, enough to awake all the
imagination a man had in him into the most active life. But to poor
Job it did not prove attractive. His nerves--already seriously shaken
by what he had undergone since we had arrived in this terrible country
--were, as may be imagined, still further disturbed by the spectacle
of these masses of departed humanity, whereof the forms still remained
perfect before his eyes, though their voices were for ever lost in the
eternal silence of the tomb. Nor was he comforted when old Billali, by
way of soothing his evident agitation, informed him that he should not
be frightened of these dead things, as he would soon be like them
himself.

"There's a nice thing to say of a man, sir," he ejaculated, when I
translated this little remark; "but there, what can one expect of an
old man-eating savage? Not but what I dare say he's right," and Job
sighed.

When we had finished inspecting the caves, we returned and had our
meal, for it was now past four in the afternoon, and we all--
especially Leo--needed some food and rest. At six o'clock we, together
with Job, waited on Ayesha, who set to work to terrify our poor
servant still further by showing him pictures on the pool of water in
the font-like vessel. She learnt from me that he was one of seventeen
children, and then bid him think of all his brothers and sisters, or
as many of them as he could, gathered together in his father's
cottage. Then she told him to look in the water, and there, reflected
from its stilly surface, was that dead scene of many years gone by, as
it was recalled to our retainer's brain. Some of the faces were clear
enough, but some were mere blurs and splotches, or with one feature
grossly exaggerated; the fact being that, in these instances, Job had
been unable to recall the exact appearances of the individuals, or
remembered them only by a peculiarity of his tribe, and the water
could only reflect what he saw with his mind's eye. For it must be
remembered that /She's/ power in this matter was strictly limited; she
could apparently, except in very rare instances, only photograph upon
the water what was actually in the mind of some one present, and then
only by his will. But, if she was personally acquainted with a
locality, she could, as in the case of ourselves and the whale-boat,
throw its reflection upon the water, and also, it seems, the
reflection of anything extraneous that was passing there at the time.
This power, however, did not extend to the minds of others. For
instance, she could show me the interior of my college chapel, as I
remembered it, but not as it was at the moment of reflection; for,
where other people were concerned, her art was strictly limited to the
facts or memories present to /their/ consciousness at the moment. So
much was this so that when we tried, for her amusement, to show her
pictures of noted buildings, such as St. Paul's or the Houses of
Parliament, the result was most imperfect; for, of course, though we
had a good general idea of their appearance, we could not recall all
the architectural details, and therefore the minutiæ necessary to a
perfect reflection were wanting. But Job could not be got to
understand this, and, so far from accepting a natural explanation of
the matter, which was after all, though strange enough in all
conscience, nothing more than an instance of glorified and perfected
telepathy, he set the whole thing down as a manifestation of the
blackest magic. I shall never forget the howl of terror which he
uttered when he saw the more or less perfect portraits of his long-
scattered brethren staring at him from the quiet water, or the merry
peal of laughter with which Ayesha greeted his consternation. As for
Leo, he did not altogether like it either, but ran his fingers through
his yellow curls, and remarked that it gave him the creeps.

After about an hour of this amusement, in the latter part of which Job
did /not/ participate, the mutes by signs indicated that Billali was
waiting for an audience. Accordingly he was told to "crawl up," which
he did as awkwardly as usual, and announced that the dance was ready
to begin if /She/ and the white strangers would be pleased to attend.
Shortly afterwards we all rose, and, Ayesha having thrown a dark cloak
(the same, by the way, that she had worn when I saw her cursing by the
fire) over her white wrappings, we started. The dance was to be held
in the open air, on the smooth rocky plateau in front of the great
cave, and thither we made our way. About fifteen paces from the mouth
of the cave we found three chairs placed, and here we sat and waited,
for as yet no dancers were to be seen. The night was almost, but not
quite, dark, the moon not having risen as yet, which made us wonder
how we should be able to see the dancing.

"Thou wilt presently understand," said Ayesha, with a little laugh,
when Leo asked her; and we certainly did. Scarcely were the words out
of her mouth when from every point we saw dark forms rushing up, each
bearing with him what we at first took to be an enormous flaming
torch. Whatever they were, they were burning furiously, for the flames
stood out a yard or more behind each bearer. On they came, fifty or
more of them, carrying their flaming burdens and looking like so many
devils from hell. Leo was the first to discover what these burdens
were.

"Great heaven!" he said, "they are corpses on fire!"

I stared and stared again--he was perfectly right--the torches that
were to light our entertainment were human mummies from the caves!

On rushed the bearers of the flaming corpses, and, meeting at a spot
about twenty paces in front of us, built their ghastly burdens
crossways into a huge bonfire. Heavens! how they roared and flared! No
tar barrel could have burnt as those mummies did. Nor was this all.
Suddenly I saw one great fellow seize a flaming human arm that had
fallen from its parent frame, and rush off into the darkness.
Presently he stopped, and a tall streak of fire shot up into the air,
illumining the gloom, and also the lamp from which it sprang. That
lamp was the mummy of a woman tied to a stout stake let into the rock,
and he had fired her hair. On he went a few paces and touched a
second, then a third, and a fourth, till at last we were surrounded on
all three sides by a great ring of bodies flaring furiously, the
material with which they were preserved having rendered them so
inflammable that the flames would literally spout out of the ears and
mouth in tongues of fire a foot or more in length.

Nero illuminated his gardens with live Christians soaked in tar, and
we were now treated to a similar spectacle, probably for the first
time since his day, only happily our lamps were not living ones.

But, although this element of horror was fortunately wanting, to
describe the awful and hideous grandeur of the spectacle thus
presented to us is, I feel, so absolutely beyond my poor powers that I
scarcely dare attempt it. To begin with, it appealed to the moral as
well as the physical susceptibilities. There was something very
terrible, and yet very fascinating, about the employment of the remote
dead to illumine the orgies of the living; in itself the thing was a
satire, both on the living and the dead. Cæsar's dust--or is it
Alexander's?--may stop a bunghole, but the functions of these dead
Cæsars of the past was to light up a savage fetish dance. To such base
uses may we come, of so little account may we be in the minds of the
eager multitudes that we shall breed, many of whom, so far from
revering our memory, will live to curse us for begetting them into
such a world of woe.

Then there was the physical side of the spectacle, and a weird and
splendid one it was. Those old citizens of Kôr burnt as, to judge from
their sculptures and inscriptions, they had lived, very fast, and with
the utmost liberality. What is more, there were plenty of them. As
soon as ever a mummy had burnt down to the ankles, which it did in
about twenty minutes, the feet were kicked away, and another one put
in its place. The bonfire was kept going on the same generous scale,
and its flames shot up, with a hiss and a crackle, twenty or thirty
feet into the air, throwing great flashes of light far out into the
gloom, through which the dark forms of the Amahagger flitted to and
fro like devils replenishing the infernal fires. We all stood and
stared aghast--shocked, and yet fascinated at so strange a spectacle,
and half expecting to see the spirits those flaming forms had once
enclosed come creeping from the shadows to work vengeance on their
desecrators.

"I promised thee a strange sight, my Holly," laughed Ayesha, whose
nerves alone did not seem to be affected; "and, behold, I have not
failed thee. Also, it hath its lesson. Trust not to the future, for
who knows what the future may bring! Therefore, live for the day, and
endeavour not to escape the dust which seems to be man's end. What
thinkest thou those long-forgotten nobles and ladies would have felt
had they known that they should one day flare to light the dance or
boil the pot of savages? But see, here come the dancers; a merry crew
--are they not? The stage is lit--now for the play."

As she spoke, we perceived two lines of figures, one male and the
other female, to the number of about a hundred, each advancing round
the human bonfire, arrayed only in the usual leopard and buck skins.
They formed up, in perfect silence, in two lines, facing each other
between us and the fire, and then the dance--a sort of infernal and
fiendish cancan--began. To describe it is quite impossible, but,
though there was a good deal of tossing of legs and double-shuffling,
it seemed to our untutored minds to be more of a play than a dance,
and, as usual with this dreadful people, whose minds seem to have
taken their colour from the caves in which they live, and whose jokes
and amusements are drawn from the inexhaustible stores of preserved
mortality with which they share their homes, the subject appeared to
be a most ghastly one. I know that it represented an attempted murder
first of all, and then the burial alive of the victim and his
struggling from the grave; each act of the abominable drama, which was
carried on in perfect silence, being rounded off and finished with a
furious and most revolting dance round the supposed victim, who
writhed upon the ground in the red light of the bonfire.

Presently, however, this pleasing piece was interrupted. Suddenly
there was a slight commotion, and a large powerful woman, whom I had
noted as one of the most vigorous of the dancers, came, made mad and
drunken with unholy excitement, bounding and staggering towards us,
shrieking out as she came:--

"I want a Black Goat, I must have a Black Goat, bring me a Black
Goat!" and down she fell upon the rocky floor foaming and writhing,
and shrieking for a Black Goat, about as hideous a spectacle as can
well be conceived.

Instantly most of the dancers came up and got round her, though some
still continued their capers in the background.

"She has got a Devil," called out one of them. "Run and get a black
goat. There, Devil, keep quiet! keep quiet! You shall have the goat
presently. They have gone to fetch it, Devil."

"I want a Black Goat, I must have a Black Goat!" shrieked the foaming
rolling creature again.

"All right, Devil, the goat will be here presently; keep quiet,
there's a good Devil!"

And so on till the goat, taken from a neighbouring kraal, did at last
arrive, being dragged bleating on to the scene by its horns.

"Is it a Black One, is it a Black One?" shrieked the possessed.

"Yes, yes, Devil, as black as night;" then aside, "keep it behind
thee, don't let the Devil see that it has got a white spot on its rump
and another on its belly. In one minute, Devil. There, cut his throat
quick. Where is the saucer?"

"The Goat! the Goat! the Goat! Give me the blood of my black goat! I
must have it, don't you see I must have it? Oh! oh! oh! give me the
blood of the goat."

At this moment a terrified /bah!/ announced that the poor goat had
been sacrificed, and the next minute a woman ran up with a saucer full
of blood. This the possessed creature, who was then raving and foaming
her wildest, seized and /drank/, and was instantly recovered, and
without a trace of hysteria, or fits, or being possessed, or whatever
dreadful thing it was she was suffering from. She stretched her arms,
smiled faintly, and walked quietly back to the dancers, who presently
withdrew in a double line as they had come, leaving the space between
us and the bonfire deserted.

I thought that the entertainment was now over, and, feeling rather
queer, was about to ask /She/ if we could rise, when suddenly what at
first I took to be a baboon came hopping round the fire, and was
instantly met upon the other side by a lion, or rather a human being
dressed in a lion's skin. Then came a goat, then a man wrapped in an
ox's hide, with the horns wobbling about in a ludicrous way. After him
followed a blesbok, then an impala, then a koodoo, then more goats,
and many other animals, including a girl sewn up in the shining scaly
hide of a boa-constrictor, several yards of which trailed along the
ground behind her. When all the beasts had collected they began to
dance about in a lumbering, unnatural fashion, and to imitate the
sounds produced by the respective animals they represented, till the
whole air was alive with roars and bleating and the hissing of snakes.
This went on for a long time, till, getting tired of the pantomime, I
asked Ayesha if there would be any objection to Leo and myself walking
round to inspect the human torches, and, as she had nothing to say
against it, we started, striking round to the left. After looking at
one or two of the flaming bodies, we were about to return, thoroughly
disgusted with the grotesque weirdness of the spectacle, when our
attention was attracted by one of the dancers, a particularly active
leopard, that had separated itself from its fellow-beasts, and was
whisking about in our immediate neighbourhood, but gradually drawing
into a spot where the shadow was darkest, equidistant between two of
the flaming mummies. Drawn by curiosity, we followed it, when suddenly
it darted past us into the shadows beyond, and as it did so erected
itself and whispered, "Come," in a voice that we both recognised as
that of Ustane. Without waiting to consult me Leo turned and followed
her into the outer darkness, and I, feeling sick enough at heart, went
after them. The leopard crawled on for about fifty paces--a sufficient
distance to be quite beyond the light of the fire and torches--and
then Leo came up with it, or, rather, with Ustane.

"Oh, my lord," I heard her whisper, "so I have found thee! Listen. I
am in peril of my life from '/She-who-must-be-obeyed/.' Surely the
Baboon has told thee how she drove me from thee? I love thee, my lord,
and thou art mine according to the custom of the country. I saved thy
life! My Lion, wilt thou cast me off now?"

"Of course not," ejaculated Leo; "I have been wondering whither thou
hadst gone. Let us go and explain matters to the Queen."

"Nay, nay, she would slay us. Thou knowest not her power--the Baboon
there, he knoweth, for he saw. Nay, there is but one way: if thou wilt
cleave to me, thou must flee with me across the marshes even now, and
then perchance we may escape."

"For Heaven's sake, Leo," I began, but she broke in--

"Nay, listen not to him. Swift--be swift--death is in the air we
breathe. Even now, mayhap, /She/ heareth us," and without more ado she
proceeded to back her arguments by throwing herself into his arms. As
she did so the leopard's head slipped from her hair, and I saw the
three white finger-marks upon it, gleaming faintly in the starlight.
Once more realising the desperate nature of the position, I was about
to interpose, for I knew that Leo was not too strong-minded where
women were concerned, when--oh! horror!--I heard a little silvery
laugh behind me. I turned round, and there was /She/ herself, and with
her Billali and two male mutes. I gasped and nearly sank to the
ground, for I knew that such a situation must result in some dreadful
tragedy, of which it seemed exceedingly probable to me that I should
be the first victim. As for Ustane, she untwined her arms and covered
her eyes with her hands, while Leo, not knowing the full terror of the
position, merely covered up, and looked as foolish as a man caught in
such a trap would naturally do.



                                  XX

                               TRIUMPH

Then followed a moment of the most painful silence that I ever
endured. It was broken by Ayesha, who addressed herself to Leo.

"Nay, now, my lord and guest," she said in her softest tones, which
yet had the ring of steel about them, "look not so bashful. Surely the
sight was a pretty one--the leopard and the lion!"

"Oh, hang it all!" said Leo in English.

"And thou, Ustane," she went on, "surely I should have passed thee by,
had not the light fallen on the white across thy hair," and she
pointed to the bright edge of the rising moon which was now appearing
above the horizon. "Well! well! the dance is done--see, the tapers
have burnt down, and all things end in silence and in ashes. So thou
thoughtest it a fit time for love, Ustane, my servant--and I, dreaming
not that I could be disobeyed, thought thee already far away."

"Play not with me," moaned the wretched woman; "slay me, and let there
be an end."

"Nay, why? It is not well to go so swift from the hot lips of love
down to the cold mouth of the grave," and she made a motion to the
mutes, who instantly stepped up and caught the girl by either arm.
With an oath Leo sprang upon the nearest, and hurled him to the
ground, and then stood over him with his face set, and his fist ready.

Again Ayesha laughed. "It was well thrown, my guest; thou hast a
strong arm for one who so late was sick. But now out of thy courtesy I
pray thee let that man live and do my bidding. He shall not harm the
girl; the night air grows chill, and I would welcome her in mine own
place. Surely she whom thou dost favour shall be favoured of me also."

I took Leo by the arm, and pulled him from the prostrate mute, and he,
half bewildered, obeyed the pressure. Then we all set out for the cave
across the plateau, where a pile of white human ashes was all that
remained of the fire that had lit the dancing, for the dancers had
vanished.

In due course we gained Ayesha's boudoir--all too soon, it seemed to
me, having a sad presage of what was to come lying heavy on my heart.

Ayesha seated herself upon her cushions, and, having dismissed Job and
Billali, by signs bade the mutes tend the lamps and retire--all save
one girl, who was her favourite personal attendant. We three remained
standing, the unfortunate Ustane a little to the left of the rest of
us.

"Now, oh Holly," Ayesha began, "how came it that thou who didst hear
my words bidding this evil-doer"--and she pointed to Ustane--"to go
hence--thou at whose prayer I did weakly spare her life--how came it,
I say, that thou wast a sharer in what I saw to-night? Answer, and for
thine own sake, I say, speak all the truth, for I am not minded to
hear lies upon this matter!"

"It was by accident, oh Queen," I answered. "I knew naught of it."

"I do believe thee, oh Holly," she answered coldly, "and well it is
for thee that I do--then does the whole guilt rest upon her."

"I do not find any guilt therein," broke in Leo. "She is not another
man's wife, and it appears that she has married me according to the
custom of this awful place, so who is the worse? Any way, madam," he
went on, "whatever she has done I have done too, so if she is to be
punished let me be punished also; and I tell thee," he went on,
working himself up into a fury, "that if thou biddest one of those
dead and dumb villains to touch her again I will tear him to pieces!"
And he looked as though he meant it.

Ayesha listened in icy silence, and made no remark. When he had
finished, however, she addressed Ustane.

"Hast thou aught to say, woman? Thou silly straw, thou feather, who
didst think to float towards thy passion's petty ends, even against
the great wind of my will! Tell me, for I fain would understand. Why
didst thou this thing?"

And then I think I saw the most tremendous exhibition of moral courage
and intrepidity that it is possible to conceive. For the poor doomed
girl, knowing what she had to expect at the hands of her terrible
Queen, knowing, too, from bitter experience, how great was her
adversary's power, yet gathered herself together, and out of the very
depths of her despair drew materials to defy her.

"I did it, oh /She/," she answered, drawing herself up to the full of
her stately height, and throwing back the panther skin from her head,
"because my love is stronger than the grave. I did it because my life
without this man whom my heart chose would be but a living death.
Therefore did I risk my life, and, now that I know that it is forfeit
to thine anger, yet am I glad that I did risk it, and pay it away in
the risking, ay, because he embraced me once, and told me that he
loved me yet."

Here Ayesha half rose from her couch, and then sank down again.

"I have no magic," went on Ustane, her rich voice ringing strong and
full, "and I am not a Queen, nor do I live for ever, but a woman's
heart is heavy to sink through waters, however deep, oh Queen! and a
woman's eyes are quick to see--even through thy veil, oh Queen!

"Listen: I know it, thou dost love this man thyself, and therefore
wouldst thou destroy me who stand across thy path. Ay, I die--I die,
and go into the darkness, nor know I whither I go. But this I know.
There is a light shining in my breast, and by that light, as by a
lamp, I see the truth, and the future that I shall not share unroll
itself before me like a scroll. When first I knew my lord," and she
pointed to Leo, "I knew also that death would be the bridal gift he
gave me--it rushed upon me of a sudden, but I turned not back, being
ready to pay the price, and, behold, death is here! And now, even as I
knew that, so do I, standing on the steps of doom, know that thou
shalt not reap the profit of thy crime. Mine he is, and, though thy
beauty shine like a sun among the stars, mine shall he remain for
thee. Never here in this life shall he look thee in the eyes and call
thee spouse. Thou too art doomed, I see"--and her voice rang like the
cry of an inspired prophetess; "ah, I see----"

Then came an answering cry of mingled rage and terror. I turned my
head. Ayesha had risen, and was standing with her outstretched hand
pointing at Ustane, who had suddenly stopped speaking. I gazed at the
poor woman, and as I gazed there came upon her face that same woeful,
fixed expression of terror that I had seen once before when she had
broken out into her wild chant. Her eyes grew large, her nostrils
dilated, and her lips blanched.

Ayesha said nothing, she made no sound, she only drew herself up,
stretched out her arm, and, her tall veiled frame quivering like an
aspen leaf, appeared to look fixedly at her victim. Even as she did so
Ustane put her hands to her head, uttered one piercing scream, turned
round twice, and then fell backwards with a thud--prone upon the
floor. Both Leo and myself rushed to her--she was stone dead--blasted
into death by some mysterious electric agency or overwhelming will-
force whereof the dread /She/ had command.

For a moment Leo did not quite realise what had happened. But, when he
did, his face was awful to see. With a savage oath he rose from beside
the corpse, and, turning, literally sprang at Ayesha. But she was
watching, and, seeing him come, stretched out her hand again, and he
went staggering back towards me, and would have fallen, had I not
caught him. Afterwards he told me that he felt as though he had
suddenly received a violent blow in the chest, and, what is more,
utterly cowed, as if all the manhood had been taken out of him.

Then Ayesha spoke. "Forgive me, my guest," she said softly, addressing
him, "if I have shocked thee with my justice."

"Forgive thee, thou fiend," roared poor Leo, wringing his hands in his
rage and grief. "Forgive thee, thou murderess! By Heaven, I will kill
thee if I can!"

"Nay, nay," she answered in the same soft voice, "thou dost not
understand--the time has come for thee to learn. /Thou/ art my love,
my Kallikrates, my Beautiful, my Strong! For two thousand years,
Kallikrates, have I waited for /thee/, and now at length thou hast
come back to me; and as for this woman," pointing to the corpse, "she
stood between me and thee, and therefore have I laid her in the dust,
Kallikrates."

"It is an accursed lie!" said Leo. "My name is not Kallikrates! I am
Leo Vincey; my ancestor was Kallikrates--at least, I believe he was."

"Ah, thou sayest it--thine ancestor was Kallikrates, and thou, even
thou, art Kallikrates reborn, come back--and mine own dear lord!"

"I am not Kallikrates, and, as for being thy lord, or having aught to
do with thee, I had sooner be the lord of a fiend from hell, for she
would be better than thou."

"Sayest thou so--sayest thou so, Kallikrates? Nay, but thou hast not
seen me for so long a time that no memory remains. Yet am I very fair,
Kallikrates!"

"I hate thee, murderess, and I have no wish to see thee. What is it to
me how fair thou art? I hate thee, I say."

"Yet within a very little space shalt thou creep to my knee, and swear
that thou dost love me," answered Ayesha, with a sweet, mocking laugh.
"Come, there is no time like the present time, here before this dead
girl who loved thee, let us put it to the proof.

"Look now on me, Kallikrates!" and with a sudden motion she shook her
gauzy covering from her, and stood forth in her low kirtle and her
snaky zone, in her glorious radiant beauty and her imperial grace,
rising from her wrappings, as it were, like Venus from the wave, or
Galatea from her marble, or a beatified spirit from the tomb. She
stood forth, and fixed her deep and glowing eyes upon Leo's eyes, and
I saw his clenched fists unclasp, and his set and quivering features
relax beneath her gaze. I saw his wonder and astonishment grow into
admiration, and then into fascination, and the more he struggled the
more I saw the power of her dread beauty fasten on him and take
possession of his senses, drugging them, and drawing the heart out of
him. Did I not know the process? Had not I, who was twice his age,
gone through it myself? Was I not going through it afresh even then,
although her sweet and passionate gaze was not for me? Yes, alas, I
was! Alas, that I should have to confess that at that very moment I
was rent by mad and furious jealousy. I could have flown at him, shame
upon me! The woman had confounded and almost destroyed my moral sense,
as she was bound to confound all who looked upon her superhuman
loveliness. But--I do not quite know how--I got the better of myself,
and once more turned to see the climax of the tragedy.

"Oh, great Heaven!" gasped Leo, "art thou a woman?"

"A woman in truth--in very truth--and thine own spouse, Kallikrates!"
she answered, stretching out her rounded ivory arms towards him, and
smiling, ah, so sweetly!

He looked and looked, and slowly I perceived that he was drawing
nearer to her. Suddenly his eye fell upon the corpse of poor Ustane,
and he shuddered and stopped.

"How can I?" he said hoarsely. "Thou art a murderess; she loved me."

Observe, he was already forgetting that he had loved her.

"It is naught," she murmured, and her voice sounded sweet as the
night-wind passing through the trees. "It is naught at all. If I have
sinned, let my beauty answer for my sin. If I have sinned, it is for
love of thee: let my sin, therefore, be put away and forgotten;" and
once more she stretched out her arms and whispered "/Come/," and then
in another few seconds it was all over.

I saw him struggle--I saw him even turn to fly; but her eyes drew him
more strongly than iron bonds, and the magic of her beauty and
concentrated will and passion entered into him and overpowered him--
ay, even there, in the presence of the body of the woman who had loved
him well enough to die for him. It sounds horrible and wicked enough,
but he should not be too greatly blamed, and be sure his sin will find
him out. The temptress who drew him into evil was more than human, and
her beauty was greater than the loveliness of the daughters of men.

I looked up again and now her perfect form lay in his arms, and her
lips were pressed against his own; and thus, with the corpse of his
dead love for an altar, did Leo Vincey plight his troth to her red-
handed murderess--plight it for ever and a day. For those who sell
themselves into a like dominion, paying down the price of their own
honour, and throwing their soul into the balance to sink the scale to
the level of their lusts, can hope for no deliverance here or
hereafter. As they have sown, so shall they reap and reap, even when
the poppy flowers of passion have withered in their hands, and their
harvest is but bitter tares, garnered in satiety.

Suddenly, with a snake-like motion, she seemed to slip from his
embrace, and then again broke out into her low laugh of triumphant
mockery.

"Did I not tell thee that within a little space thou wouldst creep to
my knee, oh Kallikrates? And surely the space has not been a great
one!"

Leo groaned in shame and misery; for though he was overcome and
stricken down, he was not so lost as to be unaware of the depth of the
degradation to which he had sunk. On the contrary, his better nature
rose up in arms against his fallen self, as I saw clearly enough later
on.

Ayesha laughed again, and then quickly veiled herself, and made a sign
to the girl mute, who had been watching the whole scene with curious
startled eyes. The girl left, and presently returned, followed by two
male mutes, to whom the Queen made another sign. Thereon they all
three seized the body of poor Ustane by the arms, and dragged it
heavily down the cavern and away through the curtains at the end. Leo
watched it for a little while, and then covered his eyes with his
hand, and it too, to my excited fancy, seemed to watch us as it went.

"There passes the dead past," said Ayesha, solemnly, as the curtains
shook and fell back into their places, when the ghastly procession had
vanished behind them. And then, with one of those extraordinary
transitions of which I have already spoken, she again threw off her
veil, and broke out, after the ancient and poetic fashion of the
dwellers in Arabia,[*] into a pæan of triumph or epithalamium, which,
wild and beautiful as it was, is exceedingly difficult to render into
English, and ought by rights to be sung to the music of a cantata,
rather than written and read. It was divided into two parts--one
descriptive or definitive, and the other personal; and, as nearly as I
can remember, ran as follows:--

  Love is like a flower in the desert.

  It is like the aloe of Arabia that blooms but once and dies; it
  blooms in the salt emptiness of Life, and the brightness of its
  beauty is set upon the waste as a star is set upon a storm.

  It hath the sun above that is the Spirit, and above it blows the
  air of its divinity.

  At the echoing of a step, Love blooms, I say; I say Love blooms,
  and bends her beauty down to him who passeth by.

  He plucketh it, yea, he plucketh the red cup that is full of
  honey, and beareth it away; away across the desert, away till the
  flower be withered, away till the desert be done.

  There is only one perfect flower in the wilderness of Life.

  That flower is Love!

  There is only one fixed star in the midsts of our wandering.

  That star is Love!

  There is only one hope in our despairing night.

  That hope is Love!

  All else is false. All else is shadow moving upon water. All else
  is wind and vanity.

  Who shall say what is the weight or the measure of Love?

  It is born of the flesh, it dwelleth in the spirit. From each doth
  it draw its comfort.

  For beauty it is as a star.

  Many are its shapes, but all are beautiful, and none know where
  the star rose, or the horizon where it shall set.

[*] Among the ancient Arabians the power of poetic declamation, either
    in verse or prose, was held in the highest honour and esteem, and
    he who excelled in it was known as "Khâteb," or Orator. Every year
    a general assembly was held at which the rival poets repeated
    their compositions, when those poems which were judged to be the
    best were, so soon as the knowledge and the art of writing became
    general, inscribed on silk in letters of gold, and publicly
    exhibited, being known as "Al Modhahabât," or golden verses. In
    the poem given above by Mr. Holly, Ayesha evidently followed the
    traditional poetic manner of her people, which was to embody their
    thoughts in a series of somewhat disconnected sentences, each
    remarkable for its beauty and the grace of its expression.
    --Editor.

Then, turning to Leo, and laying her hand upon his shoulder, she went
on in a fuller and more triumphant tone, speaking in balanced
sentences that gradually grew and swelled from idealised prose into
pure and majestic verse:--

  Long have I loved thee, oh, my love; yet has my love not lessened.

  Long have I waited for thee, and behold my reward is at hand--is
  here!

  Far away I saw thee once, and thou wast taken from me.

  Then in a grave sowed I the seed of patience, and shone upon it
  with the sun of hope, and watered it with tears of repentance, and
  breathed on it with the breath of my knowledge. And now, lo! it
  hath sprung up, and borne fruit. Lo! out of the grave hath it
  sprung. Yea, from among the dry bones and ashes of the dead.

  I have waited and my reward is with me.

  I have overcome Death, and Death brought back to me him that was
  dead.

  Therefore do I rejoice, for fair is the future.

  Green are the paths that we shall tread across the everlasting
  meadows.

  The hour is at hand. Night hath fled away into the valleys.

  The dawn kisseth the mountain tops.

  Soft shall we live, my love, and easy shall we go.

  Crowned shall we be with the diadem of Kings.

  Worshipping and wonder struck all peoples of the world,
  Blinded shall fall before our beauty and might.

  From time unto times shall our greatness thunder on,
  Rolling like a chariot through the dust of endless days.

  Laughing shall we speed in our victory and pomp,
  Laughing like the Daylight as he leaps along the hills.

  Onward, still triumphant to a triumph ever new!

  Onward, in our power to a power unattained!

  Onward, never weary, clad with splendour for a robe!

  Till accomplished be our fate, and the night is rushing down.

She paused in her strange and most thrilling allegorical chant, of
which I am, unfortunately, only able to give the burden, and that
feebly enough, and then said--

"Perchance thou dost not believe my word, Kallikrates--perchance thou
thinkest that I do delude thee, and that I have not lived these many
years, and that thou hast not been born again to me. Nay, look not so
--put away that pale cast of doubt, for oh be sure herein can error
find no foothold! Sooner shall the suns forget their course and the
swallow miss her nest, than my soul shall swear a lie and be led
astray from thee, Kallikrates. Blind me, take away mine eyes, and let
the darkness utterly fence me in, and still mine ears would catch the
tone of thy unforgotten voice, striking more loud against the portals
of my sense than can the call of brazen-throated clarions:--stop up
mine hearing also, and let a thousand touch me on the brow, and I
would name thee out of all:--yea, rob me of every sense, and see me
stand deaf and blind, and dumb, and with nerves that cannot weigh the
value of a touch, yet would my spirit leap within me like a quickening
child and cry unto my heart, behold Kallikrates! behold, thou watcher,
the watches of thy night are ended! behold thou who seekest in the
night season, thy morning Star ariseth."

She paused awhile and then continued, "But stay, if thy heart is yet
hardened against the mighty truth and thou dost require a further
pledge of that which thou dost find too deep to understand, even now
shall it be given to thee, and to thee also, oh my Holly. Bear each
one of you a lamp, and follow after me whither I shall lead you."

Without stopping to think--indeed, speaking for myself, I had almost
abandoned the function in circumstances under which to think seemed to
be absolutely useless, since thought fell hourly helpless against a
black wall of wonder--we took the lamps and followed her. Going to the
end of her "boudoir," she raised a curtain and revealed a little stair
of the sort that is so common in these dim caves of Kôr. As we hurried
down the stair I observed that the steps were worn in the centre to
such an extent that some of them had been reduced from seven and a
half inches, at which I guessed their original height, to about three
and a half. Now, all the other steps that I had seen in the caves were
practically unworn, as was to be expected, seeing that the only
traffic which ever passed upon them was that of those who bore a fresh
burden to the tomb. Therefore this fact struck my notice with that
curious force with which little things do strike us when our minds are
absolutely overwhelmed by a sudden rush of powerful sensations; beaten
flat, as it were, like a sea beneath the first burst of a hurricane,
so that every little object on the surface starts into an unnatural
prominence.

At the bottom of the staircase I stood and stared at the worn steps,
and Ayesha, turning, saw me.

"Wonderest thou whose are the feet that have worn away the rock, my
Holly?" she asked. "They are mine--even mine own light feet! I can
remember when those stairs were fresh and level, but for two thousand
years and more have I gone down hither day by day, and see, my sandals
have worn out the solid rock!"

I made no answer, but I do not think that anything that I had heard or
seen brought home to my limited understanding so clear a sense of this
being's overwhelming antiquity as that hard rock hollowed out by her
soft white feet. How many hundreds of thousands of times must she have
passed up and down that stair to bring about such a result?

The stair led to a tunnel, and a few paces down the tunnel was one of
the usual curtain-hung doorways, a glance at which told me that it was
the same where I had been a witness of that terrible scene by the
leaping flame. I recognised the pattern of the curtain, and the sight
of it brought the whole event vividly before my eyes, and made me
tremble even at its memory. Ayesha entered the tomb (for it was a
tomb), and we followed her--I, for one, rejoicing that the mystery of
the place was about to be cleared up, and yet afraid to face its
solution.



                                 XXI

                       THE DEAD AND LIVING MEET

"See now the place where I have slept for these two thousand years,"
said Ayesha, taking the lamp from Leo's hand and holding it above her
head. Its rays fell upon a little hollow in the floor, where I had
seen the leaping flame, but the fire was out now. They fell upon the
white form stretched there beneath its wrappings upon its bed of
stone, upon the fretted carving of the tomb, and upon another shelf of
stone opposite the one on which the body lay, and separated from it by
the breadth of the cave.

"Here," went on Ayesha, laying her hand upon the rock--"here have I
slept night by night for all these generations, with but a cloak to
cover me. It did not become me that I should lie soft when my spouse
yonder," and she pointed to the rigid form, "lay stiff in death. Here
night by night have I slept in his cold company--till, thou seest,
this thick slab, like the stairs down which we passed, has worn thin
with the tossing of my form--so faithful have I been to thee even in
thy space of sleep, Kallikrates. And now, mine own, thou shalt see a
wonderful thing--living, thou shalt behold thyself dead--for well have
I tended thee during all these years, Kallikrates. Art thou prepared?"

We made no answer, but gazed at each other with frightened eyes, the
whole scene was so dreadful and so solemn. Ayesha advanced, and laid
her hand upon the corner of the shroud, and once more spoke.

"Be not affrighted," she said; "though the thing seem wonderful to
thee--all we who live have thus lived before; nor is the very shape
that holds us a stranger to the sun! Only we know it not, because
memory writes no record, and earth hath gathered in the earth she lent
us, for none have saved our glory from the grave. But I, by my arts
and by the arts of those dead men of Kôr which I have learned, have
held thee back, oh Kallikrates, from the dust, that the waxen stamp of
beauty on thy face should ever rest before mine eye. 'Twas a mask that
memory might fill, serving to fashion out thy presence from the past,
and give it strength to wander in the habitations of my thought, clad
in a mummery of life that stayed my appetite with visions of dead
days.

"Behold now, let the Dead and Living meet! Across the gulf of Time
they still are one. Time hath no power against Identity, though sleep
the merciful hath blotted out the tablets of our mind, and with
oblivion sealed the sorrows that else would hound us from life to
life, stuffing the brain with gathered griefs till it burst in the
madness of uttermost despair. Still are they one, for the wrappings of
our sleep shall roll away as thunder-clouds before the wind; the
frozen voice of the past shall melt in music like mountain snows
beneath the sun; and the weeping and the laughter of the lost hours
shall be heard once more most sweetly echoing up the cliffs of
immeasurable time.

"Ay, the sleep shall roll away, and the voices shall be heard, when
down the completed chain, whereof our each existence is a link, the
lightning of the Spirit hath passed to work out the purpose of our
being; quickening and fusing those separated days of life, and shaping
them to a staff whereon we may safely lean as we wend to our appointed
fate.

"Therefore, have no fear, Kallikrates, when thou--living, and but
lately born--shalt look upon thine own departed self, who breathed and
died so long ago. I do but turn one page in thy Book of Being, and
show thee what is writ thereon.

"/Behold!/"

With a sudden motion she drew the shroud from the cold form, and let
the lamplight play upon it. I looked, and then shrank back terrified;
since, say what she might in explanation, the sight was an uncanny
one--for her explanations were beyond the grasp of our finite minds,
and when they were stripped from the mists of vague esoteric
philosophy, and brought into conflict with the cold and horrifying
fact, did not do much to break its force. For there, stretched upon
the stone bier before us, robed in white and perfectly preserved, was
what appeared to be the body of Leo Vincey. I stared from Leo,
standing /there/ alive, to Leo lying /there/ dead, and could see no
difference; except, perhaps, that the body on the bier looked older.
Feature for feature they were the same, even down to the crop of
little golden curls, which was Leo's most uncommon beauty. It even
seemed to me, as I looked, that the expression on the dead man's face
resembled that which I had sometimes seen upon Leo's when he was
plunged into profound sleep. I can only sum up the closeness of the
resemblance by saying that I never saw twins so exactly similar as
that dead and living pair.

I turned to see what effect was produced upon Leo by the sight of his
dead self, and found it to be one of partial stupefaction. He stood
for two or three minutes staring, and said nothing, and when at last
he spoke it was only to ejaculate--

"Cover it up, and take me away."

"Nay, wait, Kallikrates," said Ayesha, who, standing with the lamp
raised above her head, flooding with its light her own rich beauty and
the cold wonder of the death-clothed form upon the bier, resembled an
inspired Sibyl rather than a woman, as she rolled out her majestic
sentences with a grandeur and a freedom of utterance which I am, alas!
quite unable to reproduce.

"Wait, I would show thee something, that no tittle of my crime may be
hidden from thee. Do thou, oh Holly, open the garment on the breast of
the dead Kallikrates, for perchance my lord may fear to touch it
himself."

I obeyed with trembling hands. It seemed a desecration and an
unhallowed thing to touch that sleeping image of the live man by my
side. Presently his broad chest was bare, and there upon it, right
over the heart, was a wound, evidently inflicted with a spear.

"Thou seest, Kallikrates," she said. "Know then that it was /I/ who
slew thee: in the Place of Life /I/ gave thee death. I slew thee
because of the Egyptian Amenartas, whom thou didst love, for by her
wiles she held thy heart, and her I could not smite as but now I smote
that woman, for she was too strong for me. In my haste and bitter
anger I slew thee, and now for all these days have I lamented thee,
and waited for thy coming. And thou hast come, and none can stand
between thee and me, and of a truth now for death I will give thee
life--not life eternal, for that none can give, but life and youth
that shall endure for thousands upon thousands of years, and with it
pomp, and power, and wealth, and all things that are good and
beautiful, such as have been to no man before thee, nor shall be to
any man who comes after. And now one thing more, and thou shalt rest
and make ready for the day of thy new birth. Thou seest this body,
which was thine own. For all these centuries it hath been my cold
comfort and my companion, but now I need it no more, for I have thy
living presence, and it can but serve to stir up memories of that
which I would fain forget. Let it therefore go back to the dust from
which I held it.

"Behold! I have prepared against this happy hour!" And going to the
other shelf or stone ledge, which she said had served her for a bed,
she took from it a large vitrified double-handed vase, the mouth of
which was tied up with a bladder. This she loosed, and then, having
bent down and gently kissed the white forehead of the dead man, she
undid the vase, and sprinkled its contents carefully over the form,
taking, I observed, the greatest precautions against any drop of them
touching us or herself, and then poured out what remained of the
liquid upon the chest and head. Instantly a dense vapour arose, and
the cave was filled with choking fumes that prevented us from seeing
anything while the deadly acid (for I presume it was some tremendous
preparation of that sort) did its work. From the spot where the body
lay came a fierce fizzing and cracking sound, which ceased, however,
before the fumes had cleared away. At last they were all gone, except
a little cloud that still hung over the corpse. In a couple of minutes
more this too had vanished, and, wonderful as it may seem, it is a
fact that on the stone bench that had supported the mortal remains of
the ancient Kallikrates for so many centuries there was now nothing to
be seen but a few handfuls of smoking white powder. The acid had
utterly destroyed the body, and even in places eaten into the stone.
Ayesha stooped down, and, taking a handful of this powder in her
grasp, threw it into the air, saying at the same time, in a voice of
calm solemnity--

"Dust to dust!--the past to the past!--the dead to the dead!--
Kallikrates is dead, and is born again!"

The ashes floated noiselessly to the rocky floor, and we stood in awed
silence and watched them fall, too overcome for words.

"Now leave me," she said, "and sleep if ye may. I must watch and
think, for to-morrow night we go hence, and the time is long since I
trod the path that we must follow."

Accordingly we bowed, and left her.

As we passed to our own apartment I peeped into Job's sleeping place,
to see how he fared, for he had gone away just before our interview
with the murdered Ustane, quite prostrated by the terrors of the
Amahagger festivity. He was sleeping soundly, good honest fellow that
he was, and I rejoiced to think that his nerves, which, like those of
most uneducated people, were far from strong, had been spared the
closing scenes of this dreadful day. Then we entered our own chamber,
and here at last poor Leo, who, ever since he had looked upon that
frozen image of his living self, had been in a state not far removed
from stupefaction, burst out into a torrent of grief. Now that he was
no longer in the presence of the dread /She/, his sense of the
awfulness of all that had happened, and more especially of the wicked
murder of Ustane, who was bound to him by ties so close, broke upon
him like a storm, and lashed him into an agony of remorse and terror
which was painful to witness. He cursed himself--he cursed the hour
when we had first seen the writing on the sherd, which was being so
mysteriously verified, and bitterly he cursed his own weakness. Ayesha
he dared not curse--who dared speak evil of such a woman, whose
consciousness, for aught we knew, was watching us at the very moment?

"What am I to do, old fellow?" he groaned, resting his head against my
shoulder in the extremity of his grief. "I let her be killed--not that
I could help that, but within five minutes I was kissing her murderess
over her body. I am a degraded brute, but I cannot resist that" (and
here his voice sank)--"that awful sorceress. I know I shall do it
again to-morrow; I know that I am in her power for always; if I never
saw her again I should never think of anybody else during all my life;
I must follow her as a needle follows a magnet; I would not go away
now if I could; I could not leave her, my legs would not carry me, but
my mind is still clear enough, and in my mind I hate her--at least, I
think so. It is all so horrible; and that--that body! What can I make
of it? It was /I/! I am sold into bondage, old fellow, and she will
take my soul as the price of herself!"

Then, for the first time, I told him that I was in a but very little
better position; and I am bound to say that, notwithstanding his own
infatuation, he had the decency to sympathise with me. Perhaps he did
not think it worth while being jealous, realising that he had no cause
so far as the lady was concerned. I went on to suggest that we should
try to run away, but we soon rejected the project as futile, and, to
be perfectly honest, I do not believe that either of us would really
have left Ayesha even if some superior power had suddenly offered to
convey us from these gloomy caves and set us down in Cambridge. We
could no more have left her than a moth can leave the light that
destroys it. We were like confirmed opium-eaters: in our moments of
reason we well knew the deadly nature of our pursuit, but we certainly
were not prepared to abandon its terrible delights.

No man who once had seen /She/ unveiled, and heard the music of her
voice, and drunk in the bitter wisdom of her words, would willingly
give up the sight for a whole sea of placid joys. How much more, then,
was this likely to be so when, as in Leo's case, to put myself out of
the question, this extraordinary creature declared her utter and
absolute devotion, and gave what appeared to be proofs of its having
lasted for some two thousand years?

No doubt she was a wicked person, and no doubt she had murdered Ustane
when she stood in her path, but then she was very faithful, and by a
law of nature man is apt to think but lightly of a woman's crimes,
especially if that woman be beautiful, and the crime be committed for
the love of him.

And then, for the rest, when had such a chance ever come to a man
before as that which now lay in Leo's hand? True, in uniting himself
to this dread woman, he would place his life under the influence of a
mysterious creature of evil tendencies,[*] but then that would be
likely enough to happen to him in any ordinary marriage. On the other
hand, however, no ordinary marriage could bring him such awful beauty
--for awful is the only word that can describe it--such divine
devotion, such wisdom, and command over the secrets of nature, and the
place and power that they must win, or, lastly, the royal crown of
unending youth, if indeed she could give that. No, on the whole, it is
not wonderful that, though Leo was plunged in bitter shame and grief,
such as any gentleman would have felt under the circumstances, he was
not ready to entertain the idea of running away from his extraordinary
fortune.

[*] After some months of consideration of this statement I am bound to
    confess that I am not quite satisfied of its truth. It is
    perfectly true that Ayesha committed a murder, but I shrewdly
    suspect that, were we endowed with the same absolute power, and if
    we had the same tremendous interest at stake, we would be very apt
    to do likewise under parallel circumstances. Also, it must be
    remembered that she looked on it as an execution for disobedience
    under a system which made the slightest disobedience punishable by
    death. Putting aside this question of the murder, her evil-doing
    resolves itself into the expression of views and the
    acknowledgment of motives which are contrary to our preaching if
    not to our practice. Now at first sight this might be fairly taken
    as a proof of an evil nature, but when we come to consider the
    great antiquity of the individual it becomes doubtful if it was
    anything more than the natural cynicism which arises from age and
    bitter experience, and the possession of extraordinary powers of
    observation. It is a well known fact that very often, putting the
    period of boyhood out of the question, the older we grow the more
    cynical and hardened we get; indeed many of us are only saved by
    timely death from utter moral petrifaction if not moral
    corruption. No one will deny that a young man is on the average
    better than an old one, for he is without that experience of the
    order of things that in certain thoughtful dispositions can hardly
    fail to produce cynicism, and that disregard of acknowledged
    methods and established custom which we call evil. Now the oldest
    man upon the earth was but a babe compared to Ayesha, and the
    wisest man upon the earth was not one-third as wise. And the fruit
    of her wisdom was this, that there was but one thing worth living
    for, and that was Love in its highest sense, and to gain that good
    thing she was not prepared to stop at trifles. This is really the
    sum of her evil doings, and it must be remembered, on the other
    hand, that, whatever may be thought of them, she had some virtues
    developed to a degree very uncommon in either sex--constancy, for
    instance.--L. H. H.

My own opinion is that he would have been mad if he had done so. But
then I confess that my statement on the matter must be accepted with
qualifications. I am in love with Ayesha myself to this day, and I
would rather have been the object of her affection for one short week
than that of any other woman in the world for a whole lifetime. And
let me add that, if anybody who doubts this statement, and thinks me
foolish for making it, could have seen Ayesha draw her veil and flash
out in beauty on his gaze, his view would exactly coincide with my
own. Of course, I am speaking of any /man/. We never had the advantage
of a lady's opinion of Ayesha, but I think it quite possible that she
would have regarded the Queen with dislike, would have expressed her
disapproval in some more or less pointed manner, and ultimately have
got herself blasted.

For two hours or more Leo and I sat with shaken nerves and frightened
eyes, and talked over the miraculous events through which we were
passing. It seemed like a dream or a fairy tale, instead of the
solemn, sober fact. Who would have believed that the writing on the
potsherd was not only true, but that we should live to verify its
truth, and that we two seekers should find her who was sought,
patiently awaiting our coming in the tombs of Kôr? Who would have
thought that in the person of Leo this mysterious woman should, as she
believed, discover the being whom she awaited from century to century,
and whose former earthly habitation she had till this very night
preserved? But so it was. In the face of all we had seen it was
difficult for us as ordinary reasoning men any longer to doubt its
truth, and therefore at last, with humble hearts and a deep sense of
the impotence of human knowledge, and the insolence of its assumption
that denies that to be possible which it has no experience of, we laid
ourselves down to sleep, leaving our fates in the hands of that
watching Providence which had thus chosen to allow us to draw the veil
of human ignorance, and reveal to us for good or evil some glimpse of
the possibilities of life.



                                 XXII

                        JOB HAS A PRESENTIMENT

It was nine o'clock on the following morning when Job, who still
looked scared and frightened, came in to call me, and at the same time
breathe his gratitude at finding us alive in our beds, which it
appeared was more than he had expected. When I told him of the awful
end of poor Ustane he was even more grateful at our survival, and much
shocked, though Ustane had been no favourite of his, or he of hers,
for the matter of that. She called him "pig" in bastard Arabic, and he
called her "hussy" in good English, but these amenities were forgotten
in the face of the catastrophe that had overwhelmed her at the hands
of her Queen.

"I don't want to say anything as mayn't be agreeable, sir," said Job,
when he had finished exclaiming at my tale, "but it's my opinion that
that there /She/ is the old gentleman himself, or perhaps his wife, if
he has one, which I suppose he has, for he couldn't be so wicked all
by himself. The Witch of Endor was a fool to her, sir: bless you, she
would make no more of raising every gentleman in the Bible out of
these here beastly tombs than I should of growing cress on an old
flannel. It's a country of devils, this is, sir, and she's the master
one of the lot; and if ever we get out of it it will be more than I
expect to do. I don't see no way out of it. That witch isn't likely to
let a fine young man like Mr. Leo go."

"Come," I said, "at any rate she saved his life."

"Yes, and she'll take his soul to pay for it. She'll make him a witch,
like herself. I say it's wicked to have anything to do with those sort
of people. Last night, sir, I lay awake and read in my little Bible
that my poor old mother gave me about what is going to happen to
sorceresses and them sort, till my hair stood on end. Lord, how the
old lady would stare if she saw where her Job had got to!"

"Yes, it's a queer country, and a queer people too, Job," I answered,
with a sigh, for, though I am not superstitious like Job, I admit to a
natural shrinking (which will not bear investigation) from the things
that are above Nature.

"You are right, sir," he answered, "and if you won't think me very
foolish, I should like to say something to you now that Mr. Leo is out
of the way"--(Leo had got up early and gone for a stroll)--"and that
is that I know it is the last country as ever I shall see in this
world. I had a dream last night, and I dreamed that I saw my old
father with a kind of night-shirt on him, something like these folks
wear when they want to be in particular full-dress, and a bit of that
feathery grass in his hand, which he may have gathered on the way, for
I saw lots of it yesterday about three hundred yards from the mouth of
this beastly cave.

"'Job,' he said to me, solemn like, and yet with a kind of
satisfaction shining through him, more like a Methody parson when he
has sold a neighbour a marked horse for a sound one and cleared twenty
pounds by the job than anything I can think on--'Job, time's up, Job;
but I never did expect to have to come and hunt you out in this 'ere
place, Job. Such ado as I have had to nose you up; it wasn't friendly
to give your poor old father such a run, let alone that a wonderful
lot of bad characters hail from this place Kôr.'"

"Regular cautions," I suggested.

"Yes, sir--of course, sir, that's just what he said they was--
'cautions, downright scorchers'--sir, and I'm sure I don't doubt it,
seeing what I know of them, and their hot-potting ways," went on Job
sadly. "Anyway, he was sure that time was up, and went away saying
that we should see more than we cared for of each other soon, and I
suppose he was a-thinking of the fact that father and I never could
hit it off together for longer nor three days, and I daresay that
things will be similar when we meet again."

"Surely," I said, "you don't think that you are going to die because
you dreamed you saw your old father; if one dies because one dreams of
one's father, what happens to a man who dreams of his mother-in-law?"

"Ah, sir, you're laughing at me," said Job; "but, you see, you didn't
know my old father. If it had been anybody else--my Aunt Mary, for
instance, who never made much of a job--I should not have thought so
much of it; but my father was that idle, which he shouldn't have been
with seventeen children, that he would never have put himself out to
come here just to see the place. No, sir; I know that he meant
business. Well, sir, I can't help it; I suppose every man must go some
time or other, though it is a hard thing to die in a place like this,
where Christian burial isn't to be had for its weight in gold. I've
tried to be a good man, sir, and do my duty honest, and if it wasn't
for the supercilus kind of way in which father carried on last night--
a sort of sniffing at me as it were, as though he hadn't no opinion of
my references and testimonials--I should feel easy enough in my mind.
Any way, sir, I've been a good servant to you and Mr. Leo, bless him!
--why, it seems but the other day that I used to lead him about the
streets with a penny whip;--and if ever you get out of this place--
which, as father didn't allude to you, perhaps you may--I hope you
will think kindly of my whitened bones, and never have anything more
to do with Greek writing on flower-pots, sir, if I may make so bold as
to say so."

"Come, come, Job," I said seriously, "this is all nonsense, you know.
You mustn't be silly enough to go getting such ideas into your head.
We've lived through some queer things, and I hope that we may go on
doing so."

"No, sir," answered Job, in a tone of conviction that jarred on me
unpleasantly, "it isn't nonsense. I'm a doomed man, and I feel it, and
a wonderful uncomfortable feeling it is, sir, for one can't help
wondering how it's going to come about. If you are eating your dinner
you think of poison and it goes against your stomach, and if you are
walking along these dark rabbit-burrows you think of knives, and Lord,
don't you just shiver about the back! I ain't particular, sir,
provided it's sharp, like that poor girl, who, now that she's gone, I
am sorry to have spoke hard on, though I don't approve of her morals
in getting married, which I consider too quick to be decent. Still,
sir," and poor Job turned a shade paler as he said it, "I do hope it
won't be that hot-pot game."

"Nonsense," I broke in angrily, "nonsense!"

"Very well, sir," said Job, "it isn't my place to differ from you,
sir, but if you happen to be going anywhere, sir, I should be obliged
if you could manage to take me with you, seeing that I shall be glad
to have a friendly face to look at when the time comes, just to help
one through, as it were. And now, sir, I'll be getting the breakfast,"
and he went, leaving me in a very uncomfortable state of mind. I was
deeply attached to old Job, who was one of the best and honestest men
I have ever had to do with in any class of life, and really more of a
friend than a servant, and the mere idea of anything happening to him
brought a lump into my throat. Beneath all his ludicrous talk I could
see that he himself was quite convinced that something was going to
happen, and though in most cases these convictions turn out to be
utter moonshine--and this particular one especially was to be amply
accounted for by the gloomy and unaccustomed surroundings in which its
victim was placed--still it did more or less carry a chill to my
heart, as any dread that is obviously a genuine object of belief is
apt to do, however absurd the belief may be. Presently the breakfast
arrived, and with it Leo, who had been taking a walk outside the cave
--to clear his mind, he said--and very glad I was to see both, for
they gave me a respite from my gloomy thoughts. After breakfast we
went for another walk, and watched some of the Amahagger sowing a plot
of ground with the grain from which they make their beer. This they
did in scriptural fashion--a man with a bag made of goat's hide
fastened round his waist walking up and down the plot and scattering
the seed as he went. It was a positive relief to see one of these
dreadful people do anything so homely and pleasant as sow a field,
perhaps because it seemed to link them, as it were, with the rest of
humanity.

As we were returning Billali met us, and informed us that it was
/She's/ pleasure that we should wait upon her, and accordingly we
entered her presence, not without trepidation, for Ayesha was
certainly an exception to the rule. Familiarity with her might and did
breed passion and wonder and horror, but it certainly did /not/ breed
contempt.

We were as usual shown in by the mutes, and after these had retired
Ayesha unveiled, and once more bade Leo embrace her, which,
notwithstanding his heart-searchings of the previous night, he did
with more alacrity and fervour than in strictness courtesy required.

She laid her white hand on his head, and looked him fondly in the
eyes. "Dost thou wonder, my Kallikrates," she said, "when thou shalt
call me all thine own, and when we shall of a truth be for one another
and to one another? I will tell thee. First, must thou be even as I
am, not immortal indeed, for that I am not, but so cased and hardened
against the attacks of Time that his arrows shall glance from the
armour of thy vigorous life as the sunbeams glance from water. As yet
I may not mate with thee, for thou and I are different, and the very
brightness of my being would burn thee up, and perchance destroy thee.
Thou couldst not even endure to look upon me for too long a time lest
thine eyes should ache, and thy senses swim, and therefore" (with a
little nod) "shall I presently veil myself again." (This by the way
she did not do.) "No: listen, thou shalt not be tried beyond
endurance, for this very evening, an hour before the sun goes down,
shall we start hence, and by to-morrow's dark, if all goes well, and
the road is not lost to me, which I pray it may not be, shall we stand
in the place of Life, and thou shalt bathe in the fire, and come forth
glorified, as no man ever was before thee, and then, Kallikrates,
shalt thou call me wife, and I will call thee husband."

Leo muttered something in answer to this astonishing statement, I do
not know what, and she laughed a little at his confusion, and went on.

"And thou, too, oh Holly; on thee also will I confer this boon, and
then of a truth shalt thou be evergreen, and this will I do--well,
because thou hast pleased me, Holly, for thou art not altogether a
fool, like most of the sons of men, and because, though thou hast a
school of philosophy as full of nonsense as those of the old days, yet
hast thou not forgotten how to turn a pretty phrase about a lady's
eyes."

"Hulloa, old fellow!" whispered Leo, with a return of his old
cheerfulness, "have you been paying compliments? I should never have
thought it of you!"

"I thank thee, oh Ayesha," I replied, with as much dignity as I could
command, "but if there be such a place as thou dost describe, and if
in this strange place there may be found a fiery virtue that can hold
off Death when he comes to pluck us by the hand, yet would I none of
it. For me, oh Ayesha, the world has not proved so soft a nest that I
would lie in it for ever. A stony-hearted mother is our earth, and
stones are the bread she gives her children for their daily food.
Stones to eat and bitter water for their thirst, and stripes for
tender nurture. Who would endure this for many lives? Who would so
load up his back with memories of lost hours and loves, and of his
neighbour's sorrows that he cannot lessen, and wisdom that brings not
consolation? Hard is it to die, because our delicate flesh doth shrink
back from the worm it will not feel, and from that unknown which the
winding-sheet doth curtain from our view. But harder still, to my
fancy, would it be to live on, green in the leaf and fair, but dead
and rotten at the core, and feel that other secret worm of
recollection gnawing ever at the heart."

"Bethink thee, Holly," she said; "yet doth long life and strength and
beauty beyond measure mean power and all things that are dear to man."

"And what, oh Queen," I answered, "are those things that are dear to
man? Are they not bubbles? Is not ambition but an endless ladder by
which no height is ever climbed till the last unreachable rung is
mounted? For height leads on to height, and there is no resting-place
upon them, and rung doth grow upon rung, and there is no limit to the
number. Doth not wealth satiate, and become nauseous, and no longer
serve to satisfy or pleasure, or to buy an hour's peace of mind? And
is there any end to wisdom that we may hope to reach it? Rather, the
more we learn, shall we not thereby be able only to better compass out
our ignorance? Did we live ten thousand years could we hope to solve
the secrets of the suns, and of the space beyond the suns, and of the
Hand that hung them in the heavens? Would not our wisdom be but as a
gnawing hunger calling our consciousness day by day to a knowledge of
the empty craving of our souls? Would it not be but as a light in one
of these great caverns, that, though bright it burn, and brighter yet,
doth but the more serve to show the depths of the gloom around it? And
what good thing is there beyond that we may gain by length of days?"

"Nay, my Holly, there is love--love which makes all things beautiful,
and doth breathe divinity into the very dust we tread. With love shall
life roll gloriously on from year to year, like the voice of some
great music that hath power to hold the hearer's heart poised on
eagles' wings above the sordid shame and folly of the earth."

"It may be so," I answered; "but if the loved one prove a broken reed
to pierce us, or if the love be loved in vain--what then? Shall a man
grave his sorrows upon a stone when he hath but need to write them on
the water? Nay, oh /She/, I will live my day, and grow old with my
generation, and die my appointed death, and be forgotten. For I do
hope for an immortality to which the little span that perchance thou
canst confer will be but as a finger's length laid against the measure
of the great world; and, mark this! the immortality to which I look,
and which my faith doth promise me, shall be free from the bonds that
here must tie my spirit down. For, while the flesh endures, sorrow and
evil and the scorpion whips of sin must endure also; but when the
flesh hath fallen from us, then shall the spirit shine forth clad in
the brightness of eternal good, and for its common air shall breathe
so rare an ether of most noble thoughts that the highest aspiration of
our manhood, or the purest incense of a maiden's prayer, would prove
too earthly gross to float therein."


"Thou lookest high," answered Ayesha, with a little laugh, "and
speakest clearly as a trumpet and with no uncertain sound. And yet
methinks that but now didst thou talk of 'that Unknown' from which the
winding-sheet doth curtain us. But perchance, thou seest with the eye
of Faith, gazing on that brightness, that is to be, through the
painted-glass of thy imagination. Strange are the pictures of the
future that mankind can thus draw with this brush of faith and this
many-coloured pigment of imagination! Strange, too, that no one of
them doth agree with another! I could tell thee--but there, what is
the use? why rob a fool of his bauble? Let it pass, and I pray, oh
Holly, that when thou dost feel old age creeping slowly toward
thyself, and the confusion of senility making havoc in thy brain, thou
mayest not bitterly regret that thou didst cast away the imperial boon
I would have given to thee. But so it hath ever been; man can never be
content with that which his hand can pluck. If a lamp be in his reach
to light him through the darkness, he must needs cast it down because
it is no star. Happiness danceth ever apace before him, like the
marsh-fires in the swamps, and he must catch the fire, and he must
hold the star! Beauty is naught to him, because there are lips more
honey-sweet; and wealth is naught, because others can weigh him down
with heavier shekels; and fame is naught, because there have been
greater men than he. Thyself thou saidst it, and I turn thy words
against thee. Well, thou dreamest that thou shalt pluck the star. I
believe it not, and I think thee a fool, my Holly, to throw away the
lamp."

I made no answer, for I could not--especially before Leo--tell her
that since I had seen her face I knew that it would always be before
my eyes, and that I had no wish to prolong an existence which must
always be haunted and tortured by her memory, and by the last
bitterness of unsatisfied love. But so it was, and so, alas, is it to
this hour!

"And now," went on /She/, changing her tone and the subject together,
"tell me, my Kallikrates, for as yet I know it not, how came ye to
seek me here? Yesternight thou didst say that Kallikrates--him whom
thou sawest--was thine ancestor. How was it? Tell me--thou dost not
speak overmuch!"

Thus adjured, Leo told her the wonderful story of the casket and of
the potsherd that, written on by his ancestress, the Egyptian
Amenartas, had been the means of guiding us to her. Ayesha listened
intently, and, when he had finished, spoke to me.

"Did I not tell thee one day, when we did talk of good and evil, oh
Holly--it was when my beloved lay so ill--that out of good came evil,
and out of evil good--that they who sowed knew not what the crop
should be, nor he who struck where the blow should fall? See, now:
this Egyptian Amenartas, this royal child of the Nile who hated me,
and whom even now I hate, for in a way she did prevail against me--
see, now, she herself hath been the very means to bring her lover to
mine arms! For her sake I slew him, and now, behold, through her he
hath comeback to me! She would have done me evil, and sowed her seeds
that I might reap tares, and behold she hath given me more than all
the world can give, and there is a strange square for thee to fit into
thy circle of good and evil, oh Holly!

"And so," she went on, after a pause--"and so she bade her son destroy
me if he might, because I slew his father. And thou, my Kallikrates,
art the father, and in a sense thou art likewise the son; and wouldst
thou avenge thy wrong, and the wrong of that far-off mother of thine,
upon me, oh Kallikrates? See," and she slid to her knees, and drew the
white corsage still farther down her ivory bosom--"see, here beats my
heart, and there by thy side is a knife, heavy, and long, and sharp,
the very knife to slay an erring woman with. Take it now, and be
avenged. Strike, and strike home!--so shalt thou be satisfied,
Kallikrates, and go through life a happy man, because thou hast paid
back the wrong, and obeyed the mandate of the past."

He looked at her, and then stretched out his hand and lifted her to
her feet.

"Rise, Ayesha," he said sadly; "well thou knowest that I cannot strike
thee, no, not even for the sake of her whom thou slewest but last
night. I am in thy power, and a very slave to thee. How can I kill
thee?--sooner should I slay myself."

"Almost dost thou begin to love me, Kallikrates," she answered,
smiling. "And now tell me of thy country--'tis a great people, is it
not? with an empire like that of Rome! Surely thou wouldst return
thither, and it is well, for I mean not that thou shouldst dwell in
these caves of Kôr. Nay, when once thou art even as I am, we will go
hence--fear not but that I shall find a path--and then shall we
journey to this England of thine, and live as it becometh us to live.
Two thousand years have I waited for the day when I should see the
last of these hateful caves and this gloomy-visaged folk, and now it
is at hand, and my heart bounds up to meet it like a child's towards
its holiday. For thou shalt rule this England----"

"But we have a queen already," broke in Leo, hastily.

"It is naught, it is naught," said Ayesha; "she can be overthrown."

At this we both broke out into an exclamation of dismay, and explained
that we should as soon think of overthrowing ourselves.

"But here is a strange thing," said Ayesha, in astonishment; "a queen
whom her people love! Surely the world must have changed since I dwelt
in Kôr."

Again we explained that it was the character of monarchs that had
changed, and that the one under whom we lived was venerated and
beloved by all right-thinking people in her vast realms. Also, we told
her that real power in our country rested in the hands of the people,
and that we were in fact ruled by the votes of the lower and least
educated classes of the community.

"Ah," she said, "a democracy--then surely there is a tyrant, for I
have long since seen that democracies, having no clear will of their
own, in the end set up a tyrant, and worship him."

"Yes," I said, "we have our tyrants."

"Well," she answered resignedly, "we can at any rate destroy these
tyrants, and Kallikrates shall rule the land."

I instantly informed Ayesha that in England "blasting" was not an
amusement that could be indulged in with impunity, and that any such
attempt would meet with the consideration of the law and probably end
upon a scaffold.

"The law," she laughed with scorn--"the law! Canst thou not
understand, oh Holly, that I am above the law, and so shall my
Kallikrates be also? All human law will be to us as the north wind to
a mountain. Does the wind bend the mountain, or the mountain the
wind?"

"And now leave me, I pray thee, and thou too, my own Kallikrates, for
I would get me ready against our journey, and so must ye both, and
your servant also. But bring no great quantity of things with thee,
for I trust that we shall be but three days gone. Then shall we return
hither, and I will make a plan whereby we can bid farewell for ever to
these sepulchres of Kôr. Yea, surely thou mayst kiss my hand!"

So we went, I, for one, meditating deeply on the awful nature of the
problem that now opened out before us. The terrible /She/ had
evidently made up her mind to go to England, and it made me absolutely
shudder to think what would be the result of her arrival there. What
her powers were I knew, and I could not doubt but that she would
exercise them to the full. It might be possible to control her for a
while, but her proud, ambitious spirit would be certain to break loose
and avenge itself for the long centuries of its solitude. She would,
if necessary, and if the power of her beauty did not unaided prove
equal to the occasion, blast her way to any end she set before her,
and, as she could not die, and for aught I knew could not even be
killed,[*] what was there to stop her? In the end she would, I had
little doubt, assume absolute rule over the British dominions, and
probably over the whole earth, and, though I was sure that she would
speedily make ours the most glorious and prosperous empire that the
world has ever seen, it would be at the cost of a terrible sacrifice
of life.

[*] I regret to say that I was never able to ascertain if /She/ was
    invulnerable against the ordinary accidents of life. Presumably
    this was so, else some misadventure would have been sure to put an
    end to her in the course of so many centuries. True, she offered
    to let Leo slay her, but very probably this was only an experiment
    to try his temper and mental attitude towards her. Ayesha never
    gave way to impulse without some valid object.--L. H. H.

The whole thing sounded like a dream or some extraordinary invention
of a speculative brain, and yet it was a fact--a wonderful fact--of
which the whole world would soon be called on to take notice. What was
the meaning of it all? After much thinking I could only conclude that
this marvellous creature, whose passion had kept her for so many
centuries chained as it were, and comparatively harmless, was now
about to be used by Providence as a means to change the order of the
world, and possibly, by the building up of a power that could no more
be rebelled against or questioned than the decrees of Fate, to change
it materially for the better.



                                XXIII

                         THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH

Our preparations did not take us very long. We put a change of
clothing apiece and some spare boots into my Gladstone bag, also we
took our revolvers and an express rifle each, together with a good
supply of ammunition, a precaution to which, under Providence, we
subsequently owed our lives over and over again. The rest of our gear,
together with our heavy rifles, we left behind us.

A few minutes before the appointed time we once more attended in
Ayesha's boudoir, and found her also ready, her dark cloak thrown over
her winding-sheetlike wrappings.

"Are ye prepared for the great venture?" she said.

"We are," I answered, "though for my part, Ayesha, I have no faith in
it."

"Ah, my Holly," she said, "thou art of a truth like those old Jews--of
whom the memory vexes me so sorely--unbelieving, and hard to accept
that which they have not known. But thou shalt see; for unless my
mirror beyond lies," and she pointed to the font of crystal water,
"the path is yet open as it was of old time. And now let us start upon
the new life which shall end--who knoweth where?"

"Ah," I echoed, "who knoweth where?" and we passed down into the great
central cave, and out into the light of day. At the mouth of the cave
we found a single litter with six bearers, all of them mutes, waiting,
and with them I was relieved to see our old friend Billali, for whom I
had conceived a sort of affection. It appeared that, for reasons not
necessary to explain at length, Ayesha had thought it best that, with
the exception of herself, we should proceed on foot, and this we were
nothing loth to do, after our long confinement in these caves, which,
however suitable they might be for sarcophagi--a singularly
inappropriate word, by the way, for these particular tombs, which
certainly did not consume the bodies given to their keeping--were
depressing habitations for breathing mortals like ourselves. Either by
accident or by the orders of /She/, the space in front of the cave
where we had beheld that awful dance was perfectly clear of
spectators. Not a soul was to be seen, and consequently I do not
believe that our departure was known to anybody, except perhaps the
mutes who waited on /She/, and they were, of course, in the habit of
keeping what they saw to themselves.

In a few minutes' time we were stepping out sharply across the great
cultivated plain or lake bed, framed like a vast emerald in its
setting of frowning cliff, and had another opportunity of wondering at
the extraordinary nature of the site chosen by these old people of Kôr
for their capital, and at the marvellous amount of labour, ingenuity,
and engineering skill that must have been brought into requisition by
the founders of the city to drain so huge a sheet of water, and to
keep it clear of subsequent accumulations. It is, indeed, so far as my
experience goes, an unequalled instance of what man can do in the face
of nature, for in my opinion such achievements as the Suez Canal or
even the Mont Cenis Tunnel do not approach this ancient undertaking in
magnitude and grandeur of conception.

When we had been walking for about half an hour, enjoying ourselves
exceedingly in the delightful cool which about this time of the day
always appeared to descend upon the great plain of Kôr, and which in
some degree atoned for the want of any land or sea breeze--for all
wind was kept off by the rocky mountain wall--we began to get a clear
view of what Billali had informed us were the ruins of the great city.
And even from that distance we could see how wonderful those ruins
were, a fact which with every step we took became more evident. The
town was not very large if compared to Babylon or Thebes, or other
cities of remote antiquity; perhaps its outer wall contained some
twelve square miles of ground, or a little more. Nor had the walls, so
far as we could judge when we reached them, been very high, probably
not more than forty feet, which was about their present height where
they had not through the sinking of the ground, or some such cause,
fallen into ruin. The reason of this, no doubt, was that the people of
Kôr, being protected from any outside attack by far more tremendous
ramparts than any that the hand of man could rear, only required them
for show and to guard against civil discord. But on the other hand
they were as broad as they were high, built entirely of dressed stone,
hewn, no doubt, from the vast caves, and surrounded by a great moat
about sixty feet in width, some reaches of which were still filled
with water. About ten minutes before the sun finally sank we reached
this moat, and passed down and through it, clambering across what
evidently were the piled-up fragments of a great bridge in order to do
so, and then with some little difficulty over the slope of the wall to
its summit. I wish that it lay within the power of my pen to give some
idea of the grandeur of the sight that then met our view. There, all
bathed in the red glow of the sinking sun, were miles upon miles of
ruins--columns, temples, shrines, and the palaces of kings, varied
with patches of green bush. Of course, the roofs of these buildings
had long since fallen into decay and vanished, but owing to the
extreme massiveness of the style of building, and to the hardness and
durability of the rock employed, most of the party walls and great
columns still remained standing.[*]

[*] In connection with the extraordinary state of preservation of
    these ruins after so vast a lapse of time--at least six thousand
    years--it must be remembered that Kôr was not burnt or destroyed
    by an enemy or an earthquake, but deserted, owing to the action of
    a terrible plague. Consequently the houses were left unharmed;
    also the climate of the plain is remarkably fine and dry, and
    there is very little rain or wind; as a result of which these
    relics have only to contend against the unaided action of time,
    that works but slowly upon such massive blocks of masonry.
    --L. H. H.

Straight before us stretched away what had evidently been the main
thoroughfare of the city, for it was very wide, wider than the Thames
Embankment, and regular, being, as we afterwards discovered, paved, or
rather built, throughout of blocks of dressed stone, such as were
employed in the walls, it was but little overgrown even now with grass
and shrubs that could get no depth of soil to live in. What had been
the parks and gardens, on the contrary, were now dense jungle. Indeed,
it was easy even from a distance to trace the course of the various
roads by the burnt-up appearance of the scanty grass that grew upon
them. On either side of this great thoroughfare were vast blocks of
ruins, each block, generally speaking, being separated from its
neighbour by a space of what had once, I suppose, been garden-ground,
but was now dense and tangled bush. They were all built of the same
coloured stone, and most of them had pillars, which was as much as we
could make out in the fading light as we passed swiftly up the main
road, that I believe I am right in saying no living foot had pressed
for thousands of years.[*]

[*] Billali told me that the Amahagger believe that the site of the
    city is haunted, and could not be persuaded to enter it upon any
    consideration. Indeed, I could see that he himself did not at all
    like doing so, and was only consoled by the reflection that he was
    under the direct protection of /She/. It struck Leo and myself as
    very curious that a people which has no objection to living
    amongst the dead, with whom their familiarity has perhaps bred
    contempt, and even using their bodies for purposes of fuel, should
    be terrified at approaching the habitations that these very
    departed had occupied when alive. After all, however, it is only a
    savage inconsistency.--L. H. H.

Presently we came to an enormous pile, which we rightly took to be a
temple covering at least eight acres of ground, and apparently
arranged in a series of courts, each one enclosing another of smaller
size, on the principle of a Chinese nest of boxes, the courts being
separated one from the other by rows of huge columns. And, while I
think of it, I may as well state a remarkable thing about the shape of
these columns, which resembled none that I have ever seen or heard of,
being fashioned with a kind of waist at the centre, and swelling out
above and below. At first we thought that this shape was meant to
roughly symbolise or suggest the female form, as was a common habit
amongst the ancient religious architects of many creeds. On the
following day, however, as we went up the slopes of the mountain, we
discovered a large quantity of the most stately looking palms, of
which the trucks grew exactly in this shape, and I have now no doubt
but that the first designer of those columns drew his inspiration from
the graceful bends of those very palms, or rather of their ancestors,
which then, some eight or ten thousand years ago, as now, beautified
the slopes of the mountain that had once formed the shores of the
volcanic lake.

At the /façade/ of this huge temple, which, I should imagine, is
almost as large as that of El-Karnac, at Thebes, some of the largest
columns, which I measured, being between eighteen to twenty feet in
diameter at the base, by about seventy feet in height, our little
procession was halted, and Ayesha descended from her litter.

"There was a spot here, Kallikrates," she said to Leo, who had run up
to help her down, "where one might sleep. Two thousand years ago did
thou and I and that Egyptian asp rest therein, but since then have I
not set foot here, nor any man, and perchance it has fallen," and,
followed by the rest of us, she passed up a vast flight of broken and
ruined steps into the outer court, and looked round into the gloom.
Presently she seemed to recollect, and, walking a few paces along the
wall to the left, halted.

"It is here," she said, and at the same time beckoned to the two
mutes, who were loaded with provisions and our little belongings, to
advance. One of them came forward, and, producing a lamp, lit it from
his brazier (for the Amahagger when on a journey nearly always carried
with them a little lighted brazier, from which to provide fire). The
tinder of this brazier was made of broken fragments of mummy carefully
damped, and, if the admixture of moisture was properly managed, this
unholy compound would smoulder away for hours.[*] As soon as the lamp
was lit we entered the place before which Ayesha had halted. It turned
out to be a chamber hollowed in the thickness of the wall, and, from
the fact of there still being a massive stone table in it, I should
think that it had probably served as a living-room, perhaps for one of
the door-keepers of the great temple.

[*] After all we are not much in advance of the Amahagger in these
    matters. "Mummy," that is pounded ancient Egyptian, is, I believe,
    a pigment much used by artists, and especially by those of them
    who direct their talents to the reproduction of the works of the
    old masters.--Editor.

Here we stopped, and after cleaning the place out and making it as
comfortable as circumstances and the darkness would permit, we ate
some cold meat, at least Leo, Job and I did, for Ayesha, as I think I
have said elsewhere, never touched anything except cakes of flour,
fruit and water. While we were still eating, the moon, which was at
her full, rose above the mountain-wall, and began to flood the place
with silver.

"Wot ye why I have brought you here to-night, my Holly?" said Ayesha,
leaning her head upon her hand and watching the great orb as she rose,
like some heavenly queen, above the solemn pillars of the temple. "I
brought you--nay, it is strange, but knowest thou, Kallikrates, that
thou liest at this moment upon the very spot where thy dead body lay
when I bore thee back to those caves of Kôr so many years ago? It all
returns to my mind now. I can see it, and horrible is it to my sight!"
and she shuddered.

Here Leo jumped up and hastily changed his seat. However the
reminiscence might affect Ayesha, it clearly had few charms for him.

"I brought you," went on Ayesha presently, "that ye might look upon
the most wonderful sight that ever the eye of man beheld--the full
moon shining over ruined Kôr. When ye have done your eating--I would
that I could teach you to eat naught but fruit, Kallikrates, but that
will come after thou hast laved in the fire. Once I, too, ate flesh
like a brute beast. When ye have done we will go out, and I will show
you this great temple and the God whom men once worshipped therein."

Of course we got up at once, and started. And here again my pen fails
me. To give a string of measurements and details of the various courts
of the temple would only be wearisome, supposing that I had them, and
yet I know not how I am to describe what we saw, magnificent as it was
even in its ruin, almost beyond the power of realisation. Court upon
dim court, row upon row of mighty pillars--some of them (especially at
the gateways) sculptured from pedestal to capital--space upon space of
empty chambers that spoke more eloquently to the imagination than any
crowded streets. And over all, the dead silence of the dead, the sense
of utter loneliness, and the brooding spirit of the Past! How
beautiful it was, and yet how drear! We did not dare to speak aloud.
Ayesha herself was awed in the presence of an antiquity compared to
which even her length of days was but a little thing; we only
whispered, and our whispers seemed to run from column to column, till
they were lost in the quiet air. Bright fell the moonlight on pillar
and court and shattered wall, hiding all their rents and imperfections
in its silver garment, and clothing their hoar majesty with the
peculiar glory of the night. It was a wonderful sight to see the full
moon looking down on the ruined fane of Kôr. It was a wonderful thing
to think for how many thousands of years the dead orb above and the
dead city below had gazed thus upon each other, and in the utter
solitude of space poured forth each to each the tale of their lost
life and long-departed glory. The white light fell, and minute by
minute the quiet shadows crept across the grass-grown courts like the
spirits of old priests haunting the habitations of their worship--the
white light fell, and the long shadows grew till the beauty and
grandeur of each scene and the untamed majesty of its present Death
seemed to sink into our very souls, and speak more loudly than the
shouts of armies concerning the pomp and splendour that the grave had
swallowed, and even memory had forgotten.

"Come," said Ayesha, after we had gazed and gazed, I know not for how
long, "and I will show you the stony flower of Loveliness and Wonder's
very crown, if yet it stands to mock time with its beauty and fill the
heart of man with longing for that which is behind the veil," and,
without waiting for an answer, she led us through two more pillared
courts into the inner shrine of the old fane.

And there, in the centre of the inmost court, that might have been
some fifty yards square, or a little more, we stood face to face with
what is perhaps the grandest allegorical work of Art that the genius
of her children has ever given to the world. For in the exact centre
of the court, placed upon a thick square slab of rock, was a huge
round ball of dark stone, some twenty feet in diameter, and standing
on the ball was a colossal winged figure of a beauty so entrancing
and divine that when I first gazed upon it, illuminated and shadowed
as it was by the soft light of the moon, my breath stood still, and
for an instant my heart ceased its beating.

The statue was hewn from marble so pure and white that even now, after
all those ages, it shone as the moonbeams danced upon it, and its
height was, I should say, a trifle over twenty feet. It was the winged
figure of a woman of such marvellous loveliness and delicacy of form
that the size seemed rather to add to than to detract from its so
human and yet more spiritual beauty. She was bending forward and
poising herself upon her half-spread wings as though to preserve her
balance as she leant. Her arms were outstretched like those of some
woman about to embrace one she dearly loved, while her whole attitude
gave an impression of the tenderest beseeching. Her perfect and most
gracious form was naked, save--and here came the extraordinary thing--
the face, which was thinly veiled, so that we could only trace the
marking of her features. A gauzy veil was thrown round and about the
head, and of its two ends one fell down across her left breast, which
was outlined beneath it, and one, now broken, streamed away upon the
air behind her.

"Who is she?" I asked, as soon as I could take my eyes off the statue.

"Canst thou not guess, oh Holly?" answered Ayesha. "Where then is thy
imagination? It is Truth standing on the World, and calling to its
children to unveil her face. See what is writ upon the pedestal.
Without doubt it is taken from the book of Scriptures of these men of
Kôr," and she led the way to the foot of the statue, where an
inscription of the usual Chinese-looking hieroglyphics was so deeply
graven as to be still quite legible, at least to Ayesha. According to
her translation it ran thus:--

 "Is there no man that will draw my veil and look upon my face, for
  it is very fair? Unto him who draws my veil shall I be, and peace
  will I give him, and sweet children of knowledge and good works."

  And a voice cried, "Though all those who seek after thee desire
  thee, behold! Virgin art thou, and Virgin shalt thou go till Time
  be done. No man is there born of woman who may draw thy veil and
  live, nor shall be. By Death only can thy veil be drawn, oh
  Truth!"

  And Truth stretched out her arms and wept, because those who
  sought her might not find her, nor look upon her face to face.

"Thou seest," said Ayesha, when she had finished translating, "Truth
was the Goddess of the people of old Kôr, and to her they built their
shrines, and her they sought; knowing that they should never find,
still sought they."

"And so," I added sadly, "do men seek to this very hour, but they find
out; and, as this Scripture saith, nor shall they; for in Death only
is Truth found."

Then with one more look at this veiled and spiritualised loveliness--
which was so perfect and so pure that one might almost fancy that the
light of a living spirit shone through the marble prison to lead man
on to high and ethereal thoughts--this poet's dream of beauty frozen
into stone, which I shall never forget while I live, we turned and
went back through the vast moonlit courts to the spot whence we had
started. I never saw the statue again, which I the more regret,
because on the great ball of stone representing the World whereon the
figure stood, lines were drawn, that probably, had there been light
enough, we should have discovered to be a map of the Universe as it
was known to the people of Kôr. It is at any rate suggestive of some
scientific knowledge that these long-dead worshippers of Truth had
recognised the fact that the globe is round.



                                 XXIV

                          WALKING THE PLANK

Next day the mutes woke us before the dawn; and by the time that we
had got the sleep out of our eyes, and gone through a perfunctory wash
at a spring which still welled up into the remains of a marble basin
in the centre of the North quadrangle of the vast outer court, we
found /She/ standing by the litter ready to start, while old Billali
and the two bearer mutes were busy collecting the baggage. As usual,
Ayesha was veiled like the marble Truth (by the way, I wonder if she
originally got the idea of covering up her beauty from that statue?).
I noticed, however, that she seemed very depressed, and had none of
that proud and buoyant bearing which would have betrayed her among a
thousand women of the same stature, even if they had been veiled like
herself. She looked up as we came--for her head was bowed--and greeted
us. Leo asked her how she had slept.

"Ill, my Kallikrates," she answered, "ill. This night have strange and
hideous dreams come creeping through my brain, and I know not what
they may portend. Almost do I feel as though some evil overshadowed
me; and yet how can evil touch me? I wonder," she went on with a
sudden outbreak of womanly tenderness, "I wonder if, should aught
happen to me, so that I slept awhile and left thee waking, thou
wouldst think gently of me? I wonder, my Kallikrates, if thou wouldst
tarry till I came again, as for so many centuries I have tarried for
thy coming?"

Then, without waiting for an answer, she went on: "Come, let us be
setting forth, for we have far to go, and before another day is born
in yonder blue should we stand in the place of Life."

In five minutes we were once more on our way through the vast ruined
city, which loomed at us on either side in the grey dawning in a way
that was at once grand and oppressive. Just as the first ray of the
rising sun shot like a golden arrow athwart this storied desolation we
gained the further gateway of the outer wall, and having given one
more glance at the hoar and pillared majesty through which we had
journeyed, and (with the exception of Job, for whom ruins had no
charms) breathed a sigh of regret that we had not had more time to
explore it, passed through the great moat, and on to the plain beyond.

As the sun rose so did Ayesha's spirits, till by breakfast-time they
had regained their normal level, and she laughingly set down her
previous depression to the associations of the spot where she had
slept.

"These barbarians swear that Kôr is haunted," she said, "and of a
truth I do believe their saying, for never did I know so ill a night
save one. I remember it now. It was on that very spot when thou didst
lie dead at my feet, Kallikrates. Never will I visit it again; it is a
place of evil omen."

After a very brief halt for breakfast we pressed on with such good
will that by two o'clock in the afternoon we were at the foot of the
vast wall of rock that formed the lip of the volcano, and which at
this point towered up precipitously above us for fifteen hundred or
two thousand feet. Here we halted, certainly not to my astonishment,
for I did not see how it was possible that we should go any farther.

"Now," said Ayesha, as she descended from her litter, "doth our labour
but commence, for here do we part with these men, and henceforward
must we bear ourselves;" and then, addressing Billali, "do thou and
these slaves remain here, and abide our coming. By to-morrow at the
midday shall we be with thee--if not, wait."

Billali bowed humbly, and said that her august bidding should be
obeyed if they stopped there till they grew old.

"And this man, oh Holly," said /She/, pointing to Job; "best is it
that he should tarry also, for if his heart be not high and his
courage great, perchance some evil might overtake him. Also, the
secrets of the place whither we go are not fit for common eyes."

I translated this to Job, who instantly and earnestly entreated me,
almost with tears in his eyes, not to leave him behind. He said he was
sure that he could see nothing worse than he had already seen, and
that he was terrified to death at the idea of being left alone with
those "dumb folk," who, he thought, would probably take the
opportunity to hot-pot him.

I translated what he said to Ayesha, who shrugged her shoulders, and
answered, "Well, let him come, it is naught to me; on his own head be
it, and he will serve to bear the lamp and this," and she pointed to a
narrow plank, some sixteen feet in length, which had been bound above
the long bearing-pole of her hammock, as I had thought to make
curtains spread out better, but, as it now appeared, for some unknown
purpose connected with our extraordinary undertaking.

Accordingly, the plank, which, though tough, was very light, was given
to Job to carry, and also one of the lamps. I slung the other on to my
back, together with a spare jar of oil, while Leo loaded himself with
the provisions and some water in a kid's skin. When this was done
/She/ bade Billali and the six bearer mutes to retreat behind a grove
of flowering magnolias about a hundred yards away, and remain there
under pain of death till we had vanished. They bowed humbly, and went,
and, as he departed, old Billali gave me a friendly shake of the hand,
and whispered that he had rather that it was I than he who was going
on this wonderful expedition with "/She-who-must-be-obeyed/," and upon
my word I felt inclined to agree with him. In another minute they were
gone, and then, having briefly asked us if we were ready, Ayesha
turned, and gazed up the towering cliff.

"Goodness me, Leo," I said, "surely we are not going to climb that
precipice!"

Leo shrugged his shoulders, being in a condition of half-fascinated,
half-expectant mystification, and as he did so, Ayesha with a sudden
move began to climb the cliff, and of course we had to follow her. It
was perfectly marvellous to see the ease and grace with which she
sprang from rock to rock, and swung herself along the ledges. The
ascent was not, however, so difficult as it seemed, although there
were one or two nasty places where it did not do to look behind you,
the fact being that the rock still sloped here, and was not absolutely
precipitous as it was higher up. In this way we, with no great labour,
mounted to the height of some fifty feet above our last standing-
place, the only really troublesome thing to manage being Job's board,
and in doing so drew some fifty or sixty paces to the left of our
starting-point, for we went up like a crab, sideways. Presently we
reached a ledge, narrow enough at first, but which widened as we
followed it, and moreover sloped inwards like the petal of a flower,
so that as we followed it we gradually got into a kind of rut or fold
of rock, that grew deeper and deeper, till at last it resembled a
Devonshire lane in stone, and hid us perfectly from the gaze of
anybody on the slope below, if there had been anybody to gaze. This
lane (which appeared to be a natural formation) continued for some
fifty or sixty paces, and then suddenly ended in a cave, also natural,
running at right angles to it. I am sure it was a natural cave, and
not hollowed by the hand of man, because of its irregular and
contorted shape and course, which gave it the appearance of having
been blown bodily in the mountain by some frightful eruption of gas
following the line of the least resistance. All the caves hollowed by
the ancients of Kôr, on the contrary, were cut out with the most
perfect regularity and symmetry. At the mouth of this cave Ayesha
halted, and bade us light the two lamps, which I did, giving one to
her and keeping the other myself. Then, taking the lead, she advanced
down the cavern, picking her way with great care, as indeed it was
necessary to do, for the floor was most irregular--strewn with
boulders like the bed of a stream, and in some places pitted with deep
holes, in which it would have been easy to break one's leg.

This cavern we pursued for twenty minutes or more, it being, so far as
I could form a judgment--owing to its numerous twists and turns no
easy task--about a quarter of a mile long.

At last, however, we halted at its farther end, and whilst I was still
trying to pierce the gloom a great gust of air came tearing down it,
and extinguished both the lamps.

Ayesha called to us, and we crept up to her, for she was a little in
front, and were rewarded with a view that was positively appalling in
its gloom and grandeur. Before us was a mighty chasm in the black
rock, jagged and torn and splintered through it in a far past age by
some awful convulsion of Nature, as though it had been cleft by stroke
upon stroke of the lightning. This chasm, which was bounded by a
precipice on the hither, and presumably, though we could not see it,
on the farther side also, may have measured any width across, but from
its darkness I do not think it can have been very broad. It was
impossible to make out much of its outline, or how far it ran, for the
simple reason that the point where we were standing was so far from
the upper surface of the cliff, at least fifteen hundred or two
thousand feet, that only a very dim light struggled down to us from
above. The mouth of the cavern that we had been following gave on to a
most curious and tremendous spur of rock, which jutted out in mid air
into the gulf before us, for a distance of some fifty yards, coming to
a sharp point at its termination, and resembling nothing that I can
think of so much as the spur upon the leg of a cock in shape. This
huge spur was attached only to the parent precipice at its base, which
was, of course, enormous, just as the cock's spur is attached to its
leg. Otherwise it was utterly unsupported.

"Here must we pass," said Ayesha. "Be careful lest giddiness overcome
you, or the wind sweep you into the gulf beneath, for of a truth it
hath no bottom;" and, without giving us any further time to get
scared, she started walking along the spur, leaving us to follow her
as best we might. I was next to her, then came Job, painfully dragging
his plank, while Leo brought up the rear. It was a wonderful sight to
see this intrepid woman gliding fearlessly along that dreadful place.
For my part, when I had gone but a very few yards, what between the
pressure of the air and the awful sense of the consequences that a
slip would entail, I found it necessary to go down on my hands and
knees and crawl, and so did the other two.

But Ayesha never condescended to this. On she went, leaning her body
against the gusts of wind, and never seeming to lose her head or her
balance.

In a few minutes we had crossed some twenty paces of this awful
bridge, which got narrower at every step, and then all of a sudden a
great gust came tearing along the gorge. I saw Ayesha lean herself
against it, but the strong draught got under her dark cloak, and tore
it from her, and away it went down the wind flapping like a wounded
bird. It was dreadful to see it go, till it was lost in the blackness.
I clung to the saddle of rock, and looked round, while, like a living
thing, the great spur vibrated with a humming sound beneath us. The
sight was a truly awesome one. There we were poised in the gloom
between earth and heaven. Beneath us were hundreds upon hundreds of
feet of emptiness that gradually grew darker, till at last it was
absolutely black, and at what depth it ended is more than I can guess.
Above was space upon space of giddy air, and far, far away a line of
blue sky. And down this vast gulf upon which we were pinnacled the
great draught dashed and roared, driving clouds and misty wreaths of
vapour before it, till we were nearly blinded, and utterly confused.

The whole position was so tremendous and so absolutely unearthly, that
I believe it actually lulled our sense of terror, but to this hour I
often see it in my dreams, and at its mere phantasy wake up covered
with cold sweat.

"On! on!" cried the white form before us, for now the cloak had gone,
/She/ was robed in white, and looked more like a spirit riding down
the gale than a woman; "On, or ye will fall and be dashed to pieces.
Keep your eyes fixed upon the ground, and closely hug the rock."

We obeyed her, and crept painfully along the quivering path, against
which the wind shrieked and wailed as it shook it, causing it to
murmur like a vast tuning-fork. On we went, I do not know for how
long, only gazing round now and again, when it was absolutely
necessary, until at last we saw that we were on the very tip of the
spur, a slab of rock, little larger than an ordinary table, that
throbbed and jumped like any over-engined steamer. There we lay,
clinging to the ground, and looked about us, while Ayesha stood
leaning out against the wind, down which her long hair streamed, and,
absolutely heedless of the hideous depth that yawned beneath, pointed
before her. Then we saw why the narrow plank had been provided, which
Job and I had painfully dragged along between us. Before us was an
empty space, on the other side of which was something, as yet we could
not see what, for here--either owing to the shadow of the opposite
cliff, or from some other cause--the gloom was that of night.

"We must wait awhile," called Ayesha; "soon there will be light."

At the moment I could not imagine what she meant. How could more light
than there was ever come to this dreadful spot? While I was still
wondering, suddenly, like a great sword of flame, a beam from the
setting sun pierced the Stygian gloom, and smote upon the point of
rock whereon we lay, illumining Ayesha's lovely form with an unearthly
splendour. I only wish I could describe the wild and marvellous beauty
of that sword of fire, laid across the darkness and rushing mist-
wreaths of the gulf. How it got there I do not to this moment know,
but I presume that there was some cleft or hole in the opposing cliff,
through which it pierced when the setting orb was in a direct line
therewith. All I can say is, that the effect was the most wonderful
that I ever saw. Right through the heart of the darkness that flaming
sword was stabbed, and where it lay there was the most surpassingly
vivid light, so vivid that even at a distance we could see the grain
of the rock, while, outside of it--yes, within a few inches of its
keen edge--was naught but clustering shadows.

And now, by this ray of light, for which /She/ had been waiting, and
timed our arrival to meet, knowing that at this season for thousands
of years it had always struck thus at sunset, we saw what was before
us. Within eleven or twelve feet of the very tip of the tongue-like
rock whereon we stood there arose, presumably from the far bottom of
the gulf, a sugarloaf-shaped cone, of which the summit was exactly
opposite to us. But had there been a summit only it would not have
helped us much, for the nearest point of its circumference was some
forty feet from where we were. On the lip of this summit, however,
which was circular and hollow, rested a tremendous flat boulder,
something like a glacier stone--perhaps it was one, for all I know to
the contrary--and the end of this boulder approached to within twelve
feet or so of us. This huge rock was nothing more or less than a
gigantic rocking-stone, accurately balanced upon the edge of the cone
or miniature crater, like a half-crown on the rim of a wine-glass;
for, in the fierce light that played upon it and us, we could see it
oscillating in the gusts of wind.

"Quick!" said Ayesha; "the plank--we must cross while the light
endures; presently it will be gone."

"Oh, Lord, sir!" groaned Job, "surely she don't mean us to walk across
that there place on that there thing," as in obedience to my direction
he pushed the long board towards me.

"That's it, Job," I halloaed in ghastly merriment, though the idea of
walking the plank was no pleasanter to me than to him.

I pushed the board on to Ayesha, who deftly ran it across the gulf so
that one end of it rested on the rocking-stone, the other remaining on
the extremity of the trembling spur. Then placing her foot upon it to
prevent it from being blown away, she turned to me.

"Since I was last here, oh Holly," she called, "the support of the
moving stone hath lessened somewhat, so that I am not certain if it
will bear our weight or no. Therefore will I cross the first, because
no harm will come unto me," and, without further ado, she trod lightly
but firmly across the frail bridge, and in another second was standing
safe upon the heaving stone.

"It is safe," she called. "See, hold thou the plank! I will stand on
the farther side of the stone so that it may not overbalance with your
greater weights. Now, come, oh Holly, for presently the light will
fail us."

I struggled to my knees, and if ever I felt terrified in my life it
was then, and I am not ashamed to say that I hesitated and hung back.

"Surely thou art not afraid," this strange creature called in a lull
of the gale, from where she stood poised like a bird on the highest
point of the rocking-stone. "Make way then for Kallikrates."

This settled me; it is better to fall down a precipice and die than be
laughed at by such a woman; so I clenched my teeth, and in another
instant I was on that horrible, narrow, bending plank, with bottomless
space beneath and around me. I have always hated a great height, but
never before did I realise the full horrors of which such a position
is capable. Oh, the sickening sensation of that yielding board resting
on the two moving supports. I grew dizzy, and thought that I must
fall; my spine /crept/; it seemed to me that I was falling, and my
delight at finding myself sprawling upon that stone, which rose and
fell beneath me like a boat in a swell, cannot be expressed in words.
All I know is that briefly, but earnestly enough, I thanked Providence
for preserving me so far.

Then came Leo's turn, and though he looked rather queer, he came
across like a rope-dancer. Ayesha stretched out her hand to clasp his
own, and I heard her say, "Bravely done, my love--bravely done! The
old Greek spirit lives in thee yet!"

And now only poor Job remained on the farther side of the gulf. He
crept up to the plank, and yelled out, "I can't do it, sir. I shall
fall into that beastly place."

"You must," I remember saying with inappropriate facetiousness--"you
must, Job, it's as easy as catching flies." I suppose that I must have
said it to satisfy my conscience, because although the expression
conveys a wonderful idea of facility, as a matter of fact I know no
more difficult operation in the whole world than catching flies--that
is, in warm weather, unless, indeed, it is catching mosquitoes.

"I can't, sir--I can't, indeed."

"Let the man come, or let him stop and perish there. See, the light is
dying! In a moment it will be gone!" said Ayesha.

I looked. She was right. The sun was passing below the level of the
hole or cleft in the precipice through which the ray reached us.

"If you stop there, Job, you will die alone," I called; "the light is
going."

"Come, be a man, Job," roared Leo; "it's quite easy."

Thus adjured, the miserable Job, with a most awful yell, precipitated
himself face downwards on the plank--he did not dare, small blame to
him, to try to walk it, and commenced to draw himself across in little
jerks, his poor legs hanging down on either side into the nothingness
beneath.

His violent jerks at the frail board made the great stone, which was
only balanced on a few inches of rock, oscillate in a most dreadful
manner, and, to make matters worse, when he was half-way across the
flying ray of lurid light suddenly went out, just as though a lamp had
been extinguished in a curtained room, leaving the whole howling
wilderness of air black with darkness.

"Come on, Job, for God's sake!" I shouted in an agony of fear, while
the stone, gathering motion with every swing, rocked so violently that
it was difficult to hang on to it. It was a truly awful position.

"Lord have mercy on me!" cried poor Job from the darkness. "Oh, the
plank's slipping!" and I heard a violent struggle, and thought that he
was gone.

But at that moment his outstretched hand, clasping in agony at the
air, met my own, and I hauled--ah, how I did haul, putting out all the
strength that it has pleased Providence to give me in such abundance--
and to my joy in another minute Job was gasping on the rock beside me.
But the plank! I felt it slip, and heard it knock against a projecting
knob of rock, and it was gone.

"Great heavens!" I exclaimed. "How are we going to get back?"

"I don't know," answered Leo, out of the gloom. "'Sufficient to the
day is the evil thereof,' I am thankful enough to be here."

But Ayesha merely called to me to take her hand and creep after her.



                                 XXV

                          THE SPIRIT OF LIFE

I did as I was bid, and in fear and trembling felt myself guided over
the edge of the stone. I sprawled my legs out, but could touch
nothing.

"I am going to fall!" I gasped.

"Nay, let thyself go, and trust to me," answered Ayesha.

Now, if the position is considered, it will be easily understood that
this was a greater demand upon my confidence than was justified by my
knowledge of Ayesha's character. For all I knew she might be in the
very act of consigning me to a horrible doom. But in life we sometimes
have to lay our faith upon strange altars, and so it was now.

"Let thyself go!" she cried, and, having no choice, I did.

I felt myself slide a pace or two down the sloping surface of the
rock, and then pass into the air, and the thought flashed through my
brain that I was lost. But no! In another instant my feet struck
against a rocky floor, and I felt that I was standing upon something
solid, and out of reach of the wind, which I could hear singing away
overhead. As I stood there thanking Heaven for these small mercies,
there was a slip and a scuffle, and down came Leo alongside of me.

"Hulloa, old fellow!" he called out, "are you there? This is getting
interesting, is it not?"

Just then, with a terrific yell, Job arrived right on the top of us,
knocking us both down. By the time we had struggled to our feet again
Ayesha was standing among us, and bidding us light the lamps, which
fortunately remained uninjured, as also did the spare jar of oil.

I got out my box of wax matches, and they struck as merrily, there, in
that awful place, as they could have done in a London drawing-room.

In a couple of minutes both the lamps were alight and revealed a
curious scene. We were huddled together in a rocky chamber, some ten
feet square, and scared enough we looked; that is, except Ayesha, who
was standing calmly with her arms folded, and waiting for the lamps to
burn up. The chamber appeared to be partly natural, and partly
hollowed out of the top of the cone. The roof of the natural part was
formed of the swinging stone, and that of the back part of the
chamber, which sloped downwards, was hewn from the live rock. For the
rest, the place was warm and dry--a perfect haven of rest compared to
the giddy pinnacle above, and the quivering spur that shot out to meet
it in mid-air.

"So!" said /She/, "safely have we come, though once I feared that the
rocking stone would fall with you, and precipitate you into the
bottomless depths beneath, for I do believe that the cleft goeth down
to the very womb of the world. The rock whereon the stone resteth hath
crumbled beneath the swinging weight. And now that he," nodding
towards Job, who was sitting on the floor, feebly wiping his forehead
with a red cotton pocket-handkerchief, "whom they rightly call the
'Pig,' for as a pig is he stupid, hath let fall the plank, it will not
be easy to return across the gulf, and to that end must I make a plan.
But now rest a while, and look upon this place. What think ye that it
is?"

"We know not," I answered.

"Wouldst thou believe, oh Holly, that once a man did choose this airy
nest for a daily habitation, and did here endure for many years;
leaving it only but one day in every twelve to seek food and water and
oil that the people brought, more than he could carry, and laid as an
offering in the mouth of the tunnel through which we passed hither?"

We looked up wonderingly, and she continued--

"Yet so it was. There was a man--Noot, he named himself--who, though
he lived in the latter days, had of the wisdom of the sons of Kôr. A
hermit was he, and a philosopher, and greatly skilled in the secrets
of Nature, and he it was who discovered the Fire that I shall show
you, which is Nature's blood and life, and also that he who bathed
therein, and breathed thereof, should live while Nature lives. But
like unto thee, oh Holly, this man, Noot, would not turn his knowledge
to account. 'Ill,' he said, 'was it for man to live, for man was born
to die.' Therefore did he tell his secret to none, and therefore did
he come and live here, where the seeker after Life must pass, and was
revered of the Amahagger of the day as holy, and a hermit. And when
first I came to this country--knowest thou how I came, Kallikrates?
Another time I will tell thee, for it is a strange tale--I heard of
this philosopher, and waited for him when he came to fetch his food,
and returned with him hither, though greatly did I fear to tread the
gulf. Then did I beguile him with my beauty and my wit, and flatter
him with my tongue, so that he led me down and showed me the Fire, and
told me the secrets of the Fire, but he would not suffer me to step
therein, and, fearing lest he should slay me, I refrained, knowing
that the man was very old, and soon would die. And I returned, having
learned from him all that he knew of the wonderful Spirit of the
World, and that was much, for the man was wise and very ancient, and
by purity and abstinence, and the contemplations of his innocent mind,
had worn thin the veil between that which we see and the great
invisible truths, the whisper of whose wings at times we hear as they
sweep through the gross air of the world. Then--it was but a very few
days after, I met thee, my Kallikrates, who hadst wandered hither with
the beautiful Egyptian Amenartas, and I learned to love for the first
and last time, once and for ever, so that it entered into my mind to
come hither with thee, and receive the gift of Life for thee and me.
Therefore came we, with that Egyptian who would not be left behind,
and, behold, we found the old man Noot lying but newly dead. /There/
he lay, and his white beard covered him like a garment," and she
pointed to a spot near where I was sitting; "but surely he hath long
since crumbled into dust, and the wind hath borne his ashes hence."

Here I put out my hand and felt in the dust, and presently my fingers
touched something. It was a human tooth, very yellow, but sound. I
held it up and showed it to Ayesha, who laughed.

"Yes," she said, "it is his without a doubt. Behold what remaineth of
Noot, and the wisdom of Noot--one little tooth! And yet that man had
all life at his command, and for his conscience' sake would have none
of it. Well, he lay there newly dead, and we descended whither I shall
lead you, and then, gathering up all my courage, and courting death
that I might perchance win so glorious a crown of life, I stepped into
the flames, and behold! life such as ye can never know until ye feel
it also, flowed into me, and I came forth undying, and lovely beyond
imagining. Then did I stretch out mine arms to thee, Kallikrates, and
bid thee take thine immortal bride, and behold, as I spoke, thou,
blinded by my beauty, didst turn from me, and throw thine arms about
the neck of Amenartas. And then a great fury filled me, and made me
mad, and I seized the javelin that thou didst bear, and stabbed thee,
so that there, at my very feet, in the place of Life, thou didst groan
and go down into death. I knew not then that I had strength to slay
with mine eyes and by the power of my will, therefore in my madness
slew I with the javelin.[*]

[*] It will be observed that Ayesha's account of the death of
    Kallikrates differs materially from that written on the potsherd
    by Amenartas. The writing on the sherd says, "Then in her rage did
    she smite him /by her magic/, and he died." We never ascertained
    which was the correct version, but it will be remembered that the
    body of Kallikrates had a spear-wound in the breast, which seems
    conclusive, unless, indeed, it was inflicted after death. Another
    thing that we never ascertained was /how/ the two women--/She/
    and the Egyptian Amenartas--were able to bear the corpse of the
    man they both loved across the dread gulf and along the shaking
    spur. What a spectacle the two distracted creatures must have
    presented in their grief and loveliness as they toiled along that
    awful place with the dead man between them! Probably however the
    passage was easier then.--L. H. H.

"And when thou wast dead, ah! I wept, because I was undying and thou
wast dead. I wept there in the place of Life so that had I been mortal
any more my heart had surely broken. And she, the swart Egyptian--she
cursed me by her gods. By Osiris did she curse me and by Isis, by
Nephthys and by Anubis, by Sekhet, the cat-headed, and by Set, calling
down evil on me, evil and everlasting desolation. Ah! I can see her
dark face now lowering o'er me like a storm, but she could not hurt
me, and I--I know not if I could hurt her. I did not try; it was
naught to me then; so together we bore thee hence. And afterwards I
sent her--the Egyptian--away through the swamps, and it seems that she
lived to bear a son and to write the tale that should lead thee, her
husband, back to me, her rival and thy murderess.

"Such is the tale, my love, and now is the hour at hand that shall set
a crown upon it. Like all things on the earth, it is compounded of
evil and of good--more of evil than of good, perchance; and writ in
letters of blood. It is the truth; naught have I hidden from thee,
Kallikrates. And now one thing before the final moment of thy trial.
We go down into the presence of Death, for Life and Death are very
near together, and--who knoweth?--that might happen which should
separate us for another space of waiting. I am but a woman, and no
prophetess, and I cannot read the future. But this I know--for I
learned it from the lips of the wise man Noot--that my life is but
prolonged and made more bright. It cannot live for aye. Therefore,
before we go, tell me, oh Kallikrates, that of a truth thou dost
forgive me, and dost love me from thy heart. See, Kallikrates: much
evil have I done--perchance it was evil but two nights ago to strike
that girl who loved thee cold in death--but she disobeyed me and
angered me, prophesying misfortune to me, and I smote. Be careful when
power comes to thee also, lest thou too shouldst smite in thine anger
or thy jealousy, for unconquerable strength is a sore weapon in the
hands of erring man. Yea, I have sinned--out of the bitterness born of
a great love have I sinned--but yet do I know the good from the evil,
nor is my heart altogether hardened. Thy love, Kallikrates, shall be
the gate of my redemption, even as aforetime my passion was the path
down which I ran to evil. For deep love unsatisfied is the hell of
noble hearts and a portion of the accursed, but love that is mirrored
back more perfect from the soul of our desired doth fashion wings to
lift us above ourselves, and makes us what we might be. Therefore,
Kallikrates, take me by the hand, and lift my veil with no more fear
than though I were some peasant girl, and not the wisest and most
beauteous woman in this wide world, and look me in the eyes, and tell
me that thou dost forgive me with all thine heart, and that will all
thine heart thou dost worship me."

She paused, and the strange tenderness in her voice seemed to hover
round us like a memory. I know that the sound of it moved me more even
than her words, it was so very human--so very womanly. Leo, too, was
strangely touched. Hitherto he had been fascinated against his better
judgment, something as a bird is fascinated by a snake, but now I
think that all this passed away, and he realised that he really loved
this strange and glorious creature, as, alas! I loved her also. At any
rate, I saw his eyes fill with tears, and he stepped swiftly to her
and undid the gauzy veil, and then took her by the hand, and, gazing
into her deep eyes, said aloud--

"Ayesha, I love thee with all my heart, and so far as forgiveness is
possible I forgive thee the death of Ustane. For the rest, it is
between thee and thy Maker; I know naught of it. I only know that I
love thee as I never loved before, and that I will cleave to thee to
the end."

"Now," answered Ayesha, with proud humility--"now when my lord doth
speak thus royally and give with so free a hand, it cannot become me
to lag behind in words, and be beggared of my generosity. Behold!" and
she took his hand and placed it upon her shapely head, and then bent
herself slowly down till one knee for an instant touched the ground--
"Behold! in token of submission do I bow me to my lord! Behold!" and
she kissed him on the lips, "in token of my wifely love do I kiss my
lord. Behold!" and she laid her hand upon his heart, "by the sin I
sinned, by my lonely centuries of waiting wherewith it was wiped out,
by the great love wherewith I love, and by the Spirit--the Eternal
Thing that doth beget all life, from whom it ebbs, to whom it doth
return again--I swear:--

"I swear, even in this most holy hour of completed Womanhood, that I
will abandon Evil and cherish Good. I swear that I will be ever guided
by thy voice in the straightest path of Duty. I swear that I will
eschew Ambition, and through all my length of endless days set Wisdom
over me as a guiding star to lead me unto Truth and a knowledge of the
Right. I swear also that I will honour and will cherish thee,
Kallikrates, who hast been swept by the wave of time back into my
arms, ay, till the very end, come it soon or late. I swear--nay, I
will swear no more, for what are words? Yet shalt thou learn that
Ayesha hath no false tongue.

"So I have sworn, and thou, my Holly, at witness to my oath. Here,
too, are we wed, my husband, with the gloom for bridal canopy--wed
till the end of all things; here do we write our marriage vows upon
the rushing winds which shall bear them up to heaven, and round and
continually round this rolling world.

"And for a bridal gift I crown thee with my beauty's starry crown, and
enduring life, and wisdom without measure, and wealth that none can
count. Behold! the great ones of the earth shall creep about thy feet,
and its fair women shall cover up their eyes because of the shining
glory of thy countenance, and its wise ones shall be abased before
thee. Thou shalt read the hearts of men as an open writing, and hither
and thither shalt thou lead them as thy pleasure listeth. Like that
old Sphinx of Egypt shalt thou sit aloft from age to age, and ever
shall they cry to thee to solve the riddle of thy greatness that doth
not pass away, and ever shalt thou mock them with thy silence!

"Behold! once more I kiss thee, and by that kiss I give to thee
dominion over sea and earth, over the peasant in his hovel, over the
monarch in his palace halls, and cities crowned with towers, and those
who breathe therein. Where'er the sun shakes out his spears, and the
lonesome waters mirror up the moon, where'er storms roll, and Heaven's
painted bows arch in the sky--from the pure North clad in snows,
across the middle spaces of the world, to where the amorous South,
lying like a bride upon her blue couch of seas, breathes in sighs made
sweet with the odour of myrtles--there shall thy power pass and thy
dominion find a home. Nor sickness, nor icy-fingered fear, nor sorrow,
and pale waste of form and mind hovering ever o'er humanity, shall so
much as shadow thee with the shadow of their wings. As a God shalt
thou be, holding good and evil in the hollow of thy hand, and I, even
I, I humble myself before thee. Such is the power of Love, and such is
the bridal gift I give unto thee, Kallikrates, my Lord and Lord of
All.

"And now it is done; now for thee I loose my virgin zone; and come
storm, come shine, come good, come evil, come life, come death, it
never, never can be undone. For, of a truth, that which is, is, and,
being done, is done for aye, and cannot be altered. I have said--Let
us hence, that all things may be accomplished in their order;" and,
taking one of the lamps, she advanced towards the end of the chamber
that was roofed in by the swaying stone, where she halted.

We followed her, and perceived that in the wall of the cone there was
a stair, or, to be more accurate, that some projecting knobs of rock
had been so shaped as to form a good imitation of a stair. Down this
Ayesha began to climb, springing from step to step, like a chamois,
and after her we followed with less grace. When we had descended some
fifteen or sixteen steps we found that they ended in a tremendous
rocky slope, running first outwards and then inwards--like the slope
of an inverted cone, or tunnel. The slope was very steep, and often
precipitous, but it was nowhere impassable, and by the light of the
lamps we went down it with no great difficulty, though it was gloomy
work enough travelling on thus, no one of us knew whither, into the
dead heart of a volcano. As we went, however, I took the precaution of
noting our route as well as I could; and this was not so very
difficult, owing to the extraordinary and most fantastic shape of the
rocks that were strewn about, many of which in that dim light looked
more like the grim faces carven upon mediæval gargoyles than ordinary
boulders.

For a long time we travelled on thus, half an hour I should say, till,
after we had descended for many hundreds of feet, I perceived that we
were reaching the point of the inverted cone. In another minute we
were there, and found that at the very apex of the funnel was a
passage, so low and narrow that we had to stoop as we crept along it
in Indian file. After some fifty yards of this creeping, the passage
suddenly widened into a cave, so huge that we could see neither the
roof nor the sides. We only knew that it was a cave by the echo of our
tread and the perfect quiet of the heavy air. On we went for many
minutes in absolute awed silence, like lost souls in the depths of
Hades, Ayesha's white and ghost-like form flitting in front of us,
till once more the place ended in a passage which opened into a second
cavern much smaller than the first. Indeed, we could clearly make out
the arch and stony banks of this second cave, and, from their rent and
jagged appearance, discovered that, like the first long passage down
which we had passed through the cliff before we reached the quivering
spur, it had, to all appearance, been torn in the bowels of the rock
by the terrific force of some explosive gas. At length this cave ended
in a third passage, through which gleamed a faint glow of light.

I heard Ayesha give a sigh of relief as this light dawned upon us.

"It is well," she said; "prepare to enter the very womb of the Earth,
wherein she doth conceive the Life that ye see brought forth in man
and beast--ay, and in every tree and flower."

Swiftly she sped along, and after her we stumbled as best we might,
our hearts filled like a cup with mingled dread and curiosity. What
were we about to see? We passed down the tunnel; stronger and stronger
the light beamed, reaching us in great flashes like the rays from a
lighthouse, as one by one they are thrown wide upon the darkness of
the waters. Nor was this all, for with the flashes came a soul-shaking
sound like that of thunder and of crashing trees. Now we were through
it, and--oh heavens!

We stood in a third cavern, some fifty feet in length by perhaps as
great a height, and thirty wide. It was carpeted with fine white sand,
and its walls had been worn smooth by the action of I know not what.
The cavern was not dark like the others, it was filled with a soft
glow of rose-coloured light, more beautiful to look on than anything
that can be conceived. But at first we saw no flashes, and heard no
more of the thunderous sound. Presently, however, as we stood in
amaze, gazing at the marvellous sight, and wondering whence the rosy
radiance flowed, a dread and beautiful thing happened. Across the far
end of the cavern, with a grinding and crashing noise--a noise so
dreadful and awe-inspiring that we all trembled, and Job actually sank
to his knees--there flamed out an awful cloud or pillar of fire, like
a rainbow many-coloured, and like the lightning bright. For a space,
perhaps forty seconds, it flamed and roared thus, turning slowly round
and round, and then by degrees the terrible noise ceased, and with the
fire it passed away--I know not where--leaving behind it the same rosy
glow that we had first seen.

"Draw near, draw near!" cried Ayesha, with a voice of thrilling
exultation. "Behold the very Fountain and Heart of Life as it beats in
the bosom of the great world. Behold the substance from which all
things draw their energy, the bright Spirit of the Globe, without
which it cannot live, but must grow cold and dead as the dead moon.
Draw near, and wash you in the living flames, and take their virtue
into your poor frames in all its virgin strength--not as it now feebly
glows within your bosoms, filtered thereto through all the fine
strainers of a thousand intermediate lives, but as it is here in the
very fount and seat of earthly Being."

We followed her through the rosy glow up to the head of the cave, till
at last we stood before the spot where the great pulse beat and the
great flame passed. And as we went we became sensible of a wild and
splendid exhilaration, of a glorious sense of such a fierce intensity
of Life that the most buoyant moments of our strength seemed flat and
tame and feeble beside it. It was the mere effluvium of the flame, the
subtle ether that it cast off as it passed, working on us, and making
us feel strong as giants and swift as eagles.

We reached the head of the cave, and gazed at each other in the
glorious glow, and laughed aloud--even Job laughed, and he had not
laughed for a week--in the lightness of our hearts and the divine
intoxication of our brains. I know that I felt as though all the
varied genius of which the human intellect is capable had descended
upon me. I could have spoken in blank verse of Shakesperian beauty,
all sorts of great ideas flashed through my mind; it was as though the
bonds of my flesh had been loosened and left the spirit free to soar
to the empyrean of its native power. The sensations that poured in
upon me are indescribable. I seemed to live more keenly, to reach to a
higher joy, and sip the goblet of a subtler thought than ever it had
been my lot to do before. I was another and most glorified self, and
all the avenues of the Possible were for a space laid open to the
footsteps of the Real.

Then, suddenly, whilst I rejoiced in this splendid vigour of a new-
found self, from far, far away there came a dreadful muttering noise,
that grew and grew to a crash and a roar, which combined in itself all
that is terrible and yet splendid in the possibilities of sound.
Nearer it came, and nearer yet, till it was close upon us, rolling
down like all the thunder-wheels of heaven behind the horses of the
lightning. On it came, and with it came the glorious blinding cloud of
many-coloured light, and stood before us for a space, turning, as it
seemed to us, slowly round and round, and then, accompanied by its
attendant pomp of sound, passed away I know not whither.

So astonishing was the wondrous sight that one and all of us, save
/She/, who stood up and stretched her hands towards the fire, sank
down before it, and hid our faces in the sand.

When it was gone, Ayesha spoke.

"Now, Kallikrates," she said, "the mighty moment is at hand. When the
great flame comes again thou must stand in it. First throw aside thy
garments, for it will burn them, though thee it will not hurt. Thou
must stand in the flame while thy senses will endure, and when it
embraces thee suck the fire down into thy very heart, and let it leap
and play around thy every part, so that thou lose no moiety of its
virtue. Hearest thou me, Kallikrates?"

"I hear thee, Ayesha," answered Leo, "but, of a truth--I am no coward
--but I doubt me of that raging flame. How know I that it will not
utterly destroy me, so that I lose myself and lose thee also?
Nevertheless will I do it," he added.

Ayesha thought for a minute, and then said--

"It is not wonderful that thou shouldst doubt. Tell me, Kallikrates:
if thou seest me stand in the flame and come forth unharmed, wilt thou
enter also?"

"Yes," he answered, "I will enter even if it slay me. I have said that
I will enter now."

"And that will I also," I cried.

"What, my Holly!" she laughed aloud; "methought that thou wouldst
naught of length of days. Why, how is this?"

"Nay, I know not," I answered, "but there is that in my heart that
calleth me to taste of the flame and live."

"It is well," she said. "Thou art not altogether lost in folly. See
now, I will for the second time bathe me in this living bath. Fain
would I add to my beauty and my length of days if that be possible. If
it be not possible, at the least it cannot harm me.

"Also," she continued, after a momentary pause, "is there another and
a deeper cause why I would once again dip me in the flame. When first
I tasted of its virtue full was my heart of passion and of hatred of
that Egyptian Amenartas, and therefore, despite my strivings to be rid
thereof, have passion and hatred been stamped upon my soul from that
sad hour to this. But now it is otherwise. Now is my mood a happy
mood, and filled am I with the purest part of thought, and so would I
ever be. Therefore, Kallikrates, will I once more wash and make me
pure and clean, and yet more fit for thee. Therefore also, when thou
dost in turn stand in the fire, empty all thy heart of evil, and let
soft contentment hold the balance of thy mind. Shake loose thy
spirit's wings, and take thy stand upon the utter verge of holy
contemplation; ay, dream upon thy mother's kiss, and turn thee towards
the vision of the highest good that hath ever swept on silver wings
across the silence of thy dreams. For from the germ of what thou art
in that dread moment shall grow the fruit of what thou shalt be for
all unreckoned time.

"Now prepare thee, prepare! even as though thy last hour were at hand,
and thou wast to cross to the Land of Shadows, and not through the
Gates of Glory into the realms of Life made beautiful. Prepare, I
say!"



                                 XXVI

                             WHAT WE SAW

Then came a few moments' pause, during which Ayesha seemed to be
gathering up her strength for the fiery trial, while we clung to each
other, and waited in utter silence.

At last, from far far away, came the first murmur of sound, that grew
and grew till it began to crash and bellow in the distance. As she
heard it, Ayesha swiftly threw off her gauzy wrapping, loosened the
golden snake from her kirtle, and then, shaking her lovely hair about
her like a garment, beneath its cover slipped the kirtle off and
replaced the snaky belt around her and outside the masses of her
falling hair. There she stood before us as Eve might have stood before
Adam, clad in nothing but her abundant locks, held round her by the
golden band; and no words of mine can tell how sweet she looked--and
yet how divine. Nearer and nearer came the thunder-wheels of fire, and
as they came she pushed one ivory arm through the dark masses of her
hair and flung it round Leo's neck.

"Oh, my love, my love!" she murmured, "wilt thou ever know how I have
loved thee?" and she kissed him on the forehead, and then went and
stood in the pathway of the flame of Life.

There was, I remember, to my mind something very touching about her
words and that embrace upon the forehead. It was like a mother's kiss,
and seemed to convey a benediction with it.

On came the crashing, rolling noise, and the sound of it was as the
sound of a forest being swept flat by a mighty wind, and then tossed
up like so much grass, and thundered down a mountain-side. Nearer and
nearer it came; now flashes of light, forerunners of the revolving
pillar of flame, were passing like arrows through the rosy air; and
now the edge of the pillar itself appeared. Ayesha turned towards it,
and stretched out her arms to greet it. On it came very slowly, and
lapped her round with flame. I saw the fire run up her form. I saw her
lift it with both hands as though it were water, and pour it over her
head. I even saw her open her mouth and draw it down into her lungs,
and a dread and wonderful sight it was.

Then she paused, and stretched out her arms, and stood there quite
still, with a heavenly smile upon her face, as though she were the
very Spirit of the Flame.

The mysterious fire played up and down her dark and rolling locks,
twining and twisting itself through and around them like threads of
golden lace; it gleamed upon her ivory breast and shoulder, from which
the hair had slipped aside; it slid along her pillared throat and
delicate features, and seemed to find a home in the glorious eyes that
shone and shone, more brightly even than the spiritual essence.

Oh, how beautiful she looked there in the flame! No angel out of
heaven could have worn a greater loveliness. Even now my heart faints
before the recollection of it, as she stood and smiled at our awed
faces, and I would give half my remaining time upon this earth to see
her once like that again.

But suddenly--more suddenly than I can describe--a kind of change came
over her face, a change which I could not define or explain, but none
the less a change. The smile vanished, and in its place there came a
dry, hard look; the rounded face seemed to grow pinched, as though
some great anxiety were leaving its impress upon it. The glorious
eyes, too, lost their light, and, as I thought, the form its perfect
shape and erectness.

I rubbed my eyes, thinking that I was the victim of some
hallucination, or that the refraction from the intense light produced
an optical delusion; and, as I did so, the flaming pillar slowly
twisted and thundered off whithersoever it passes to in the bowels of
the great earth, leaving Ayesha standing where it had been.

As soon as it was gone, she stepped forward to Leo's side--it seemed
to me that there was no spring in her step--and stretched out her hand
to lay it on his shoulder. I gazed at her arm. Where was its wonderful
roundness and beauty? It was getting thin and angular. And her face--
by Heaven!--/her face was growing old before my eyes!/ I suppose that
Leo saw it also; certainly he recoiled a step or two.

"What is it, my Kallikrates?" she said, and her voice--what was the
matter with those deep and thrilling notes? They were quite high and
cracked.

"Why, what is it--what is it?" she said confusedly. "I feel dazed.
Surely the quality of the fire hath not altered. Can the principle of
Life alter? Tell me, Kallikrates, is there aught wrong with my eyes? I
see not clear," and she put her hand to her head and touched her hair
--and oh, /horror of horrors!/--it all fell upon the floor.

"Oh, /look!--look!--look!/" shrieked Job, in a shrill falsetto of
terror, his eyes nearly dropping out of his head, and foam upon his
lips. "/Look!--look!--look!/ she's shrivelling up! she's turning into
a monkey!" and down he fell upon the ground, foaming and gnashing in a
fit.

True enough--I faint even as I write it in the living presence of that
terrible recollection--she /was/ shrivelling up; the golden snake that
had encircled her gracious form slipped over her hips and to the
ground; smaller and smaller she grew; her skin changed colour, and in
place of the perfect whiteness of its lustre it turned dirty brown and
yellow, like an piece of withered parchment. She felt at her head: the
delicate hand was nothing but a claw now, a human talon like that of a
badly-preserved Egyptian mummy, and then she seemed to realise what
kind of change was passing over her, and she shrieked--ah, she
shrieked!--she rolled upon the floor and shrieked!

Smaller she grew, and smaller yet, till she was no larger than a
monkey. Now the skin was puckered into a million wrinkles, and on the
shapeless face was the stamp of unutterable age. I never saw anything
like it; nobody ever saw anything like the frightful age that was
graven on that fearful countenance, no bigger now than that of a two-
months' child, though the skull remained the same size, or nearly so,
and let all men pray they never may, if they wish to keep their
reason.

At last she lay still, or only feebly moving. She, who but two minutes
before had gazed upon us the loveliest, noblest, most splendid woman
the world has ever seen, she lay still before us, near the masses of
her own dark hair, no larger than a big monkey, and hideous--ah, too
hideous for words. And yet, think of this--at that very moment I
thought of it--it was the /same/ woman!

She was dying: we saw it, and thanked God--for while she lived she
could feel, and what must she have felt? She raised herself upon her
bony hands, and blindly gazed around her, swaying her head slowly from
side to side as a tortoise does. She could not see, for her whitish
eyes were covered with a horny film. Oh, the horrible pathos of the
sight! But she could still speak.

"Kallikrates," she said in husky, trembling notes. "Forget me not,
Kallikrates. Have pity on my shame; I shall come again, and shall once
more be beautiful, I swear it--it is true! /Oh--h--h--/" and she fell
upon her face, and was still.

On the very spot where more than twenty centuries before she had slain
Kallikrates the priest, she herself fell down and died.

                  *       *       *       *       *

I know not how long we remained thus. Many hours, I suppose. When at
last I opened my eyes, the other two were still outstretched upon the
floor. The rosy light yet beamed like a celestial dawn, and the
thunder-wheels of the Spirit of Life yet rolled upon their accustomed
track, for as I awoke the great pillar was passing away. There, too,
lay the hideous little monkey frame, covered with crinkled yellow
parchment, that once had been the glorious /She/. Alas! it was no
hideous dream--it was an awful and unparalleled fact!

What had happened to bring this shocking change about? Had the nature
of the life-giving Fire changed? Did it, perhaps, from time to time
send forth an essence of Death instead of an essence of Life? Or was
it that the frame once charged with its marvellous virtue could bear
no more, so that were the process repeated--it mattered not at what
lapse of time--the two impregnations neutralised each other, and left
the body on which they acted as it was before it ever came into
contact with the very essence of Life? This, and this alone, would
account for the sudden and terrible ageing of Ayesha, as the whole
length of her two thousand years took effect upon her. I have not the
slightest doubt myself but that the frame now lying before me was just
what the frame of a woman would be if by any extraordinary means life
could be preserved in her till she at length died at the age of two-
and-twenty centuries.

But who can tell what had happened? There was the fact. Often since
that awful hour I have reflected that it requires no great imagination
to see the finger of Providence in the matter. Ayesha locked up in her
living tomb waiting from age to age for the coming of her lover worked
but a small change in the order of the World. But Ayesha strong and
happy in her love, clothed in immortal youth and goddess beauty, and
the wisdom of the centuries, would have revolutionised society, and
even perchance have changed the destiny of Mankind. Thus she opposed
herself against the eternal law, and, strong though she was, by it was
swept back to nothingness--swept back with shame and hideous mockery!

For some minutes I lay faintly turning these terrors over in my mind,
while my physical strength came back to me, which it quickly did in
that buoyant atmosphere. Then I bethought me of the others, and
staggered to my feet, to see if I could arouse them. But first I took
up Ayesha's kirtle and the gauzy scarf with which she had been wont to
hide her dazzling loveliness from the eyes of men, and, averting my
head so that I might not look upon it, covered up that dreadful relic
of the glorious dead, that shocking epitome of human beauty and human
life. I did this hurriedly, fearing lest Leo should recover, and see
it again.

Then, stepping over the perfumed masses of dark hair that lay upon the
sand, I stooped down by Job, who was lying upon his face, and turned
him over. As I did so his arm fell back in a way that I did not like,
and which sent a chill through me, and I glanced sharply at him. One
look was enough. Our old and faithful servant was dead. His nerves,
already shattered by all he had seen and undergone, had utterly broken
down beneath this last dire sight, and he had died of terror, or in a
fit brought on by terror. I had only to look at his face to see it.

It was another blow; but perhaps it may help people to understand how
overwhelmingly awful was the experience through which we had passed--
we did not feel it much at the time. It seemed quite natural that the
poor fellow should be dead. When Leo came to himself, which he did
with a groan and trembling of the limbs about ten minutes afterwards,
and I told him that Job was dead, he merely said, "/Oh!/" And, mind
you, this was from no heartlessness, for he and Job were much attached
to each other; and he often talks of him now with the deepest regret
and affection. It was only that his nerves would bear no more. A harp
can give out but a certain quantity of sound, however heavily it is
smitten.

Well, I set myself to recovering Leo, who, to my infinite relief, I
found was not dead, but only fainting, and in the end I succeeded, as
I have said, and he sat up; and then I saw another dreadful thing.
When we entered that awful place his curling hair had been of the
ruddiest gold, now it was turning grey, and by the time we reached the
outer air it was snow white. Besides, he looked twenty years older.

"What is to be done, old fellow?" he said in a hollow, dead sort of
voice, when his mind had cleared a little, and a recollection of what
had happened forced itself upon it.

"Try and get out, I suppose," I answered; "that is, unless you would
like to go in there," and I pointed to the column of fire that was
once more rolling by.

"I would go in if I were sure that it would kill me," he said with a
little laugh. "It was my cursed hesitation that did this. If I had not
been doubtful she might never have tried to show me the road. But I am
not sure. The fire might have the opposite effect upon me. It might
make me immortal; and, old fellow, I have not the patience to wait a
couple of thousand years for her to come back again as she did for me.
I had rather die when my hour comes--and I should fancy that it isn't
far off either--and go my ways to look for her. Do you go in if you
like."

But I merely shook my head, my excitement was as dead as ditch-water,
and my distaste for the prolongation of my mortal span had come back
upon me more strongly than ever. Besides, we neither of us knew what
the effects of the fire might be. The result upon /She/ had not been
of an encouraging nature, and of the exact causes that produced that
result we were, of course, ignorant.

"Well, my boy," I said, "we cannot stop here till we go the way of
those two," and I pointed to the little heap under the white garment
and to the stiffing corpse of poor Job. "If we are going we had better
go. But, by the way, I expect that the lamps have burnt out," and I
took one up and looked at it, and sure enough it had.

"There is some more oil in the vase," said Leo indifferently--"if it
is not broken, at least."

I examined the vessel in question--it was intact. With a trembling
hand I filled the lamps--luckily there was still some of the linen
wick unburnt. Then I lit them with one of our wax matches. While I did
so we heard the pillar of fire approaching once more as it went on its
never-ending journey, if, indeed, it was the same pillar that passed
and repassed in a circle.

"Let's see it come once more," said Leo; "we shall never look upon its
like again in this world."

It seemed a bit of idle curiosity, but somehow I shared it, and so we
waited till, turning slowly round upon its own axis, it had flamed and
thundered by; and I remember wondering for how many thousands of years
this same phenomenon had been taking place in the bowels of the earth,
and for how many more thousands it would continue to take place. I
wondered also if any mortal eyes would ever again mark its passage, or
any mortal ears be thrilled and fascinated by the swelling volume of
its majestic sound. I do not think that they will. I believe that we
are the last human beings who will ever see that unearthly sight.
Presently it had gone, and we too turned to go.

But before we did so we each took Job's cold hand in ours and shook
it. It was a rather ghastly ceremony, but it was the only means in our
power of showing our respect to the faithful dead and of celebrating
his obsequies. The heap beneath the white garment we did not uncover.
We had no wish to look upon that terrible sight again. But we went to
the pile of rippling hair that had fallen from her in the agony of
that hideous change which was worse than a thousand natural deaths,
and each of us drew from it a shining lock, and these locks we still
have, the sole memento that is left to us of Ayesha as we knew her in
the fulness of her grace and glory. Leo pressed the perfumed hair to
his lips.

"She called to me not to forget her," he said hoarsely; "and swore
that we should meet again. By Heaven! I never will forget her. Here I
swear that if we live to get out of this, I will not for all my days
have anything to say to another living woman, and that wherever I go I
will wait for her as faithfully as she waited for me."

"Yes," I thought to myself, "if she comes back as beautiful as we knew
her. But supposing she came back /like that!/"[*]

[*] What a terrifying reflection it is, by the way, that nearly all
    our deep love for women who are not our kindred depends--at any
    rate, in the first instance--upon their personal appearance. If we
    lost them, and found them again dreadful to look on, though
    otherwise they were the very same, should we still love them?
    --L. H. H.

Well, and then we went. We went, and left those two in the presence of
the very well and spring of Life, but gathered to the cold company of
Death. How lonely they looked as they lay there, and how ill assorted!
That little heap had been for two thousand years the wisest,
loveliest, proudest creature--I can hardly call her woman--in the
whole universe. She had been wicked, too, in her way; but, alas! such
is the frailty of the human heart, her wickedness had not detracted
from her charm. Indeed, I am by no means certain that it did not add
to it. It was after all of a grand order, there was nothing mean or
small about Ayesha.

And poor Job too! His presentiment had come true, and there was an end
of him. Well, he has a strange burial-place--no Norfolk hind ever had
a stranger, or ever will; and it is something to lie in the same
sepulchre as the poor remains of the imperial /She/.

We looked our last upon them and the indescribable rosy glow in which
they lay, and then with hearts far too heavy for words we left them,
and crept thence broken-down men--so broken down that we even
renounced the chance of practically immortal life, because all that
made life valuable had gone from us, and we knew even then that to
prolong our days indefinitely would only be to prolong our sufferings.
For we felt--yes, both of us--that having once looked Ayesha in the
eyes, we could not forget her for ever and ever while memory and
identity remained. We both loved her now and for all time, she was
stamped and carven on our hearts, and no other woman or interest could
ever raze that splendid die. And I--there lies the sting--I had and
have no right to think thus of her. As she told me, I was naught to
her, and never shall be through the unfathomed depths of Time, unless,
indeed, conditions alter, and a day comes at last when two men may
love one woman, and all three be happy in the fact. It is the only
hope of my broken-heartedness, and a rather faint one. Beyond it I
have nothing. I have paid down this heavy price, all that I am worth
here and hereafter, and that is my sole reward. With Leo it is
different, and often and often I bitterly envy him his happy lot, for
if /She/ was right, and her wisdom and knowledge did not fail her at
the last, which, arguing from the precedent of her own case, I think
most unlikely, he has some future to look forward to. But I have none,
and yet--mark the folly and the weakness of the human heart, and let
him who is wise learn wisdom from it--yet I would not have it
otherwise. I mean that I am content to give what I have given and must
always give, and take in payment those crumbs that fall from my
mistress's table, the memory of a few kind words, the hope one day in
the far undreamed future of a sweet smile or two of recognition, a
little gentle friendship, and a little show of thanks for my devotion
to her--and Leo.

If that does not constitute true love, I do not know what does, and
all I have to say is that it is a very bad state of affairs for a man
on the wrong side of middle age to fall into.



                                XXVII

                               WE LEAP

We passed through the caves without trouble, but when we came to the
slope of the inverted cone two difficulties stared us in the face. The
first of these was the laborious nature of the ascent, and the next
the extreme difficulty of finding our way. Indeed, had it not been for
the mental notes that I had fortunately taken of the shape of various
rocks, I am sure that we never should have managed it at all, but have
wandered about in the dreadful womb of the volcano--for I suppose it
must once have been something of the sort--until we died of exhaustion
and despair. As it was we went wrong several times, and once nearly
fell into a huge crack or crevasse. It was terrible work creeping
about in the dense gloom and awful stillness from boulder to boulder,
and examining it by the feeble light of the lamps to see if I could
recognise its shape. We rarely spoke, our hearts were too heavy for
speech, we simply stumbled about, falling sometimes and cutting
ourselves, in a rather dogged sort of way. The fact was that our
spirits were utterly crushed, and we did not greatly care what
happened to us. Only we felt bound to try and save our lives whilst we
could, and indeed a natural instinct prompted us to it. So for some
three or four hours, I should think--I cannot tell exactly how long,
for we had no watch left that would go--we blundered on. During the
last two hours we were completely lost, and I began to fear that we
had got into the funnel of some subsidiary cone, when at last I
suddenly recognised a very large rock which we had passed in
descending but a little way from the top. It is a marvel that I should
have recognised it, and, indeed, we had already passed it going at
right angles to the proper path, when something about it struck me,
and I turned back and examined it in an idle sort of way, and, as it
happened, this proved our salvation.

After this we gained the rocky natural stair without much further
trouble, and in due course found ourselves back in the little chamber
where the benighted Noot had lived and died.

But now a fresh terror stared us in the face. It will be remembered
that owing to Job's fear and awkwardness, the plank upon which we had
crossed from the huge spur to the rocking-stone had been whirled off
into the tremendous gulf below.

How were we to cross without the plank?

There was only one answer--we must try and /jump/ it, or else stop
there till we starved. The distance in itself was not so very great,
between eleven and twelve feet I should think, and I have seen Leo
jump over twenty when he was a young fellow at collage; but then,
think of the conditions. Two weary, worn-out men, one of them on the
wrong side of forty, a rocking-stone to take off from, a trembling
point of rock some few feet across to land upon, and a bottomless gulf
to be cleared in a raging gale! It was bad enough, God knows, but when
I pointed out these things to Leo, he put the whole matter in a
nutshell, by replying that, merciless as the choice was, we must
choose between the certainty of a lingering death in the chamber and
the risk of a swift one in the air. Of course, there was no arguing
against this, but one thing was clear, we could not attempt that leap
in the dark; the only thing to do was to wait for the ray of light
which pierced through the gulf at sunset. How near to or how far from
sunset we might be, neither of us had the faintest notion; all we did
know was, that when at last the light came it would not endure more
than a couple of minutes at the outside, so that we must be prepared
to meet it. Accordingly, we made up our minds to creep on to the top
of the rocking-stone and lie there in readiness. We were the more
easily reconciled to this course by the fact that our lamps were once
more nearly exhausted--indeed, one had gone out bodily, and the other
was jumping up and down as the flame of a lamp does when the oil is
done. So, by the aid of its dying light, we hastened to crawl out of
the little chamber and clamber up the side of the great stone.

As we did so the light went out.

The difference in our position was a sufficiently remarkable one.
Below, in the little chamber, we had only heard the roaring of the
gale overhead--here, lying on our faces on the swinging stone, we were
exposed to its full force and fury, as the great draught drew first
from this direction and then from that, howling against the mighty
precipice and through the rocky cliffs like ten thousand despairing
souls. We lay there hour after hour in terror and misery of mind so
deep that I will not attempt to describe it, and listened to the wild
storm-voices of that Tartarus, as, set to the deep undertone of the
spur opposite against which the wind hummed like some awful harp, they
called to each other from precipice to precipice. No nightmare dreamed
by man, no wild invention of the romancer, can ever equal the living
horror of that place, and the weird crying of those voices of the
night, as we clung like shipwrecked mariners to a raft, and tossed on
the black, unfathomed wilderness of air. Fortunately the temperature
was not a low one; indeed, the wind was warm, or we should have
perished. So we clung and listened, and while we were stretched out
upon the rock a thing happened which was so curious and suggestive in
itself, though doubtless a mere coincidence, that, if anything, it
added to, rather than deducted from, the burden on our nerves.

It will be remembered that when Ayesha was standing on the spur,
before we crossed to the stone, the wind tore her cloak from her, and
whirled it away into the darkness of the gulf, we could not see
whither. Well--I hardly like to tell the story; it is so strange. As
we lay there upon the rocking-stone, this very cloak came floating out
of the black space, like a memory from the dead, and fell on Leo--so
that it covered him nearly from head to foot. We could not at first
make out what it was, but soon discovered by its feel, and then poor
Leo, for the first time, gave way, and I heard him sobbing there upon
the stone. No doubt the cloak had been caught upon some pinnacle of
the cliff, and was thence blown hither by a chance gust; but still, it
was a most curious and touching incident.

Shortly after this, suddenly, without the slightest previous warning,
the great red knife of light came stabbing the darkness through and
through--struck the swaying stone on which we were, and rested its
sharp point upon the spur opposite.

"Now for it," said Leo, "now or never."

We rose and stretched ourselves, and looked at the cloud-wreaths
stained the colour of blood by that red ray as they tore through the
sickening depths beneath, and then at the empty space between the
swaying stone and the quivering rock, and, in our hearts, despaired,
and prepared for death. Surely we could not clear it--desperate though
we were.

"Who is to go first?" said I.

"Do you, old fellow," answered Leo. "I will sit upon the other side of
the stone to steady it. You must take as much run as you can, and jump
high; and God have mercy on us, say I."

I acquiesced with a nod, and then I did a thing I had never done since
Leo was a little boy. I turned and put my arm round him, and kissed
him on the forehead. It sounds rather French, but as a fact I was
taking my last farewell of a man whom I could not have loved more if
he had been my own son twice over.

"Good-bye, my boy," I said, "I hope that we shall meet again, wherever
it is that we go to."

The fact was I did not expect to live another two minutes.

Next I retreated to the far side of the rock, and waited till one of
the chopping gusts of wind got behind me, and then I ran the length of
the huge stone, some three or four and thirty feet, and sprang wildly
out into the dizzy air. Oh! the sickening terrors that I felt as I
launched myself at that little point of rock, and the horrible sense
of despair that shot through my brain as I realised that I had /jumped
short!/ but so it was, my feet never touched the point, they went down
into space, only my hands and body came in contact with it. I gripped
at it with a yell, but one hand slipped, and I swung right round,
holding by the other, so that I faced the stone from which I had
sprung. Wildly I stretched up with my left hand, and this time managed
to grasp a knob of rock, and there I hung in the fierce red light,
with thousands of feet of empty air beneath me. My hands were holding
to either side of the under part of the spur, so that its point was
touching my head. Therefore, even if I could have found the strength,
I could not pull myself up. The most that I could do would be to hang
for about a minute, and then drop down, down into the bottomless pit.
If any man can imagine a more hideous position, let him speak! All I
know is that the torture of that half-minute nearly turned my brain.

I heard Leo give a cry, and then suddenly saw him in mid air springing
up and out like a chamois. It was a splendid leap that he took under
the influence of his terror and despair, clearing the horrible gulf as
if it were nothing, and, landing well on to the rocky point, he threw
himself upon his face, to prevent his pitching off into the depths. I
felt the spur above me shake beneath the shock of his impact, and as
it did so I saw the huge rocking-stone, that had been violently
depressed by him as he sprang, fly back when relieved of his weight
till, for the first time during all these centuries, it got beyond its
balance, fell with a most awful crash right into the rocky chamber
which had once served the philosopher Noot for a hermitage, and, I
have no doubt, for ever sealed the passage that leads to the Place of
Life with some hundreds of tons of rock.

All this happened in a second, and curiously enough, notwithstanding
my terrible position, I noted it involuntarily, as it were. I even
remember thinking that no human being would go down that dread path
again.

Next instant I felt Leo seize me by the right wrist with both hands.
By lying flat on the point of rock he could just reach me.

"You must let go and swing yourself clear," he said in a calm and
collected voice, "and then I will try and pull you up, or we will both
go together. Are you ready?"

By way of answer I let go, first with my left hand and then with the
right, and, as a consequence, swayed out clear of the overshadowing
rock, my weight hanging upon Leo's arms. It was a dreadful moment. He
was a very powerful man, I knew, but would his strength be equal to
lifting me up till I could get a hold on the top of the spur, when
owing to his position he had so little purchase?


For a few seconds I swung to and fro, while he gathered himself for
the effort, and then I heard his sinews cracking above me, and felt
myself lifted up as though I were a little child, till I got my left
arm round the rock, and my chest was resting on it. The rest was easy;
in two or three more seconds I was up, and we were lying panting side
by side, trembling like leaves, and with the cold perspiration of
terror pouring from our skins.

And then, as before, the light went out like a lamp.

For some half-hour we lay thus without speaking a word, and then at
length began to creep along the great spur as best we might in the
dense gloom. As we drew towards the face of the cliff, however, from
which the spur sprang out like a spike from a wall, the light
increased, though only a very little, for it was night overhead. After
that the gusts of wind decreased, and we got along rather better, and
at last reached the mouth of the first cave or tunnel. But now a fresh
trouble stared as in the face: our oil was gone, and the lamps were,
no doubt, crushed to powder beneath the fallen rocking-stone. We were
even without a drop of water to stay our thirst, for we had drunk the
last in the chamber of Noot. How were we to see to make our way
through this last boulder-strewn tunnel?

Clearly all that we could do was to trust to our sense of feeling, and
attempt the passage in the dark, so in we crept, fearing that if we
delayed to do so our exhaustion would overcome us, and we should
probably lie down and die where we were.

Oh, the horrors of that last tunnel! The place was strewn with rocks,
and we fell over them, and knocked ourselves up against them till we
were bleeding from a score of wounds. Our only guide was the side of
the cavern, which we kept touching, and so bewildered did we grow in
the darkness that we were several times seized with the terrifying
thought that we had turned, and were travelling the wrong way. On we
went, feebly, and still more feebly, for hour after hour, stopping
every few minutes to rest, for our strength was spent. Once we fell
asleep, and, I think, must have slept for some hours, for, when we
woke, our limbs were quite stiff, and the blood from our blows and
scratches had caked, and was hard and dry upon our skin. Then we
dragged ourselves on again, till at last, when despair was entering
into our hearts, we once more saw the light of day, and found
ourselves outside the tunnel in the rocky fold on the outer surface of
the cliff that, it will be remembered, led into it.

It was early morning--that we could tell by the feel of the sweet air
and the look of the blessed sky, which we had never hoped to see
again. It was, so near as we knew, an hour after sunset when we
entered the tunnel, so it followed that it had taken us the entire
night to crawl through that dreadful place.

"One more effort, Leo," I gasped, "and we shall reach the slope where
Billali is, if he hasn't gone. Come, don't give way," for he had cast
himself upon his face. He rose, and, leaning on each other, we got
down that fifty feet or so of cliff--somehow, I have not the least
notion how. I only remember that we found ourselves lying in a heap at
the bottom, and then once more began to drag ourselves along on our
hands and knees towards the grove where /She/ had told Billali to wait
her re-arrival, for we could not walk another foot. We had not gone
fifty yards in this fashion when suddenly one of the mutes emerged
from the trees on our left, through which, I presume, he had been
taking a morning stroll, and came running up to see what sort of
strange animals we were. He stared, and stared, and then held up his
hands in horror, and nearly fell to the ground. Next, he started off
as hard as he could for the grove some two hundred yards away. No
wonder that he was horrified at our appearance, for we must have been
a shocking sight. To begin, Leo, with his golden curls turned a snowy
white, his clothes nearly rent from his body, his worn face and his
hands a mass of bruises, cuts, and blood-encrusted filth, was a
sufficiently alarming spectacle, as he painfully dragged himself along
the ground, and I have no doubt that I was little better to look on. I
know that two days afterwards when I inspected my face in some water I
scarcely recognised myself. I have never been famous for beauty, but
there was something beside ugliness stamped upon my features that I
have never got rid of until this day, something resembling that wild
look with which a startled person wakes from deep sleep more than
anything else that I can think of. And really it is not to be wondered
at. What I do wonder at is that we escaped at all with our reason.

Presently, to my intense relief, I saw old Billali hurrying towards
us, and even then I could scarcely help smiling at the expression of
consternation on his dignified countenance.

"Oh, my Baboon! my Baboon!" he cried, "my dear son, is it indeed thee
and the Lion? Why, his mane that was ripe as corn is white like the
snow. Whence come ye? and where is the Pig, and where too /She-who-
must-be-obeyed/?"

"Dead, both dead," I answered; "but ask no questions; help us, and
give us food and water, or we too shall die before thine eyes. Seest
thou not that our tongues are black for want of water? How, then, can
we talk?"

"Dead!" he gasped. "Impossible. /She/ who never dies--dead, how can it
be?" and then, perceiving, I think, that his face was being watched by
the mutes who had come running up, he checked himself, and motioned to
them to carry us to the camp, which they did.

Fortunately when we arrived some broth was boiling on the fire, and
with this Billali fed us, for we were too weak to feed ourselves,
thereby I firmly believe saving us from death by exhaustion. Then he
bade the mutes wash the blood and grime from us with wet cloths, and
after that we were laid down upon piles of aromatic grass, and
instantly fell into the dead sleep of absolute exhaustion of mind and
body.



                                XXVIII

                          OVER THE MOUNTAIN

The next thing I recollect is a feeling of the most dreadful
stiffness, and a sort of vague idea passing through my half-awakened
brain that I was a carpet that had just been beaten. I opened my eyes,
and the first thing they fell on was the venerable countenance of our
old friend Billali, who was seated by the side of the improvised bed
upon which I was sleeping, and thoughtfully stroking his long beard.
The sight of him at once brought back to my mind a recollection of all
that we had recently passed through, which was accentuated by the
vision of poor Leo lying opposite to me, his face knocked almost to a
jelly, and his beautiful crowd of curls turned from yellow to
white,[*] and I shut my eyes again and groaned.

[*] Curiously enough, Leo's hair has lately been to some extent
    regaining its colour--that is to say, it is now a yellowish grey,
    and I am not without hopes that it will in time come quite
    right.--L. H. H.

"Thou hast slept long, my Baboon," said old Billali.

"How long, my father?" I asked.

"A round of the sun and a round of the moon, a day and a night hast
thou slept, and the Lion also. See, he sleepeth yet."

"Blessed is sleep," I answered, "for it swallows up recollection."

"Tell me," he said, "what hath befallen you, and what is this strange
story of the death of Her who dieth not. Bethink thee, my son: if this
be true, then is thy danger and the danger of the Lion very great--
nay, almost is the pot red wherewith ye shall be potted, and the
stomachs of those who shall eat ye are already hungry for the feast.
Knowest thou not that these Amahagger, my children, these dwellers in
the caves, hate ye? They hate ye as strangers, they hate ye more
because of their brethren whom /She/ put to the torment for your sake.
Assuredly, if once they learn that there is naught to fear from Hiya,
from the terrible One-who-must-be-obeyed, they will slay ye by the
pot. But let me hear thy tale, my poor Baboon."

This adjured, I set to work and told him--not everything, indeed, for
I did not think it desirable to do so, but sufficient for my purpose,
which was to make him understand that /She/ was really no more, having
fallen into some fire, and, as I put it--for the real thing would have
been incomprehensible to him--been burnt up. I also told him some of
the horrors we had undergone in effecting our escape, and these
produced a great impression on him. But I clearly saw that he did not
believe in the report of Ayesha's death. He believed indeed that we
thought that she was dead, but his explanation was that it had suited
her to disappear for a while. Once, he said, in his father's time, she
had done so for twelve years, and there was a tradition in the country
that many centuries back no one had seen her for a whole generation,
when she suddenly reappeared, and destroyed a woman who had assumed
the position of Queen. I said nothing to this, but only shook my head
sadly. Alas! I knew too well that Ayesha would appear no more, or at
any rate that Billali would never see her again.

"And now," concluded Billali, "what wouldst thou do, my Baboon?"

"Nay," I said, "I know not, my father. Can we not escape from this
country?"

He shook his head.

"It is very difficult. By Kôr ye cannot pass, for ye would be seen,
and as soon as those fierce ones found that ye were alone, well," and
he smiled significantly, and made a movement as though he were placing
a hat on his head. "But there is a way over the cliff whereof I once
spake to thee, where they drive the cattle out to pasture. Then beyond
the pastures are three days' journey through the marshes, and after
that I know not, but I have heard that seven days' journey from thence
is a mighty river, which floweth to the black water. If ye could come
thither, perchance ye might escape, but how can ye come thither?"

"Billali," I said, "once, thou knowest, I did save thy life. Now pay
back the debt, my father, and save me mine and my friend's, the
Lion's. It shall be a pleasant thing for thee to think of when thine
hour comes, and something to set in the scale against the evil doing
of thy days, if perchance thou hast done any evil. Also, if thou be
right, and if /She/ doth but hide herself, surely when she comes again
she shall reward thee."

"My son the Baboon," answered the old man, "think not that I have an
ungrateful heart. Well do I remember how thou didst rescue me when
those dogs stood by to see me drown. Measure for measure will I give
thee, and if thou canst be saved, surely I will save thee. Listen: by
dawn to-morrow be prepared, for litters shall be here to bear ye away
across the mountains, and through the marshes beyond. This will I do,
saying that it is the word of /She/ that it be done, and he who
obeyeth not the word of /She/ food is he for the hyænas. Then when ye
have crossed the marshes, ye must strike with your own hands, so that
perchance, if good fortune go with you, ye may live to come to that
black water whereof ye told me. And now, see, the Lion wakes, and ye
must eat the food I have made ready for you."

Leo's condition when once he was fairly aroused proved not to be so
bad as might have been expected from his appearance, and we both of us
managed to eat a hearty meal, which indeed we needed sadly enough.
After this we limped down to the spring and bathed, and then came back
and slept again till evening, when we once more ate enough for five.
Billali was away all that day, no doubt making arrangements about
litters and bearers, for we were awakened in the middle of the night
by the arrival of a considerable number of men in the little camp.

At dawn the old man himself appeared, and told us that he had by using
/She's/ dreadful name, though with some difficulty, succeeded in
getting the necessary men and two guides to conduct us across the
swamps, and that he urged us to start at once, at the same time
announcing his intention of accompanying us so as to protect us
against treachery. I was much touched by this act of kindness on the
part of that wily old barbarian towards two utterly defenceless
strangers. A three--or in his case, for he would have to return, six--
days' journey through those deadly swamps was no light undertaking for
a man of his age, but he consented to do it cheerfully in order to
promote our safety. It shows that even among those dreadful Amahagger
--who are certainly with their gloom and their devilish and ferocious
rites by far the most terrible savages that I ever heard of--there are
people with kindly hearts. Of course, self-interest may have had
something to do with it. He may have thought that /She/ would suddenly
reappear and demand an account of us at his hands, but still, allowing
for all deductions, it was a great deal more than we could expect
under the circumstances, and I can only say that I shall for as long
as I live cherish a most affectionate remembrance of my nominal
parent, old Billali.

Accordingly, after swallowing some food, we started in the litters,
feeling, so far as our bodies went, wonderfully like our old selves
after our long rest and sleep. I must leave the condition of our minds
to the imagination.

Then came a terrible pull up the cliff. Sometimes the ascent was more
natural, more often it was a zig-zag roadway cut, no doubt, in the
first instance by the old inhabitants of Kôr. The Amahagger say they
drive their spare cattle over it once a year to pasture outside; all I
know is that those cattle must be uncommonly active on their feet. Of
course the litters were useless here, so we had to walk.

By midday, however, we reached the great flat top of that mighty wall
of rock, and grand enough the view was from it, with the plain of Kôr,
in the centre of which we could clearly make out the pillared ruins of
the Temple of Truth to the one side, and the boundless and melancholy
marsh on the other. This wall of rock, which had no doubt once formed
the lip of the crater, was about a mile and a half thick, and still
covered with clinker. Nothing grew there, and the only thing to
relieve our eyes were occasional pools of rain-water (for rain had
lately fallen) wherever there was a little hollow. Over the flat crest
of this mighty rampart we went, and then came the descent, which, if
not so difficult a matter as the getting up, was still sufficiently
break-neck, and took us till sunset. That night, however, we camped in
safety upon the mighty slopes that rolled away to the marsh beneath.

On the following morning, about eleven o'clock, began our dreary
journey across those awful seas of swamps which I have already
described.

For three whole days, through stench and mire, and the all-prevailing
flavour of fear, did our bearers struggle along, till at length we
came to open rolling ground quite uncultivated, and mostly treeless,
but covered with game of all sorts, which lies beyond that most
desolate, and without guides utterly impracticable, district. And here
on the following morning we bade farewell, not without some regret, to
old Billali, who stroked his white beard and solemnly blessed us.

"Farewell, my son the Baboon," he said, "and farewell to thee too, oh
Lion. I can do no more to help you. But if ever ye come to your
country, be advised, and venture no more into lands that ye know not,
lest ye come back no more, but leave your white bones to mark the
limit of your journeyings. Farewell once more; often shall I think of
you, nor wilt thou forget me, my Baboon, for though thy face is ugly
thy heart is true." And then he turned and went, and with him went the
tall and sullen-looking bearers, and that was the last that we saw of
the Amahagger. We watched them winding away with the empty litters
like a procession bearing dead men from a battle, till the mists from
the marsh gathered round them and hid them, and then, left utterly
desolate in the vast wilderness, we turned and gazed round us and at
each other.

Three weeks or so before four men had entered the marshes of Kôr, and
now two of us were dead, and the other two had gone through adventures
and experiences so strange and terrible that death himself hath not a
more fearful countenance. Three weeks--and only three weeks! Truly
time should be measured by events, and not by the lapse of hours. It
seemed like thirty years since we saw the last of our whale-boat.

"We must strike out for the Zambesi, Leo," I said, "but God knows if
we shall ever get there."

Leo nodded. He had become very silent of late, and we started with
nothing but the clothes we stood in, a compass, our revolvers and
express rifles, and about two hundred rounds of ammunition, and so
ended the history of our visit to the ancient ruins of mighty and
imperial Kôr.

As for the adventures that subsequently befell us, strange and varied
as they were, I have, after deliberation, determined not to record
them here. In these pages I have only tried to give a short and clear
account of an occurrence which I believe to be unprecedented, and this
I have done, not with a view to immediate publication, but merely to
put on paper while they are yet fresh in our memories the details of
our journey and its result, which will, I believe, prove interesting
to the world if ever we determine to make them public. This, as at
present advised, we do not intend should be done during our joint
lives.

For the rest, it is of no public interest, resembling as it does the
experience of more than one Central African traveller. Suffice it to
say, that we did, after incredible hardships and privations, reach the
Zambesi, which proved to be about a hundred and seventy miles south of
where Billali left us. There we were for six months imprisoned by a
savage tribe, who believed us to be supernatural beings, chiefly on
account of Leo's youthful face and snow-white hair. From these people
we ultimately escaped, and, crossing the Zambesi, wandered off
southwards, where, when on the point of starvation, we were
sufficiently fortunate to fall in with a half-cast Portuguese
elephant-hunter who had followed a troop of elephants farther inland
than he had ever been before. This man treated us most hospitably, and
ultimately through his assistance we, after innumerable sufferings and
adventures, reached Delagoa Bay, more than eighteen months from the
time when we emerged from the marshes of Kôr, and the very next day
managed to catch one of the steamboats that run round the Cape to
England. Our journey home was a prosperous one, and we set our foot on
the quay at Southampton exactly two years from the date of our
departure upon our wild and seemingly ridiculous quest, and I now
write these last words with Leo leaning over my shoulder in my old
room in my college, the very same into which some two-and-twenty years
ago my poor friend Vincey came stumbling on the memorable night of his
death, bearing the iron chest with him.



And that is the end of 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 at. But we feel that is not reached yet. A story
that began more than two thousand years ago may stretch a long way
into the dim and distant future.

Is Leo really a reincarnation of the ancient Kallikrates of whom the
inscription tells? Or was Ayesha deceived by some strange hereditary
resemblance? The reader must form his own opinion on this as on many
other matters. I have mine, which is that she made no such mistake.

Often I sit alone at night, staring with the eyes of the 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 that /final/ development ultimately occurs,
as I have no doubt it must and will occur, in obedience to a fate that
never swerves and a purpose that cannot be altered, what will be the
part played therein by that beautiful Egyptian Amenartas, the Princess
of the royal race of the Pharaohs, for the love of whom the Priest
Kallikrates broke his vows to Isis, and, pursued by the inexorable
vengeance of the outraged Goddess, fled down the coast of Libya to
meet his doom at Kôr?





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of She, by H. Rider Haggard

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHE ***

This file should be named shrhe10.txt or shrhe10.zip
Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, shrhe11.txt
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, shrhe10a.txt

Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@ihug.co.nz
and Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
Unicode by William Kyngesburye

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.



*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.net/license).


Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works

1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.  See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.

1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.

1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.net),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that

- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
     License.  You must require such a user to return or
     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
     Project Gutenberg-tm works.

- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
     of receipt of the work.

- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.

1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.


Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.


Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at http://pglaf.org

For additional contact information:
     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
     Chief Executive and Director
     gbnewby@pglaf.org

Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit http://pglaf.org

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
donations.  To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate


Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.

Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
compressed (zipped), HTML and others.

Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
new filenames and etext numbers.

Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

     http://www.gutenberg.net

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
download by the etext year. For example:

     http://www.gutenberg.net/etext06

    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)

EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:

     http://www.gutenberg.net/1/0/2/3/10234

or filename 24689 would be found at:
     http://www.gutenberg.net/2/4/6/8/24689

An alternative method of locating eBooks:
     http://www.gutenberg.net/GUTINDEX.ALL