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_ 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. _
Read next: CHAPTER XIX - "GIVE ME A BLACK GOAT!"
Read previous: CHAPTER XVII - THE BALANCE TURNS
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