________________________________________________
_ 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. _
Read next: CHAPTER XXIII - THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH
Read previous: CHAPTER XXI - THE DEAD AND LIVING MEET
Table of content of She
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
