 CHAPTER 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 Eustaine, 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 Mohammed, 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 to and to. The villains were submitting with a look of sulky indifference upon their faces, which accorded ill with the baffled fury that gleamed in their somber eyes. In front of these men directing the operations stood no other than our friend Bilali, looking rather tired, but particularly patriarchal with his flowing beard, and as cool and unconcerned as though he was 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 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 Muhammad. 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 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 Muhammad, I tell thee that man would have died a merciful death to the death these hyena 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 siest, 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 wildfowl. When she who must be obeyed sent orders that ye were to be saved alive she said not of the black man. Therefore, being hyenas, these men lusted after his flesh, and the woman it was, whom thou didst rightly slay, who put it into their evil hearts to hotpot 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 up 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 she fought. Knowest thou that, long-armed old baboon that thou art, thou hast crushed in the ribs of those two who were 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 to his 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, would never 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 to bed, supported by Job and that brave girl Eustaine 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 Eustaine 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 Mohamed 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 nought and death is nought. 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 afterward Bilali, Job called him Billy-goat, to which indeed his white beard gave him some resemblance, or more familiarly Billy, came to, 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 in mutter. Bilali 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 over much. 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 awaken him. I waited till he had turned, and was nearly through the entrance, walking softly on tiptoe. 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 sent them there had a way I know nought of, whereby to keep their beloved out of the crumbling hand of decay even when death had slain them. I, 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 onto 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 shriveled, 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 upborn through the pomp and pageantry of a forgotten civilisation, first as a merry child, then as a blushing maid, 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 Bilali'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 Eustaine 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 Bilali 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 Job and myself were practically recovered. Leo also was so much better that I yielded to Bilali's often expressed entreaty, and agreed to start at once upon our journey to Cor, 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 Bilali'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. Chapter 10 of She. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Kerry Ford of Paikakariki, New Zealand. She by H. Ryder Haggard. Chapter 10 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 spear hands. Also a band of about fifty armed Armahaga, who were to form the escort and carry the baggage. Three of these litters, of course, were for us, and one for Bilali, who, I was immensely relieved to hear, was to be our companion, while the fifth they presumed was for the use of Ustay. Does the lady go with us, my father? I asked Bilali, 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 enlightened the darkness of the Armahaga. Thou hast found thy position one of great freedom and less responsibility. This phrase puzzled him a little at first with 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 made him 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 underway. 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 the 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 slope, and by midday we had reached the border 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 unaccustomised, 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 the places which might be safe enough to cross one month would certainly swallow the way fairer than next. Never did I see a more dreary and depressing scene, mile 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 bitons boomed and the frogs croaked incessantly, miles on miles of it without a break, unless the fever thog can be called a break. The only life in this great morass was that of the aquatic birds, and the animals which fed on them, of both of which there were vast numbers, geese, cranes, ducks, teal, coot, snipe, and plover swarmed all around us. Many beings of varieties that were quite new to me, and 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 the flight more resembling that birds than in English snipes. In the pools, too, was a species a small alligator or enormous iguana. I do not know which. Which fed Bilali 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 puffer's. The bullfrogs were also very large and with voices proportionate to their size, and as for the mosquitoes, the musketeers, 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 this swamp was the awful smell of rotting vegetation that hung about it, which was at times positively overpowering, and the malaria sexillations that accompanied it, which we were of course obliged to breathe. On we went through it all till it last the sun sank in sullen splendor, just as we reached a spot of rising ground about two acres in extent. A little oasis of dry in the midst of the Maori wilderness, where Bilali announced that we were to camp. The camping, however, turned out to be a very simple process, and consistent, in fact, and sitting down on the ground around 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 an eight with such appetite as the smell of damp, stifling heat would allow. For it was very hot on the slow 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 do 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 bullfrogs and the extraordinary roaring and alarming sounds produced by the 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 to me. He was stozing, but his face had a flushed appearance that I did not like, and by the flickering firelight I saw Usdain, who was lying on the other side of him, raise himself 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 guanine, which was the only preventative 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 of 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 be chance blind our imperfect sight, and too much strength would make us drunk, and overweigh 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 efforts of his pure blind 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, and would destroy us. Full knowledge is not for man, as man is here. For his capacities, which he has apt to think so great, are indeed but small. The vessel is soon filmed, and were one-thousandth part of the unutterable and silent wisdom that directs the rolling of these shining spheres, and the force which makes them roll, pressed into it, it would be shattered into fragments. Perhaps in some of the place and time it may be otherwise, who can tell? Here the lot of man, born of the flesh, is but to endure mid-toil and tribulation, to catch at the bubbles blown by fate, which he calls pleasure. Thankful of before they burst, they rest a moment in his hand, and when the tragedy is played out, and as hour comes to perish, to pass humbly, whether 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 me thought 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 the 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 Gideous Peak, we might gaze with spiritual eyes deep into infinity. What would it be to cast off this earthly robe, to have done forever with these earthly 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, dressed on high, wrapped forever in the brightness of our better selves, that even now shines in us as fire faintly shines within those lurid bones, and lay down our littleness and that wide glory of our dreams, that invisible but surrounding good from which all truth and beauty comes. These and many such thoughts pass 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 this awful silence of space? Can our dim intelligence read the secrets of the star-struined 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 may yet climb to heaven. Or at worst, if she also proved 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 shard. 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 the story of the fire that gave an ending life? Could it be possible that any fluid or essence should exist that might so fortify these fleshy walls that they should from age to age resist the minds and batterings of decay? It was possible, though not probable, the infinite continuation of life would not, as poor Vincy said, be so marvellous the 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 an ending life. I had had far too many worries and disappointments and secret bitternesses during my 40-odd years of existence to wish that this state of affairs should be continued indefinitely. And yet, I suppose that my life had 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 there being unduly prolonged. I at last managed to go 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 guards 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 sick as a cat. I whistled. Or if I did not whistle, I felt inclined to. Leo 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 his 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 for myself as a matter of precaution. After that I found belarling 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 your shot. 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 tonight, if all goes well, we shall be across the marsh and in good ear. 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 Balali, whose litter was leading the cavalcade. We were going through a particularly dangerous stretch of quagmire in which the bears 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 spearhands, 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 poles of which I have spoken. The path we were following running along the top of the bank, that as it happened was a steep one. Looking towards the pole, to my horror I saw that Balali's litter was floating on it, and as for Balali himself he was nowhere to be seen. To make matters clear I may as well explain at once what had happened. One of Balali'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, grabbed 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 Balali 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 got wedged in the mud, or possibly the snake bite paralysed him. At any rate he vanished. But though Balali 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 spring well out into the horrid slimy looking pool. A couple of strokes took me to where Balali 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 backers with ivy leaves emerged from the surface of the water. The rest was easy, for Balali 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 spectacles we presented I have never seen before or since. And it will perhaps give some idea of the almost superhuman dignity of Balali's appearance when I say that coughing, half-trowned, and covered with mud and green slime as he was, with his beautiful beard coming to a dripping point, like a China man's freshly oiled pigtail, he looked venerable and imposing. Ye dogs, he said, dressing the bear as 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, while I will remember it. And he fixed them with his gleaming, though slightly watery eye, in a way which 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, but chance a day may come when I shall save thine. After that we cleaned ourselves as best as 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 us 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 man who had to do his share of the work. End of Chapter 10. Recording by Kerry Ford. Unbounded Gratitude Emerged from the great belt of marsh, onto 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 thin 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 heard but too much of how these attacks generally terminate. As I was wondering, Bilali 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 onto the ground. Within half an hour of sunrise we had reached the top of the rise of which I had spoken, and a most beautiful view broke 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 a 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 Bilali 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 directess of the cutting, of a canal. Bilali, 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 with the wee journey, was once a great lake. But those who were before us by wonderful arts of which I know not, 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 seized 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, perchant, 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 not but ruins, and the name of core 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. Seized thou the river to the right, and he pointed to 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 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 the 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 jeweled honeysuckers and great winged butterflies. Wandering about among the trees or crouching in the long and feathered grass were all varieties of game from rhinoceroses down. I saw a rhinoceros, a buffalo, a large herd, ailand, quagga, and sable antelope, the most beautiful of all the bucks, not to mention many smaller varieties of game, and three ostriches which scutted 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 aspiring a beautiful fat ailand running 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, 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 sighed on to me, fired. I never made a cleaner shot or a better kill in all my small experience, for the great bucks 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 unwanted compliment from these sullen people, who never appeared 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 ailand all my life, feeling that I have gone up several degrees in the estimation of the Amahaga, who look on the whole thing as a very high-class manifestation of witchcraft. As a matter of fact, however, I had never seen an ailand in wild state before. Bilali 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 Bilali 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 water-course toward the spot where the rich brown, huge 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 core, 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 19th 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, Bilalé 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, fanciing, I believe, but 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 Paul Leo, after turning restlessly for hours, he had to my deep thankfulness at last dropped off into a sleep or stupa, 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 Amahaga 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 suppose, 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, whose stain 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 born along into the dead heart of the rock we knew not wither, 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 whale-boat, 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 Bilali 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 beatling 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 Amahaga, 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 marshaled 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 Bilalé, saluted him by placing his ivory wand transversely across his forehead, and then asked some question which I could not catch, and Bilalé 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 Bilalé 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 had 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 to 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 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 the 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, parts 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 Bilalé and myself. CHAPTER XII OF SHE This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. SHE by H. Ryder Haggard CHAPTER 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 Dow. Fortunately, as I think that I have said, by far the greater part of our personal baggage had been packed into the whale boat, and was therefore saved, and brought hither by the bearers, although all the stores laid in by us for barter and presence to the natives was lost. Nearly all our clothing was made of a well shrunk and very strong grey flannel, and excellent I founded 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 the cake of soap of which we had none. Afterwards I discovered that the Amahoggar, who do not recondert 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 Bilali'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 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 refractory, 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, these 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 hulls boarded 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 it 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 in 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 embalment 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 pictorial artery, while the third, who was depicted as standing strata-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 prepared 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 practice 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, the lally 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 all together off his head, babbling about some boat-race on the cam, and was inclined to be violent. Indeed, when we entered the room, Eustaine 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 extemporized, out of a bag covered with a blanket, when suddenly the lally 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, according 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 pot-shirt in the casket was a composition scarabias marked with a round o, a goose, and another curious hieroglyphic, the meaning of which is suten se re, a royal son of the son. 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 a paroxysm of his fever, or 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 the lally, leaving Job and Eustaine with Leo. We passed down the passage across the great Iolite 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, in 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 lamplit 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 Balali did a curious thing. Down he went, that venerable-looking old gentleman, for Balali is a gentleman at the bottom, down onto 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 onto thy hands and knees, we enter the presence of she, and if thou art not humble of assurity 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 a 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 coutouing, which has, like most of our so-called prejudices, a great deal of common sense to recommend it, I marched in boldly after Balali. I found myself in another apartment, considerably smaller than the ante-room, 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 ante-chamber and wove them in strips which were afterwards sewn together. Also here and there about the room were satis 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 Balali 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. Balali 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 Balali with horror, for he looked over his shoulder and made a ghastly face at me, and I heard him murmur, O my poor baboon! At last we reached the curtains, and here Balali collapsed flat onto 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 Balali like one dead before the heavy curtains, through which the odor 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, 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 Amahaggar 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 are thou so frightened, stranger? said 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 sandaled feet. It is thy beauty that makes me fear, O Queen, I answered humbly, scarcely knowing what to say, and I thought that as I did so I heard old Lally, 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 at thine heart, therefore was 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 you here for to see? How is it that ye hold your lives so cheap as to place them in the hollow of the hand of Haya into the hand of she who must be obeyed? Tell me how also come ye to know the tongue I talk. It is an ancient tongue that sweet child of the old Syriac. Liveeth it yet in the world? Thou seest I dwell among the caves and the dead, and not now 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, has 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-birds. Suddenly her eye fell upon the sprawling frame of Bilali, 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. I, and one was nigh to being slain by the hot pot to be eaten by those brute 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 hath 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 Bilali, whom I had believed to be a very fearless person, positively quiver with terror at her words. Ohaya! 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, I, 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. Ohaya! 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 hither to core to be judged of thy greatness. Oh, she! and here they are. I, 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! Bellally 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. CHAPTER XIII Asia Unvails There, said she, he has gone the white-bearded old fool. Oh, how little knowledge does a man acquire in his life! He gathers it up like water, but like water it runneth through his fingers, and yet if his hands be but wet as though his 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, o Queen, I answered. Holly, she answered, speaking the word of the difficulty in yet the 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, o 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 weary of their worship and their terror. Sometimes when they vex me I could blast them for the 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 purse 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 where on 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-cleaning vestments of she herself. I entered the little room, and there stood uncertain. Sit, said she, pointing to the couch, as yet there has no cause to fear me. If there has cause there shall not fear for long, for I shall slay thee. Therefore let thy heart be light. I sank down on the foot of the couch near to the font-like basin of water, and she sank down softly unto the other end. Now, Holly, she said, how come it's thou to speak Arabic? It is my own de-tum, for Arabian am I by my birth, even al-Arab al-Ariba, an Arab of the Arabs, and of the race of our father Arab, the son of Katan, for in that fair and ancient city Yosele was I born, in the province of Yaman the Happy. Yet does thou not speak it as we used to speak? Thy talk doth lack the music of the sweet tongue of the tribes of Hamiar, which I was want to hear. Some of the words, too, seem changed, even as among these Amahagah, who have debased and defer its purity, say that I must speak with them and what is to me another tongue. Footnote. Yareb, the son of Katan, who lived some centuries before the time of Abram, was the father of the ancient Arabs, and gave its name Arabic 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 naturalized Arabs, the descendants of Ismail, the son of Abram and Hagar, who were known as al-Arab al-Mas-Arabah. The dialect of the Qurish was usually called the clear or perspicuous Arabic, but the harmonic dialect approached nearer to the purity of the mother Syria. End of footnote. 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 Ocus, or are the Achaemenians gone, for far is it to the days of Ocus? The Persians have been gone from Egypt for night 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 etic Xerxes? She laughed and made no answer, and again a cold chill went through me. And Greece, she said, is there still a Greece? Oh, I love the Greeks. Beautiful were they as the day and clever, but fierce at heart and fickle not withstanding. Yes, I said, there is a Greece, and just now it is once more a people. Yet the Greeks of today 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 at the wise king built stand? And if so, what God do they worship therein? Is there 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 at Herod built? Herod, she said. I know not Herod, but go on. The Romans burnt it, and the Roman eagles flow across its ruins, and now Judea is a desert. So, so. They were a great people, those Romans, and went straight to their end. Aye, they sped to it like fate, or like their own eagles on their prey, and left peace behind them. Solitude nem faciunt pacem apulent, I suggested. Ah, there can 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 is 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. Nostra Greek also? Yes, O 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 grossed the fruits of wisdom, O 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 saints 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 the Son of the Living Spirit would mean 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 are chosen people, a vessel of him they call Jehovah, I and a vessel of Baal, and a vessel of Astereth, and a vessel of the gods of the Egyptians. A high-stomach'd people, greedy of ought, that brought them wealth and power. So they crucified their Messiah because he came in lowly guise, and now they are scattered about the earth. Why, if they 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. I 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. I, at the gate of the temple, those white-bearded hypocrites and rabbis handed 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, O Queen, I said, but I am bewildered. Nine upon two thousand years have rolled across the earth since the Jewish Messiah hung upon his cross at Golgotha. How then can thou have taught thy philosophy to the Jews before he was? Thou art a woman in no spirit. How can a woman live two thousand years? Why dost thou befall me, O 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? Here now they live, perchance their spirits are drawn towards us at this very hour. And she glanced round. A vassurity it sometimes seems to me that my eyes can see them. Yes, but to the world they are dead. I, for a time, but even to the world that they born again and again, I, yes, I, Asia, for that stranger is my name, I say to thee that I wait now for one I love to be born again. And here I tarry till he finds me, knowing of a vassurity that hither he will come and that here and here only shall he greet me. Why dost thou believe that I, whom 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, I 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 he call death, why I say, o stranger, dost thou think that I heard here with barbarians lower than the beasts? I know not, I said humbly. Because I wait for him I love. My life has been chance 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 my hour comes, to go and seek him where he is. For between as 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 where the planets wander on forever. 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 tomorrow 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 his surety his heart will soften towards me, although I sinned against him. Ah, 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, O 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 unhurriedly, who has 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 a 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, could Thou but understand? Life is wonderful I, 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 wean, 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 per chance than any who are 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 moon be on me, though per chance I shall never speak thereof again. Thus thou wonder how I knew that you were coming to this land, and so saved your heads from the hot pot? I, O Queen, I answered feebly. Then gazed upon that water, and she pointed to the front 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 Mohammed towing on the bank. I started back aghast, and cried out that it was magic, for I recognized the whole scene. It was one which had actually occurred. Nay, nay, O Holly, she answered, it is no magic that is a fiction of ignorance. There is no such thing as magic. So there is such a thing as 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 at 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 says'd, sick with the fever and also wounded in the fray. He is very sick, I answered sadly. Canst thou do nothing for him, O Queen, who knows so much? Have a surety I can. I can cure him, but why speak as thou so sadly? Does thou love the youth? Is he perchance thy son? Here's my adopted son, O 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 he will 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 tomorrow night had that how, 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 Bilali names the pig, also, and here I spoke with some little hesitation, a woman named Eustenne, 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 as the fashion of thy people, O 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 until the day of my deliverance comes, and as for their customs, not have I to do with them. Also call me not, Queen. I am weary of flattery in titles. Call me Asia. The name hath a sweet sound in my nears, it is an echo from the past. As for this Eustenne, I know not. I wonder if it be she against whom I was warned and whom I interned at war. Has 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 Eustenne's stately face. She was bending forward with a look of infinite tenderness upon her features, watching something beneath her, when with her chestnut locks falling on 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 a shun an absent voice. Why, that is Lyon in the Latin tongue. The old men 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 in the lamplight only shone on the placid surface of that limpid living mirror. Has thou ought to ask me before thy ghost, 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. Not but fruit doth ever pass my lips. Fruit and cakes of flour and a little water. I have been my girls to wait upon thee. They are mutes, thou knowest. Therefore they are dumb, and therefore the safest of sevens save to those who can read their faces and know their signs. I bred them so. It has 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 there otherwise, once too I reared a race of giants. But after a while nature would know more of it, and it died away. Has't thou ought to ask of me? I, one thing, O Asia, 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 Actaeon, perished miserably, because he looked on too much beauty? If I surely my face, perchance thou, it's perished miserably also. Bethink thou, it's to eat out thy heart an impotent desire. For, no, I am not for thee. I am for no man save one who hath been but is not yet. As thou wilt Asia, I said, I fear not thy beauty. I have put my heart away from such vanity as woman's love in us that passes like a flower. Nay, thou heurist, she said, that does not pass. My beauty endures even as I endure. Still, if thou wilt her, rash man, have thy will. But blame not me if passion mount thy reason, as the Egyptian breakers used to mount a cult, and guide it whether 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 sculpted or dreamed of. About the waist her white curtain 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 curtain ended on the snowy ardent of her breast, whereon her arms were folded. I gazed above them at her face, and, I do not exaggerate, shrink 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. It 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 wasn't all of heaven, though nonetheless 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 the 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 so 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, oh, her musically, and nodded her little head at me with an air of sublimated cocketry that would have done credit to a venous victrix. Rash, man, she said, like Actaeon thou hast had thy will. Be careful, lest like Actaeon thy too-dust perish miserably, torn to pieces by the banhounds of thine own passions. I too, O 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, O 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 thou that scarab on thy hand, speak, or by the spirit of a life I will blast thee where thou standest! And she took one light step towards me, and from her eyes 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, O holly, the almost infinite mind grows impatient to the slowness of a very finite, and I am tempted to use my power out of vexation. Very nearly whilst thou dead but I remembered. But the scarab—about the scarab-ass! I picked it up! I gurgled feebly as I got onto 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 woman-like 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, though 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 there too 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 Asia's beauty. And turning from me she flung herself on her couch, and buried her face in the cushions. As for me, I stumbled from her presence, and I do not remember how I reached my own cave. Footnote. I am informed by a renowned and learned Egyptologist, to whom I have submitted this very interesting and beautifully finished scarab, Sudin Serah, that he has never seen one resembling it. Although it bears a title frequently given to Egyptian royalty, he is of the opinion that it is not necessarily the cartouche of a pharaoh, on which either the throne or personal name with a 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 that it played some part in the tragic story of the Princess Minotas and her lover Caligretis, the Forsworn Priest of Isis.