 Chapter 19 of Shee. 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 Red Abrus. Shee by H. Ryder Haggard. Give me a black goat. The conversation after this was of such a desultory order that I do not quite recollect it. For some reason, perhaps from a desire to keep her identity and character in reserve, Asha did not talk freely, as she usually did. Presently, however, she informed Leo that she had arranged a dance that night for our amusement. I was astonished to hear this, as I fancied that the Amahaggar were much too gloomy a folk to indulge in any such frivolity. But as will presently more clearly appear, it turned out that an Amahaggar dance has little in common with such fantastic festivities in other countries, savage or civilized. Then, as we were about to withdraw, she suggested that Leo might like to see some of the wonders of the caves. And as he gladly assented Dither with departed, accompanied by Job and Bilali, describe our visit would only be to repeat a great deal of what I have already said. The tombs we entered were indeed different. For the whole rock was a honeycomb of sepulchres. For a long while, it puzzled me to know what could have been done with the enormous quantities of rock that must have been dug out of these vast caves. But I afterwards discovered that it was for the most part built into the walls and palaces of core, and also used to line the reservoirs and sewers, LHH. But the contents were nearly always similar. Afterwards, we visited the Pyramid of Bones that had haunted my dreams on the previous night, and from thence went down a long passage to one of the great walls occupied by the bodies of the poorer citizens of Imperial core. These bodies were not nearly so well preserved as were those of the wealthier classes. Many of them had no linen covering on them. Also, they were buried from 500 to 1000 in a single large vault. The corpses in some instances being thickly piled one upon another, like a heap of slain. Leo was of course intensely interested in this stupendous and unequal sight, which was indeed enough to awake all the imagination a man had in him into the most active life. But to poor job, it did not prove attractive. His nerves, already seriously shaken by what he had undergone since we had arrived in this terrible country, were, as may be imagined, still further disturbed by the spectacle of the masses of departed humanity, whereof the forms still remained perfect before his eyes, though their voices were forever lost in the eternal silence of the tomb. Nor was he comforted when old Bilali, by way of soothing his evident agitation, informed him that he should not be frightened of these dead things, as he would soon be like them himself. There is a nice thing to say of a man, sir, he jackaleted when I translated this little remark. But there what can one expect of an old man-eating savage? Not, but what I dare say he is right, and job side. When we had finished inspecting the caves, we returned and had our meal, for it was now past four in the afternoon, and we all, especially Leo, needed some food and rest. At six o'clock we, together with Job, waited on Asha, who set to work to terrify our poor servant, still further, by showing him pictures on the pool of water in the font-like vessel. She learned from me that he was one of seventeen children, and then bid him think of all his brothers and sisters, or as many of them as he could, gathered together in his father's cottage. Then she told him to look in the water, and there reflected from its stilly surface was that dead scene of many years gone by, as it was recalled to our retainer's brain. Some of the faces were clear enough, but some were mere blurs and splotches, or with one feature grossly exaggerated. The fact being that, in these instances, Job had been unable to recall the exact appearances of the individuals, or remembered them only by a peculiarity of his tribe, and the water could only reflect what he saw with his mind's eye. For it must be remembered that she's power in this matter was strictly limited. She could apparently accept, in very rare instances, only photograph upon the water what was actually in the mind of someone present, and then only by his will. But if she was personally acquainted with the locality she could, as in the case of ourselves and the whale boat, throw its reflection upon the water, and also it seems the reflection of anything extraneous that was passing there at time. This power, however, did not extend to the minds of others. For instance, she could show me the interior of my college chapel, as I remembered it, but not as it was at the moment of reflection. For where other people were concerned, her art was strictly limited to the facts or memories present to their consciousness at the moment. So much was this so that when we tried for her amusement to show her pictures of noted buildings, such as St. Paul's or the Houses of Parliament, the result was most imperfect. For, of course, though we had a good general idea of their appearance, we could not recall all the architectural details, and therefore the minutiae necessary to a perfect reflection were wanting. But Job could not be God to understand this, and so far from accepting a natural explanation of the matter, which was, after all, though strange enough in all conscience, nothing more than an instance of glorified and perfected telepathy, he set the whole thing down as a manifestation of the blackest magic. I shall never forget the howl of terror which he uttered when he saw the more or less perfect portraits of his long-scattered brethren staring at him from the quiet water, or the merry peel of laughter with which Asha greeted his consternation. As for Leo, he did not altogether like it either, but ran his fingers through his yellow curls and remarked that it gave him the creeps. After about an hour of this amusement, in the latter part of which Job did not participate, the mutes by science indicated that Bilali was waiting for an audience. Accordingly, he was told to crawl up, which he did as awkwardly as usual, and announced that the dance was ready to begin if she and the white strangers would be pleased to attend. Shortly afterwards, we all rose and Asha, having thrown a dark cloak, the same by the way that she had worn when I saw her cursing by the fire, over her white trappings we started. The dance was to be held in the open air, on the smooth rocky plateau in front of the great cave, and though we made our way. About fifteen paces from the mouth of the cave, we found three chairs placed, and here we sat and waited. For as yet, no dancers were to be seen. The night was almost but not quite dark, the moon not having risen as yet, which made us wonder how we should be able to see the dancing. Thou wilt presently understand, shed Asha, with a little laugh, when Leo asked her, and we suddenly did. Scarcely where the words out of her mouth went from every point we saw dark forms rushing up, each bearing with him, what we at first took to be an enormous flaming torch. Whatever they were, they were burning furiously, for the flames stood out a yard or more behind each birer. On they came fifty or more of them, carrying their flaming burdens, and looking like so many devils from hell. Leo was the first to discover what these burdens were. Great heaven, he said, they are corpses on fire. I stared and stared again. He was perfectly right. The torches that were to light our entertainment were human mummies from the caves. On rushed the birers of the flaming corpses, and meeting at a spot about twenty paces in front of us, built their ghastly burdens crossways into a huge bonfire. Heavens how they rode and flared. No tar barrel could have burnt as those mummies did. Nor was this all. Suddenly I saw one great fellow seize a flaming human arm that had fallen from its parent frame and rush off into the darkness. Presently he stopped, and a tall streak of fire shot up into the air, illuminating the gloom, and also the lamp from which it sprang. That lamp was the mummy of a woman tied to a stout stake let into the rock, and he had fired her hair. On he went a few paces and touched a second, then a third, and a fourth. Till at last we were surrounded on all three sides by a great ring of bodies flaring furiously. The material with which they were preserved having rendered them so inflammable that the flames would literally sprout out of the ears and mouth in tongues of fire, a foot or more in length. Nero eliminated his gardens with live Christians soaked in tar, and we were now treated to a similar spectacle. Probably for the first time since his day, only happily our lamps were not living once. But although this element of horror was fortunately wanting to describe the awful and hideous grandeur of the spectacle thus presented to us is, I feel, so absolutely beyond my powers that I scarcely dare attempt it. To begin with, it appealed to the moral as well as the physical susceptibilities. There was something very terrible and yet very fascinating about the employment of the remote dead to illumine the orgies of the living. In itself the thing was a satire, both on the living and the dead. Caesar's dust, or is it Alexander's, may stop a bunghole, but the functions of these dead Caesar's of the past was to light up a savage fetish dance. To such base uses may we come, of so little account may we be in the minds of the eager multitudes that we shall breed, many of whom so far from revering our memory will live to curse us for begetting them into such a world of woe. Then there was the physical side of the spectacle, and a weird and splendid one it was. Those old citizens of Cor burned as to judge from their sculptures and inscriptions they had lived very fast, and with the utmost liberality. What is more, there were plenty of them. As soon as ever a mummy had burnt down to the ankles, which it did in about 20 minutes, the feet were kicked away, and another one put in its place. The bonfire was kept going on the same generous scale, and its flames shot up, with a hiss and a crackle, 20 or 30 feet into the air, throwing great flashes of light far out into the gloom, through which the dark forms of the amahagger flitted to and fro like devils replenishing the infernal fires. We all stood and stared aghast, shocked, and yet fascinated at so strange a spectacle. And half expecting to see the spirits those flaming forms had once enclosed come creeping from the shadows to work vengeance on their desecrators. I promised thee a strange sight, my holy laughed Asha, whose nerves alone did not seem to be affected, and behold I have not failed thee. Also it hath its lesson. Trust not to the future, for who knows what the future may bring. Therefore live for the day, and endeavor not to escape the dust, which seems to be man's end. What thinkest thou those long forgotten nobles and ladies would have felt, had they known that they should one day flare to light the dance or boil the part of savages? But see, here come the dancers, a merry crew, are they not? The stage is lit, now for the play. As she spoke, we perceived two lines of figures, one male and the other female, to the number of about a hundred, each advancing round the human bonfire, added only in the usual leopard and buck skins. They formed up in perfect silence, in two lines, facing each other between us and the fire, and then the dance, a sort of infernal and fiendish can-can, began. To describe it is quite impossible. But though there was a good deal of tossing of legs and double shuffling, it seemed to our untutored minds to be more of a play than a dance. And as usual with this red full people, whose minds seem to have taken their color from the caves in which they live, and whose jokes and amusements are drawn from the inexhaustible stores of preserved mortality with which they share their homes, the subject appeared to be a most ghastly one. I know that it represented an attempted murder, first of all, and then the burial alive of the victim and his struggling from the grave, each act of the abominable drama, which was carried on in perfect silence, being rounded off and finished with a furious and most revolting dance round the supposed victim who writhed upon the ground in the red light of the bonfire. Presently, however, this pleasing piece was interrupted. Suddenly there was a slight commotion, and a large powerful woman, whom I had noted as one of the most vigorous of the dances, came, made mad and drunken with unholy excitement, bounding and staggering towards us, shrieking out as she came. I want a black goat, I must have a black goat, bring me a black goat. And down she fell upon the rocky floor, foaming and ridding, and shrieking for a black goat, about as hideous a spectacle as can well be conceived. Instantly most of the dancers came up and got round her, though some still continued their capers in the background. She has got a devil called out one of them, run and get a black goat. Their devil keep quiet, keep quiet. You shall have the goat presently, they have gone to fetch it devil. I want a black goat, I must have a black goat, shrieked the foaming rolling creature again. All right devil, the goat will be here presently, keep quiet. There is a good devil. And so on till the goat, taken from a neighbouring crawl, did at last arrive, being dragged, bling on to the scene by its horns. Is it a black one? Is it a black one? Shriek the possessed. Yes, yes, devil as black as knight, then aside. Keep it behind thee. Don't let the devil see that it has got a white spot on its rump and another on its belly. In one minute, devil, there cut his throat quick, where is the saucer? The goat, the goat, the goat, give me the blood of my black goat, I must have it. Don't you see I must have it. Oh, oh, oh, give me the blood of the goat. At this moment, a terrified bah announced that the poor goat had been sacrificed. And the next minute, a woman ran up with a saucer full of blood. This, the possessed creature, who was then raving and foaming her wildest, seized and drank, and was instantly recovered, and without a trace of hysteria or fits, or being possessed, or whatever dreadful think it was she was suffering from. She stretched her arms, smiled faintly, and walked quietly back to the dancers, who presently withdrew in a double line as they had come, leaving the space between us and the bonfire, deserted. I thought that the entertainment was now over, and feeling rather queer was about to ask she if we could rise, when suddenly what at first I took to be a baboon came hopping round the fire, and was instantly met upon the other side by a lion, or rather a human being dressed in a lion's skin. Then came a goat, then a man wrapped in an ox hide, with the horns wobbling about in a ludicrous way. After him followed a blessbok, then an impala, then a kudu, then more goats, and many other animals, including a girl, sewn up in the shining scaly hide of a boa constrictor, several yards of which trailed along the ground behind her. When all the beasts had collected, they began to dance about in a lumbering unnatural fashion, and to imitate the sounds produced by the respective animals they represented, till the whole air was alive with roars and bleating and the hissing of the snakes. This went on for a long time, till getting tired of the pantomime, I asked Asha if there would be any objection to Leo and myself walking round to inspect the human torches, and as she had nothing to say against it, we started, striking round to the left. After looking at one or two of the flaming bodies we were about to return, thoroughly disgusted with the grotesque weirdness of the spectacle, when our attention was attracted by one of the dancers, a particularly active leopard, that had separated itself from its fellow beast, and was whisking about in our immediate neighborhood, but gradually drawing into a spot where the shadow was darkest, equidistant between the two of the flaming mummies. Drawn by curiosity, we followed it, when suddenly it darted past us into the shadows beyond, and as it did so, erected itself and whispered, Come, in a voice that we both recognized as that of Ustain. Without waiting to consult me, Leo turned and followed her into the outer darkness, and I, feeling sick enough at heart, went after them. The leopard crawled on for about fifty paces, a sufficient distance to be quite beyond the light of the fire and torches, and then Leo came up with it, or rather with Ustain. Oh my lord, I heard her whisper, so I have found thee. Listen, I am in peril of my life from she who must be obeyed. Surely the baboon has told thee how she drove me from thee. I love thee, my lord, and thou art mine according to the custom of the country. I saved thy life. My lion, will thou cast me off now? Of course not, ejaculated Leo. I have been wondering whether thou hadst gone. Let us go and explain matters to the queen. Nay, nay, she would slay us. Thou knowest not her power. The baboon there, he knoweth for he saw. Nay, there is but one way. If thou wilt cleave to me, thou must flee with me across the marshes even now, and then, per chance, we may escape. For heaven's sake, Leo, I began, but she broken. Nay, listen not to him. Swift, we swift. Death is in the air, we breathe. Even now may she heareth us. And without more ado, she proceeded to back her arguments by throwing herself into his arms. As she did so, the leopard's head slipped from her hair, and I saw the three white finger marks upon it, gleaming faintly in the starlight. Once more, realizing the desperate nature of the position, I was about to interpose, for I knew that Leo was not too strong-minded where women were concerned, when, oh, horror, I heard a little silvery laugh behind me. I turned round, and there was she herself, and with her Bilali and two male mutes. I gassed, and nearly sank to the ground, for I knew that such a situation might result in some dreadful tragedy, of which it seemed exceedingly probable to me that I should be the first victim. As for Rustane, she untwined her arms and covered her eyes with her hands, while Leo, not knowing the full terror of the position, merely covered up, and looked as foolish as a man caught in such a trap would naturally do. End of CHAPTER XIX. RECORDING BY RED ABRACE. January 2008. CHAPTER XXX. Triumph. Then followed a moment of the most painful silence that I ever endured. It was broken by Asia, who addressed herself to Leo. Nay, now, my lord and guest! she said in her softest tones, which had yet the ring of steel about them. Look not so bashful! Surely the sight was a pretty one, the leopard and the lion. Oh, hang it all! said Leo in English. And thou, Rustane, she went on. Surely I should have passed thee by, had not the light fallen on the white across thy hair. And she pointed to the bright edge of the rising moon, which was now appearing above the horizon. Well, well, the dance is done, see the tapers have burnt down, and all things end in silence and in ashes. So thou thoughtest it a fit time for love, Rustane, my servant, and I, dreaming not that I could be disobeyed, thought thee already far away. Play not with me, moaned the wretched woman. Slay me and let there be an end. Nay, why? It is not well to go so swift from the hot lips of love down to the cold mouth of the grave. And she made a motion to the mutes, who instantly stepped up and caught the girl by either arm. With an oath Leo sprang upon the nearest and hurled him to the ground and then stood over him with his face set and his fist ready. Again Asia laughed. It was well thrown, my guest, thou hast a strong arm for one who so late was sick. But now out of thy courtesy I pray thee let that man live and do my bidding. He shall not harm the girl. The night air grows chill and I would welcome her in my own place. Surely she whom thou dost favour shall be favoured of me also. I took Leo by the arm and pulled him from the prostrate mute, and he, half bewildered, obeyed the pressure. Then we all set out for the cave across the plateau, where a pile of white human ashes was all that remained of the fire that had lit the dancing, for the dancers had vanished. In due course we gained Asia's boudoir. All too soon it seemed to me, having a sad presage of what was to come lying heavy on my heart. Asia seated herself upon her cushions, and, having dismissed Job and Bilali, by signs bad the mutes tend the lamps and retire, all save one girl, who was her favourite personal attendant. We three remained standing, the unfortunate Ustane a little to the left of the rest of us. Now, O Holly, Asia began, how came it that thou who didst hear my words bidding this evil doer? And she pointed to Ustane to go hence, thou at whose prayer I did weakly spare her life. How came it, I say, that thou wast to share her in what I saw tonight? Answer, and for thine own sake I say, speak all the truth, for I am not minded to hear lies upon this matter. It was by accident, O Queen, I answered, I knew not of it. I do believe thee, O Holly, she answered codely, and well it is for thee that I do. Then does the whole guilt rest upon her. I do not find any guilt therein, broke in Leo. She is not another man's wife, and it appears that she has married me according to the custom of this awful place. So who is the worse? Any way, madam, he went on, whatever she has done I have done too. So if she is to be punished, let me be punished also. And I tell thee, he went on working himself up into a fury, that if thou bidst one of those deaf and dumb villains to touch her again, I will tear him to pieces. And he looked as though he meant it. Asher listened in icy silence and made no remark. When he had finished, however, she addressed to Starnay, Hast thou ought to say, woman, Thou silly straw, thou feather, who did stink to float towards thy passions petty ends, Even against the great wind of my will? Tell me, for I feign would understand. Why didst thou this thing? And then I think I saw the most tremendous exhibition of moral courage and intrepidity that it is possible to conceive. For the poor doomed girl, knowing what she had to expect at the hands of her terrible queen, knowing too from bitter experience how great was her adversaries' power, yet gathered herself together, and out of the very depths of her despair drew materials to defy her. I did it, oh, she! she answered, drawing herself up to the full of her stately height, and throwing back the panther's skin from her head, because my love is stronger than the grave. I did it because my life without this man whom my heart chose would be but a living death. Therefore did I risk my life? And now that I know that it is forfeit to thine anger, yet am I glad that I did risk it, and pay it away in the risking. I, because he embraced me once, and told me that he loved me yet. Here Aisha half rose from her couch, and then sank down again. I have no magic, went on with Starnay, her rich voice ringing strong and full, and I am not a queen, nor do I live forever, but a woman's heart is heavy to sink through waters, however deep, oh queen, and a woman's eyes are quick to see, even through thy veil, oh queen. Listen, I know it, thou dost love this man thyself, and therefore wouldst thou destroy me who stand across thy path. I, I die, I die, and go into the darkness, nor know I wither I go, but this I know, there is a light shining in my breast, and by that light as by a lamp I see the truth, and the future that I shall not share unroll itself before me like a scroll. When first I knew my lord, and she pointed to Leo, I knew also that death would be the bridal gift he gave me. It rushed upon me of a sudden, but I turned not back, being ready to pay the price, and behold, death is here. And now, even as I knew that, so do I standing on the steps of doom, know that thou shalt not reap the profit of thy crime. Mine he is, and though thy beauty shine like a sun among the stars, mine shall he remain for thee. Never here in this life shall he look thee in the eyes, and call thee spouse. Thou too art doomed, I see, and her voice rang like the cry of an inspired prophetess. Ah, I see, then came an answering cry of mingled rage and terror. I turned my head. Asia had risen, and was standing with her outstretched hand pointing at Ustane, who had suddenly stopped speaking. I gazed at the poor woman, and as I gazed there came upon her face that same woeful fixed expression of terror that I had seen once before when she had broken out into her wild chant. Her eyes grew large, her nostrils dilated, and her lips blanched. Asia said nothing. She made no sound. She only drew herself up, stretched out her arm, and her tall veiled frame quivering like an aspen leaf appeared to look fixedly at her victim. Even as she did so, Ustane put her hands to her head, uttered one piercing scream, turned round twice, and then fell backwards with a thud, prone upon the floor. Both Leo and myself rushed to her. She was stone-dead, blasted into death by some mysterious electric agency or overwhelming will-force whereof the dread she had command. For a moment Leo did not quite realize what had happened. But when he did his face was awful to see. With a savage oath he rose from beside the corpse and turning literally sprang at Asia. But she was watching, and seeing him come stretched out her hand again, and he went staggering back towards me and would have fallen had I not caught him. Afterwards he told me that he felt as though he had suddenly received a violent blow in the chest, and what is more utterly cowed as if all the manhood had been taken out of him. Then Asia spoke. Forgive me, my guest, she said softly, addressing him, if I have shocked thee with my justice. Forgive thee, thou fiend! roared poor Leo, ringing his hands in his rage and grief. Forgive thee, thou murderous! By heaven I will kill thee if I can. Nay, nay, she answered in the same soft voice. Thou dost not understand. The time has come for thee to learn. Thou art my love, my callicrates, my beautiful, my strong. For two thousand years, callicrates, have I waited for thee, and now at length thou hast come back to me. And as for this woman, pointing to the corpse, she stood between me and thee, and therefore have I laid her in the dust, callicrates. It is an accursed lie, said Leo. My name is not callicrates. I am Leo Vincy. My ancestor was callicrates. At least I believe he was. Ah, thou sayest it. Thine ancestor was callicrates, and thou even thou art callicrates reborn. Come back, and mine own dear Lord. I am not callicrates, and as for being thy Lord, or having ought to do with thee, I had sooner be the Lord of a fiend from hell, for she would be better than thou. Sayest thou so? Sayest thou so, callicrates? Nay, but thou hast not seen me for so long a time that no memory remains. Yet am I very fair, callicrates. I hate thee, murderous, and I have no wish to see thee. What is it to me, how fair thou art? I hate thee, I say. Yet within a very little space shall thou creep to my knee, and swear that thou dost love me. Answer, Asia, with a sweet mocking laugh. Come, there is no time like the present time, here before this dead girl who loved thee. Let us put it to the proof. Look now on me, callicrates. And with a sudden motion she shook her gauzy covering from her, and stood forth in her low-kirtle and her snakey zone, in her glorious radiant beauty, and her imperial grace, rising from her wrappings, as it were, like Venus from the wave, or Galatia from her marble, or a beatified spirit from the tomb. She stood forth and fixed her deep and glowing eyes upon Leo's eyes, and I saw his clenched fists unclasp, and his set and quivering features relax beneath her gaze. I saw his wonder and astonishment grow into admiration, and then into fascination, and the more he struggled, the more I saw the power of her dread beauty fasten on him, and take possession of his senses, drugging them, and drawing the heart out of him. Did I not know the process? Had not I, who was twice his age, gone through it myself? Was I not going through it afresh even then, although her sweet and passionate gaze was not for me? Yes, alas, I was. Alas, that I should have to confess, that at that very moment I was rent by mad and furious jealousy. I could have flown at him, shame upon me. The woman had confounded, and almost destroyed, my moral sense, as she was bound to confound all who looked upon her superhuman loveliness. But, I do not quite know how, I got the better of myself, and once more turned to see the climax of the tragedy. Oh great heaven, ghast Leo, art thou a woman? A woman in truth, in very truth, and thine own spouse calicrates, she answered, stretching out her rounded ivory arms towards him, and smiling, ah, so sweetly. He looked, and looked, and slowly I perceived that he was drawing nearer to her. Suddenly his eye fell upon the corpse of poor Oostane, and he shuddered and stopped. How can I, he said hoarsely, thou art a murderous, she loved me. Observe, he was already forgetting that he had loved her. It is nought, she murmured, and her voice sounded sweet as the night wind passing through the trees. It is nought at all. If I have sinned, let my beauty answer for my sin. If I have sinned, it is for love of thee. Let my sin, therefore, be put away and forgotten. And once more she stretched out her arms and whispered, calm. And then in another few seconds it was all over. I saw him struggle. I saw him even turn to fly. But her eyes drew him more strongly than iron bonds, and the magic of her beauty and concentrated will and passion entered into him and overpowered him. I, even there in the presence of the body of the woman who had loved him well enough to die for him. It sounds horrible and wicked enough, but he should not be too greatly blamed, and be sure his sin will find him out. The temptress who drew him into evil was more than human, and her beauty was greater than the loveliness of the daughters of men. I looked up again, and now her perfect form lay in his arms, and her lips were pressed against his own. And thus, with the corpse of his dead love for an altar, did Leo Vincy plight his truth to her red-handed murderous, plight it for ever and a day. For those who sell themselves into a like dominion, paying down the price of their own honor, and throwing their soul into the balance to sink the scale to the level of their lusts, can hope for no deliverance here or hereafter. As they have sown, so shall they reap, and reap even when the poppy-flowers of passion have withered in their hands, and their harvest is but bitter tears garnered in satiety. Suddenly, with a snake-like motion, she seemed to slip from his embrace, and then again broke out into her low laugh of triumphant mockery. Did I not tell thee that within a little space thou wouldst creep to my knee, O callicrities? And surely the space has not been a great one. Leo groaned in shame and misery. For, though he was overcome and stricken down, he was not so lost as to be unaware of the depth of the degradation to which he had sunk. On the contrary, his better nature rose up in arms against his fallen self, as I saw clearly enough later on. Asia laughed again, and then quickly veiled herself, and made a sign to the girl-mute, who had been watching the whole scene with curious, startled eyes. The girl left, and presently returned, followed by two male-mutes, to whom the queen made another sign. Thereon they all three seized the body of port by the arms, and dragged it heavily down the cavern and away through the curtains at the end. Leo watched it for a little while, and then covered his eyes with his hand, and it too, to my excited fancy, seemed to watch us as it went. There passes the dead passed, said Asia solemnly, as the curtains shook and fell back into their places, when the ghastly procession had vanished behind them. And then, with one of those extraordinary transitions of which I have already spoken, she again threw off her veil and broke out after the ancient and poetic fashion of the dwellers in Arabia into a peon of triumph or epithelium, which, wild and beautiful as it was, is exceedingly difficult to render into English, and ought by rights to be sung to the music of a cantata rather than written and read. It was divided into two parts, one descriptive or definitive, and the other personal, and as nearly as I can remember, ran as follows. Love is like a flower in the desert. It is like the aloe of Arabia that blooms but once and dies. It blooms in the salt emptiness of life, and the brightness of its beauty is set upon the waste as a star is set upon a storm. It hath the sun above, that is, the spirit, and above it blows the air of its divinity. At the echoing of a step love blooms, I say, I say, love blooms, and bends her beauty down to him who passeth by. He plucketh it, yea, he plucketh the red cup that is full of honey, and beareth it away, away across the desert, away till the flower be withered, away till the desert be done. There is only one perfect flower in the wilderness of life. That flower is love. There is only one fixed star in the midst of our wandering. That star is love. There is only one hope in our despairing night. That hope is love. All else is false. All else is shadow moving upon water. All else is wind and vanity. Who shall say what is the weight or the measure of love? It is born of the flesh, it dwelleth in the spirit, from each doth it draw its comfort. For beauty it is as a star. Many are its shapes, but all are beautiful, and none know where the star rose, or the horizon where it shall set. Footnote. Among the ancient Arabians the power of poetic declamation, either in verse or prose, was held in the highest honour and esteem, and he who excelled in it was known as Khartab or Orator. Every year a general assembly was held at which the rival poets repeated their compositions, when those poems which were judged to be the best were, so soon as the knowledge and the art of writing became general, inscribed on silk in letters of gold, and publicly exhibited, being known as Almod Ha-Habbat or Golden Verses. In the poem given above by Mr. Holly, Asia evidently followed the traditional poetic manner of her people, which was to embody their thoughts in a series of somewhat disconnected sentences, each remarkable for its beauty and the grace of its expression. Editor. End of footnote. Then turning to Leo and laying her hand upon his shoulder, she went on in a fuller and more triumphant tone, speaking in balanced sentences that gradually grew and swelled from idealised prose into pure and majestic verse. Long have I loved thee, O my love, yet has my love not lessened. Long have I waited for thee, and behold, my reward is at hand, is here. Far away I saw thee once, and thou was taken from me. Then in a grave sowed I the seed of patience, and shone upon it with the sun of hope, and watered it with tears of repentance, and breathed on it with the breath of my knowledge. And now, Lo, it hath sprung up and borne fruit. Lo, out of the grave hath it sprung, yea, from among the dry bones and ashes of the dead. I have waited, and my reward is with me. I have overcome death, and death brought back to me him that was dead. Therefore do I rejoice, for fair is the future. Green are the paths that we shall tread across the everlasting meadows. The hour is at hand. Night hath fled away into the valleys. The dawn kisseth the mountaintops. Soft shall we live, my love, and easy shall we go. Crowned shall we be with the diadem of kings. Worshiping and wonderstruck all peoples of the world, blinded shall fall before our beauty and might. From time unto times shall our greatness thunder on, rolling like a chariot through the dust of endless days. Laughing shall we speed in our victory and pomp. Laughing like the daylight as he leaps along the hills. Onward, still triumphant to a triumph ever new. Onward in our power to a power unattain'd. Onward never weary clad with splendour for a robe, till accomplished be our fate, and the night is rushing down. She paused in her strange and most thrilling allegorical chant, of which I am, unfortunately, only able to give the burden, and that feebly enough, and then said, Pachance thou dost not believe my word, Colicrates. Pachance thou thinkest that I do delude thee, and that I have not lived these many years, and that thou hast not been born again to me. Nay, look not so. Put away that pale cast of doubt. For, oh, be sure, herein can I refine no foothold. Sooner shall the sons forget their course, and the swallow miss her nest, than my soul shall swear a lie, and be led astray from thee, Colicrates. Blind me, take away mine eyes, and let the darkness utterly fence me in, and still mine ears would catch the tone of thy unforgotten voice, striking more loud against the portals of my sense, than can the call of brazen, throated clarions. Stop up mine hearing also, and let a thousand touch me on the brow, and I would name thee out of all. Yea, rob me of every sense, and see me stand deaf and blind and dumb, and with nerves that cannot weigh the value of a touch. Yet would my spirit leap within me like a quickening child, and cry unto my heart, Behold, Colicrates! Behold, thou watcher, the watchers of thy night are ended. Behold, thou who seekest in the night season thy morning star arises. She paused a while, and then continued, But stay, if thy heart is yet hardened against the mighty truth, and thou dost require a further pledge of that which thou dost find too deep to understand, even now shall it be given to thee, and to thee also, O my holly. Bear each one of you a lamp, and follow after me, whither I shall lead you. Without stopping to think, indeed speaking for myself, I had almost abandoned the function in circumstances under which to think seemed to be absolutely useless. Since thought fell hourly helpless against a black wall of wonder, we took the lamps and followed her. Going to the end of her boudoir, she raised a curtain and revealed a little stare of the sort that is so common in these dim caves of Coa. As we hurried down the stair, I observed that the steps were worn in the centre to such an extent that some of them had been reduced from seven and a half inches, at which I guessed their original height, to about three and a half. Now all the other steps that I had seen in the caves were practically unworn, as was to be expected, seeing that the only traffic which ever passed upon them was that of those who bore a fresh burden to the tomb. Therefore this fact struck my notice with that curious force with which little things do strike us, when our minds are absolutely overwhelmed by a sudden rush of powerful sensations. Beaten flat as it were, like a sea beneath the first burst of a hurricane, so that every little object on the surface starts into an unnatural prominence. At the bottom of the staircase I stood and stared at the worn steps, and Asia turning saw me. Wonder is thou whose are the feet that have worn away the rock my holly? She asked, They are mine, even mine own light feet. I can remember when those stairs were fresh and level, but for two thousand years and more have I gone down hither day by day, and see my sandals have worn out the solid rock. I made no answer, but I do not think that anything that I had heard or seen brought home to my limited understanding so clear a sense of this being's overwhelming antiquity as that hard rock hollowed out by her soft white feet. How many hundreds of thousands of times must she have passed up and down that stair to bring about such a result? The stair led to a tunnel, and a few paces down the tunnel was one of the usual curtain hung doorways, a glance at which told me that it was the same where I had been a witness of that terrible scene by the leaping flame. I recognized the pattern of the curtain, and the sight of it brought the whole event vividly before my eyes, and made me tremble even at its memory. Asia entered the tomb, for it was a tomb, and we followed her, I for one rejoicing that the mystery of the place was about to be cleared up, and yet afraid to face its solution. See now the place where I have slept for these two thousand years, said Asia, taking the lamp from Leo's hand and holding it above her head. Its rays fell upon a little hollow in the floor, where I had seen the leaping flame, but the fire was out now. They fell upon the white form stretched there beneath its wrappings, upon its bed of stone, upon the fretted carving of the tomb, and upon another shelf of stone opposite the one on which the body lay, and separated from it by the breadth of the cave. Here went on Asia, laying her hand upon the rock. Here have I slept night by night for all these generations, with but a cloak to cover me. It did not become me that I should lie soft when my spouse yawned her, and she pointed to the rigid form. Lay stiff in death. Here night by night have I slept in his cold company, till thou ceased this thick slab, like the stairs down which we passed, has worn thin with the tossing of my farm. So faithful have I been to thee, even in thy space of sleep, cullicrates, and now mine own thou shalt see a wonderful thing. Living thou shalt behold thyself dead, for well have I tended thee during all these years, cullicrates. Art thou prepared? We made no answer, but gazed at each other with frightened eyes. The whole scene was so dreadful and so solemn. Asha advanced and laid her hand upon the corner of the shroud, and once more spoke. Be not affrighted, she said, though the things seem wonderful to thee, all we who live have thus lived before, nor is the very shape that holds us a stranger to the sun. Only we know it not, because memory writes no record, and earth hath gathered in the earth she lent us, for none have saved our glory from the grave. But I, by my arts and by the arts of those dead men of Kor, which I have learned, and held thee back, o cullicrates, from the dust, that the waxen stamp of beauty on thy face should ever rest before mine eye. It was a mask that memory might fill, serving to fashion out thy presence from the past, and give it strength to wander in the habitations of my thought, clad in a memory of life that stayed my appetite with visions of dead days. Behold now, let the dead and living meet. Across the gulf of time they still are one. Time hath no power against identity, though sleep the merciful hath blotted out the tablets of our mind, and with oblivion sealed the sorrows that else would hound us from life to life, stuffing the brain with gathered griefs till it burst in the madness of uttermost despair. Still are they one, for the wrappings of our sleep shall roll away as thunder clouds before the wind. The frozen voice of the past shall melt in the music like mountain snows beneath the sun, and the weeping and the laughter of the lost ours shall be heard, once more most sweetly echoing up the cliffs of immeasurable time. I the sleep shall roll away, and the voices shall be heard. When down the completed chain, whereof our each existence is a link, the lightning of the spirit hath passed to work out the purpose of our being, quickening and fusing those separated days of life, and shaping them to a staff, whereon we may safely lean as we went to our appointed fate. Therefore have no fear calibrates, when thou, living and but lately born, shalt look upon thine own departed self, who breathed and died so long ago. I do but turn one page in thy book of being, and show thee what is writ thereon. Behold! With a sudden motion she drew the shroud from the cold farm, and let the lamplight play upon it. I looked, and then shrank back, terrified. Since, say, what she might in explanation, the sight was an uncanny one. For her explanations were beyond the grasp of our finite minds, and when they were stripped from the mists of vague esoteric philosophy, and brought into conflict with the cold and horrifying fact, did not do much to break its force. For there, stretched upon the stone beer before us, robed in white, and perfectly preserved, was what appeared to be the body of Leo Vinci. I stared from Leo, standing there alive, to Leo lying there dead, and could see no difference, except perhaps that the body on the beer looked older. Feature for feature, they were the same, even down to the crop of little golden curls, which was Leo's most uncommon beauty. It even seemed to me, as I looked, that the expression on the dead man's face resembled that which I had sometimes seen upon Leo's, when he was plunged into profound sleep. I can only sum up the closeness of the resemblance by saying that I never saw twins so exactly similar as that dead and living pair. I turned to see what effect was produced upon Leo by the sight of his dead self, and found it to be one of partial stupefaction. He stood for two or three minutes, staring and said nothing, and when at last he spoke, it was only to ejaculate. Cover it up, and take me away. Nay, wait, calibrates, said Asha, who, standing with the lamp, raised above her head, flooding with its light, her own rich beauty and the cold wonder of the death clothed from upon the beard resembled an inspired sable rather than a woman, as she rolled out her majestic sentences with a grandeur and a freedom of utterance which I am, alas, quite unable to reproduce. Wait, I would show thee something that no title of my crime may be hidden from thee. Do thou, O holy, open the garment on the breast of the dead calibrates, for, per chance, my lord may fear to touch it himself. I obeyed with trembling hands. It seemed a desecration and an unhallowed thing to touch that sleeping image of the live man by my side. Presently his broad chest was bare, and there upon it, right over the heart, was a wound evidently inflicted with a spear. Thou, sister calibrates, she said, Know then that it was I who slew thee. In the place of life I gave thee death. I slew thee because of the Egyptian Aminatus, whom thou didst love, for by her wiles she held thy heart, and her I could not smite as but now I smote that woman, for she was too strong for me. In my haste and bitter anger I slew thee, and now for all these days have I lamented thee, and waited for thy coming, and thou hast come. And none can stand between thee and me, and offer truth now for death I will give thee life, not life eternal, for that none can give, but life and youth that shall endure for thousands upon thousands of years, and with it pump and power and wealth and all things that are good and beautiful, such as have been to no man before thee, nor shall be to any man who comes after. And now one thing more, and thou shalt rest and make ready for the day of thy new birth. Thou ceased this body which was thine own, for all these centuries it hath been my cold comfort and my companion, but now I need it no more, for I have thy living presence, and it can but serve to stir up memories of what which I would feign forget. Let it therefore go back to the dust from which I held it. Behold, I have prepared against this happy hour, and going to the other shelf or stone ledge which she said had served her for a bed, she took from it a large vitrified double-handed vase, the mouth of which was tied up with a bladder. This she loosed, and then having bent down and gently kissed the white forehead of the dead man, she undid the vase and sprinkled its contents carefully over the farm, taking, I observed the greatest precautions against any drop of them touching us or herself, and then poured out what remained of the liquid upon the chest and head. Instantly a dense vapor arose, and the cave was filled with choking fumes that prevented us from seeing anything, while the deadly acid, for I presume it was some tremendous preparation of that sort, did its work. From the spot where the body lay came a fierce fizzing and cracking sound, which seized however before the fumes had cleared away. At last they were all gone, except a little cloud that still hung over the corpse. In a couple of minutes more this too had vanished, and wonderful as it may seem, it is a fact that on the stone bench that had supported the mortal remains of the ancient calicrates for so many centuries there was now nothing to be seen but a few handfuls of smoking white powder. The acid had utterly destroyed the body and even in places eaten into the stone, Asha stooped down and taking a handful of this powder in her grasp threw it into the air, saying at the same time in a voice of calm solemnity. Dust to dust, the past to the past, the dead to the dead, Calicrates is dead and is born again. The ashes floated noiselessly to the rocky floor, and we stood in odd silence and watched them fall too overcome for words. Now leave me, she said, and sleep if ye may. I must watch and think, for tomorrow night we go hence, and the time is long since I trod the path that we must follow. Accordingly we bowed and left her. As we passed to our own apartment, I peeped into Job's sleeping place to see how he fared, for he had gone away just before our interviewed with the murdered ustain, quite frustrated by the terrors of the Amahagar festivity. He was sleeping soundly, good honest fellow that he was, and I rejoiced to think that his nerves, which like those of most uneducated people were far from strong, had been spared the closing scenes of this dreadful day. Then we entered our own chamber, and here at last poor Leo, who, ever since he had looked upon that frozen image of his living self, had been in a state not far removed from stupefaction, burst out into a torrent of grief. Now that he was no longer in the presence of the dread she, his sense of the awfulness of all that had happened, and more especially of the wicked murder of ustain, who was bound to him by ties so close, broke upon him like a storm, and lashed him into an agony of remorse and terror, which was painful to witness. He cursed himself. He cursed the hour when we had first seen the writing on the shred, which was being so mysteriously verified, and bitterly he cursed his own weakness. Asha, he dared not curse. Who dared speak evil of such a woman whose consciousness for ought we knew was watching us at the very moment? What am I to do, old fellow? He groaned, resting his head against my shoulder in the extremity of his grief. I let her be killed, not that I could help that, but within five minutes I was kissing her murderous over her body. I am a degraded brute, but I cannot resist that. And here his voice sank, that awful sorceress. I know I shall do it again tomorrow. I know that I am in her power for always. If I never saw her again, I should never think of anybody else during all my life. I must follow her as a needle follows a magnet. I would not go away now if I could. I could not leave her. My legs would not carry me. But my mind is still clear enough, and in my mind I hate her. At least I think so. It is also horrible, and that, that body, what can I make of it? It was I. I am sold into bondage, old fellow, and she will take my soul as the price of herself. Then for the first time I told him that I was in a but very little better position, and I am bound to say that, notwithstanding his own infatuation, he had the decency to sympathize with me. Perhaps he did not think it worthwhile being jealous, realizing that he had no cause so far as the lady was concerned. I went on to suggest that we should try to run away. But we soon rejected the project as futile, and to be perfectly honest, I do not believe that either of us would really have left Asha, even if some superior power had suddenly offered to convey us from these gloomy caves and set us down in Cambridge. We could no more have left her than a moth can leave the light that destroys it. We were like confirmed opium eaters. In our moments of reason, we well knew the deadly nature of our pursuit, but we suddenly were not prepared to abandon its terrible delights. No man who once had seen, she, unveiled, and heard the music of her voice, and drunk in the bitter wisdom of her words, would willingly give up the sight for a whole sea of tacit joys. How much more then was this likely to be so when, as in Leo's case, to put myself out of question, this extraordinary creature declared her utter and absolute devotion and gave what appeared to be proofs of its having lasted for some 2,000 years. No doubt she was a wicked person, and no doubt she had murdered Ustain when she stood in her path. But then she was very faithful, and by a law of nature, man is apt to think but likely of a woman's crimes, especially if that woman be beautiful, and the crime be committed for the love of him. And then for the rest, when had such a chance ever come to a man before, as that which now lay in Leo's hand? True, in uniting himself to this dread woman, he would place his life under the influence of a mysterious creature of evil tendencies. After some months of consideration of the statement, I am bound to confess that I am not quite satisfied of its truth. It is perfectly true that Asha committed a murder, but I shrewdly suspect that, where we endowed with the same absolute power, and if we had the same tremendous interest at stake, we would be very apt to do likewise under parallel circumstances. Also, it must be remembered that she looked on it as an execution for disobedience under a system which made the slightest disobedience punishable by death. Putting aside this question of the murder, her evil doing resolves itself into the expression of views and the acknowledgement of motives which are contrary to our preaching, if not to our practice. Now at first sight, this might be fairly taken as a proof of an evil nature. But when we come to consider the great antiquity of the individual, it becomes doubtful if it was anything more than the natural cynicism which arises from age and bitter experience, and the possession of extraordinary powers of observation. It is a well-known fact that very often, putting the period of boyhood out of the question, the older we grow, the more cynical and hardened we get. Indeed, many of us are only saved by timely death from utter moral petrification, if not moral corruption. No one will deny that a young man is on the average better than an old one, for he is without that experience of the order of things that in certain thoughtful dispositions can hardly fail to produce cynicism, and that disregard of acknowledged methods and established customs which we call evil. Now the oldest man upon the earth was but a babe compared to Asha, and the wisest man upon the earth was not one-third as wise, and the fruit of her wisdom was this, that there was but one thing worth living for, and that was love in its highest sense, and to gain that good thing she was not prepared to stop at trifles. This is really the sum of her evil doings, and it must be remembered, on the other hand, that whatever may be thought of them, she had some virtues developed to a degree very uncommon in either sex, constancy, for instance, l-h-h. But then that would be likely enough to happen to him in any ordinary marriage. On the other hand, however, no ordinary marriage could bring him such awful beauty, for awful is the only word that can describe it, such divine devotion, such wisdom, and command over the secrets of nature and the place and power that they must win, or lastly, the royal crown of unending youth. If indeed she could give that, no, on the whole, it is not wonderful that, though Leo was plunged in bitter shame and grief, such as any gentleman would have felt under the circumstances, he was not ready to entertain the idea of running away from his extraordinary fortune. My own opinion is that he would have been mad if he had done so. But then I confess that my statement on the matter must be accepted with qualifications. I am in love with Asha myself to this day, and I would rather have been the object of her affection for one short week than that of any other woman in the world for a whole lifetime. And let me add that, if anybody who doubts this statement and thinks me foolish for making it could have seen Asha drew her wheel and flash out in beauty on his gaze, his view would exactly coincide with my own. Of course, I am speaking of any man. We never had the advantage of a lady's opinion of Asha, but I think it quite possible that she would have regarded the queen with dislike, would have expressed her disapproval in some more or less pointed manner, and ultimately have got herself blasted. For two hours or more, Leo and I sat with shaken nerves and frightened eyes, and talked over the miraculous events through which we were passing. It seemed like a dream or a fairy tale, instead of the solemn sober fact. Who would have believed that the writing on the pot shirt was not only true, but we should live to verify its truth, and that we too seekers should find her who was sought patiently awaiting our coming in the tombs of Kaur? Who would have thought that in the person of Leo this mysterious woman should, as she believed, discover the being whom she awaited from century to century, and whose former earthly habitation she had till this very night preserved? But so it was, in the face of all we had seen, it was difficult for us as ordinarily reasoning men any longer to doubt its truth, and therefore at last with humble hearts and a deep sense of importance of human knowledge, and the insolence of its assumption that denies that to be possible which it has no experience of, we led ourselves down to sleep, leaving our faiths in the hands of that watching providence which had thus chosen to allow us to draw the wheel of human ignorance, and reveal to us for good or evil some glimpse of the possibilities of life. End of Chapter 21. Recording by Red Abrus, January 2008. Chapter 22 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 Red Abrus. SHE by Edge Rider Haggard. Job has a pre-sentiment. It was nine o'clock on the following morning when Job, who still looked scared and frightened, came in to call me, and at the same time breathed his gratitude at finding us alive in our beds, which it appeared was more than he had expected. When I told him of the awful end of poor Ustain, he was even more grateful at our survival, and much shocked, though Ustain had been no favourite of his or he of hers for the matter of that. She had called him Pig in Bastard Arabic, and he called her Hussie in good English, but these amenities were forgotten in the face of the Catastrophe that had overwhelmed her at the hands of her Queen. I don't want to say anything as may not be agreeable, Sir, said Job, when he had finished exclaiming at my tale, but it's my opinion that there she is the old gentleman himself or perhaps his wife if he has won, which I suppose he has, for he couldn't be so wicked all by himself. The witch of Endor was a fool to her, Sir. Bless you, she would make no more of raising every gentleman in the Bible out of these year beastly tombs than I should of growing crests on an old flannel. It's a country of devils, this is, Sir, and she is the master one of the lot, and if ever we get out of it, it'll be more than I expect to do. I don't see no way out of it. That witch isn't likely to let a fine young man like Mr. Leo go. Come, I said, at any rate she saved his life. Yes, and she will take his soul to pay for it. She will make him a witch like herself. I say it's wicked to have anything to do with those sort of people. Last night, Sir, I lay awake and read in my little Bible that my poor old mother gave me about what is going to happen to Sir Sirusus and them sort, till my hair stood on end. Lord, how the old lady would stare if she saw where her job had got to. Yes, it's a queer country, and a queer people too job, I answered, with a shy, for, though I am not superstitious like job, I admit to a natural shrinking, which will not be an investigation from the things that are above nature. You were right, Sir, he answered, and if you won't think me very foolish, I should like to say something to you now that Mr. Leo is out of the way. Leo had got up early and gone for a stroll, and that is that I know it is the last country as ever I shall see in this world. I had a dream last night, and I dreamed that I saw my old father with a kind of night shirt on him, something like these folks wear when they want to be in particular full dress, and a bit of that feathery grass in his hand, which he may have gathered on the way, for I saw lots of it yesterday about 300 yards from the mouth of this beastly cave. Job, he said to me, solemn like, and yet with a kind of satisfaction shining through him, more like a methody person when he has sold a neighbor a marked horse for a sound one, and cleared 20 pounds by the job than anything I can think on. Job, times up job, but I never did expect to have to come and hunt you out in this ear-placed job. Such ado as I have had to nose you up, it wasn't friendly to give your poor old father such a run, let alone that a wonderful lot of bad characters hail from this place car, regular cautions I suggested. Yes, sir, of course, sir, that's just what he said they was, cautions, downright scorchers, sir, and I am sure I don't doubt it, seeing what I know of them and their hot potting ways went on job sadly. Anyway, he was sure that time was up, and went away saying that we should see more than we cared for of each other soon, and I suppose he was thinking of the fact that father and I never could hit off together for longer nor three days, and I dare say that things will be similar when we meet again. Shirley, I said, you don't think that you are going to die because you dream, you saw your old father, if one dies because one dreams of one's father, what happens to a man who dreams of his mother-in-law? Ah, sir, you're laughing at me, said Job, but you see, you didn't know my old father. If it had been anybody else, my Aunt Mary, for instance, who never made much of a job, I should not have thought so much of it, but my father was that idle, which he shouldn't have been with seventeen children, that he would never have put himself out to come here just to see the place. No, sir, I know that he meant business. Well, sir, I can't help it. I suppose every man must go sometime or other, though it is a hard thing to die in a place like this, where Christian burial isn't to be had for its weight in gold. I have tried to be a good man, sir, and do my duty honest, and if it wasn't for the supercilious kind of way in which father carried on last night, a sort of sniffing at me as it were, as though he hadn't no opinion of my references and testimonials. I should feed easy enough in my mind. Anyway, sir, I have been a good servant to you and Mr. Leo. Bless him. Why, it seems, but the other day that I used to lead him about the streets with a penny whip, and if ever you get out of this place, which as father didn't allude to you, perhaps you may. I hope you will think kindly of my whitened bones and never have anything more to do with Greek writing on flower pots, sir, if I may make so bold as to say so. Come, come, job, I said seriously. This is all nonsense, you know. You must not be silly enough to go getting such ideas into your head. We have lived through some queer things, and I hope that we may go on doing so. No, sir, answer job in a tone of conviction that jarred on me unpleasantly. It isn't nonsense. I am a doomed man, and I feel it, and a wonderful, uncomfortable feeling it is, sir, for one can't help wondering how it's going to come about. If you are eating your dinner, you think of poison, and it goes against your stomach, and if you are walking along these dark rabid burrows, you think of knives, and lord, don't you just shiver about the back? I ain't particular, sir, provided it sharp, like that poor girl who, now that she's gone, I'm sorry to have spoke hard on, though I don't approve of her morals in getting married, which I consider too quick to be decent. Still, sir, and poor job turned a shade paler as he said it. I do hope it won't be that hot pot game. Nonsense, I broke in angrily. Nonsense. Very well, sir, said job. It isn't my place to differ from you, sir, but if you happen to be going anywhere, sir, I should be obliged if you could manage to take me with you. Seeing that, I shall be glad to have a friendly face to look at when the time comes, just to help one through as it were, and now, sir, I'll be getting the breakfast. And he went, leaving me in a very uncomfortable state of mind. I was deeply attached to old job, who was one of the best and honestest men I have ever had to do with in any class of life, and really more of a friend than a servant, and the mere idea of anything happening to him brought a lump into my throat. Beneath all his ludicrous talk, I could see that he himself was quite convinced that something was going to happen, and though in most cases these convictions turn out to be utter moonshine, and this particular one especially was to be amply accounted for by the gloomy and unaccustomed surroundings in which its victims was placed. Still, it did more or less carry a chill to my heart, as any dread that is obviously a genuine object of belief is apt to do. However absurd the belief may be. Presently the breakfast arrived, and with it Leo, who had been taking a walk outside the cave, to clear his mind, he said, and very glad I was to see both, for they gave me a respite from my gloomy thoughts. After breakfast we went for another walk, and watched some of the Amahagars sowing a plot of ground with the grain from which they make their beer. This they did in scriptural fashion, a man with a bag made of goat's hide, fastened round his waist, walking up and down the plot, and scattering the seeds as he went. It was a positive relief to see one of these dreadful people do anything so homely and pleasant as so afield, perhaps because it seemed to link them as it were with the rest of humanity. As we were returning, Bilali met us, and informed us that it was she's pleasure that we should wait upon her, and accordingly we entered her presence, not without trepidation, for Asha was certainly an exception to the rule. Familiarity with her might and did breed passion and wonder and horror, but it suddenly did not breed contempt. We were, as usual, shown in by the mutes, and after these had retired, Asha unveiled, and once more bade Leo embrace her, which notwithstanding his hard searchings of the previous night, he did with more alacrity and fervour than in strictness courtesy required. She laid her white hand on his head, and looked him fondly in the eyes. Dost thou wander, my caligrates, she said, When thou shalt call me all thine own, and when we shall of a truth be for one another and to one another? I will tell thee, first must thou be even as I am, not immortal indeed, for that I am not, but so cased and hardened against the attacks of time that his arrows shall glance from the armour of thy vigorous life, as the sunbeams glance from water. As yet I may not mate with thee, for thou and I are different, and the very brightness of my being would burn thee up, and prechance destroy thee. Thou couldst not even endure to look upon me for too long a time, lest thine eyes should ache, and thy senses swim, and therefore, with little nod, shall I presently veal myself again? This, by the way, she did not do. No, listen, thou shall not be tried beyond endurance, for this very evening, and hour before the sun goes down, shall we start hence, and by tomorrow's dark, if all goes well, and the road is not lost to me, which I pray it may not be, shall we stand in the place of life, and thou shalt bathe in the fire, and come forth glorified, as no man ever was before thee, and then calicoids, shalt thou call me wife, and I will call thee husband. Leo muttered something in answer to this astronessing statement. I do not know what, and she laughed a little at his confusion, and went on. And thou too, O holy, on thee also will I confer this boon, and then of a truth shall thou be evergreen, and this will I do. Well, because thou hast pleased me. Holy, for thou art not altogether a fool like most of the sons of men, and because, though thou hast a school of philosophy as full of nonsense as those of the old days, yet hast thou not forgotten how to turn a pretty phrase about a lady's eyes. Hello, old fellow, whispered Leo, with a return of his old cheerfulness. Have you been paying compliments? I should never have thought it of you. I thank thee, O Asha, I replied, with as much dignity as I could command. But if there be such a place as thou dost describe, and if in this strange place there may be found a fiery virtue that can hold off death when he comes to pluck us by the hand, yet would I none for it. For me, O Asha, the wall has not proved so soft a nest that I would lie in it forever. A stony-hearted mother is our earth, and stones are the bread she gives her children for their daily food, stones to eat and bitter water for their thirst, and stripes for tender nurture. Who would endure this for many lives? Who would so load up his back with memories of lost hours and loves, and of his neighbour's sorrows that he cannot lessen, and wisdom that brings not consolation? Hard is it to die, because our delicate flesh doth shrink back from the worm it will not feel, and from that unknown which the winding sheet doth curtain from our view. But harder still to my fancy, would it be to live on, green in the leaf and fair, but dead and rotten at the core, and feel that other secret worm of recollection crying over at the heart? Be think thee, holy, she said. Yet doth long life and strengthen beauty beyond measure, mean power, and all things that are dear to man. And what, O Queen, I answered, are those things that are dear to man? Are they not bubbles? Is not ambition but an endless ladder by which no height is ever climbed till the last unreachable rung is mounted? For height leads on to the height, and there is no resting place upon them, and rung doth grow upon rung, and there is no limit to the number. Doth not wealth satiate, and become nauseous, and no longer serve to satisfy our pleasure or to buy an ours piece of mine? And is there any end to wisdom that we may hope to reach it? Rather the more we learn, shall we not thereby be able only to better compass out our ignorance? Did we live ten thousand years could we hope to solve the secrets of the suns, and of the space beyond the suns, and of the hand that hung them in the heavens? Would not our wisdom be but as a gnoing hunger calling our consciousness day by day to a knowledge of the empty craving of our souls? Would it not be but as a light in one of these great caverns that though bright it burn and brighter yet doth but the more serve to show the depths of the gloom around it? And what good thing is there beyond that we may gain by length of days? Name, my holy, there is love, love which makes all things beautiful, and doth breathe divinity into the very dust we tread. With love shall life roll gloriously on from ear to ear like the voice of some great music that hath power to hold the hearer's heart poised on eagle's wings above the sordid shame and folly of the earth. It may be so, I answered, but if the loved one prove a broken reed to pierce us, or if the love be loved in vain, what then? Shall a man grave his sorrows upon a stone when he hath but need to ride them on the water? Nay, O she, I will live my day and grow old with my generation, and I may appointed death and be forgotten. For I do hope for an immortality to which the little span that perchance thou canst confer will be but as a finger's length laid against the measure of the great world. And mark this, the immortality to which I look, and which my faith doth promise me shall be free from the bonds that hear must tie my spirit down. For while the flesh endure's sorrow and evil and the scorpion whips of sin must endure also, but when the flesh hath fallen from us, then shall the spirit shine forth clad in the brightness of eternal good, and for its common air shall breathe so rare and ether of most noble thoughts that the highest aspiration of our manhood, or the purest incense of a maiden's prayer, would prove too earthly cross to float therein. Thou loquist high, answered Asha, with a little laugh, and speakest clearly as a trumpet and with no uncertain sound, and yet me thinks that what now didst thou talk of that unknown from which the winding sheet doth curtain us? But perchance thou ceased with the eye of faith, gazing on that brightness, that is to be through the painted glass of thy imagination. Strange are the pictures of the future that mankind can thus draw with this brush of faith and this many-colored pigment of imagination. Strange, too, that no one of them doth agree with another. I could tell thee, but there what is the use? Why rob a fool of his bobble? Let it pass, and I pray, O holy, that when thou dost feel old age creeping slowly toward thyself and the confusion of senility making havoc in thy brain, thou mayst not bitterly regret that thou didst cast away the imperial boon. I would have given to thee, but so it hath ever been. Man can never be content with that which his hand can pluck. If a lamp be in his reach to light him through the darkness, he must needst cast it down because it is no star. Happiness denseth ever apace before him, like the marsh fires in the swamps, and he must catch the fire, and he must hold the star. Beauty is not to him because there are lips more honey-sweet, and wealth is not because others can weigh him down with heavier shekels, and fame is not because there have been greater men than he. Thyself thou saidst it, and I turn thy words against thee. Well thou, dreamest that thou shalt pluck the star. I believe it not, and I think thee a fool, my holy, to throw away the lamp. I made no answer, for I could not, especially before Leo. Tell her that since I had seen her face, I knew that it would always be before my eyes, and that I had no wish to prolong an existence which must always be haunted and tortured by her memory, and by the last bitterness of unsatisfied love. But so it was, and so, alas, is it to this hour. And now went on she, changing her tone and the subject together. Tell me, my calicrates, for as yet I know it not. How came ye to seek me here? Yesterday, thou didst say that calicrates, him whom thou sawst, was thine ancestor. How was it? Tell me, thou dost not speak over much. Thus adjured, Leo told her the wonderful story of the casket, and of the pot shred that written on by his ancestors, the Egyptian Aminartus, had been the means of guiding us to her. Asha listened intently, and when he had finished, spoke to me. Did I not tell thee one day, when we did talk of good and evil, oh holy, it was when my beloved lay so ill, that out of good came evil, and out of evil good. That day who sowed, knew not what the crop should be, nor he who struck where the blow should fall. See now, this Egyptian Aminartus, this royal child of the Nile who hated me, and whom even now I hate, for in a way she did prevail against me. See now, she herself had been the very means to bring her lover to mine arms. For her sake I slew him, and now, behold, through her he hath come back to me. She would have done me evil, and sowed her seeds that I might reap tares, and behold, she hath given me more than all the world can give. And there is a strange square for thee to fit into the circle of good and evil, oh holy, and so she went on after a pause. And so she bade her son destroy me, if he might, because I slew his father. And thou, my calicrates, art the father, and in a sense thou art likewise the son. And wouldst thou avenge thy wrong, and the wrong of that far of mother of dine upon me, oh calicrates? See, and she slid to her knees, and drew the white corsage still farther down her ivory bosom. See, here beats my heart, and thereby thy side is a knife, heavy and long and sharp, the very knife to slay an erring woman with. Take it now, and be avenged, strike, and strike home. So shall thou be satisfied, calicrates, and go through life a happy man, because thou hast paid back the wrong, and obeyed the mandate of the past. He looked at her, and then stretched out his hand, and lifted her to her feet. Rise, Asha, he said sadly, well thou knowest that I cannot strike thee. No, not even for the sake of her whom thou sluist but last night. I am in thy power, and a very slave to thee. How can I kill thee? Sooner should I slay myself. Almost dost thou begin to love me, calicrates, she answered smiling. And now tell me of thy country. It's a great people, is it not, with an empire like that of Rome? Surely thou wouldst return thither, and it is well, for I mean not that thou should dwell in these caves of car. Nay, when once thou art even as I am, we will go hence. Fear not, but that I shall find a path, and then shall we journey to this England of Dine, and live as it becomeeth us to live. Two thousand years have I waited for the day when I should see the last of these heatful caves, and this gloomy visage folk. And now it is at hand, and my heart bounds up to meet it like a child's towards its holiday. For thou shalt rule this England. But we have a queen already broken Leo-history. It is not, it is not, shed Asha. She can be overthrown. At this we both broke out into an exclamation of dismay, and explained that we should as soon think of overthrowing ourselves. But here is a strange thing, said Asha in Estonishment, a queen whom her people love. Surely the world must have changed since I dwelt in core. Again we explained that it was the character of monarchs that had changed, and that the one under whom we lived was venerated and beloved by all right-thinking people in our vast realms. Also we told her that real power in our country rested in the hands of the people, and that we were in fact ruled by the votes of the lower and least educated classes of the community. Ah! she said, a democracy. Then surely there is a tyrant, for I have long since seen that democracies having no clear will of their own in the end set up a tyrant and worship him. Yes, I said, we have our tyrants. Well, she answered resently. We can at any rate destroy these tyrants and calibrates shall rule the land. I instantly informed Asha that in England blasting was not an amusement that could be indulged in with impunity, and that any such attempt would meet with the consideration of the law, and probably end up on a scaffold. The law she'd laughed with a scorned. The law. Can't thou not understand, oh holy, that I am above the law, and so shall my calibrates be also? All human law will be to us as the north wind to a mountain. Does the wind bend the mountain, or the mountain the wind? And now leave me, I pray thee, and thou to my own calibrates, for I would get me ready against our journey, and so must ye both. And ye are servant also, but bring no great quantity of things with thee, for I trust that we shall be but three days gone. Then shall we return hither, and I'll make a plan whereby we can bid farewell forever to these suppletures of core. Yea, surely thou may kiss my hand. So we went, I for one, meditating deeply on the awful nature of the problem that now opened out before us. The terrible she had evidently made up her mind to go to England, and it made me absolutely shudder to think that what would be the result of her arrival there, what her powers where I knew, and I could not doubt but that she would exercise them to the full. It might be possible to control her for a while, but her proud, ambitious spirit would be certain to break loose and avenge itself for the long centuries of its solitude. She would, if necessary, and if the power of her beauty did not unaided prove equal to the occasion, blast her way to any end she set before her, and as she could not die and for ought I knew could not even be killed, what was there to stop her? I regret to say that I was never able to ascertain if she was invulnerable against the ordinary accidents of life. Presumably this was so. Else some misadventure would have been sure to put an end to her in the course of so many centuries. True, she offered to let Leo slay her, but very probably this was only an experiment to try his temper and mental attitude towards her. Asha never gave way to impulse without some valid object. L. H. H. In the end she would, I had little doubt, assume absolute rule over the British dominions, and probably over the whole earth, and though I was sure that she would speedily make ours the most glorious and prosperous empire that the world has ever seen, it would be at the cost of a terrible sacrifice of life. The whole thing sounded like a dream or some extraordinary invention of a speculative brain, and yet it was a fact, a wonderful fact of which the whole world would soon be called on to take notice. What was the meaning of it all? After much thinking I could only conclude that this marvellous creature whose passion had kept her for so many centuries chained as it were, and comparatively harmless, was now about to be used by Providence as a means to change the order of the world, and possibly by the building up of a power that could no more be rebelled against or questioned than the decrease of fate to change it materially for the better.