“Pardon me, oh Queen,” I said, “but I am bewildered. Nigh upon
two thousand years have rolled across the earth since the Jewish
Messiah hung upon His cross at Golgotha. How then canst thou have
taught thy philosophy to the Jews before He was? Thou art a woman
and no spirit. How can a woman live two thousand years? Why dost
thou befool me, oh Queen?”
She leaned back upon the couch, and once more I felt the hidden
eyes playing upon me and searching out my heart.
“Oh man!” she said at last, speaking very slowly and
deliberately, “it seems that there are still things upon the
earth of which thou knowest naught. Dost thou still believe that
all things die, even as those very Jews believed? I tell thee
that naught dies. There is no such thing as Death, though there
be a thing called Change. See,” and she pointed to some
sculptures on the rocky wall. “Three times two thousand years
have passed since the last of the great race that hewed those
pictures fell before the breath of the pestilence which destroyed
them, yet are they not dead. E’en now they live; perchance their
spirits are drawn towards us at this very hour,” and she glanced
round. “Of a surety it sometimes seems to me that my eyes can see
them.”
“Yes, but to the world they are dead.”
“Ay, for a time; but even to the world are they born again and again.
I, yes I, Ayesha[2]—for that, stranger, is my name—I say to thee that I
wait now for one I loved to be born again, and here I tarry till he
finds me, knowing of a surety that hither he will come, and that here,
and here only, shall he greet me. Why, dost thou believe that I, who am
all-powerful, I, whose loveliness is more than the loveliness of the
Grecian Helen, of whom they used to sing, and whose wisdom is wider,
ay, far more wide and deep than the wisdom of Solomon the Wise—I, who
know the secrets of the earth and its riches, and can turn all things
to my uses—I, who have even for a while overcome Change, that ye call
Death—why, I say, oh stranger, dost thou think that I herd here with
barbarians lower than the beasts?”
[2] Pronounced Assha.—L. H. H.
“I know not,” I said humbly.
“Because I wait for him I love. My life has perchance been evil,
I know not—for who can say what is evil and what good?—so I fear
to die even if I could die, which I cannot until mine hour comes,
to go and seek him where he is; for between us there might rise a
wall I could not climb, at least, I dread it. Surely easy would
it be also to lose the way in seeking in those great spaces
wherein the planets wander on for ever. But the day will come, it
may be when five thousand more years have passed, and are lost
and melted into the vault of Time, even as the little clouds melt
into the gloom of night, or it may be to-morrow, when he, my
love, shall be born again, and then, following a law that is
stronger than any human plan, he shall find me _here_, where once
he knew me, and of a surety his heart will soften towards me,
though I sinned against him; ay, even though he knew me not
again, yet will he love me, if only for my beauty’s sake.”
For a moment I was dumbfounded, and could not answer. The matter
was too overpowering for my intellect to grasp.
“But even so, oh Queen,” I said at last, “even if we men be born
again and again, that is not so with thee, if thou speakest
truly.” Here she looked up sharply, and once more I caught the
flash of those hidden eyes; “thou,” I went on hurriedly, “who
hast never died?”
“That is so,” she said; “and it is so because I have, half by
chance and half by learning, solved one of the great secrets of
the world. Tell me, stranger: life is—why therefore should not
life be lengthened for a while? What are ten or twenty or fifty
thousand years in the history of life? Why in ten thousand years
scarce will the rain and storms lessen a mountain top by a span
in thickness? In two thousand years these caves have not changed,
nothing has changed but the beasts, and man, who is as the
beasts. There is naught that is wonderful about the matter,
couldst thou but understand. Life is wonderful, ay, but that it
should be a little lengthened is not wonderful. Nature hath her
animating spirit as well as man, who is Nature’s child, and he
who can find that spirit, and let it breathe upon him, shall live
with her life. He shall not live eternally, for Nature is not
eternal, and she herself must die, even as the nature of the moon
hath died. She herself must die, I say, or rather change and
sleep till it be time for her to live again. But when shall she
die? Not yet, I ween, and while she lives, so shall he who hath
all her secret live with her. All I have it not, yet have I some,
more perchance than any who were before me. Now, to thee I doubt
not that this thing is a great mystery, therefore I will not
overcome thee with it now. Another time I will tell thee more if
the mood be on me, though perchance I shall never speak thereof
again. Dost thou wonder how I knew that ye were coming to this
land, and so saved your heads from the hot-pot?”
“Ay, oh Queen,” I answered feebly.
“Then gaze upon that water,” and she pointed to the font-like
vessel, and then, bending forward, held her hand over it.
I rose and gazed, and instantly the water darkened. Then it
cleared, and I saw as distinctly as I ever saw anything in my
life—I saw, I say, our boat upon that horrible canal. There was
Leo lying at the bottom asleep in it, with a coat thrown over him
to keep off the mosquitoes, in such a fashion as to hide his
face, and myself, Job, and Mahomed towing on the bank.
I started back, aghast, and cried out that it was magic, for I
recognised the whole scene—it was one which had actually
occurred.
“Nay, nay; oh Holly,” she answered, “it is no magic, that is a
fiction of ignorance. There is no such thing as magic, though
there is such a thing as a knowledge of the secrets of Nature.
That water is my glass; in it I see what passes if I will to
summon up the pictures, which is not often. Therein I can show
thee what thou wilt of the past, if it be anything that hath to
do with this country and with what I have known, or anything that
thou, the gazer, hast known. Think of a face if thou wilt, and it
shall be reflected from thy mind upon the water. I know not all
the secret yet—I can read nothing in the future. But it is an old
secret; I did not find it. In Arabia and in Egypt the sorcerers
knew it centuries gone. So one day I chanced to bethink me of
that old canal—some twenty ages since I sailed upon it, and I was
minded to look thereon again. So I looked, and there I saw the
boat and three men walking, and one, whose face I could not see,
but a youth of noble form, sleeping in the boat, and so I sent
and saved ye. And now farewell. But stay, tell me of this
youth—the Lion, as the old man calls him. I would look upon him,
but he is sick, thou sayest—sick with the fever, and also wounded
in the fray.”
“He is very sick,” I answered sadly; “canst thou do nothing for
him, oh Queen! who knowest so much?”
“Of a surety I can. I can cure him; but why speakest thou so
sadly? Dost thou love the youth? Is he perchance thy son?”
“He is my adopted son, oh Queen! Shall he be brought in before
thee?”
“Nay. How long hath the fever taken him?”
“This is the third day.”
“Good; then let him lie another day. Then will he perchance throw
it off by his own strength, and that is better than that I should
cure him, for my medicine is of a sort to shake the life in its
very citadel. If, however, by to-morrow night, at that hour when
the fever first took him, he doth not begin to mend, then will I
come to him and cure him. Stay, who nurses him?”
“Our white servant, him whom Billali names the Pig; also,” and
here I spoke with some little hesitation, “a woman named Ustane,
a very handsome woman of this country, who came and embraced him
when she first saw him, and hath stayed by him ever since, as I
understand is the fashion of thy people, oh Queen.”
“My people! speak not to me of my people,” she answered hastily;
“these slaves are no people of mine, they are but dogs to do my
bidding till the day of my deliverance comes; and, as for their
customs, naught have I to do with them. Also, call me not Queen—I
am weary of flattery and titles—call me Ayesha, the name hath a
sweet sound in mine ears, it is an echo from the past. As for
this Ustane, I know not. I wonder if it be she against whom I was
warned, and whom I in turn did warn? Hath she—stay, I will see;”
and, bending forward, she passed her hand over the font of water
and gazed intently into it. “See,” she said quietly, “is that the
woman?”
I looked into the water, and there, mirrored upon its placid
surface, was the silhouette of Ustane’s stately face. She was
bending forward, with a look of infinite tenderness upon her
features, watching something beneath her, and with her chestnut
locks falling on to her right shoulder.
“It is she,” I said, in a low voice, for once more I felt much
disturbed at this most uncommon sight. “She watches Leo asleep.”
“Leo!” said Ayesha, in an absent voice; “why, that is ‘lion’ in
the Latin tongue. The old man hath named happily for once. It is
very strange,” she went on, speaking to herself, “very. So
like—but it is not possible!” With an impatient gesture she
passed her hand over the water once more. It darkened, and the
image vanished silently and mysteriously as it had risen, and
once more the lamplight, and the lamplight only, shone on the
placid surface of that limpid, living mirror.
“Hast thou aught to ask me before thou goest, oh Holly?” she
said, after a few moments’ reflection. “It is but a rude life
that thou must live here, for these people are savages, and know
not the ways of cultivated man. Not that I am troubled thereby,
for behold my food,” and she pointed to the fruit upon the little
table. “Naught but fruit doth ever pass my lips—fruit and cakes
of flour, and a little water. I have bidden my girls to wait upon
thee. They are mutes, thou knowest, deaf are they and dumb, and
therefore the safest of servants, save to those who can read
their faces and their signs. I bred them so—it hath taken many
centuries and much trouble; but at last I have triumphed. Once I
succeeded before, but the race was too ugly, so I let it die
away; but now, as thou seest, they are otherwise. Once, too, I
reared a race of giants, but after a while Nature would no more
of it, and it died away. Hast thou aught to ask of me?”
“Ay, one thing, oh Ayesha,” I said boldly; but feeling by no
means as bold as I trust I looked. “I would gaze upon thy face.”
She laughed out in her bell-like notes. “Bethink thee, Holly,”
she answered; “bethink thee. It seems that thou knowest the old
myths of the gods of Greece. Was there not one Actæon who
perished miserably because he looked on too much beauty? If I
show thee my face, perchance thou wouldst perish miserably also;
perchance thou wouldst eat out thy heart in impotent desire; for
know I am not for thee—I am for no man, save one, who hath been,
but is not yet.”
“As thou wilt, Ayesha,” I said. “I fear not thy beauty. I have
put my heart away from such vanity as woman’s loveliness, that
passeth like a flower.”
“Nay, thou errest,” she said; “that does _not_ pass. My beauty
endures even as I endure; still, if thou wilt, oh rash man, have
thy will; but blame not me if passion mount thy reason, as the
Egyptian breakers used to mount a colt, and guide it whither thou
wilt not. Never may the man to whom my beauty has been unveiled
put it from his mind, and therefore even with these savages do I
go veiled, lest they vex me, and I should slay them. Say, wilt
thou see?”
“I will,” I answered, my curiosity overpowering me.
She lifted her white and rounded arms—never had I seen such arms
before—and slowly, very slowly, withdrew some fastening beneath
her hair. Then all of a sudden the long, corpse-like wrappings
fell from her to the ground, and my eyes travelled up her form,
now only robed in a garb of clinging white that did but serve to
show its perfect and imperial shape, instinct with a life that
was more than life, and with a certain serpent-like grace that
was more than human. On her little feet were sandals, fastened
with studs of gold. Then came ankles more perfect than ever
sculptor dreamed of. About the waist her white kirtle was
fastened by a double-headed snake of solid gold, above which her
gracious form swelled up in lines as pure as they were lovely,
till the kirtle ended on the snowy argent of her breast, whereon
her arms were folded. I gazed above them at her face, and—I do
not exaggerate—shrank back blinded and amazed. I have heard of
the beauty of celestial beings, now I saw it; only this beauty,
with all its awful loveliness and purity, was _evil_—at least, at
the time, it struck me as evil. How am I to describe it? I
cannot—simply I cannot! The man does not live whose pen could
convey a sense of what I saw. I might talk of the great changing
eyes of deepest, softest black, of the tinted face, of the broad
and noble brow, on which the hair grew low, and delicate,
straight features. But, beautiful, surpassingly beautiful as they
all were, her loveliness did not lie in them. It lay rather, if
it can be said to have had any fixed abiding place, in a visible
majesty, in an imperial grace, in a godlike stamp of softened
power, which shone upon that radiant countenance like a living
halo. Never before had I guessed what beauty made sublime could
be—and yet, the sublimity was a dark one—the glory was not all of
heaven—though none the less was it glorious. Though the face
before me was that of a young woman of certainly not more than
thirty years, in perfect health, and the first flush of ripened
beauty, yet it had stamped upon it a look of unutterable
experience, and of deep acquaintance with grief and passion. Not
even the lovely smile that crept about the dimples of her mouth
could hide this shadow of sin and sorrow. It shone even in the
light of the glorious eyes, it was present in the air of majesty,
and it seemed to say: “Behold me, lovely as no woman was or is,
undying and half-divine; memory haunts me from age to age, and
passion leads me by the hand—evil have I done, and from age to
age evil I shall do, and sorrow shall I know till my redemption
comes.”
Drawn by some magnetic force which I could not resist, I let my
eyes rest upon her shining orbs, and felt a current pass from
them to me that bewildered and half-blinded me.
She laughed—ah, how musically! and nodded her little head at me
with an air of sublimated coquetry that would have done credit to
a Venus Victrix.
“Rash man!” she said; “like Actæon, thou hast had thy will; be
careful lest, like Actæon, thou too dost perish miserably, torn
to pieces by the ban-hounds of thine own passions. I too, oh
Holly, am a virgin goddess, not to be moved of any man, save one,
and it is not thou. Say, hast thou seen enough!”
“I have looked on beauty, and I am blinded,” I said hoarsely,
lifting my hand to cover up my eyes.
“So! what did I tell thee? Beauty is like the lightning; it is
lovely, but it destroys—especially trees, oh Holly!” and again
she nodded and laughed.
Suddenly she paused, and through my fingers I saw an awful change
come over her countenance. Her great eyes suddenly fixed
themselves into an expression in which horror seemed to struggle
with some tremendous hope arising through the depths of her dark
soul. The lovely face grew rigid, and the gracious willowy form
seemed to erect itself.
“Man,” she half whispered, half hissed, throwing back her head
like a snake about to strike—“Man, whence hadst thou that scarab
on thy hand? Speak, or by the Spirit of Life I will blast thee
where thou standest!” and she took one light step towards me, and
from her eyes there shone such an awful light—to me it seemed
almost like a flame—that I fell, then and there, on the ground
before her, babbling confusedly in my terror.
“Peace,” she said, with a sudden change of manner, and speaking
in her former soft voice. “I did affright thee! Forgive me! But
at times, oh Holly, the almost infinite mind grows impatient of
the slowness of the very finite, and am I tempted to use my power
out of vexation—very nearly wast thou dead, but I remembered——.
But the scarab—about the scarabæus!”
“I picked it up,” I gurgled feebly, as I got on to my feet again,
and it is a solemn fact that my mind was so disturbed that at the
moment I could remember nothing else about the ring except that I
had picked it up in Leo’s cave.
“It is very strange,” she said with a sudden access of womanlike
trembling and agitation which seemed out of place in this awful
woman—“but once I knew a scarab like to that. It—hung round the
neck—of one I loved,” and she gave a little sob, and I saw that
after all she was only a woman, although she might be a very old
one.
“There,” she went on, “it must be one like to it, and yet never did I
see one like to it, for thereto hung a history, and he who wore it
prized it much.[3] But the scarab that I knew was not set thus in the
bezel of a ring. Go now, Holly, go, and, if thou canst, try to forget
that thou hast of thy folly looked upon Ayesha’s beauty,” and, turning
from me, she flung herself on her couch, and buried her face in the
cushions.
[3] I am informed by a renowned and learned Egyptologist, to whom I
have submitted this very interesting and beautifully finished scarab,
“Suten se Ra,” that he has never seen one resembling it. Although it
bears a title frequently given to Egyptian royalty, he is of opinion
that it is not necessarily the cartouche of a Pharaoh, on which either
the throne or personal name of the monarch is generally inscribed.
What the history of this particular scarab may have been we can now,
unfortunately, never know, but I have little doubt but that it played
some part in the tragic story of the Princess Amenartas and her lover
Kallikrates, the forsworn priest of Isis.—Editor.
As for me, I stumbled from her presence, and I do not remember
how I reached my own cave.
XIV.
A SOUL IN HELL
It was nearly ten o’clock at night when I cast myself down upon
my bed, and began to gather my scattered wits, and reflect upon
what I had seen and heard. But the more I reflected the less I
could make of it. Was I mad, or drunk, or dreaming, or was I
merely the victim of a gigantic and most elaborate hoax? How was
it possible that I, a rational man, not unacquainted with the
leading scientific facts of our history, and hitherto an absolute
and utter disbeliever in all the hocus-pocus which in Europe goes
by the name of the supernatural, could believe that I had within
the last few minutes been engaged in conversation with a woman
two thousand and odd years old? The thing was contrary to the
experience of human nature, and absolutely and utterly
impossible. It must be a hoax, and yet, if it were a hoax, what
was I to make of it? What, too, was to be said of the figures on
the water, of the woman’s extraordinary acquaintance with the
remote past, and her ignorance, or apparent ignorance, of any
subsequent history? What, too, of her wonderful and awful
loveliness? This, at any rate, was a patent fact, and beyond the
experience of the world. No merely mortal woman could shine with
such a supernatural radiance. About that she had, at any rate,
been in the right—it was not safe for any man to look upon such
beauty. I was a hardened vessel in such matters, having, with the
exception of one painful experience of my green and tender youth,
put the softer sex (I sometimes think that this is a misnomer)
almost entirely out of my thoughts. But now, to my intense
horror, I _knew_ that I could never put away the vision of those
glorious eyes; and alas! the very _diablerie_ of the woman,
whilst it horrified and repelled, attracted in even a greater
degree. A person with the experience of two thousand years at her
back, with the command of such tremendous powers, and the
knowledge of a mystery that could hold off death, was certainly
worth falling in love with, if ever woman was. But, alas! it was
not a question of whether or no she was worth it, for so far as I
could judge, not being versed in such matters, I, a fellow of my
college, noted for what my acquaintances are pleased to call my
misogyny, and a respectable man now well on in middle life, had
fallen absolutely and hopelessly in love with this white
sorceress. Nonsense; it must be nonsense! She had warned me
fairly, and I had refused to take the warning. Curses on the
fatal curiosity that is ever prompting man to draw the veil from
woman, and curses on the natural impulse that begets it! It is
the cause of half—ay, and more than half—of our misfortunes. Why
cannot man be content to live alone and be happy, and let the
women live alone and be happy too? But perhaps they would not be
happy, and I am not sure that we should either. Here is a nice
state of affairs. I, at my age, to fall a victim to this modern
Circe! But then she was not modern, at least she said not. She
was almost as ancient as the original Circe.
I tore my hair, and jumped up from my couch, feeling that if I
did not do something I should go off my head. What did she mean
about the scarabæus too? It was Leo’s scarabæus, and had come out
of the old coffer that Vincey had left in my rooms nearly
one-and-twenty years before. Could it be, after all, that the
whole story was true, and the writing on the sherd was _not_ a
forgery, or the invention of some crack-brained, long-forgotten
individual? And if so, could it be that _Leo_ was the man that
_She_ was waiting for—the dead man who was to be born again!
Impossible! The whole thing was gibberish! Who ever heard of a
man being born again?
But if it were possible that a woman could exist for two thousand
years, this might be possible also—anything might be possible. I
myself might, for aught I knew, be a reincarnation of some other
forgotten self, or perhaps the last of a long line of ancestral
selves. Well, _vive la guerre!_ why not? Only, unfortunately, I
had no recollection of these previous conditions. The idea was so
absurd to me that I burst out laughing, and, addressing the
sculptured picture of a grim-looking warrior on the cave wall,
called out to him aloud, “Who knows, old fellow?—perhaps I was
your contemporary. By Jove! perhaps I was you and you are I,” and
then I laughed again at my own folly, and the sound of my
laughter rang dismally along the vaulted roof, as though the
ghost of the warrior had echoed the ghost of a laugh.
Next I bethought me that I had not been to see how Leo was, so,
taking up one of the lamps which was burning at my bedside, I
slipped off my shoes and crept down the passage to the entrance
of his sleeping cave. The draught of the night air was lifting
his curtain to and fro gently, as though spirit hands were
drawing and redrawing it. I slid into the vault-like apartment,
and looked round. There was a light by which I could see that Leo
was lying on the couch, tossing restlessly in his fever, but
asleep. At his side, half-lying on the floor, half-leaning
against the stone couch, was Ustane. She held his hand in one of
hers, but she too was dozing, and the two made a pretty, or
rather a pathetic, picture. Poor Leo! his cheek was burning red,
there were dark shadows beneath his eyes, and his breath came
heavily. He was very, very ill; and again the horrible fear
seized me that he might die, and I be left alone in the world.
And yet if he lived he would perhaps be my rival with Ayesha;
even if he were not the man, what chance should I, middle-aged
and hideous, have against his bright youth and beauty? Well,
thank Heaven! my sense of right was not dead. _She_ had not
killed that yet; and, as I stood there, I prayed to Heaven in my
heart that my boy, my more than son, might live—ay, even if he
proved to be the man.
Then I went back as softly as I had come, but still I could not
sleep; the sight and thought of dear Leo lying there so ill had
but added fuel to the fire of my unrest. My wearied body and
overstrained mind awakened all my imagination into preternatural
activity. Ideas, visions, almost inspirations, floated before it
with startling vividness. Most of them were grotesque enough,
some were ghastly, some recalled thoughts and sensations that had
for years been buried in the _débris_ of my past life. But,
behind and above them all, hovered the shape of that awful woman,
and through them gleamed the memory of her entrancing loveliness.
Up and down the cave I strode—up and down.
Suddenly I observed, what I had not noticed before, that there
was a narrow aperture in the rocky wall. I took up the lamp and
examined it; the aperture led to a passage. Now, I was still
sufficiently sensible to remember that it is not pleasant, in
such a situation as ours was, to have passages running into one’s
bed-chamber from no one knows where. If there are passages,
people can come up them; they can come up when one is asleep.
Partly to see where it went to, and partly from a restless desire
to be doing something, I followed the passage. It led to a stone
stair, which I descended; the stair ended in another passage, or
rather tunnel, also hewn out of the bed-rock, and running, so far
as I could judge, exactly beneath the gallery that led to the
entrance of our rooms, and across the great central cave. I went
on down it: it was as silent as the grave, but still, drawn by
some sensation or attraction that I cannot define, I followed on,
my stockinged feet falling without noise on the smooth and rocky
floor. When I had traversed some fifty yards of space, I came to
another passage running at right angles, and here an awful thing
happened to me: the sharp draught caught my lamp and extinguished
it, leaving me in utter darkness in the bowels of that mysterious
place. I took a couple of strides forward so as to clear the
bisecting tunnel, being terribly afraid lest I should turn up it
in the dark if once I got confused as to the direction, and then
paused to think. What was I to do? I had no match; it seemed
awful to attempt that long journey back through the utter gloom,
and yet I could not stand there all night, and, if I did,
probably it would not help me much, for in the bowels of the rock
it would be as dark at midday as at midnight. I looked back over
my shoulder—not a sight or a sound. I peered forward into the
darkness: surely, far away, I saw something like the faint glow
of fire. Perhaps it was a cave where I could get a light—at any
rate, it was worth investigating. Slowly and painfully I crept
along the tunnel, keeping my hand against its wall, and feeling
at every step with my foot before I put it down, fearing lest I
should fall into some pit. Thirty paces—there was a light, a
broad light that came and went, shining through curtains! Fifty
paces—it was close at hand! Sixty—oh, great heaven!
I was at the curtains, and they did not hang close, so I could
see clearly into the little cavern beyond them. It had all the
appearance of being a tomb, and was lit up by a fire that burnt
in its centre with a whitish flame and without smoke. Indeed,
there, to the left, was a stone shelf with a little ledge to it
three inches or so high, and on the shelf lay what I took to be a
corpse; at any rate, it looked like one, with something white
thrown over it. To the right was a similar shelf, on which lay
some broidered coverings. Over the fire bent the figure of a
woman; she was sideways to me and facing the corpse, wrapped in a
dark mantle that hid her like a nun’s cloak. She seemed to be
staring at the flickering flame. Suddenly, as I was trying to
make up my mind what to do, with a convulsive movement that
somehow gave an impression of despairing energy, the woman rose
to her feet and cast the dark cloak from her.
It was _She_ herself!
She was clothed, as I had seen her when she unveiled, in the
kirtle of clinging white, cut low upon her bosom, and bound in at
the waist with the barbaric double-headed snake, and, as before,
her rippling black hair fell in heavy masses down her back. But
her face was what caught my eye, and held me as in a vice, not
this time by the force of its beauty, but by the power of
fascinated terror. The beauty was still there, indeed, but the
agony, the blind passion, and the awful vindictiveness displayed
upon those quivering features, and in the tortured look of the
upturned eyes, were such as surpass my powers of description.
For a moment she stood still, her hands raised high above her
head, and as she did so the white robe slipped from her down to
her golden girdle, baring the blinding loveliness of her form.
She stood there, her fingers clenched, and the awful look of
malevolence gathered and deepened on her face.
Suddenly I thought of what would happen if she discovered me, and
the reflection made me turn sick and faint. But, even if I had
known that I must die if I stopped, I do not believe that I could
have moved, for I was absolutely fascinated. But still I knew my
danger. Supposing she should hear me, or see me through the
curtain, supposing I even sneezed, or that her magic told her
that she was being watched—swift indeed would be my doom.
Down came the clenched hands to her sides, then up again above
her head, and, as I am a living and honourable man, the white
flame of the fire leapt up after them, almost to the roof,
throwing a fierce and ghastly glare upon _She_ herself, upon the
white figure beneath the covering, and every scroll and detail of
the rockwork.
Down came the ivory arms again, and as they did so she spoke, or
rather hissed, in Arabic, in a note that curdled my blood, and
for a second stopped my heart.
“Curse her, may she be everlastingly accursed.”
The arms fell and the flame sank. Up they went again, and the
broad tongue of fire shot up after them; and then again they
fell.
“Curse her memory—accursed be the memory of the Egyptian.”
Up again, and again down.
“Curse her, the daughter of the Nile, because of her beauty.
“Curse her, because her magic hath prevailed against me.
“Curse her, because she held my beloved from me.”
And again the flame dwindled and shrank.
She put her hands before her eyes, and abandoning the hissing
tone, cried aloud:—
“What is the use of cursing?—she prevailed, and she is gone.”