AYESHA’S FAREWELL
Thus I spoke whose nerves were on edge after all that I had seen or, as
even then I suspected, seemed to see. For how could I believe that
these visions of mine had any higher origin than Ayesha’s rather
malicious imagination? Already I had formed my theory.
It was that she must be a hypnotist of power, who, after she had put a
spell upon her subject, could project into his mind such fancies as she
chose together with a selection of her own theories. Only two points
remained obscure. The first was—how did she get the necessary
information about the private affairs of a humble individual like
myself, for these were not known even to Zikali with whom she seemed to
be in some kind of correspondence, or to Hans, at any rate in such
completeness?
I could but presume that in some mysterious way she drew them from, or
rather excited them in my own mind and memory, so that I seemed to see
those with whom once I had been intimate, with modifications and in
surroundings that her intelligence had carefully prepared. It would not
be difficult for a mind like hers familiar, as I gathered it was, with
the ancient lore of the Greeks and the Egyptians, to create a kind of
Hades and, by way of difference, to change it from one of shadow to one
of intense illumination, and into it to plunge the consciousness of him
upon whom she had laid her charm of sleep. I had seen nothing and heard
nothing that she might not thus have moulded, always given that she had
access to the needful clay of facts which I alone could furnish.
Granting this hypothesis, the second point was—what might be the object
of her elaborate and most bitter jest? Well, I thought that I could
guess. First, she wished to show her power, or rather to make me
believe that she had power of a very unusual sort. Secondly, she owed
Umslopogaas and myself a debt for our services in the war with Rezu
which we had been told would be repaid in this way. Thirdly, I had
offended her in some fashion and she took her opportunity of settling
the score. Also there was a fourth possibility—that really she
considered herself a moral instructress and desired, as she said, to
teach me a lesson by showing how futile were human hopes and vanities
in respect to the departed and their affections.
Now I do not pretend that all this analysis of Ayesha’s motives
occurred to me at the moment of my interview with her; indeed, I only
completed it later after much careful thought, when I found it sound
and good. At that time, although I had inklings, I was too bewildered
to form a just judgment.
Further, I was too angry and it was from this bow of my anger that I
loosed a shaft at a venture as to some lesson which awaited _her_.
Perhaps certain words spoken by the dying Rezu had shaped that shaft.
Or perhaps some shadow of her advancing fate fell upon me.
The success of the shot, however, was remarkable. Evidently it pierced
the joints of her harness, and indeed went home to Ayesha’s heart. She
turned pale; all the peach-bloom hues faded from her lovely face, her
great eyes seemed to lessen and grow dull and her cheeks to fall in.
Indeed, for a moment she looked old, very old, quite an aged woman.
Moreover she wept, for I saw two big tears drop upon her white raiment
and I was horrified.
“What has happened to you?” I said, or rather gasped.
“Naught,” she answered, “save that thou hast hurt me sore. Dost thou
not know, Allan, that it is cruel to prophesy ill to any, since such
words feathered from Fate’s own wing and barbed with venom, fester in
the breast and mayhap bring about their own accomplishment. Most cruel
of all is it when with them are repaid friendship and gentleness.”
I reflected to myself—yes, friendship of the order that is called
candid, and gentleness such as is hid in a cat’s velvet paw, but
contented myself with asking how it was that she who said she was so
powerful, came to fear anything at all.
“Because as I have told thee, Allan, there is no armour that can turn
the spear of Destiny which, when I heard those words of thine, it
seemed to me, I know not why, was directed by thy hand. Look now on
Rezu who thought himself unconquerable and yet was slain by the black
Axe-bearer and whose bones to-night stay the famine of the jackals.
Moreover I am accursed who sought to steal its servant from Heaven to
be my love, and how know I when and where vengeance will fall at last?
Indeed, it has fallen already on me, who through the long ages amid
savages must mourn widowed and alone, but not all of it—oh! I think,
not all.”
Then she began to weep in good earnest, and watching her, for the first
time I understood that this glorious creature who seemed to be so
powerful, was after all one of the most miserable of women and as much
a prey to loneliness, every sort of passion and apprehensive fear, as
can be any common mortal. If, as she said, she had found the secret of
life, which of course I did not believe, at least it was obvious that
she had lost that of happiness.
She sobbed softly and wept and while she did so the loveliness, which
had left her for a little while, returned to her like light to a grey
and darkened sky. Oh, how beautiful she seemed with the abundant locks
in disorder over her tear-stained face, how beautiful beyond imagining!
My heart melted as I studied her; I could think of nothing else except
her surpassing charm and glory.
“I pray you, do not weep,” I said; “it hurts me and indeed I am sorry
if I said anything to give you pain.”
But she only shook that glorious hair further about her face and behind
its veil wept on.
“You know, Ayesha,” I continued, “you have said many hard things to me,
making me the target of your bitter wit, therefore it is not strange
that at last I answered you.”
“And hast thou not deserved them, Allan?” she murmured in soft and
broken tones from behind that veil of scented locks.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because from the beginning thou didst defy me, showing in thine every
accent that thou heldest me a liar and one of no account in body or in
spirit, one not worthy of thy kind look, or of those gentle words which
once were my portion among men. Oh! thou hast dealt hardly with me and
therefore perchance—I know not—I paid thee back with such poor weapons
as a woman holds, though all the while I liked thee well.”
Then again she fell to sobbing, swaying herself gently to and fro in
her sweet sorrow.
It was too much. Not knowing what else to do to comfort her, I patted
her ivory hand which lay upon the couch beside me, and as this appeared
to have no effect, I kissed it, which she did not seem to resent. Then
suddenly I remembered and let it fall.
She tossed back her hair from her face and fixing her big eyes on me,
said gently enough, looking down at her hand,
“What ails thee, Allan?”
“Oh, nothing,” I answered; “only I remembered the story you told me
about some man called Kallikrates.”
She frowned.
“And what of Kallikrates, Allan? Is it not enough that for my sins,
with tears, empty longings and repentance, I must wait for him through
all the weary centuries? Must I also wear the chains of this
Kallikrates, to whom I owe many a debt, when he is far away? Say, didst
thou see him in that Heaven of thine, Allan, for there perchance he
dwells?”
I shook my head and tried to think the thing out while all the time
those wonderful eyes of hers seemed to draw the soul from me. It seemed
to me that she bent forward and held up her face to me. Then I lost my
reason and also bent forward. Yes, she made me mad, and, save her, I
forgot all.
Swiftly she placed her hand upon my heart, saying,
“Stay! What meanest thou? Dost love me, Allan?”
“I think so—that is—yes,” I answered.
She sank back upon the couch away from me and began to laugh very
softly.
“What words are these,” she said, “that they pass thy lips so easily
and so unmeant, perchance from long practice? Oh! Allan, I am
astonished. Art thou the same man who some few days ago told me, and
this unasked, that as soon wouldst thou think of courting the moon as
of courting me? Art thou he who not a minute gone swore proudly that
never had his heart and his lips wandered from certain angels whither
they should not? And now, and now——?”
I coloured to my eyes and rose, muttering,
“Let me be gone!”
“Nay, Allan, why? I see no mark here,” and she held up her hand,
scanning it carefully. “Thou art too much what thou wert before, except
perhaps in thy soul, which is invisible,” she added with a touch of
malice. “Nor am I angry with thee; indeed, hadst thou not tried to
charm away my woe, I should have thought but poorly of thee as a man.
There let it rest and be forgotten—or remembered as thou wilt. Still,
in answer to thy words concerning my Kallikrates, what of those adored
ones that, according to thy tale, but now thou didst find again in a
place of light? Because they seemed faithless, shouldst thou be
faithless also? Shame on thee, thou fickle Allan!”
She paused, waiting for me to speak.
Well, I could not. I had nothing to say who was utterly disgraced and
overwhelmed.
“Thou thinkest, Allan,” she went on, “that I have cast my net about
thee, and this is true. Learn wisdom from it, Allan, and never again
defy a woman—that is, if she be fair, for then she is stronger than
thou art, since Nature for its own purpose made her so. Whatever I have
done by tears, that ancient artifice of my sex, as in other ways, is
for thy instruction, Allan, that thou mayest benefit thereby.”
Again I sprang up, uttering an English exclamation which I trust Ayesha
did not understand, and again she motioned to me to be seated, saying,
“Nay, leave me not yet since, even if the light fancy of a man that
comes and goes like the evening wind and for a breath made me dear to
thee, has passed away, there remains certain work which we must do
together. Although, thinking of thyself alone, thou hast forgotten it,
having been paid thine own fee, one is yet due to that old wizard in a
far land who sent thee to visit Kôr and me, as indeed he has reminded
me and within an hour.”
This amazing statement aroused me from my personal and painful
pre-occupation and caused me to stare at her blankly.
“Again thou disbelievest me,” she said, with a little stamp. “Do so
once more, Allan, and I swear I’ll bring thee to grovel on the ground
and kiss my foot and babble nonsense to a woman sworn to another man,
such as never for all thy days thou shalt think of without a blush of
shame.”
“Oh! no,” I broke in hurriedly, “I assure you that you are mistaken. I
believe every word you have said, or say or will say; I do in truth.”
“Now thou liest. Well, what is one more falsehood among so many? Let it
pass.”
“What, indeed?” I echoed in eager affirmation, “and as for Zikali’s
message——” and I paused.
“It was to recall to my mind that he desired to learn whether a certain
great enterprise of his will succeed, the details of which he says thou
canst tell me. Repeat them to me.”
So, glad enough to get away from more dangerous topics, I narrated to
her as briefly and clearly as I could, the history of the old
witch-doctor’s feud with the Royal House of Zululand. She listened,
taking in every word, and said,
“So now he yearns to know whether he will conquer or be conquered; and
that is why he sent, or thinks that he sent thee on this journey, not
for thy sake, Allan, but for his own. I cannot tell thee, for what have
I do to with the finish of this petty business, which to him seems so
large? Still, as I owe him a debt for luring the Axe-Bearer here to rid
me of mine enemy, and thee to lighten my solitude for an hour by the
burnishing of thy mind, I will try. Set that bowl before me, Allan,”
and she pointed to a marble tripod on which stood a basin half full of
water, “and come, sit close by me and look into it, telling me what
thou seest.”
I obeyed her instructions and presently found myself with my head over
the basin, staring into the water in the exact attitude of a person who
is about to be shampooed.
“This seems rather foolish,” I said abjectly, for at that moment I
resembled the Queen of Sheba in one particular, if in no other, namely,
that there was no more spirit in me. “What am I supposed to do? I see
nothing at all.”
“Look again,” she said, and as she spoke the water grew clouded. Then
on it appeared a picture. I saw the interior of a Kaffir hut dimly
lighted by a single candle set in the neck of a bottle. To the left of
the door of the hut was a bedstead and on it lay stretched a wasted and
dying man, in whom, to my astonishment, I recognised Cetywayo, King of
the Zulus. At the foot of the bed stood another man—myself grown older
by many years, and leaning over the bed, apparently whispering into the
dying man’s ear, was a grotesque and malevolent figure which I knew to
be that of Zikali, Opener-of-Roads, whose glowing eyes were fixed upon
the terrified and tortured face of Cetywayo. All was as it happened
afterwards, as I have written down in the book called “Finished.”
I described what I saw to Ayesha, and while I was doing so the picture
vanished away, so that nothing remained save the clear water in the
marble bowl. The story did not seem to interest her; indeed, she leaned
back and yawned a little.
“Thy vision is good, Allan,” she said indifferently, “and wide also,
since thou canst see what passes in the sun or distant stars, and
pictures of things to be in the water, to say nothing of other pictures
in a woman’s eyes, all within an hour. Well, this savage business
concerns me not and of it I want to know no more. Yet it would appear
that here the old wizard who is thy friend, has the answer that he
desires. For there in the picture the king he hates lies dying while he
hisses in his ear and thou dost watch the end. What more can he seek?
Tell him it when ye meet, and tell him also it is my will that in
future he should trouble me less, since I love not to be wakened from
my sleep to listen to his half-instructed talk and savage vapourings.
Indeed, he presumes too much. And now enough of him and his dark plots.
Ye have your desires, all of you, and are paid in full.”
“Over-paid, perhaps,” I said with a sigh.
“Ah, Allan, I think that Lesson thou hast learned pleases thee but
little. Well, be comforted for the thing is common. Hast never heard
that there is but one morsel more bitter to the taste than desire
denied, namely, desire fulfilled? Believe me that there can be no
happiness for man until he attains a land where all desire is dead.”
“That is what the Buddha preaches, Ayesha.”
“Aye, I remember the doctrines of that wise man well, who without doubt
had found a key to the gate of Truth, one key only, for, mark thou,
Allan, there are many. Yet, man being man must know desires, since
without them, robbed of ambitions, strivings, hopes, fears, aye and of
life itself, the race must die, which is not the will of the Lord of
Life who needs a nursery for his servant’s souls, wherein his swords of
Good and Ill shall shape them to his pattern. So it comes about, Allan,
that what we think the worst is oft the best for us, and with that
knowledge, if we are wise, let us assuage our bitterness and wipe away
our tears.”
“I have often thought that,” I said.
“I doubt it not, Allan, since though it has pleased me to make a jest
of thee, I know that thou hast thy share of wisdom, such little share
as thou canst gather in thy few short years. I know, too, that thy
heart is good and aspires high, and Friend—well, I find in thee a
friend indeed, as I think not for the first time, nor certainly for the
last. Mark, Allan, what I say, not a lover, but a _friend_, which is
higher far. For when passion dies with the passing of the flesh, if
there be no friendship what will remain save certain memories that,
mayhap, are well forgot? Aye, how would those lovers meet elsewhere who
were never more than lovers? With weariness, I hold, as they stared
into each other’s empty soul, or even with disgust.
“Therefore the wise will seek to turn those with whom Fate mates them
into friends, since otherwise soon they will be lost for aye. More, if
they are wiser still, having made them friends, they will suffer them
to find lovers where they will. Good maxims, are they not? Yet hard to
follow, or so, perchance, thou thinkest them—as I do.”
She grew silent and brooded a while, resting her chin upon her hand and
staring down the hall. Thus the aspect of her face was different from
any that I had seen it wear. No longer had it the allure of Aphrodite
or the majesty of Hera; rather might it have been that of Athene
herself. So wise it seemed, so calm, so full of experience and of
foresight, that almost it frightened me.
What was this woman’s true story, I wondered, what her real self, and
what the sum of her gathered knowledge? Perhaps it was accident, or
perhaps, again, she guessed my mind. At any rate her next words seemed
in some sense an answer to these speculations. Lifting her eyes she
contemplated me a while, then said,
“My friend, we part to meet no more in thy life’s day. Often thou wilt
wonder concerning me, as to what in truth I am, and mayhap in the end
thy judgment will be to write me down some false and beauteous wanderer
who, rejected of the world or driven from it by her crimes, made choice
to rule among savages, playing the part of Oracle to that little
audience and telling strange tales to such few travellers as come her
way. Perhaps, indeed, I do play this part among many others, and if so,
thou wilt not judge me wrongly.
“Allan, in the old days, mariners who had sailed the northern seas,
told me that therein amidst mist and storm float mountains of ice, shed
from dizzy cliffs which are hid in darkness where no sun shines. They
told me also that whereas above the ocean’s breast appears but a blue
and dazzling point, sunk beneath it is oft a whole frozen isle,
invisible to man.
“Such am I, Allan. Of my being thou seest but one little peak
glittering in light or crowned with storm, as heaven’s moods sweep over
it. But in the depths beneath are hid its white and broad foundations,
hollowed by the seas of time to caverns and to palaces which my spirit
doth inhabit. So picture me, therefore, as wise and fair, but with a
soul unknown, and pray that in time to come thou mayest see it in its
splendour.
“Hadst thou been other than thou art, I might have shown thee secrets,
making clear to thee the parable of much that I have told thee in
metaphor and varying fable, aye, and given thee great gifts of power
and enduring days of which thou knowest nothing. But of those who visit
shrines, O Allan, two things are required, worship and faith, since
without these the oracles are dumb and the healing waters will not
flow.
“Now I, Ayesha, am a shrine; yet to me thou broughtest no worship until
I won it by a woman’s trick, and in me thou hast no faith. Therefore
for thee the oracle will not speak and the waters of deliverance will
not flow. Yet I blame thee not, who art as thou wast made and the hard
world has shaped thee.
“And so we part: Think not I am far from thee because thou seest me not
in the days to come, since like that Isis whose majesty alone I still
exercise on earth, I, whom men name Ayesha, am in all things. I tell
thee that I am not One but Many and, being many, am both Here and
Everywhere. When thou standest beneath the sky at night and lookest on
the stars, remember that in them mine eyes behold thee; when the soft
winds of evening blow, that my breath is on thy brow and when the
thunder rolls, that there am I riding on the lightnings and rushing
with the gale.”
“Do you mean that you are the goddess Isis?” I asked, bewildered.
“Because if so why did you tell me that you were but her priestess?”
“Have it as thou wilt, Allan. All sounds do not reach thine ears; all
sights are not open to thy eyes and therefore thou art both half deaf
and blind. Perchance now that her shrines are dust and her worship is
forgot, some spark of the spirit of that immortal Lady whose chariot
was the moon, lingers on the earth in this woman’s shape of mine,
though her essence dwells afar, and perchance her other name is Nature,
my mother and thine, O Allan. At the least hath not the World a
soul—and of that soul am I not mayhap a part, aye, and thou also? For
the rest are not the priest and the Divine he bows to, oft the same?”
It was on my lips to answer, Yes, if the priest is a knave or a
self-deceiver, but I did not.
“Farewell, Allan, and let Ayesha’s benison go with thee. Safe shalt
thou reach thy home, for all is prepared to take thee hence, and thy
companions with thee. Safe shalt thou live for many a year, till thy
time comes, and then, perchance, thou wilt find those whom thou hast
lost more kind than they seemed to be to-night.”
She paused awhile, then added,
“Hearken unto my last word! As I have said, much that I have told thee
may bear a double meaning, as is the way of parables, to be interpreted
as thou wilt. Yet one thing is true. I love a certain man, in the old
days named Kallikrates, to whom alone I am appointed by a divine
decree, and I await him here. Oh, shouldest thou find him in the world
without, tell him that Ayesha awaits him and grows weary in the
waiting. Nay, thou wilt never find him, since even if he be born again,
by what token would he be known to thee? Therefore I charge thee, keep
my secrets well, lest Ayesha’s curse should fall on thee. While thou
livest tell naught of me to the world thou knowest. Dost thou swear to
keep my secrets, Allan?”
“I swear, Ayesha.”
“I thank thee, Allan,” she answered, and grew silent for a while.
At length Ayesha rose and drawing herself up to the full of her height,
stood there majestic. Next she beckoned to me to come near, for I too
had risen and left the dais.
I obeyed, and bending down she held her hands over me as though in
blessing, then pointed towards the curtains which at this moment were
drawn asunder, by whom I do not know.
I went and when I reached them, turned to look my last on her.
There she stood as I had left her, but now her eyes were fixed upon the
ground and her face once more was brooding absently as though no such a
man as I had ever been. It came into my mind that already she had
forgotten me, the plaything of an hour, who had served her turn and
been cast aside.