AYESHA’S ALCHEMY
It was shortly after this incident of the snow-leopard that one of these
demon familiars of Ayesha’s, her infinite ambition, made its formidable
appearance. When we had dined with her in the evening, Ayesha’s habit
was to discuss plans for our mighty and unending future, that awful
inheritance which she had promised to us.
Here I must explain, if I have not done so already, that she had
graciously informed me that notwithstanding my refusal in past years
of such a priceless opportunity, I also was to be allowed to bathe my
superannuated self in the vital fires, though in what guise I should
emerge from them, like Herodotus when he treats of the mysteries of old
Egypt, if she knew, she did not think it lawful to reveal.
Secretly I hoped that my outward man might change for the better, as the
prospect of being fixed for ever in the shape of my present and somewhat
unpleasing personality, did not appeal to me as attractive. In truth, so
far as I was concerned, the matter had an academic rather than an actual
interest, such as we take in a fairy tale, since I did not believe that
I should ever put on this kind of immortality. Nor, I may add, now as
before, was I at all certain that I wished to do so.
These plans of Ayesha’s were far reaching and indeed terrific.
Her acquaintance with the modern world, its political and social
developments, was still strictly limited; for if she had the power to
follow its growth and activities, certainly it was one of which she made
no use.
In practice her knowledge seemed to be confined to what she had gathered
during the few brief talks which took place between us upon this subject
in past time at Kôr. Now her thirst for information proved insatiable,
although it is true that ours was scarcely up to date, seeing that ever
since we lost touch with the civilized peoples, namely, for the last
fifteen years or so, we had been as much buried as she was herself.
Still we were able to describe to her the condition of the nations and
their affairs as they were at the period when we bade them farewell,
and, more or less incorrectly, to draw maps of the various countries and
their boundaries, over which she pondered long.
The Chinese were the people in whom she proved to be most interested,
perhaps because she was acquainted with the Mongolian type, and like
ourselves, understood a good many of their dialects. Also she had a
motive for her studies, which one night she revealed to us in the most
matter-of-fact fashion.
Those who have read the first part of her history, which I left in
England to be published, may remember that when we found her at Kôr,
_She_ horrified us by expressing a determination to possess herself of
Great Britain, for the simple reason that we belonged to that country.
Now, however, like her powers, her ideas had grown, for she purposed to
make Leo the absolute monarch of the world. In vain did he assure her
most earnestly that he desired no such empire. She merely laughed at him
and said--“If I arise amidst the Peoples, I must rule the Peoples, for
how can Ayesha take a second place among mortal men? And thou, my Leo,
rulest me, yes, mark the truth, thou art my master! Therefore it is
plain that thou wilt be the master of this earth, aye, and perchance of
others which do not yet appear, for of these also I know something, and,
I think, can reach them if I will, though hitherto I have had no mind
that way. My true life has not yet begun. Its little space within this
world has been filled with thought and care for thee; in waiting till
thou wast born again, and during these last years of separation, until
thou didst return.
“But now a few more months, and the days of preparation past, endowed
with energy eternal, with all the wisdom of the ages, and with a
strength that can bend the mountains or turn the ocean from its bed,
and we begin to be. Oh! how I sicken for that hour when first, like twin
stars new to the firmament of heaven, we break in our immortal splendour
upon the astonished sight of men. It will please me, I tell thee,
Leo, it will please me, to see Powers, Principalities and Dominions,
marshalled by their kings and governors, bow themselves before our
thrones and humbly crave the liberty to do our will. At least,” she
added, “it will please me for a little time, until we seek higher
things.”
So she spoke, while the radiance upon her brow increased and spread
itself, gleaming above her like a golden fan, and her slumbrous eyes
took fire from it till, to my thought, they became glowing mirrors in
which I saw pomp enthroned and suppliant peoples pass.
“And how,” asked Leo, with something like a groan--for this vision of
universal rule viewed from afar did not seem to charm him--“how, Ayesha,
wilt thou bring these things about?”
“How, my Leo? Why, easily enough. For many nights I have listened to
the wise discourses of our Holly here, at least he thinks them wise who
still has so much to learn, and pored over his crooked maps, comparing
them with those that are written in my memory, who of late have had
no time for the study of such little matters. Also I have weighed and
pondered your reports of the races of this world; their various follies,
their futile struggling for wealth and small supremacies, and I have
determined that it would be wise and kind to weld them to one whole,
setting ourselves at the head of them to direct their destinies, and
cause wars, sickness, and poverty to cease, so that these creatures of
a little day (ephemeridae was the word she used) may live happy from the
cradle to the grave.
“Now, were it not because of thy strange shrinking from bloodshed,
however politic and needful--for my Leo, as yet thou art no true
philosopher--this were quickly done, since I can command a weapon which
would crush their armouries and whelm their navies in the deep; yes, I,
whom even the lightnings and Nature’s elemental powers must obey. But
thou shrinkest from the sight of death, and thou believest that Heaven
would be displeased because I make myself--or am chosen--the instrument
of Heaven. Well, so let it be, for thy will is mine, and therefore we
will tread a gentler path.”
“And how wilt thou persuade the kings of the earth to place their crowns
upon thy head?” I asked, astonished.
“By causing their peoples to offer them to us,” she answered suavely.
“Oh! Holly, Holly, how narrow is thy mind, how strained the quality of
thine imagination! Set its poor gates ajar, I pray, and bethink thee.
When we appear among men, scattering gold to satisfy their want, clad
in terrifying power, in dazzling beauty and in immortality of days, will
they not cry, ‘Be ye our monarchs and rule over us!’”
“Perhaps,” I answered dubiously, “but where wilt thou appear?”
She took a map of the eastern hemisphere which I had drawn and, placing
her finger upon Pekin, said--“There is the place that shall be our home
for some few centuries, say three, or five, or seven, should it take so
long to shape this people to my liking and our purposes. I have
chosen these Chinese because thou tellest me that their numbers are
uncountable, that they are brave, subtle, and patient, and though now
powerless because ill-ruled and untaught, able with their multitudes to
flood the little western nations. Therefore among them we will begin our
reign and for some few ages be at rest while they learn wisdom from us,
and thou, my Holly, makest their armies unconquerable and givest their
land good government, wealth, peace, and a new religion.”
What the new religion was to be I did not ask. It seemed unnecessary,
since I was convinced that in practice it would prove a form of
Ayesha-worship, Indeed, my mind was so occupied with conjectures, some
of them quaint and absurd enough, as to what would happen at the first
appearance of Ayesha in China that I forgot this subsidiary development
of our future rule.
“And if the ‘little western nations’ will not wait to be flooded?”
suggested Leo with irritation, for her contemptuous tone angered him,
one of a prominent western nation. “If they combine, for instance, and
attack thee first?”
“Ah!” she said, with a flash of her eyes. “I have thought of it, and for
my part hope that it will chance, since then thou canst not blame me if
I put out my strength. Oh! then the East, that has slept so long, shall
awake--shall awake, and upon battlefield after battlefield such as
history cannot tell of, thou shalt see my flaming standards sweep on to
victory. One by one thou shalt watch the nations fall and perish, until
at length I build thy throne upon the hecatombs of their countless dead
and crown thee emperor of a world regenerate in blood and fire.”
Leo, whom this new gospel of regeneration seemed to appall, who was,
in fact, a hater of absolute monarchies and somewhat republican in his
views and sympathies, continued the argument, but I took no further
heed. The thing was grotesque in its tremendous and fantastic absurdity;
Ayesha’s ambitions were such as no imperial-minded madman could
conceive.
Yet--here came the rub--I had not the slightest doubt but that she was
well able to put them into practice and carry them to some marvellous
and awful conclusion. Why not? Death could not touch her; she had
triumphed over death. Her beauty--that “cup of madness” in her eyes, as
she named it once to me--and her reckless will would compel the hosts of
men to follow her. Her piercing intelligence would enable her to invent
new weapons with which the most highly-trained army could not possibly
compete. Indeed, it might be as she said, and as I for one believed,
with good reason, it proved, that she held at her command the elemental
forces of Nature, such as those that lie hid in electricity, which would
give all living beings to her for a prey.
Ayesha was still woman enough to have worldly ambitions, and the most
dread circumstance about her superhuman powers was that they appeared to
be unrestrained by any responsibility to God or man. She was as we might
well imagine a fallen angel to be, if indeed, as she herself once hinted
and as Atene and the old Shaman believed, this were not her true place
in creation. By only two things that I was able to discover could she be
moved--her love for Leo and, in a very small degree, her friendship for
myself.
Yet her devouring passion for this one man, inexplicable in its
endurance and intensity, would, I felt sure even then, in the future as
in the past, prove to be her heel of Achilles. When Ayesha was dipped in
the waters of Dominion and Deathlessness, this human love left her heart
mortal, that through it she might be rendered harmless as a child, who
otherwise would have devastated the universe.
I was right.
Whilst I was still indulging myself in these reflections and hoping
that Ayesha would not take the trouble to read them in my mind, I became
aware that Oros was bowing to the earth before her.
“Thy business, priest?” she asked sharply; for when she was with Leo
Ayesha did not like to be disturbed.
“Hes, the spies are returned.”
“Why didst thou send them out?” she asked indifferently. “What need have
I of thy spies?”
“Hes, thou didst command me.”
“Well, their report?”
“Hes, it is most grave. The people of Kaloon are desperate because of
the drought which has caused their crops to fail, so that starvation
stares them in the eyes, and this they lay to the charge of the
strangers who came into their land and fled to thee. The Khania Atene
also is mad with rage against thee and our holy College. Labouring night
and day, she has gathered two great armies, one of forty, and one of
twenty thousand men, and the latter of these she sends against the
Mountain under the command of her uncle, Simbri the Shaman. In case it
should be defeated she purposes to remain with the second and greater
army on the plains about Kaloon.”
“Tidings indeed,” said Ayesha with a scornful laugh. “Has her hate
made this woman mad that she dares thus to match herself against me? My
Holly, it crossed thy mind but now that it was I who am mad, boasting
of what I have no power to perform. Well, within six days thou shalt
learn--oh! verily thou shalt learn, and, though the issue be so very
small, in such a fashion that thou wilt doubt no more for ever. Stay,
I will look, though the effort of it wearies me, for those spies may be
but victims to their own fears, or to the falsehoods of Atene.”
Then suddenly, as was common with her when thus Ayesha threw her sight
afar, which either from indolence, or because, as she said, it exhausted
her, she did but rarely, her lovely face grew rigid like that of a
person in a trance; the light faded from her brow, and the great pupils
of her eyes contracted themselves and lost their colour.
In a little while, five minutes perhaps, she sighed like one awakening
from a deep sleep, passed her hand across her forehead and was as she
had been, though somewhat languid, as though strength had left her.
“It is true enough,” she said, “and soon I must be stirring lest many
of my people should be killed. My lord, wouldst thou see war? Nay,
thou shalt bide here in safety whilst I go forward--to visit Atene as I
promised.”
“Where thou goest, I go,” said Leo angrily, his face flushing to the
roots of his hair with shame.
“I pray thee not, I pray thee not,” she answered, yet without venturing
to forbid him. “We will talk of it hereafter. Oros, away! Send round the
Fire of Hes to every chief. Three nights hence at the moonrise bid
the Tribes gather--nay, not all, twenty thousand of their best will be
enough, the rest shall stay to guard the Mountain and this Sanctuary.
Let them bring food with them for fifteen days. I join them at the
following dawn. Go.”
He bowed and went, whereon, dismissing the matter from her mind, Ayesha
began to question me again about the Chinese and their customs.
It was in course of a somewhat similar conversation on the following
night, of which, however, I forget the exact details, that a remark of
Leo’s led to another exhibition of Ayesha’s marvellous powers.
Leo--who had been considering her plans for conquest, and again
combating them as best he could, for they were entirely repugnant to his
religious, social and political views--said suddenly that after all they
must break down, since they would involve the expenditure of sums of
money so vast that even Ayesha herself would be unable to provide
them by any known methods of taxation. She looked at him and laughed a
little.
“Verily, Leo,” she said, “to thee, yes; and to Holly here I must seem as
some madcap girl blown to and fro by every wind of fancy, and building
me a palace wherein to dwell out of dew and vapours, or from the
substance of the sunset fires. Thinkest thou then that I would enter on
this war--one woman against all the world”--and as she spoke her shape
grew royal and in her awful eyes there came a look that chilled my
blood--“and make no preparation for its necessities? Why, since last we
spoke upon this matter, foreseeing all, I have considered in my mind,
and now thou shalt learn how, without cost to those we rule--and for
that reason alone shall they love us dearly--I will glut the treasuries
of the Empress of the Earth.
“Dost remember, Leo, how in Kôr I found but a single pleasure during all
those weary ages--that of forcing my mother Nature one by one to yield
me up her choicest secrets; I, who am a student of all things which are
and of the forces that cause them to be born. Now follow me, both of
you, and ye shall look on what mortal eyes have not yet beheld.”
“What are we to see?” I asked doubtfully, having a lively recollection
of Ayesha’s powers as a chemist.
“That thou shalt learn, or shalt not learn if it pleases thee to stay
behind. Come, Leo, my love, my love, and leave this wise philosopher
first to find his riddle and next to guess it.”
Then turning her back to me she smiled on him so sweetly that although
really he was more loth to go than I, Leo would have followed her
through a furnace door, as indeed, had he but known it, he was about to
do.
So they started, and I accompanied them since with Ayesha it was
useless to indulge in any foolish pride, or to make oneself a victim to
consistency. Also I was anxious to see her new marvel, and did not care
to rely for an account of it upon Leo’s descriptive skill, which at its
best was never more than moderate.
She took us down passages that we had not passed before, to a door which
she signed to Leo to open. He obeyed, and from the cave within issued a
flood of light. As we guessed at once, the place was her laboratory,
for about it stood metal flasks and various strange-shaped instruments.
Moreover, there was a furnace in it, one of the best conceivable, for it
needed neither fuel nor stoking, whose gaseous fires, like those of the
twisted columns in the Sanctuary, sprang from the womb of the volcano
beneath our feet.
When we entered two priests were at work there: one of them stirring a
cauldron with an iron rod and the other receiving its molten contents
into a mould of clay. They stopped to salute Ayesha, but she bade them
to continue their task, asking them if all went well.
“Very well, O Hes,” they answered; and we passed through that cave and
sundry doors and passages to a little chamber cut in the rock. There
was no lamp or flame of fire in it, and yet the place was filled with a
gentle light which seemed to flow from the opposing wall.
“What were those priests doing?” I said, more to break the silence than
for any other reason.
“Why waste breath upon foolish questions?” she replied. “Are no metals
smelted in thy country, O Holly? Now hadst thou sought to know what I am
doing--But that, without seeing, thou wouldst not believe, so, Doubter,
thou shalt see.”
Then she pointed to and bade us don, two strange garments that hung upon
the wall, made of a material which seemed to be half cloth and half wood
and having headpieces not unlike a diver’s helmet.
So under her directions Leo helped me into mine, lacing it up behind,
after which, or so I gathered from the sounds--for no light came through
the helmet--she did the same service for him.
“I seem very much in the dark,” I said presently; for now there was
silence again, and beneath this extinguisher I felt alarmed and wished
to be sure that I was not left alone.
“Aye Holly,” I heard Ayesha’s mocking voice make answer, “in the dark,
as thou wast ever, the thick dark of ignorance and unbelief. Well, now,
as ever also, I will give thee light.” As she spoke I heard something
roll back; I suppose that it must have been a stone door.
Then, indeed, there was light, yes, even through the thicknesses of that
prepared garment, such light as seemed to blind me. By it I saw that the
wall opposite to us had opened and that we were all three of us, on the
threshold of another chamber. At the end of it stood something like
a little altar of hard, black stone, and on this altar lay a mass of
substance of the size of a child’s head, but fashioned, I suppose from
fantasy, to the oblong shape of a human eye.
Out of this eye there poured that blistering and intolerable light. It
was shut round by thick, funnel-shaped screens of a material that looked
like fire-brick, yet it pierced them as though they were but muslin.
More, the rays thus directed upwards struck full upon a lump of metal
held in place above them by a massive frame-work.
And what rays they were! If all the cut diamonds of the world were
brought together and set beneath a mighty burning-glass, the light
flashed from them would not have been a thousandth part so brilliant.
They scorched my eyes and caused the skin of my face and limbs to smart,
yet Ayesha stood there unshielded from them. Aye, she even went down the
length of the room and, throwing back her veil, bent over them, as it
seemed a woman of molten steel in whose body the bones were visible, and
examined the mass that was supported by the hanging cradle.
“It is ready and somewhat sooner than I thought,” she said. Then as
though it were but a feather weight, she lifted the lump in her
bare hands and glided back with it to where we stood, laughing and
saying--“Tell me now, O thou well-read Holly, if thou hast ever heard of
a better alchemist than this poor priestess of a forgotten faith?” And
she thrust the glowing substance up almost to the mask that hid my face.
Then I turned and ran, or rather waddled, for in that gear I could not
run, out of the chamber until the rock wall beyond stayed me, and there,
with my back towards her, thrust my helmeted head against it, for I felt
as though red-hot bradawls had been plunged into my eyes. So I stood
while she laughed and mocked behind me until at length I heard the door
close and the blessed darkness came like a gift from Heaven.
Then Ayesha began to loose Leo from his ray-proof armour, if so it can
be called, and he in turn loosed me; and there in that gentle radiance
we stood blinking at each other like owls in the sunlight, while the
tears streamed down our faces.
“Well, art satisfied, my Holly?” she asked.
“Satisfied with what?” I answered angrily, for the smarting of my
eyes was unbearable. “Yes, with burnings and bedevilments I am well
satisfied.”
“And I also,” grumbled Leo, who was swearing softly but continuously to
himself in the other corner of the place.
But Ayesha only laughed, oh! she laughed until she seemed the goddess
of all merriment come to earth, laughed till she also wept, then
said--“Why, what ingratitude is this? Thou, my Leo, didst wish to see
the wonders that I work, and thou, O Holly, didst come unbidden after I
bade thee stay behind, and now both of you are rude and angry, aye, and
weeping like a child with a burnt finger. Here take this,” and she gave
us some salve that stood upon a shelf, “and rub it on your eyes and the
smart will pass away.”
So we did, and the pain went from them, though, for hours afterwards,
mine remained red as blood.
“And what are these wonders?” I asked her presently. “If thou meanest
that unbearable flame----”
“Nay, I mean what is born of the flame, as, in thine ignorance thou dost
call that mighty agent. Look now;” and she pointed to the metallic lump
she had brought with her, which, still gleaming faintly, lay upon the
floor. “Nay, it has no heat. Thinkest thou that I would wish to burn my
tender hands and so make them unsightly? Touch it, Holly.”
But I would not, who thought to myself that Ayesha might be well
accustomed to the hottest fires, and feared her impish mischief. I
looked, however, long and earnestly.
“Well, what is it, Holly?”
“Gold,” I said, then corrected myself and added, “Copper,” for the dull,
red glow might have been that of either metal.
“Nay, nay,” she answered, “it is gold, pure gold.”
“The ore in this place must be rich,” said Leo, incredulously, for I
would not speak any more.
“Yes, my Leo, the iron ore is rich.”
“Iron ore?” and he looked at her.
“Surely,” she answered, “for from what mine do men dig out gold in such
great masses? Iron ore, beloved, that by my alchemy I change to gold,
which soon shall serve us in our need.”
Now Leo stared and I groaned, for I did not believe that it was gold,
and still less that she could make that metal. Then, reading my thought,
with one of those sudden changes of mood that were common to her, Ayesha
grew very angry.
“By Nature’s self!” she cried; “wert thou not my friend, Holly, the fool
whom it pleases me to cherish, I would bind that right hand of thine
in those secret rays till the very bones within it were turned to gold.
Nay, why should I be vexed with thee, who art both blind and deaf?
Yet thou _shalt_ be persuaded,” and leaving us, she passed down the
passages, called something to the priests who were labouring in the
workshop, then returned to us.
Presently they followed her, carrying on a kind of stretcher between
them an ingot of iron ore that seemed to be as much as they could lift.
“Now,” she said, “how wilt thou that I mark this mass which as thou must
admit is only iron? With the sign of Life? Good,” and at her bidding the
priests took cold-chisels and hammers and roughly cut upon its surface
the symbol of the looped cross--the _crux ansata_.
“It is not enough,” she said when they had finished. “Holly, lend me
that knife of thine, to-morrow I will return it to thee, and of more
value.”
So I drew my hunting knife, an Indian-made thing, that had a handle of
plated iron, and gave it her.
“Thou knowest the marks on it,” and she pointed to various dents and to
the maker’s name upon the blade; for though the hilt was Indian work the
steel was of Sheffield manufacture.
I nodded. Then she bade the priests put on the ray-proof armour that
we had discarded, and told us to go without the chamber and lie in the
darkness of the passage with our faces against the floor.
This we did, and remained so until, a few minutes later, she called us
again. We rose and returned into the chamber to find the priests, who
had removed the protecting garments, gasping and rubbing the salve upon
their eyes; to find also that the lump of iron ore and my knife were
gone. Next she commanded them to place the block of gold-coloured metal
upon their stretcher and to bring it with them. They obeyed, and we
noted that, although those priests were both of them strong men they
groaned beneath its weight.
“How came it,” said Leo, “that thou, a woman, couldst carry what these
men find so heavy?”
“It is one of the properties of that force which thou callest fire,” she
answered sweetly, “to make what has been exposed to it, if for a little
while only, as light as thistle-down. Else, how could I, who am so
frail, have borne yonder block of gold?”
“Quite so! I understand now,” answered Leo.
Well, that was the end of it. The lump of metal was hid away in a kind
of rock pit, with an iron cover, and we returned to Ayesha’s apartments.
“So all wealth is thine, as well as all power,” said Leo, presently, for
remembering Ayesha’s awful threat I scarcely dared to open my mouth.
“It seems so,” she answered wearily, “since centuries ago I discovered
that great secret, though until ye came I had put it to no use. Holly
here, after his common fashion, believes that this is magic, but I tell
thee again that there is no magic, only knowledge which I have chanced
to win.”
“Of course,” said Leo, “looked at in the right way, that is in thy way,
the thing is simple.” I think he would have liked to add, “as lying,”
but as the phrase would have involved explanations, did not. “Yet,
Ayesha,” he went on, “hast thou thought that this discovery of thine
will wreck the world?”
“Leo,” she answered, “is there then nothing that I can do which will
not wreck this world, for which thou hast such tender care, who shouldst
keep all thy care--for me?”
I smiled, but remembering in time, turned the smile into a frown at
Leo, then fearing lest that also might anger her, made my countenance as
blank as possible.
“If so,” she continued, “well, let the world be wrecked. But what
meanest thou? Oh! my lord, Leo, forgive me if I am so dull that I cannot
always follow thy quick thought--I who have lived these many years
alone, without converse with nobler minds, or even those to which mine
own is equal.”
“It pleases thee to mock me,” said Leo, in a vexed voice, “and that is
not too brave.”
Now Ayesha turned on him fiercely, and I looked towards the door. But
he did not shrink, only folded his arms and stared her straight in
the face. She contemplated him a little, then said--“After that great
ordained reason which thou dost not know, I think, Leo, that why I love
thee so madly is that thou alone art not afraid of me. Not like Holly
there, who, ever since I threatened to turn his bones to gold--which,
indeed, I was minded to do,” and she laughed--“trembles at my footsteps
and cowers beneath my softest glance.
“Oh! my lord, how good thou art to me, how patient with my moods and
woman’s weaknesses,” and she made as though she were about to embrace
him. Then suddenly remembering herself, with a little start that somehow
conveyed more than the most tragic gesture, she pointed to the couch
in token that he should seat himself. When he had done so she drew a
footstool to his feet and sank upon it, looking up into his face with
attentive eyes, like a child who listens for a story.
“Thy reasons, Leo, give me thy reasons. Doubtless they are good, and,
oh! be sure I’ll weigh them well.”
“Here they are in brief,” he answered. “The world, as thou knewest in
thy--” and he stopped.
“Thy earlier wanderings there,” she suggested.
“Yes--thy earlier wanderings there, has set up gold as the standard of
its wealth. On it all civilizations are founded. Make it as common as it
seems thou canst, and these must fall to pieces. Credit will fail and,
like their savage forefathers, men must once more take to barter to
supply their needs as they do in Kaloon to-day.”
“Why not?” she asked. “It would be more simple and bring them closer to
the time when they were good and knew not luxury and greed.”
“And smashed in each other’s heads with stone axes,” added Leo.
“Who now pierce each other’s hearts with steel, or those leaden missiles
of which thou hast told me. Oh! Leo, when the nations are beggared and
their golden god is down; when the usurer and the fat merchant tremble
and turn white as chalk because their hoards are but useless dross;
when I have made the bankrupt Exchanges of the world my mock, and laugh
across the ruin of its richest markets, why, then, will not true worth
come to its heritage again?
“What of it if I do discomfort those who think more of pelf than of
courage and of virtue; those who, as that Hebrew prophet wrote, lay
field to field and house to house, until the wretched whom they have
robbed find no place left whereon to dwell? What if I proved your sagest
chapmen fools, and gorge your greedy moneychangers with the gold that
they desire until they loathe its very sight and touch? What if I uphold
the cause of the poor and the oppressed against the ravening lusts of
Mammon? Why, will not this world of yours be happier then?”
“I do not know,” answered Leo. “All that I know is that it would be a
different world, one shaped upon a new plan, governed by untried laws
and seeking other ends. In so strange a place who can say what might or
might not chance?”
“That we shall learn in its season, Leo. Or, rather, if it be against
thy wish, we will not turn this hidden page. Since thou dost desire it,
that old evil, the love of lucre, shall still hold its mastery upon the
earth. Let the peoples keep their yellow king, I’ll not crown another
in his place, as I was minded--such as that living Strength thou sawest
burning eternally but now; that Power whereof I am the mistress, which
can give health to men, or even change the character of metals, and in
truth, if I so desire, obedient to my word, destroy a city or rend this
Mountain from its roots.
“But see, Holly is wearied with much wondering and needs his rest. Oh,
Holly! thou wast born a critic of things done, not a doer of them. I
know thy tribe for even in my day the colleges of Alexandria echoed with
their wranglings and already the winds blew thick with the dust of their
forgotten bones. Holly, I tell thee that at times those who create and
act are impatient of such petty doubts and cavillings. Yet fear not, old
friend, nor take my anger ill. Already thy heart is gold without alloy,
so what need have I to gild thy bones?”
I thanked Ayesha for her compliment, and went to my bed wondering which
was real, her kindness or her wrath, or if both were but assumed. Also
I wondered in what way she had fallen foul of the critics of Alexandria.
Perhaps once she had published a poem or a system of philosophy and been
roughly handled by them! It is quite possible, only if Ayesha had ever
written poetry I think that it would have endured, like Sappho’s.
In the morning I discovered that whatever else about her might be false,
Ayesha was a true chemist, the very greatest, I suppose, who ever
lived. For as I dressed myself, those priests whom we had seen in
the laboratory, staggered into the room carrying between them a heavy
burden, that was covered with a cloth, and, directed by Oros, placed it
upon the floor.
“What is that?” I asked of Oros.
“A peace-offering sent by the Hesea,” he said, “with whom, as I am told,
you dared to quarrel yesterday.”
Then he withdrew the cloth, and there beneath it shone that great lump
of metal which, in the presence of myself and Leo, had been marked with
the Symbol of Life, that still appeared upon its surface. Only now it
was gold, not iron, gold so good and soft that I could write my name
upon it with a nail. My knife lay with it also, and of that too the
handle, though not the blade, had been changed from iron into gold.
Ayesha asked to see this afterwards and was but ill-pleased with the
result of her experiment. She pointed out to me that lines and blotches
of gold ran for an inch or more down the substance of the steel, which
she feared that they might weaken or distemper, whereas it had been her
purpose that the hilt only should be altered.[6]
[6] I proved in after days how real were Ayesha’s alchemy,
and the knowledge which enabled her to solve the secret that
chemists have hunted for in vain, and, like Nature’s self,
to transmute the commonest into the most precious of the
metals. At the first town that I reached on the frontiers of
India, I took this knife to a jeweller, a native, who was as
clever as he proved dishonest, and asked him to test the
handle. He did so with acids and by other means, and told me
that it was of very pure gold, twenty-four carats, I think
he said. Also he pointed out that this gold became gradually
merged into the steel of the blade in a way which was quite
inexplicable to him, and asked me to clear up the matter. Of
course I could not, but at his request I left the knife in
his shop to give him an opportunity of examining it further.
The next day I was taken ill with one of the heart-attacks
to which I have been liable of late, and when I became able
to move about again a while afterwards, I found that this
jeweller had gone, none knew whither. So had my knife.--L.
H. H.
Often since that time I have marvelled how Ayesha performed this
miracle, and from what substances she gathered or compounded the
lightning-like material, which was her servant in the work; also,
whether or no it had been impregnated with the immortalizing fire of
Life that burned in the caves of Kôr.[*] Yet to this hour I have found
no answer to the problem, for it is beyond my guessing.
[*] Recent discoveries would appear to suggest that this
mysterious “Fire of Life,” which, whatever else it may have
been, was evidently a force and no true fire, since it did
not burn, owed its origin to the emanations from radium, or
some kindred substance. Although in the year 1885, Mr. Holly
would have known nothing of the properties of these
marvellous rays or emanations, doubtless Ayesha was familiar
with them and their enormous possibilities, of which our
chemists and scientific men have, at present, but explored
the fringe.--Editor.
I suppose that, in preparation for her conquest of the inhabitants of
this globe--to which, indeed, it would have sufficed unaided by any
other power--the manufacture of gold from iron went on in the cave
unceasingly.
However this may be, during the few days that we remained together
Ayesha never so much as spoke of it again. It seemed to have served her
purpose for the while, or in the press of other and more urgent matters
to have been forgotten or thrust from her mind. Still, amongst others,
of which I have said nothing, since it is necessary to select, I record
this strange incident, and our conversations concerning it at length,
for the reason that it made a great impression upon me and furnishes a
striking example of Ayesha’s dominion over the hidden forces of Nature
whereof we were soon to experience a more fearful instance.