She
“Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant,” I suggested.
“Ah, thou canst speak the Latin tongue, too!” she said, in
surprise. “It hath a strange ring in my ears after all these
days, and it seems to me that thy accent does not fall as the
Romans put it. Who was it wrote that? I know not the saying, but
it is a true one of that great people. It seems that I have found
a learned man—one whose hands have held the water of the world’s
knowledge. Knowest thou Greek also?”
“Yes, oh Queen, and something of Hebrew, but not to speak them
well. They are all dead languages now.”
She clapped her hands in childish glee. “Of a truth, ugly tree
that thou art, thou growest the fruits of wisdom, oh Holly,” she
said; “but of those Jews whom I hated, for they called me
‘heathen’ when I would have taught them my philosophy—did their
Messiah come, and doth He rule the world?”
“Their Messiah came,” I answered with reverence; “but He came
poor and lowly, and they would have none of Him. They scourged
Him, and crucified Him upon a tree, but yet His words and His
works live on, for He was the Son of God, and now of a truth He
doth rule half the world, but not with an Empire of the World.”
“Ah, the fierce-hearted wolves,” she said, “the followers of
Sense and many gods—greedy of gain and faction-torn. I can see
their dark faces yet. So they crucified their Messiah? Well can I
believe it. That He was a Son of the Living Spirit would be
naught to them, if indeed He was so, and of that we will talk
afterwards. They would care naught for any God if He came not
with pomp and power. They, a chosen people, a vessel of Him they
call Jehovah, ay, and a vessel of Baal, and a vessel of Astoreth,
and a vessel of the gods of the Egyptians—a high-stomached
people, greedy of aught that brought them wealth and power. So
they crucified their Messiah because He came in lowly guise—and
now are they scattered about the earth? Why, if I remember, so
said one of their prophets that it should be. Well, let them
go—they broke my heart, those Jews, and made me look with evil
eyes across the world, ay, and drove me to this wilderness, this
place of a people that was before them. When I would have taught
them wisdom in Jerusalem they stoned me, ay, at the Gate of the
Temple those white-bearded hypocrites and Rabbis hounded the
people on to stone me! See, here is the mark of it to this day!”
and with a sudden move she pulled up the gauzy wrapping on her
rounded arm, and pointed to a little scar that showed red against
its milky beauty.
I shrank back, horrified.
“Pardon me, 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