She
own to myself even now in the sober light of day, she herself had
attractions that I could not forget. Not even the dreadful sight
which I had witnessed during the night could drive that folly
from my mind; and alas! that I should have to admit it, it has
not been driven thence to this hour.
After I had dressed myself I passed into the eating, or rather
embalming chamber, and had some food, which was as before brought
to me by the girl mutes. When I had finished I went and saw poor
Leo, who was quite off his head, and did not even know me. I
asked Ustane how she thought he was; but she only shook her head
and began to cry a little. Evidently her hopes were small; and I
then and there made up my mind that, if it were in any way
possible, I would get _She_ to come and see him. Surely she would
cure him if she chose—at any rate she said she could. While I was
in the room, Billali entered, and also shook his head.
“He will die at night,” he said.
“God forbid, my father,” I answered, and turned away with a heavy
heart.
“_She-who-must-be-obeyed_ commands thy presence, my Baboon,” said
the old man as soon as we got to the curtain; “but, oh my dear
son, be more careful. Yesterday I made sure in my heart that
_She_ would blast thee when thou didst not crawl upon thy stomach
before her. She is sitting in the great hall even now to do
justice upon those who would have smitten thee and the Lion. Come
on, my son; come swiftly.”
I turned, and followed him down the passage, and when we reached
the great central cave saw that many Amahagger, some robed, and
some merely clad in the sweet simplicity of a leopard skin, were
hurrying along it. We mingled with the throng, and walked up the
enormous and, indeed, almost interminable cave. All the way its
walls were elaborately sculptured, and every twenty paces or so
passages opened out of it at right angles, leading, Billali told
me, to tombs, hollowed in the rock by “the people who were
before.” Nobody visited those tombs now, he said; and I must say
that my heart rejoiced when I thought of the opportunities of
antiquarian research which opened out before me.
At last we came to the head of the cave, where there was a rock
daïs almost exactly similar to the one on which we had been so
furiously attacked, a fact that proved to me that these daïs must
have been used as altars, probably for the celebration of
religious ceremonies, and more especially of rites connected with
the interment of the dead. On either side of this daïs were
passages leading, Billali informed me, to other caves full of
dead bodies. “Indeed,” he added, “the whole mountain is full of
dead, and nearly all of them are perfect.”
In front of the daïs were gathered a great number of people of
both sexes, who stood staring about in their peculiar gloomy
fashion, which would have reduced Mark Tapley himself to misery
in about five minutes. On the daïs was a rude chair of black wood
inlaid with ivory, having a seat made of grass fibre, and a
footstool formed of a wooden slab attached to the framework of
the chair.
Suddenly there was a cry of “Hiya! Hiya!” (“_She! She!_”), and
thereupon the entire crowd of spectators instantly precipitated
itself upon the ground, and lay still as though it were
individually and collectively stricken dead, leaving me standing
there like some solitary survivor of a massacre. As it did so a
long string of guards began to defile from a passage to the left,
and ranged themselves on either side of the daïs. Then followed
about a score of male mutes, then as many women mutes bearing
lamps, and then a tall white figure, swathed from head to foot,
in whom I recognised _She_ herself. She mounted the daïs and sat
down upon the chair, and spoke to me in _Greek_, I suppose
because she did not wish those present to understand what she
said.
“Come hither, oh Holly,” she said, “and sit thou at my feet, and
see me do justice on those who would have slain thee. Forgive me
if my Greek doth halt like a lame man; it is so long since I have
heard the sound of it that my tongue is stiff, and will not bend
rightly to the words.”
I bowed, and, mounting the daïs, sat down at her feet.
“How hast thou slept, my Holly?” she asked.
“I slept not well, oh Ayesha!” I answered with perfect truth, and
with an inward fear that perhaps she knew how I had passed the
heart of the night.
“So,” she said, with a little laugh; “I, too, have not slept
well. Last night I had dreams, and methinks that thou didst call
them to me, oh Holly.”
“Of what didst thou dream, Ayesha?” I asked indifferently.
“I dreamed,” she answered quickly, “of one I hate and one I
love,” and then, as though to turn the conversation, she
addressed the captain of her guard in Arabic: “Let the men be
brought before me.”
The captain bowed low, for the guard and her attendants did not
prostrate themselves, but had remained standing, and departed
with his underlings down a passage to the right.
Then came a silence. _She_ leaned her swathed head upon her hand
and appeared to be lost in thought, while the multitude before
her continued to grovel upon their stomachs, only screwing their
heads round a little so as to get a view of us with one eye. It
seemed that their Queen so rarely appeared in public that they
were willing to undergo this inconvenience, and even graver
risks, to have the opportunity of looking on her, or rather on
her garments, for no living man there except myself had ever seen
her face. At last we caught sight of the waving of lights, and
heard the tramp of men coming along the passage, and in filed the
guard, and with them the survivors of our would-be murderers, to
the number of twenty or more, on whose countenances a natural
expression of sullenness struggled with the terror that evidently
filled their savage hearts. They were ranged in front of the
daïs, and would have cast themselves down on the floor of the
cave like the spectators, but _She_ stopped them.
“Nay,” she said in her softest voice, “stand; I pray you stand.
Perchance the time will soon be when ye shall grow weary of being
stretched out,” and she laughed melodiously.
I saw a cringe of terror run along the rank of the doomed
wretches, and, wicked villains as they were, I felt sorry for
them. Some minutes, perhaps two or three, passed before anything
fresh occurred, during which _She_ appeared from the movement of
her head—for, of course, we could not see her eyes—to be slowly
and carefully examining each delinquent. At last she spoke,
addressing herself to me in a quiet and deliberate tone.
“Dost thou, oh my guest, recognise these men?”
“Ay, oh Queen, nearly all of them,” I said, and I saw them glower
at me as I said it.
“Then tell to me, and this great company, the tale whereof I have
heard.”
Thus adjured, I, in as few words as I could, related the history
of the cannibal feast, and of the attempted torture of our poor
servant. The narrative was received in perfect silence, both by
the accused and by the audience, and also by _She_ herself. When
I had done, Ayesha called upon Billali by name, and, lifting his
head from the ground, but without rising, the old man confirmed
my story. No further evidence was taken.
“Ye have heard,” said _She_ at length, in a cold, clear voice,
very different from her usual tones—indeed, it was one of the
most remarkable things about this extraordinary creature that her
voice had the power of suiting itself in a wonderful manner to
the mood of the moment. “What have ye to say, ye rebellious
children, why vengeance should not be done upon you?”
For some time there was no answer, but at last one of the men, a
fine, broad-chested fellow, well on in middle-life, with
deep-graven features and an eye like a hawk’s, spoke, and said
that the orders that they had received were not to harm the white
men; nothing was said of their black servant, so, egged on
thereto by a woman who was now dead, they proceeded to try to
hot-pot him after the ancient and honourable custom of their
country, with a view of eating him in due course. As for their
sudden attack upon ourselves, it was made in an access of sudden
fury, and they deeply regretted it. He ended by humbly praying
that they might be banished into the swamps, to live and die as
it might chance; but I saw it written on his face that he had but
little hope of mercy.
Then came a pause, and the most intense silence reigned over the
whole scene, which, illuminated as it was by the flicker of the
lamps striking out broad patterns of light and shadow upon the
rocky walls, was as strange as any I ever saw, even in that
unholy land. Upon the ground before the daïs were stretched
scores of the corpselike forms of the spectators, till at last
the long lines of them were lost in the gloomy background. Before
this outstretched audience were the knots of evil-doers, trying
to cover up their natural terrors with a brave appearance of
unconcern. On the right and left stood the silent guards, robed
in white and armed with great spears and daggers, and men and
women mutes watching with hard curious eyes. Then, seated in her
barbaric chair above them all, with myself at her feet, was the
veiled white woman, whose loveliness and awesome power seemed to
visibly shine about her like a halo, or rather like the glow from
some unseen light. Never have I seen her veiled shape look more
terrible than it did in that space, while she gathered herself up
for vengeance.
At last it came.
“Dogs and serpents,” _She_ began in a low voice that gradually gathered
power as she went on, till the place rang with it. “Eaters of human
flesh, two things have ye done. First, ye have attacked these
strangers, being white men, and would have slain their servant, and for
that alone death is your reward. But that is not all. Ye have dared to
disobey me. Did I not send my word unto you by Billali, my servant, and
the father of your household? Did I not bid you to hospitably entertain
these strangers, whom now ye have striven to slay, and whom, had not
they been brave and strong beyond the strength of men, ye would cruelly
have murdered? Hath it not been taught to you from childhood that the
law of _She_ is an ever fixed law, and that he who breaketh it by so
much as one jot or tittle shall perish? And is not my lightest word a
law? Have not your fathers taught you this, I say, whilst as yet ye
were but children? Do ye not know that as well might ye bid these great
caves to fall upon you, or the sun to cease its journeying, as to hope
to turn me from my courses, or make my word light or heavy, according
to your minds? Well do ye know it, ye Wicked Ones. But ye are all
evil—evil to the core—the wickedness bubbles up in you like a fountain
in the spring-time. Were it not for me, generations since had ye ceased