She
come to consider the great antiquity of the individual it becomes
doubtful if it was anything more than the natural cynicism which
arises from age and bitter experience, and the possession of
extraordinary powers of observation. It is a well known fact that very
often, putting the period of boyhood out of the question, the older we
grow the more cynical and hardened we get; indeed many of us are only
saved by timely death from utter moral petrifaction if not moral
corruption. No one will deny that a young man is on the average better
than an old one, for he is without that experience of the order of
things that in certain thoughtful dispositions can hardly fail to
produce cynicism, and that disregard of acknowledged methods and
established custom which we call evil. Now the oldest man upon the
earth was but a babe compared to Ayesha, and the wisest man upon the
earth was not one-third as wise. And the fruit of her wisdom was this,
that there was but one thing worth living for, and that was Love in
its highest sense, and to gain that good thing she was not prepared to
stop at trifles. This is really the sum of her evil doings, and it
must be remembered, on the other hand, that, whatever may be thought
of them, she had some virtues developed to a degree very uncommon in
either sex—constancy, for instance.—L. H. H.
My own opinion is that he would have been mad if he had done so.
But then I confess that my statement on the matter must be
accepted with qualifications. I am in love with Ayesha myself to
this day, and I would rather have been the object of her
affection for one short week than that of any other woman in the
world for a whole lifetime. And let me add that, if anybody who
doubts this statement, and thinks me foolish for making it, could
have seen Ayesha draw her veil and flash out in beauty on his
gaze, his view would exactly coincide with my own. Of course, I
am speaking of any _man_. We never had the advantage of a lady’s
opinion of Ayesha, but I think it quite possible that she would
have regarded the Queen with dislike, would have expressed her
disapproval in some more or less pointed manner, and ultimately
have got herself blasted.
For two hours or more Leo and I sat with shaken nerves and
frightened eyes, and talked over the miraculous events through
which we were passing. It seemed like a dream or a fairy tale,
instead of the solemn, sober fact. Who would have believed that
the writing on the potsherd was not only true, but that we should
live to verify its truth, and that we two seekers should find her
who was sought, patiently awaiting our coming in the tombs of
Kôr? Who would have thought that in the person of Leo this
mysterious woman should, as she believed, discover the being whom
she awaited from century to century, and whose former earthly
habitation she had till this very night preserved? But so it was.
In the face of all we had seen it was difficult for us as
ordinary reasoning men any longer to doubt its truth, and
therefore at last, with humble hearts and a deep sense of the
impotence of human knowledge, and the insolence of its assumption
that denies that to be possible which it has no experience of, we
laid ourselves down to sleep, leaving our fates in the hands of
that watching Providence which had thus chosen to allow us to
draw the veil of human ignorance, and reveal to us for good or
evil some glimpse of the possibilities of life.
XXII.
JOB HAS A PRESENTIMENT
It was nine o’clock on the following morning when Job, who still
looked scared and frightened, came in to call me, and at the same
time breathe his gratitude at finding us alive in our beds, which
it appeared was more than he had expected. When I told him of the
awful end of poor Ustane he was even more grateful at our
survival, and much shocked, though Ustane had been no favourite
of his, or he of hers, for the matter of that. She called him
“pig” in bastard Arabic, and he called her “hussy” in good
English, but these amenities were forgotten in the face of the
catastrophe that had overwhelmed her at the hands of her Queen.
“I don’t want to say anything as mayn’t be agreeable, sir,” said
Job, when he had finished exclaiming at my tale, “but it’s my
opinion that that there _She_ is the old gentleman himself, or
perhaps his wife, if he has one, which I suppose he has, for he
couldn’t be so wicked all by himself. The Witch of Endor was a
fool to her, sir: bless you, she would make no more of raising
every gentleman in the Bible out of these here beastly tombs than
I should of growing cress on an old flannel. It’s a country of
devils, this is, sir, and she’s the master one of the lot; and if
ever we get out of it it will be more than I expect to do. I
don’t see no way out of it. That witch isn’t likely to let a fine
young man like Mr. Leo go.”
“Come,” I said, “at any rate she saved his life.”
“Yes, and she’ll take his soul to pay for it. She’ll make him a
witch, like herself. I say it’s wicked to have anything to do
with those sort of people. Last night, sir, I lay awake and read
in my little Bible that my poor old mother gave me about what is
going to happen to sorceresses and them sort, till my hair stood
on end. Lord, how the old lady would stare if she saw where her
Job had got to!”
“Yes, it’s a queer country, and a queer people too, Job,” I
answered, with a sigh, for, though I am not superstitious like
Job, I admit to a natural shrinking (which will not bear
investigation) from the things that are above Nature.
“You are right, sir,” he answered, “and if you won’t think me
very foolish, I should like to say something to you now that Mr.
Leo is out of the way”—(Leo had got up early and gone for a
stroll)—“and that is that I know it is the last country as ever I
shall see in this world. I had a dream last night, and I dreamed
that I saw my old father with a kind of night-shirt on him,
something like these folks wear when they want to be in
particular full-dress, and a bit of that feathery grass in his
hand, which he may have gathered on the way, for I saw lots of it
yesterday about three hundred yards from the mouth of this
beastly cave.
“’Job,’ he said to me, solemn like, and yet with a kind of
satisfaction shining through him, more like a Methody parson when
he has sold a neighbour a marked horse for a sound one and
cleared twenty pounds by the job than anything I can think
on—’Job, time’s up, Job; but I never did expect to have to come
and hunt you out in this ‘ere place, Job. Such ado as I have had
to nose you up; it wasn’t friendly to give your poor old father
such a run, let alone that a wonderful lot of bad characters hail
from this place Kôr.’”
“Regular cautions,” I suggested.
“Yes, sir—of course, sir, that’s just what he said they
was—’cautions, downright scorchers’—sir, and I’m sure I don’t
doubt it, seeing what I know of them, and their hot-potting
ways,” went on Job sadly. “Anyway, he was sure that time was up,
and went away saying that we should see more than we cared for of
each other soon, and I suppose he was a-thinking of the fact that
father and I never could hit it off together for longer nor three
days, and I daresay that things will be similar when we meet
again.”
“Surely,” I said, “you don’t think that you are going to die
because you dreamed you saw your old father; if one dies because
one dreams of one’s father, what happens to a man who dreams of
his mother-in-law?”
“Ah, sir, you’re laughing at me,” said Job; “but, you see, you
didn’t know my old father. If it had been anybody else—my Aunt
Mary, for instance, who never made much of a job—I should not
have thought so much of it; but my father was that idle, which he
shouldn’t have been with seventeen children, that he would never
have put himself out to come here just to see the place. No, sir;
I know that he meant business. Well, sir, I can’t help it; I
suppose every man must go some time or other, though it is a hard
thing to die in a place like this, where Christian burial isn’t
to be had for its weight in gold. I’ve tried to be a good man,
sir, and do my duty honest, and if it wasn’t for the supercilus
kind of way in which father carried on last night—a sort of
sniffing at me as it were, as though he hadn’t no opinion of my
references and testimonials—I should feel easy enough in my mind.
Any way, sir, I’ve been a good servant to you and Mr. Leo, bless
him!—why, it seems but the other day that I used to lead him
about the streets with a penny whip;—and if ever you get out of
this place—which, as father didn’t allude to you, perhaps you
may—I hope you will think kindly of my whitened bones, and never
have anything more to do with Greek writing on flower-pots, sir,
if I may make so bold as to say so.”
“Come, come, Job,” I said seriously, “this is all nonsense, you
know. You mustn’t be silly enough to go getting such ideas into
your head. We’ve lived through some queer things, and I hope that
we may go on doing so.”
“No, sir,” answered Job, in a tone of conviction that jarred on
me unpleasantly, “it isn’t nonsense. I’m a doomed man, and I feel
it, and a wonderful uncomfortable feeling it is, sir, for one
can’t help wondering how it’s going to come about. If you are
eating your dinner you think of poison and it goes against your
stomach, and if you are walking along these dark rabbit-burrows
you think of knives, and Lord, don’t you just shiver about the
back! I ain’t particular, sir, provided it’s sharp, like that
poor girl, who, now that she’s gone, I am sorry to have spoke
hard on, though I don’t approve of her morals in getting married,
which I consider too quick to be decent. Still, sir,” and poor
Job turned a shade paler as he said it, “I do hope it won’t be
that hot-pot game.”
“Nonsense,” I broke in angrily, “nonsense!”
“Very well, sir,” said Job, “it isn’t my place to differ from
you, sir, but if you happen to be going anywhere, sir, I should
be obliged if you could manage to take me with you, seeing that I
shall be glad to have a friendly face to look at when the time
comes, just to help one through, as it were. And now, sir, I’ll
be getting the breakfast,” and he went, leaving me in a very
uncomfortable state of mind. I was deeply attached to old Job,
who was one of the best and honestest men I have ever had to do
with in any class of life, and really more of a friend than a
servant, and the mere idea of anything happening to him brought a
lump into my throat. Beneath all his ludicrous talk I could see
that he himself was quite convinced that something was going to
happen, and though in most cases these convictions turn out to be
utter moonshine—and this particular one especially was to be
amply accounted for by the gloomy and unaccustomed surroundings
in which its victim was placed—still it did more or less carry a