She
chill to my heart, as any dread that is obviously a genuine
object of belief is apt to do, however absurd the belief may be.
Presently the breakfast arrived, and with it Leo, who had been
taking a walk outside the cave—to clear his mind, he said—and
very glad I was to see both, for they gave me a respite from my
gloomy thoughts. After breakfast we went for another walk, and
watched some of the Amahagger sowing a plot of ground with the
grain from which they make their beer. This they did in
scriptural fashion—a man with a bag made of goat’s hide fastened
round his waist walking up and down the plot and scattering the
seed as he went. It was a positive relief to see one of these
dreadful people do anything so homely and pleasant as sow a
field, perhaps because it seemed to link them, as it were, with
the rest of humanity.
As we were returning Billali met us, and informed us that it was
_She’s_ pleasure that we should wait upon her, and accordingly we
entered her presence, not without trepidation, for Ayesha was
certainly an exception to the rule. Familiarity with her might
and did breed passion and wonder and horror, but it certainly did
_not_ breed contempt.
We were as usual shown in by the mutes, and after these had
retired Ayesha unveiled, and once more bade Leo embrace her,
which, notwithstanding his heart-searchings of the previous
night, he did with more alacrity and fervour than in strictness
courtesy required.
She laid her white hand on his head, and looked him fondly in the
eyes. “Dost thou wonder, my Kallikrates,” she said, “when thou
shalt call me all thine own, and when we shall of a truth be for
one another and to one another? I will tell thee. First, must
thou be even as I am, not immortal indeed, for that I am not, but
so cased and hardened against the attacks of Time that his arrows
shall glance from the armour of thy vigorous life as the sunbeams
glance from water. As yet I may not mate with thee, for thou and
I are different, and the very brightness of my being would burn
thee up, and perchance destroy thee. Thou couldst not even endure
to look upon me for too long a time lest thine eyes should ache,
and thy senses swim, and therefore” (with a little nod) “shall I
presently veil myself again.” (This by the way she did not do.)
“No: listen, thou shalt not be tried beyond endurance, for this
very evening, an hour before the sun goes down, shall we start
hence, and by to-morrow’s dark, if all goes well, and the road is
not lost to me, which I pray it may not be, shall we stand in the
place of Life, and thou shalt bathe in the fire, and come forth
glorified, as no man ever was before thee, and then, Kallikrates,
shalt thou call me wife, and I will call thee husband.”
Leo muttered something in answer to this astonishing statement, I
do not know what, and she laughed a little at his confusion, and
went on.
“And thou, too, oh Holly; on thee also will I confer this boon,
and then of a truth shalt thou be evergreen, and this will I
do—well, because thou hast pleased me, Holly, for thou art not
altogether a fool, like most of the sons of men, and because,
though thou hast a school of philosophy as full of nonsense as
those of the old days, yet hast thou not forgotten how to turn a
pretty phrase about a lady’s eyes.”
“Hulloa, old fellow!” whispered Leo, with a return of his old
cheerfulness, “have you been paying compliments? I should never
have thought it of you!”
“I thank thee, oh Ayesha,” I replied, with as much dignity as I
could command, “but if there be such a place as thou dost
describe, and if in this strange place there may be found a fiery
virtue that can hold off Death when he comes to pluck us by the
hand, yet would I none of it. For me, oh Ayesha, the world has
not proved so soft a nest that I would lie in it for ever. A
stony-hearted mother is our earth, and stones are the bread she
gives her children for their daily food. Stones to eat and bitter
water for their thirst, and stripes for tender nurture. Who would
endure this for many lives? Who would so load up his back with
memories of lost hours and loves, and of his neighbour’s sorrows
that he cannot lessen, and wisdom that brings not consolation?
Hard is it to die, because our delicate flesh doth shrink back
from the worm it will not feel, and from that unknown which the
winding-sheet doth curtain from our view. But harder still, to my
fancy, would it be to live on, green in the leaf and fair, but
dead and rotten at the core, and feel that other secret worm of
recollection gnawing ever at the heart.”
“Bethink thee, Holly,” she said; “yet doth long life and strength
and beauty beyond measure mean power and all things that are dear
to man.”
“And what, oh Queen,” I answered, “are those things that are dear
to man? Are they not bubbles? Is not ambition but an endless
ladder by which no height is ever climbed till the last
unreachable rung is mounted? For height leads on to height, and
there is no resting-place upon them, and rung doth grow upon
rung, and there is no limit to the number. Doth not wealth
satiate, and become nauseous, and no longer serve to satisfy or
pleasure, or to buy an hour’s peace of mind? And is there any end
to wisdom that we may hope to reach it? Rather, the more we
learn, shall we not thereby be able only to better compass out
our ignorance? Did we live ten thousand years could we hope to
solve the secrets of the suns, and of the space beyond the suns,
and of the Hand that hung them in the heavens? Would not our
wisdom be but as a gnawing hunger calling our consciousness day
by day to a knowledge of the empty craving of our souls? Would it
not be but as a light in one of these great caverns, that, though
bright it burn, and brighter yet, doth but the more serve to show
the depths of the gloom around it? And what good thing is there
beyond that we may gain by length of days?”
“Nay, my Holly, there is love—love which makes all things
beautiful, and doth breathe divinity into the very dust we tread.
With love shall life roll gloriously on from year to year, like
the voice of some great music that hath power to hold the
hearer’s heart poised on eagles’ wings above the sordid shame and
folly of the earth.”
“It may be so,” I answered; “but if the loved one prove a broken
reed to pierce us, or if the love be loved in vain—what then?
Shall a man grave his sorrows upon a stone when he hath but need
to write them on the water? Nay, oh _She_, I will live my day,
and grow old with my generation, and die my appointed death, and
be forgotten. For I do hope for an immortality to which the
little span that perchance thou canst confer will be but as a
finger’s length laid against the measure of the great world; and,
mark this! the immortality to which I look, and which my faith
doth promise me, shall be free from the bonds that here must tie
my spirit down. For, while the flesh endures, sorrow and evil and
the scorpion whips of sin must endure also; but when the flesh
hath fallen from us, then shall the spirit shine forth clad in
the brightness of eternal good, and for its common air shall
breathe so rare an ether of most noble thoughts that the highest
aspiration of our manhood, or the purest incense of a maiden’s
prayer, would prove too earthly gross to float therein.”
“Thou lookest high,” answered Ayesha, with a little laugh, “and
speakest clearly as a trumpet and with no uncertain sound. And
yet methinks that but now didst thou talk of ‘that Unknown’ from
which the winding-sheet doth curtain us. But perchance, thou
seest with the eye of Faith, gazing on that brightness, that is
to be, through the painted-glass of thy imagination. Strange are
the pictures of the future that mankind can thus draw with this
brush of faith and this many-coloured pigment of imagination!
Strange, too, that no one of them doth agree with another! I
could tell thee—but there, what is the use? why rob a fool of his
bauble? Let it pass, and I pray, oh Holly, that when thou dost
feel old age creeping slowly toward thyself, and the confusion of
senility making havoc in thy brain, thou mayest not bitterly
regret that thou didst cast away the imperial boon I would have
given to thee. But so it hath ever been; man can never be content
with that which his hand can pluck. If a lamp be in his reach to
light him through the darkness, he must needs cast it down
because it is no star. Happiness danceth ever apace before him,
like the marsh-fires in the swamps, and he must catch the fire,
and he must hold the star! Beauty is naught to him, because there
are lips more honey-sweet; and wealth is naught, because others
can weigh him down with heavier shekels; and fame is naught,
because there have been greater men than he. Thyself thou saidst
it, and I turn thy words against thee. Well, thou dreamest that
thou shalt pluck the star. I believe it not, and I think thee a
fool, my Holly, to throw away the lamp.”
I made no answer, for I could not—especially before Leo—tell her
that since I had seen her face I knew that it would always be
before my eyes, and that I had no wish to prolong an existence
which must always be haunted and tortured by her memory, and by
the last bitterness of unsatisfied love. But so it was, and so,
alas, is it to this hour!
“And now,” went on _She_, changing her tone and the subject
together, “tell me, my Kallikrates, for as yet I know it not, how
came ye to seek me here? Yesternight thou didst say that
Kallikrates—him whom thou sawest—was thine ancestor. How was it?
Tell me—thou dost not speak overmuch!”
Thus adjured, Leo told her the wonderful story of the casket and
of the potsherd that, written on by his ancestress, the Egyptian
Amenartas, had been the means of guiding us to her. Ayesha
listened intently, and, when he had finished, spoke to me.
“Did I not tell thee one day, when we did talk of good and evil,
oh Holly—it was when my beloved lay so ill—that out of good came
evil, and out of evil good—that they who sowed knew not what the
crop should be, nor he who struck where the blow should fall?
See, now: this Egyptian Amenartas, this royal child of the Nile
who hated me, and whom even now I hate, for in a way she did
prevail against me—see, now, she herself hath been the very means
to bring her lover to mine arms! For her sake I slew him, and
now, behold, through her he hath come back to me! She would have
done me evil, and sowed her seeds that I might reap tares, and
behold she hath given me more than all the world can give, and
there is a strange square for thee to fit into thy circle of good
and evil, oh Holly!
“And so,” she went on, after a pause—“and so she bade her son
destroy me if he might, because I slew his father. And thou, my