She
facility, as a matter of fact I know no more difficult operation
in the whole world than catching flies—that is, in warm weather,
unless, indeed, it is catching mosquitoes.
“I can’t, sir—I can’t, indeed.”
“Let the man come, or let him stop and perish there. See, the
light is dying! In a moment it will be gone!” said Ayesha.
I looked. She was right. The sun was passing below the level of
the hole or cleft in the precipice through which the ray reached
us.
“If you stop there, Job, you will die alone,” I called; “the
light is going.”
“Come, be a man, Job,” roared Leo; “it’s quite easy.”
Thus adjured, the miserable Job, with a most awful yell,
precipitated himself face downwards on the plank—he did not dare,
small blame to him, to try to walk it, and commenced to draw
himself across in little jerks, his poor legs hanging down on
either side into the nothingness beneath.
His violent jerks at the frail board made the great stone, which
was only balanced on a few inches of rock, oscillate in a most
dreadful manner, and, to make matters worse, when he was half-way
across the flying ray of lurid light suddenly went out, just as
though a lamp had been extinguished in a curtained room, leaving
the whole howling wilderness of air black with darkness.
“Come on, Job, for God’s sake!” I shouted in an agony of fear,
while the stone, gathering motion with every swing, rocked so
violently that it was difficult to hang on to it. It was a truly
awful position.
“Lord have mercy on me!” cried poor Job from the darkness. “Oh,
the plank’s slipping!” and I heard a violent struggle, and
thought that he was gone.
But at that moment his outstretched hand, clasping in agony at
the air, met my own, and I hauled—ah, how I did haul, putting out
all the strength that it has pleased Providence to give me in
such abundance—and to my joy in another minute Job was gasping on
the rock beside me. But the plank! I felt it slip, and heard it
knock against a projecting knob of rock, and it was gone.
“Great heavens!” I exclaimed. “How are we going to get back?”
“I don’t know,” answered Leo, out of the gloom. “’Sufficient to
the day is the evil thereof,’ I am thankful enough to be here.”
But Ayesha merely called to me to take her hand and creep after
her.
XXV.
THE SPIRIT OF LIFE
I did as I was bid, and in fear and trembling felt myself guided
over the edge of the stone. I sprawled my legs out, but could
touch nothing.
“I am going to fall!” I gasped.
“Nay, let thyself go, and trust to me,” answered Ayesha.
Now, if the position is considered, it will be easily understood
that this was a greater demand upon my confidence than was
justified by my knowledge of Ayesha’s character. For all I knew
she might be in the very act of consigning me to a horrible doom.
But in life we sometimes have to lay our faith upon strange
altars, and so it was now.
“Let thyself go!” she cried, and, having no choice, I did.
I felt myself slide a pace or two down the sloping surface of the
rock, and then pass into the air, and the thought flashed through
my brain that I was lost. But no! In another instant my feet
struck against a rocky floor, and I felt that I was standing upon
something solid, and out of reach of the wind, which I could hear
singing away overhead. As I stood there thanking Heaven for these
small mercies, there was a slip and a scuffle, and down came Leo
alongside of me.
“Hulloa, old fellow!” he called out, “are you there? This is
getting interesting, is it not?”
Just then, with a terrific yell, Job arrived right on the top of
us, knocking us both down. By the time we had struggled to our
feet again Ayesha was standing among us, and bidding us light the
lamps, which fortunately remained uninjured, as also did the
spare jar of oil.
I got out my box of wax matches, and they struck as merrily,
there, in that awful place, as they could have done in a London
drawing-room.
In a couple of minutes both the lamps were alight and revealed a
curious scene. We were huddled together in a rocky chamber, some
ten feet square, and scared enough we looked; that is, except
Ayesha, who was standing calmly with her arms folded, and waiting
for the lamps to burn up. The chamber appeared to be partly
natural, and partly hollowed out of the top of the cone. The roof
of the natural part was formed of the swinging stone, and that of
the back part of the chamber, which sloped downwards, was hewn
from the live rock. For the rest, the place was warm and dry—a
perfect haven of rest compared to the giddy pinnacle above, and
the quivering spur that shot out to meet it in mid-air.
“So!” said _She_, “safely have we come, though once I feared that
the rocking stone would fall with you, and precipitate you into
the bottomless depths beneath, for I do believe that the cleft
goeth down to the very womb of the world. The rock whereon the
stone resteth hath crumbled beneath the swinging weight. And now
that he,” nodding towards Job, who was sitting on the floor,
feebly wiping his forehead with a red cotton pocket-handkerchief,
“whom they rightly call the ‘Pig,’ for as a pig is he stupid,
hath let fall the plank, it will not be easy to return across the
gulf, and to that end must I make a plan. But now rest a while,
and look upon this place. What think ye that it is?”
“We know not,” I answered.
“Wouldst thou believe, oh Holly, that once a man did choose this
airy nest for a daily habitation, and did here endure for many
years; leaving it only but one day in every twelve to seek food
and water and oil that the people brought, more than he could
carry, and laid as an offering in the mouth of the tunnel through
which we passed hither?”
We looked up wonderingly, and she continued—
“Yet so it was. There was a man—Noot, he named himself—who,
though he lived in the latter days, had of the wisdom of the sons
of Kôr. A hermit was he, and a philosopher, and greatly skilled
in the secrets of Nature, and he it was who discovered the Fire
that I shall show you, which is Nature’s blood and life, and also
that he who bathed therein, and breathed thereof, should live
while Nature lives. But like unto thee, oh Holly, this man, Noot,
would not turn his knowledge to account. ‘Ill,’ he said, ‘was it
for man to live, for man was born to die.’ Therefore did he tell
his secret to none, and therefore did he come and live here,
where the seeker after Life must pass, and was revered of the
Amahagger of the day as holy, and a hermit. And when first I came
to this country—knowest thou how I came, Kallikrates? Another
time I will tell thee, for it is a strange tale—I heard of this
philosopher, and waited for him when he came to fetch his food,
and returned with him hither, though greatly did I fear to tread
the gulf. Then did I beguile him with my beauty and my wit, and
flatter him with my tongue, so that he led me down and showed me
the Fire, and told me the secrets of the Fire, but he would not
suffer me to step therein, and, fearing lest he should slay me, I
refrained, knowing that the man was very old, and soon would die.
And I returned, having learned from him all that he knew of the
wonderful Spirit of the World, and that was much, for the man was
wise and very ancient, and by purity and abstinence, and the
contemplations of his innocent mind, had worn thin the veil
between that which we see and the great invisible truths, the
whisper of whose wings at times we hear as they sweep through the
gross air of the world. Then—it was but a very few days after, I
met thee, my Kallikrates, who hadst wandered hither with the
beautiful Egyptian Amenartas, and I learned to love for the first
and last time, once and for ever, so that it entered into my mind
to come hither with thee, and receive the gift of Life for thee
and me. Therefore came we, with that Egyptian who would not be
left behind, and, behold, we found the old man Noot lying but
newly dead. _There_ he lay, and his white beard covered him like
a garment,” and she pointed to a spot near where I was sitting;
“but surely he hath long since crumbled into dust, and the wind
hath borne his ashes hence.”
Here I put out my hand and felt in the dust, and presently my
fingers touched something. It was a human tooth, very yellow, but
sound. I held it up and showed it to Ayesha, who laughed.
“Yes,” she said, “it is his without a doubt. Behold what remaineth of
Noot, and the wisdom of Noot—one little tooth! And yet that man had all
life at his command, and for his conscience’ sake would have none of
it. Well, he lay there newly dead, and we descended whither I shall
lead you, and then, gathering up all my courage, and courting death
that I might perchance win so glorious a crown of life, I stepped into
the flames, and behold! life such as ye can never know until ye feel it
also, flowed into me, and I came forth undying, and lovely beyond
imagining. Then did I stretch out mine arms to thee, Kallikrates, and
bid thee take thine immortal bride, and behold, as I spoke, thou,
blinded by my beauty, didst turn from me, and throw thine arms about
the neck of Amenartas. And then a great fury filled me, and made me
mad, and I seized the javelin that thou didst bear, and stabbed thee,
so that there, at my very feet, in the place of Life, thou didst groan
and go down into death. I knew not then that I had strength to slay
with mine eyes and by the power of my will, therefore in my madness
slew I with the javelin.[1]
[1] It will be observed that Ayesha’s account of the death of
Kallikrates differs materially from that written on the potsherd by
Amenartas. The writing on the sherd says, “Then in her rage did she
smite him _by her magic_, and he died.” We never ascertained which was
the correct version, but it will be remembered that the body of
Kallikrates had a spear- wound in the breast, which seems conclusive,
unless, indeed, it was inflicted after death. Another thing that we
never ascertained was _how_ the two women—_She_ and the Egyptian
Amenartas—were able to bear the corpse of the man they both loved
across the dread gulf and along the shaking spur. What a spectacle the
two distracted creatures must have presented in their grief and
loveliness as they toiled along that awful place with the dead man
between them! Probably however the passage was easier then.—L. H. H.
“And when thou wast dead, ah! I wept, because I was undying and
thou wast dead. I wept there in the place of Life so that had I
been mortal any more my heart had surely broken. And she, the
swart Egyptian—she cursed me by her gods. By Osiris did she curse
me and by Isis, by Nephthys and by Anubis, by Sekhet, the
cat-headed, and by Set, calling down evil on me, evil and
everlasting desolation. Ah! I can see her dark face now lowering
o’er me like a storm, but she could not hurt me, and I—I know not