She
if I could hurt her. I did not try; it was naught to me then; so
together we bore thee hence. And afterwards I sent her—the
Egyptian—away through the swamps, and it seems that she lived to
bear a son and to write the tale that should lead thee, her
husband, back to me, her rival and thy murderess.
“Such is the tale, my love, and now is the hour at hand that
shall set a crown upon it. Like all things on the earth, it is
compounded of evil and of good—more of evil than of good,
perchance; and writ in letters of blood. It is the truth; naught
have I hidden from thee, Kallikrates. And now one thing before
the final moment of thy trial. We go down into the presence of
Death, for Life and Death are very near together, and—who
knoweth?—that might happen which should separate us for another
space of waiting. I am but a woman, and no prophetess, and I
cannot read the future. But this I know—for I learned it from the
lips of the wise man Noot—that my life is but prolonged and made
more bright. It cannot live for aye. Therefore, before we go,
tell me, oh Kallikrates, that of a truth thou dost forgive me,
and dost love me from thy heart. See, Kallikrates: much evil have
I done—perchance it was evil but two nights ago to strike that
girl who loved thee cold in death—but she disobeyed me and
angered me, prophesying misfortune to me, and I smote. Be careful
when power comes to thee also, lest thou too shouldst smite in
thine anger or thy jealousy, for unconquerable strength is a sore
weapon in the hands of erring man. Yea, I have sinned—out of the
bitterness born of a great love have I sinned—but yet do I know
the good from the evil, nor is my heart altogether hardened. Thy
love, Kallikrates, shall be the gate of my redemption, even as
aforetime my passion was the path down which I ran to evil. For
deep love unsatisfied is the hell of noble hearts and a portion
of the accursed, but love that is mirrored back more perfect from
the soul of our desired doth fashion wings to lift us above
ourselves, and make us what we might be. Therefore, Kallikrates,
take me by the hand, and lift my veil with no more fear than
though I were some peasant girl, and not the wisest and most
beauteous woman in this wide world, and look me in the eyes, and
tell me that thou dost forgive me with all thine heart, and that
will all thine heart thou dost worship me.”
She paused, and the strange tenderness in her voice seemed to
hover round us like a memory. I know that the sound of it moved
me more even than her words, it was so very human—so very
womanly. Leo, too, was strangely touched. Hitherto he had been
fascinated against his better judgment, something as a bird is
fascinated by a snake, but now I think that all this passed away,
and he realised that he really loved this strange and glorious
creature, as, alas! I loved her also. At any rate, I saw his eyes
fill with tears, and he stepped swiftly to her and undid the
gauzy veil, and then took her by the hand, and, gazing into her
deep eyes, said aloud—
“Ayesha, I love thee with all my heart, and so far as forgiveness
is possible I forgive thee the death of Ustane. For the rest, it
is between thee and thy Maker; I know naught of it. I only know
that I love thee as I never loved before, and that I will cleave
to thee to the end.”
“Now,” answered Ayesha, with proud humility—“now when my lord
doth speak thus royally and give with so free a hand, it cannot
become me to lag behind in words, and be beggared of my
generosity. Behold!” and she took his hand and placed it upon her
shapely head, and then bent herself slowly down till one knee for
an instant touched the ground—“Behold! in token of submission do
I bow me to my lord! Behold!” and she kissed him on the lips, “in
token of my wifely love do I kiss my lord. Behold!” and she laid
her hand upon his heart, “by the sin I sinned, by my lonely
centuries of waiting wherewith it was wiped out, by the great
love wherewith I love, and by the Spirit—the Eternal Thing that
doth beget all life, from whom it ebbs, to whom it doth return
again—I swear:—
“I swear, even in this most holy hour of completed Womanhood,
that I will abandon Evil and cherish Good. I swear that I will be
ever guided by thy voice in the straightest path of Duty. I swear
that I will eschew Ambition, and through all my length of endless
days set Wisdom over me as a guiding star to lead me unto Truth
and a knowledge of the Right. I swear also that I will honour and
will cherish thee, Kallikrates, who hast been swept by the wave
of time back into my arms, ay, till the very end, come it soon or
late. I swear—nay, I will swear no more, for what are words? Yet
shalt thou learn that Ayesha hath no false tongue.
“So I have sworn, and thou, my Holly, art witness to my oath.
Here, too, are we wed, my husband, with the gloom for bridal
canopy—wed till the end of all things; here do we write our
marriage vows upon the rushing winds which shall bear them up to
heaven, and round and continually round this rolling world.
“And for a bridal gift I crown thee with my beauty’s starry
crown, and enduring life, and wisdom without measure, and wealth
that none can count. Behold! the great ones of the earth shall
creep about thy feet, and its fair women shall cover up their
eyes because of the shining glory of thy countenance, and its
wise ones shall be abased before thee. Thou shalt read the hearts
of men as an open writing, and hither and thither shalt thou lead
them as thy pleasure listeth. Like that old Sphinx of Egypt shalt
thou sit aloft from age to age, and ever shall they cry to thee
to solve the riddle of thy greatness that doth not pass away, and
ever shalt thou mock them with thy silence!
“Behold! once more I kiss thee, and by that kiss I give to thee
dominion over sea and earth, over the peasant in his hovel, over
the monarch in his palace halls, and cities crowned with towers,
and those who breathe therein. Where’er the sun shakes out his
spears, and the lonesome waters mirror up the moon, where’er
storms roll, and Heaven’s painted bows arch in the sky—from the
pure North clad in snows, across the middle spaces of the world,
to where the amorous South, lying like a bride upon her blue
couch of seas, breathes in sighs made sweet with the odour of
myrtles—there shall thy power pass and thy dominion find a home.
Nor sickness, nor icy-fingered fear, nor sorrow, and pale waste
of form and mind hovering ever o’er humanity, shall so much as
shadow thee with the shadow of their wings. As a God shalt thou
be, holding good and evil in the hollow of thy hand, and I, even
I, I humble myself before thee. Such is the power of Love, and
such is the bridal gift I give unto thee, Kallikrates, my Lord
and Lord of All.
“And now it is done; now for thee I loose my virgin zone; and
come storm, come shine, come good, come evil, come life, come
death, it never, never can be undone. For, of a truth, that which
is, is, and, being done, is done for aye, and cannot be altered.
I have said—Let us hence, that all things may be accomplished in
their order;” and, taking one of the lamps, she advanced towards
the end of the chamber that was roofed in by the swaying stone,
where she halted.
We followed her, and perceived that in the wall of the cone there
was a stair, or, to be more accurate, that some projecting knobs
of rock had been so shaped as to form a good imitation of a
stair. Down this Ayesha began to climb, springing from step to
step, like a chamois, and after her we followed with less grace.
When we had descended some fifteen or sixteen steps we found that
they ended in a tremendous rocky slope, running first outwards
and then inwards—like the slope of an inverted cone, or tunnel.
The slope was very steep, and often precipitous, but it was
nowhere impassable, and by the light of the lamps we went down it
with no great difficulty, though it was gloomy work enough
travelling on thus, no one of us knew whither, into the dead
heart of a volcano. As we went, however, I took the precaution of
noting our route as well as I could; and this was not so very
difficult, owing to the extraordinary and most fantastic shape of
the rocks that were strewn about, many of which in that dim light
looked more like the grim faces carven upon mediæval gargoyles
than ordinary boulders.
For a long time we travelled on thus, half an hour I should say,
till, after we had descended for many hundreds of feet, I
perceived that we were reaching the point of the inverted cone.
In another minute we were there, and found that at the very apex
of the funnel was a passage, so low and narrow that we had to
stoop as we crept along it in Indian file. After some fifty yards
of this creeping, the passage suddenly widened into a cave, so
huge that we could see neither the roof nor the sides. We only
knew that it was a cave by the echo of our tread and the perfect
quiet of the heavy air. On we went for many minutes in absolute
awed silence, like lost souls in the depths of Hades, Ayesha’s
white and ghost-like form flitting in front of us, till once more
the place ended in a passage which opened into a second cavern
much smaller than the first. Indeed, we could clearly make out
the arch and stony banks of this second cave, and, from their
rent and jagged appearance, discovered that, like the first long
passage down which we had passed through the cliff before we
reached the quivering spur, it had, to all appearance, been torn
in the bowels of the rock by the terrific force of some explosive
gas. At length this cave ended in a third passage, through which
gleamed a faint glow of light.
I heard Ayesha give a sigh of relief as this light dawned upon
us.
“It is well,” she said; “prepare to enter the very womb of the
Earth, wherein she doth conceive the Life that ye see brought
forth in man and beast—ay, and in every tree and flower.”
Swiftly she sped along, and after her we stumbled as best we
might, our hearts filled like a cup with mingled dread and
curiosity. What were we about to see? We passed down the tunnel;
stronger and stronger the light beamed, reaching us in great
flashes like the rays from a lighthouse, as one by one they are
thrown wide upon the darkness of the waters. Nor was this all,
for with the flashes came a soul-shaking sound like that of
thunder and of crashing trees. Now we were through it, and—oh
heavens!
We stood in a third cavern, some fifty feet in length by perhaps
as great a height, and thirty wide. It was carpeted with fine
white sand, and its walls had been worn smooth by the action of I
know not what. The cavern was not dark like the others, it was
filled with a soft glow of rose-coloured light, more beautiful to