XVIII
"GO, WOMAN!"
Then followed a silence of a minute or so, during which _She_ appeared,if one might judge from the almost angelic rapture of her face--for shelooked angelic sometimes--to be plunged into a happy ecstasy. Suddenly,however, a new thought struck her, and her expression became the veryreverse of angelic.
"Almost had I forgotten," she said, "that woman, Ustane. What is sheto Kallikrates--his servant, or----" and she paused, and her voicetrembled.
I shrugged my shoulders. "I understand that she is wed to him accordingto the custom of the Amahagger," I answered; "but I know not."
Her face grew dark as a thunder-cloud. Old as she was, Ayesha had notoutlived jealousy.
"Then there is an end," she said; "she must die, even now!"
"For what crime?" I asked, horrified. "She is guilty of naught that thouart not guilty of thyself, oh Ayesha. She loves the man, and he has beenpleased to accept her love: where, then, is her sin?"
"Truly, oh Holly, thou art foolish," she answered, almost petulantly."Where is her sin? Her sin is that she stands between me and my desire.Well, I know that I can take him from her--for dwells there a man uponthis earth, oh Holly, who could resist me if I put out my strength?Men are faithful for so long only as temptations pass them by. If thetemptation be but strong enough, then will the man yield, for every man,like every rope, hath his breaking strain, and passion is to men whatgold and power are to women--the weight upon their weakness. Believe me,ill will it go with mortal woman in that heaven of which thou speakest,if only the spirits be more fair, for their lords will never turn tolook upon them, and their Heaven will become their Hell. For man can bebought with woman's beauty, if it be but beautiful enough; and woman'sbeauty can be ever bought with gold, if only there be gold enough. Sowas it in my day, and so it will be to the end of time. The world is agreat mart, my Holly, where all things are for sale to whom who bids thehighest in the currency of our desires."
These remarks, which were as cynical as might have been expected froma woman of Ayesha's age and experience, jarred upon me, and I answered,testily, that in our heaven there was no marriage or giving in marriage.
"Else would it not be heaven, dost thou mean?" she put in. "Fie on thee,Holly, to think so ill of us poor women! Is it, then, marriage thatmarks the line between thy heaven and thy hell? but enough of this. Thisis no time for disputing and the challenge of our wits. Why dost thoualways dispute? Art thou also a philosopher of these latter days? Asfor this woman, she must die; for, though I can take her lover from her,yet, while she lived, might he think tenderly of her, and that I cannotaway with. No other woman shall dwell in my Lord's thoughts; my empireshall be all my own. She hath had her day, let her be content; forbetter is an hour with love than a century of loneliness--now the nightshall swallow her."
"Nay, nay," I cried, "it would be a wicked crime; and from a crimenaught comes but what is evil. For thine own sake, do not this deed."
"Is it, then, a crime, oh foolish man, to put away that which standsbetween us and our ends? Then is our life one long crime, my Holly,since day by day we destroy that we may live, since in this world nonesave the strongest can endure. Those who are weak must perish; the earthis to the strong, and the fruits thereof. For every tree that grows ascore shall wither, that the strong one may take their share. We run toplace and power over the dead bodies of those who fail and fall; ay, wewin the food we eat from out of the mouths of starving babes. It isthe scheme of things. Thou sayest, too, that a crime breeds evil, buttherein thou dost lack experience; for out of crimes come many goodthings, and out of good grows much evil. The cruel rage of the tyrantmay prove a blessing to the thousands who come after him, and thesweetheartedness of a holy man may make a nation slaves. Man doeth this,and doeth that from the good or evil of his heart; but he knoweth notto what end his moral sense doth prompt him; for when he striketh he isblind to where the blow shall fall, nor can he count the airy threadsthat weave the web of circumstance. Good and evil, love and hate, nightand day, sweet and bitter, man and woman, heaven above and the earthbeneath--all these things are necessary, one to the other, and who knowsthe end of each? I tell thee that there is a hand of fate that twinesthem up to bear the burden of its purpose, and all things are gatheredin that great rope to which all things are needful. Therefore doth itnot become us to say this thing is evil and this good, or the dark ishateful and the light lovely; for to other eyes than ours the evil maybe the good and the darkness more beautiful than the day, or all alikebe fair. Hearest thou, my Holly?"
I felt it was hopeless to argue against casuistry of this nature, which,if it were carried to its logical conclusion, would absolutely destroyall morality, as we understand it. But her talk gave me a fresh thrillof fear; for what may not be possible to a being who, unconstrained byhuman law, is also absolutely unshackled by a moral sense of right andwrong, which, however partial and conventional it may be, is yetbased, as our conscience tells us, upon the great wall of individualresponsibility that marks off mankind from the beasts?
But I was deeply anxious to save Ustane, whom I liked and respected,from the dire fate that overshadowed her at the hands of her mightyrival. So I made one more appeal.
"Ayesha," I said, "thou art too subtle for me; but thou thyself hasttold me that each man should be a law unto himself, and follow theteaching of his heart. Hath thy heart no mercy towards her whose placethou wouldst take? Bethink thee--as thou sayest--though to me the thingis incredible--he whom thou desirest has returned to thee after manyages, and but now thou hast, as thou sayest also, wrung him from thejaws of death. Wilt thou celebrate his coming by the murder of one wholoved him, and whom perchance he loved--one, at the least, who savedhis life for thee when the spears of thy slaves would have made an endthereof? Thou sayest also that in past days thou didst grievously wrongthis man, that with thine own hand thou didst slay him because of theEgyptian Amenartas whom he loved."
"How knowest thou that, oh stranger? How knowest thou that name? I spokeit not to thee," she broke in with a cry, catching at my arm.
"Perchance I dreamed it," I answered; "strange dreams do hover aboutthese caves of Kôr. It seems that the dream was, indeed, a shadow ofthe truth. What came to thee of thy mad crime?--two thousand years ofwaiting, was it not? And now wouldst thou repeat the history? Say whatthou wilt, I tell thee that evil will come of it; for to him who doeth,at the least, good breeds good and evil evil, even though in after daysout of evil cometh good. Offences must needs come; but woe to him bywhom the offence cometh. So said that Messiah of whom I spoke to thee,and it was truly said. If thou slayest this innocent woman, I say untothee that thou shalt be accursed, and pluck no fruit from thine ancienttree of love. Also, what thinkest thou? How will this man take theered-handed from the slaughter of her who loved and tended him?"
"As to that," she answered, "I have already answered thee. Had I slainthee as well as her, yet should he love me, Holly, because he could notsave himself from therefrom any more than thou couldst save thyself fromdying, if by chance I slew thee, oh Holly. And yet maybe there is truthin what thou dost say; for in some way it presseth on my mind. If itmay be, I will spare this woman; for have I not told thee that I am notcruel for the sake of cruelty? I love not to see suffering, or to causeit. Let her come before me--quick now, before my mood changes," and shehastily covered her face with its gauzy wrapping.
Well pleased to have succeeded even to this extent, I passed out intothe passage and called to Ustane, whose white garment I caught sight ofsome yards away, huddled up against one of the earthenware lamps thatwere placed at intervals along the tunnel. She rose, and ran towards me.
"Is my lord dead? Oh, say not he is dead," she cried, lifting hernoble-looking face, all stained as it was with tears, up to me with anair of infinite beseeching that went straight to my heart.
"Nay, he lives," I answered. "_She_ hath saved him. Enter."
She sighed deeply, entered, and fell upon her hands and knees, after thecust
om of the Amahagger people, in the presence of the dread _She_.
"Stand," said Ayesha, in her coldest voice, "and come hither."
Ustane obeyed, standing before her with bowed head.
Then came a pause, which Ayesha broke.
"Who is this man?" she said, pointing to the sleeping form of Leo.
"The man is my husband," she answered in a low voice.
"Who gave him to thee for a husband?"
"I took him according to the custom of our country, oh _She_."
"Thou hast done evil, woman, in taking this man, who is a stranger. Heis not a man of thine own race, and the custom fails. Listen: perchancethou didst this thing through ignorance, therefore, woman, do I sparethee, otherwise hadst thou died. Listen again. Go from hence back tothine own place, and never dare to speak to or set thine eyes upon thisman again. He is not for thee. Listen a third time. If thou breakestthis my law, that moment thou diest. Go."
But Ustane did not move.
"Go, woman!"
Then she looked up, and I saw that her face was torn with passion.
"Nay, oh _She_. I will not go," she answered in a choked voice: "theman is my husband, and I love him--I love him, and I will not leave him.What right hast thou to command me to leave my husband?"
I saw a little quiver pass down Ayesha's frame, and shuddered myself,fearing the worst.
"Be pitiful," I said in Latin; "it is but Nature working."
"I am pitiful," she answered coldly in the same language; "had I notbeen pitiful she had been dead even now." Then, addressing Ustane:"Woman, I say to thee, go before I destroy thee where thou art!"
"I will not go! He is mine--mine!" she cried in anguish. "I took him,and I saved his life! Destroy me, then, if thou hast the power! I willnot give thee my husband--never--never!"
Ayesha made a movement so swift that I could scarcely follow it, but itseemed to me that she lightly struck the poor girl upon the head withher hand. I looked at Ustane, and then staggered back in horror, forthere upon her hair, right across her bronze-like tresses, were threefinger-marks _white as snow_. As for the girl herself, she had put herhands to her head, and was looking dazed.
"Great heavens!" I said, perfectly aghast at this dreadful manifestationof human power; but _She_ did but laugh a little.
"Thou thinkest, poor ignorant fool," she said to the bewildered woman,"that I have not the power to slay. Stay, there lies a mirror," and shepointed to Leo's round shaving-glass that had been arranged by Job withother things upon his portmanteau; "give it to this woman, my Holly, andlet her see that which lies across her hair, and whether or no I havepower to slay."
I picked up the glass, and held it before Ustane's eyes. She gazed, thenfelt at her hair, then gazed again, and then sank upon the ground with asort of sob.
"Now, wilt thou go, or must I strike a second time?" asked Ayesha, inmockery. "Look, I have set my seal upon thee so that I may know theetill thy hair is all as white as it. If I see thy face again, be sure,too, that thy bones shall soon be whiter than my mark upon thy hair."
Utterly awed and broken down, the poor creature rose, and, marked withthat awful mark, crept from the room, sobbing bitterly.
"Look not so frighted, my Holly," said Ayesha, when she had gone. "Itell thee I deal not in magic--there is no such thing. 'Tis only a forcethat thou dost not understand. I marked her to strike terror to herheart, else must I have slain her. And now I will bid my servants tobear my Lord Kallikrates to a chamber near mine own, that I may watchover him, and be ready to greet him when he wakes; and thither, too,shalt thou come, my Holly, and the white man, thy servant. But one thingremember at thy peril. Naught shalt thou say to Kallikrates as to howthis woman went, and as little as may be of me. Now, I have warnedthee!" and she slid away to give her orders, leaving me more absolutelyconfounded than ever. Indeed, so bewildered was I, and racked and tornwith such a succession of various emotions, that I began to think thatI must be going mad. However, perhaps fortunately, I had but little timeto reflect, for presently the mutes arrived to carry the sleeping Leoand our possessions across the central cave, so for a while all wasbustle. Our new rooms were situated immediately behind what we used tocall Ayesha's boudoir--the curtained space where I had first seen her.Where she herself slept I did not then know, but it was somewhere quiteclose.
That night I passed in Leo's room, but he slept through it like thedead, never once stirring. I also slept fairly well, as, indeed, Ineeded to do, but my sleep was full of dreams of all the horrorsand wonders I had undergone. Chiefly, however, I was haunted by thatfrightful piece of _diablerie_ by which Ayesha left her finger-marksupon her rival's hair. There was something so terrible about her swift,snake-like movement, and the instantaneous blanching of that threefoldline, that, if the results to Ustane had been much more tremendous, Idoubt if they would have impressed me so deeply. To this day I oftendream of that awful scene, and see the weeping woman, bereaved, andmarked like Cain, cast a last look at her lover, and creep from thepresence of her dread Queen.
Another dream that troubled me originated in the huge pyramid of bones.I dreamed that they all stood up and marched past me in thousandsand tens of thousands--in squadrons, companies, and armies--with thesunlight shining through their hollow ribs. On they rushed across theplain to Kôr, their imperial home; I saw the drawbridges fall beforethem, and heard their bones clank through the brazen gates. On theywent, up the splendid streets, on past fountains, palaces, and templessuch as the eye of man never saw. But there was no man to greet them inthe market-place, and no woman's face appeared at the windows--onlya bodiless voice went before them, calling: "_Fallen is ImperialKôr!--fallen!--fallen! fallen!_" On, right through the city, marchedthose gleaming phalanxes, and the rattle of their bony tread echoedthrough the silent air as they pressed grimly on. They passed throughthe city and clomb the wall, and marched along the great roadway thatwas made upon the wall, till at length they once more reached thedrawbridge. Then, as the sun was sinking, they returned again towardstheir sepulchre, and luridly his light shone in the sockets of theirempty eyes, throwing gigantic shadows of their bones, that stretchedaway, and crept and crept like huge spiders' legs as their armies woundacross the plain. Then they came to the cave, and once more one by oneflung themselves in unending files through the hole into the pit ofbones, and I awoke, shuddering, to see _She_, who had evidently beenstanding between my couch and Leo's, glide like a shadow from the room.
After this I slept again, soundly this time, till morning, when Iawoke much refreshed, and got up. At last the hour drew near at which,according to Ayesha, Leo was to awake, and with it came _She_ herself,as usual, veiled.
"Thou shalt see, oh Holly," she said; "presently shall he awake in hisright mind, the fever having left him."
Hardly were the words out of her mouth, when Leo turned round andstretched out his arms, yawned, opened his eyes, and, perceiving afemale form bending over him, threw his arms round her and kissed her,mistaking her, perhaps, for Ustane. At any rate, he said, in Arabic,"Hullo, Ustane, why have you tied your head up like that? Have you gotthe toothache?" and then, in English, "I say, I'm awfully hungry. Why,Job, you old son of a gun, where the deuce have we got to now--eh?"
"I am sure I wish I knew, Mr. Leo," said Job, edging suspiciously pastAyesha, whom he still regarded with the utmost disgust and horror, beingby no means sure that she was not an animated corpse; "but you mustn'ttalk, Mr. Leo, you've been very ill, and given us a great deal ofhanxiety, and, if this lady," looking at Ayesha, "would be so kind as tomove, I'll bring you your soup."
This turned Leo's attention to the "lady," who was standing by inperfect silence. "Hullo!" he said; "that is not Ustane--where isUstane?"
Then, for the first time, Ayesha spoke to him, and her first words werea lie. "She has gone from hence upon a visit," she said; "and, behold,in her place am I here as thine handmaiden."
Ayesha's silver notes seemed to puzzle Leo's half-awakened intellect,as also did her corpse-like wrappings
. However, he said nothing at thetime, but drank off his soup greedily enough, and then turned over andslept again till the evening. When he woke for the second time he sawme, and began to question me as to what had happened, but I had toput him off as best I could till the morrow, when he awoke almostmiraculously better. Then I told him something of his illness and of mydoings, but as Ayesha was present I could not tell him much except thatshe was the Queen of the country, and well disposed towards us, andthat it was her pleasure to go veiled; for, though of course I spoke inEnglish, I was afraid that she might understand what we were saying fromthe expression of our faces, and besides, I remembered her warning.
On the following day Leo got up almost entirely recovered. The fleshwound in his side was healed, and his constitution, naturally a vigorousone, had shaken off the exhaustion consequent on his terrible fever witha rapidity that I can only attribute to the effects of the wonderfuldrug which Ayesha had given to him, and also to the fact that hisillness had been too short to reduce him very much. With his returninghealth came back full recollection of all his adventures up to the timewhen he had lost consciousness in the marsh, and of course of Ustanealso, to whom I had discovered he had grown considerably attached.Indeed, he overwhelmed me with questions about the poor girl, which Idid not dare to answer, for after Leo's first awakening _She_ had sentfor me, and again warned me solemnly that I was to reveal nothing of thestory to him, delicately hinting that if I did it would be the worse forme. She also, for the second time, cautioned me not to tell Leo anythingmore than I was obliged about herself, saying that she would revealherself to him in her own time.
Indeed, her whole manner changed. After all that I had seen I hadexpected that she would take the earliest opportunity of claiming theman she believed to be her old-world lover, but this, for some reason ofher own, which was at the time quite inscrutable to me, she did not do.All that she did was to attend to his wants quietly, and with a humilitywhich was in striking contrast with her former imperious bearing,addressing him always in a tone of something very like respect, andkeeping him with her as much as possible. Of course his curiosity was asmuch excited about this mysterious woman as my own had been, and he wasparticularly anxious to see her face, which I had, without enteringinto particulars, told him was as lovely as her form and voice. Thisin itself was enough to raise the expectations of any young man to adangerous pitch, and, had it not been that he had not as yet completelyshaken off the effects of illness, and was much troubled in his mindabout Ustane, of whose affection and brave devotion he spoke in touchingterms, I have no doubt that he would have entered into her plans, andfallen in love with her by anticipation. As it was, however, he wassimply wildly curious, and also, like myself, considerably awed, for,though no hint had been given to him by Ayesha of her extraordinary age,he not unnaturally came to identify her with the woman spoken of onthe potsherd. At last, quite driven into a corner by his continualquestions, which he showered on me while he was dressing on this thirdmorning, I referred him to Ayesha, saying, with perfect truth, that Idid not know where Ustane was. Accordingly, after Leo had eaten a heartybreakfast, we adjourned into _She's_ presence, for her mutes had ordersto admit us at all hours.
She was, as usual, seated in what, for want of a better term, we calledher boudoir, and on the curtains being drawn she rose from her couchand, stretching out both hands, came forward to greet us, or ratherLeo; for I, as may be imagined, was now quite left in the cold. It wasa pretty sight to see her veiled form gliding towards the sturdy youngEnglishman, dressed in his grey flannel suit; for, though he is half aGreek in blood, Leo is, with the exception of his hair, one of the mostEnglish-looking men I ever saw. He has nothing of the subtle form orslippery manner of the modern Greek about him, though I presume thathe got his remarkable personal beauty from his foreign mother, whoseportrait he resembles not a little. He is very tall and big-chested, andyet not awkward, as so many big men are, and his head is set upon him insuch a fashion as to give him a proud and vigorous air, which was welltranslated in his Amahagger name of the "Lion."
"Greeting to thee, my young stranger lord," she said in her softestvoice. "Right glad am I to see thee upon thy feet. Believe me, had I notsaved thee at the last, never wouldst thou have stood upon those feetagain. But the danger is done, and it shall be my care"--and she flung aworld of meaning into the words--"that it doth return no more."
Leo bowed to her, and then, in his best Arabic, thanked her for all herkindness and courtesy in caring for one unknown to her.
"Nay," she answered softly, "ill could the world spare such a man.Beauty is too rare upon it. Give me no thanks, who am made happy by thycoming."
"Humph! old fellow," said Leo aside to me in English, "the lady is verycivil. We seem to have tumbled into clover. I hope that you have madethe most of your opportunities. By Jove! what a pair of arms she hasgot!"
I nudged him in the ribs to make him keep quiet, for I caught sight of agleam from Ayesha's veiled eyes, which were regarding me curiously.
"I trust," went on Ayesha, "that my servants have attended well uponthee; if there can be comfort in this poor place, be sure it waits onthee. Is there aught that I can do for thee more?"
"Yes, oh _She_," answered Leo hastily, "I would fain know whither theyoung lady who was looking after me has gone to."
"Ah," said Ayesha: "the girl--yes, I saw her. Nay, I know not; shesaid that she would go, I know not whither. Perchance she will return,perchance not. It is wearisome waiting on the sick, and these savagewomen are fickle."
Leo looked both sulky and distressed at this intelligence.
"It's very odd," he said to me in English; and then, addressing _She_,"I cannot understand," he said; "the young lady and I--well--in short,we had a regard for each other."
Ayesha laughed a little very musically, and then turned the subject.