“Yes, but to this world they are dead.”
“Ay, for a time; but even to the world they are born again and yet again. I, yes I, Ayesha*—for that, stranger, is my name—I say to thee that I wait now for one I loved to be born anew, and I tarry here till he finds me, knowing of a surety that hither he will come, and that here, and here only, he shall greet me. Why dost thou believe that I, who am all-powerful, I, whose loveliness is more than the loveliness of that Grecian Helen of whom poets used to sing, and whose wisdom is wider, ay, far more wide and deep than the wisdom of Solomon the Wise,—I, who know the secrets of the earth and its riches, and can turn all things to my uses,—I, who have even for a while overcome Change, that ye call Death,—why, I say, O stranger, dost thou think that I herd here with barbarians lower than beasts?”
“I cannot tell,” I said humbly.
“Because I wait for him I love. My life has perchance been evil—I know not, for who can say what is evil and what good? Therefore I fear to die to go to find him where he is, even if I could die, which I may not until mine hour comes; for between us there might rise a wall I could not climb; at the least, I dread it. Surely it would be easy also to lose the way in seeking him through those great spaces wherein the planets wander on for ever. But the day must come, it may be when five thousand more years have passed, and are lost and melted into the vault of Time, even as the little clouds melt into the gloom of night, or it may be to-morrow, when he, my love, shall be born again, and then, following a law that is stronger than any human plan, he shall find me here, where once we kissed, and of a surety his heart will soften towards me, although I sinned against him. Ay, even if he knew me not again, yet must he love me, if only for my beauty’s sake!”
For a moment I was dumbfounded, and could not answer. The matter was too overpowering for my intellect to grasp.
“But even thus, O Queen,” I said at last, “even if we men be born again and again, that is not so with thee, if thou speakest truly.” Here she looked up sharply, and once more I caught the flash of those hidden eyes; “thou,” I went on hurriedly, “who hast never died?”
“That is so,” she said; “and it is so because, half by chance and half by learning, I have solved one of the great secrets of the world. Tell me, stranger: life is—why, therefore, should not life be lengthened for a while? What are ten or twenty or fifty thousand years in the history of life? Why, in ten thousand years scarce will the rain and storms lessen a mountain top by a span in thickness. In two thousand years these caves have not changed, nothing has changed but the beasts, and man, who is as the beasts. There is naught that is wonderful about the matter, couldst thou but understand. Life is wonderful, ay, but that it should be a little lengthened is not wonderful. Nature hath her animating spirit as well as man, who is Nature’s child, and he who can find that spirit, and let it breathe upon him, shall live with her life. He shall not live eternally, for Nature is not eternal, and she herself must die, even as the nature of the moon hath died. She herself must die, I say, or rather change, and sleep till it be time for her to live again. But when shall she die? Not yet, I ween, and while she lives, so shall he who hath all her secret live with her. All I have not, yet I have some, more perchance than any who were before me. Now, to thee I doubt not that this thing is a great mystery, therefore I will not overcome thee with it now. Another time I will tell thee more if the mood be on me, though perchance I shall never speak thereof again. Dost thou wonder how I knew that ye were coming to this land, and so saved your heads from the burning?”
“Ay, O Queen,” I answered feebly.
“Then gaze upon that water,” and, pointing to the font-like vessel, she bent forward and held her hand over it.
I rose and gazed, and instantly the water darkened. Then it cleared, and I saw as distinctly as I ever saw anything in my life—I saw, I say, our boat upon that horrible canal. There was Leo lying at the bottom asleep in it, with a coat thrown over him to keep off the mosquitoes, in such a fashion as to hide his face, and there were myself, Job, and Mahomed towing on the bank.
I started back aghast, and cried out that it was magic, for I recognised every detail of the pictured scene—it was one which had actually occurred.
“Nay, nay; O Holly,” she answered, “it is no magic—that is a dream of ignorance. There is no such thing as magic, though there is such a thing as knowledge of the hidden ways of Nature. This water is my glass; in it I see what passes when at times it is my will to summon it before me. Therein I can show thee what thou wilt of the past, if it be anything that has to do with this country and with what I have known, or anything that thou, the gazer, hast known. Think of a face if thou wilt, and it shall be reflected from thy mind upon the water. I know not all the secret yet—I can read nothing in the future. But it is an old secret; I did not find it. In Arabia and in Egypt the sorcerers found it centuries ago. Thus one day I chanced to bethink me of that old canal—some twenty ages since I sailed upon it, and I was minded to look thereon again. So I looked, and there I saw the boat, and three men walking, and one, whose face I could not see, but a youth of noble form, sleeping in the boat, and so I sent and saved you. And now farewell. But stay, tell me of this youth—the Lion, as the old man calls him. I would look upon him, but he is sick, thou sayest—sick with the fever, and also wounded in the fray.”
“He is very sick,” I answered sadly; “canst thou do nothing for him, O Queen! who knowest so much?”
“Of a surety I can; I can cure him. But why speakest thou so sadly? Dost thou love the youth? Is he perchance thy son?”
“He is my adopted son, O Queen! Shall he be brought in before thee?”
“Nay. How long hath the fever taken him?”
“This is the third day.”
“Good; let him lie another day. Then he will perchance throw it off by his own strength, and that is better than that I should cure him, for my medicine is of a sort to shake the life in its very citadel. If, however, by to-morrow night, at that hour when the fever first took him, he doth not begin to mend, then I will come to him and cure him. Stay; who nurses him?”
“Our white servant, he whom Billali names the Pig; also,” and here I spoke with some little hesitation, “a woman called Ustane, a very handsome woman of this country, who came and embraced him when first she saw him, and hath stayed by him ever since, as I understand is the fashion of thy people, O Queen.”
“My people! Speak not to me of my people,” she answered hastily; “these slaves are no people of mine, they are but dogs to do my bidding till the day of my deliverance comes; and as for their customs, I have naught to do with them. Also, call me not Queen—I am weary of flattery and titles—call me Ayesha; the name hath a sweet sound in mine ears, it is an echo from the past. As for this Ustane, I know not. I wonder if it be she against whom I was warned, and whom I in turn did warn? Hath she—stay, I will see;” and, bending forward, she passed her hand over the font of water and gazed intently into it. “See,” she said quietly, “is that the woman?”
I looked into the water, and there, mirrored upon its placid surface, was the silhouette of Ustane’s stately face. She was bending forward, a look of infinite tenderness upon her features, watching something beneath her, and with her chestnut locks falling on to her right shoulder.
“It is she,” I said, in a low voice, for once more I felt much disturbed at this most uncommon sight. “She watches Leo asleep.”
“Leo!” said Ayesha, in an absent voice; “why, that is ‘lion’ in the Latin tongue. The old man has named happily for once. It is strange,” she went on, speaking to herself, “most strange. So like—but it is not possible!” With an impatient gesture she passed her hand over the water once more. It darkened, and the image vanished silently and mysteriously as it had risen, and once more the lamplight, and the lamplight only, shone on the placid surface of that limpid, living mirror.
“Hast thou aught to ask me before thou goest, O Holly?” she said, after a few moments of ref
lection. “It is but a rude life that thou must live here, for these people are savages, and know not the ways of cultivated man. Not that I am troubled thereby, for behold my food,” and she pointed to the fruit upon the little table. “Naught but fruit doth ever pass my lips—fruit and cakes of flour, and a little water. I have bidden my girls to wait upon thee. They are mutes, thou knowest, deaf are they and dumb, and therefore the safest of servants, save to those who can read their faces and their signs. I bred them so—the task has needed many centuries and much trouble; but at the last I triumphed. Once I succeeded before, but the breed was too ugly, so I let it die away; but now, as thou seest, they are otherwise. Once, too, I reared a race of giants, but after a while Nature sickened of it, and it withered away. Hast thou aught to ask of me?”
“Ay, one thing, O Ayesha,” I said boldly, but feeling by no means so bold as I trust I looked. “I would gaze upon thy face.”
She laughed out in her bell-like notes. “Bethink thee, Holly,” she answered; “bethink thee. It seems that thou knowest the old myths of the gods of Greece. Was there not one Actæon who perished miserably because he looked on too much beauty? If I show thee my face, perchance thou wouldst perish miserably also; perchance thou wouldst eat out thy life in impotent desire; for know I am not for thee—I am for no man, save one, who hath been, but is not yet.”
“As thou wilt, Ayesha,” I said. “I fear not thy beauty. I have turned my heart away from such vanity as woman’s loveliness, that passes like a flower.”
“Nay, thou errest,” she said; “that does not pass. My loveliness endures even as I endure; still, if thou wilt, O rash man, have thy will; but blame not me if passions mount thy reason, as the Egyptian breakers used to mount a colt, and guide it whither thou wilt not. Never may the man to whom my beauty is once unveiled put it from his mind, and therefore even among these savages I go hidden, lest they vex me, and I should slay them. Say, wilt thou see?”
“I will,” I answered, my curiosity overpowering me.
13.1 Ayesha Unveils
She lifted her white and rounded arms—never had I seen such arms before—and slowly, very slowly, she withdrew some fastening beneath her hair. Then of a sudden the long, corpse-like wrappings fell from her to the ground, and my eyes travelled up her form, now robed only in a garb of clinging white that did but serve to show its rich and imperial shape, instinct with a life that was more than life, and with a certain serpent-like grace which was more than human. On her little feet were sandals, fastened with studs of gold. Then came ankles more perfect than ever sculptor dreamed of. About the waist her white kirtle was fastened by a double-headed snake of solid gold, above which her gracious form swelled up in lines as pure as they were lovely, till the kirtle ended at the snowy argent of her breast, whereon her arms were folded. I gazed above them at her face, and—I do not romance—shrank back blinded and amazed. I have heard of the beauty of celestial beings, now I saw it; only this beauty, with all its awful loveliness and purity, was evil—or rather, at the time, it impressed me as evil. How am I to describe it? I cannot—simply I cannot! The man does not live whose pen could convey a sense of what I saw. I might talk of the great changing eyes of deepest, softest black, of the tinted face, of the broad and noble brow, on which the hair grew low, and delicate, straight features. But, beautiful, surpassingly beautiful as were all these, her loveliness did not lie in them. It lay rather, if it can be said to have had any abiding home, in a visible majesty, in an imperial grace, in a godlike stamp of softened power, which shone upon that radiant countenance like a living halo. Never before had I guessed what beauty made sublime could be—and yet, the sublimity was a dark one—the glory was not all of heaven—but none the less was it glorious. Though the face before me was that of a young woman of certainly not more than thirty years, in perfect health and the first flush of ripened beauty, yet it bore stamped upon it a seal of unutterable experience, and of deep acquaintance with grief and passion. Not even the slow smile that crept about the dimples of her mouth could hide this shadow of sin and sorrow. It shone even in the light of those glorious eyes, it was present in the air of majesty, and it seemed to say: “Behold me, lovely as no woman was or is, undying and half-divine; memory haunts me from age to age, and passion leads me by the hand—evil have I done, and with sorrow have I made acquaintance from age to age, and from age to age evil I shall do, and sorrow shall I know till my redemption comes.”
Drawn by some magnetic force which I could not resist, I let my eyes rest upon her shining orbs, and felt a current pass from them to me that bewildered and half blinded me.
She laughed—ah, how musically!—and nodded her little head at me with an air of sublime coquetry that would have been worthy of the Venus Victrix.
“Rash man!” she said; “like Actæon, thou hast had thy will; be careful lest, like Actæon, thou too dost perish miserably, torn to pieces by the ban-hounds of thine own passions. I too, O Holly, am a virgin goddess, not to be moved of any man, save one, and it is not thou. Say, hast thou seen enough?”
“I have looked on beauty, and I am blinded,” I said hoarsely, lifting my hand to cover up my eyes.
“So! what did I tell thee? Beauty is like the lightning: it is lovely, but it destroys—especially trees, O Holly!” and again she nodded and laughed.
Ayesha paused, and through my fingers I saw an awful change come upon her countenance. The great eyes suddenly fixed themselves into an expression in which horror seemed to struggle with some tremendous hope arising through the depths of her dark soul. The lovely face grew rigid, and the gracious willowy form seemed to erect itself.
“Man!” she half whispered, half hissed, throwing back her head like a snake about to strike—“Man! whence hadst thou that scarab on thy hand? Speak, or by the Spirit of Life I will blast thee where thou standest!” and she took one light step towards me, while from her eyes there shone such an awful light—to me it seemed almost like a flame—that I fell, then and there, to the ground before her, babbling confusedly in my terror.
“Peace!” she said, with a sudden change of manner, and speaking in her former soft voice, “I did affright thee. Forgive me! But at times, O Holly, the almost infinite mind grows impatient of the slowness of the very finite, and I am tempted to use my power out of vexation. Very nearly wast thou dead, but I remembered——. But the scarab—about the scarabæus?”
“I found it,” I stammered feebly, as I gained my feet once more, and it is a solemn fact that my mind was so disturbed that at the moment I could remember nothing else about the ring except the finding of it in Leo’s cave.
“It is very strange,” she said with a sudden access of woman-like trembling and agitation which seemed out of place in this awful woman—“but once I knew a scarab fashioned thus. It—hung round the neck—of one I loved,” and she gave a little sob, and I saw that after all she was only a woman, although she might be a very old one.
“So,” she went on, “it must be one like to it, and yet never did I see its fellow, for thereto hung a history, and he who wore it prized it much.* But the scarab that I knew was not set thus in the bezel of a ring. Go now, Holly, go, and, if thou canst, try to forget that of thy folly thou hast looked on Ayesha’s beauty,” and, turning from me, she threw herself upon her couch, and buried her face in the cushions.
As for me, I stumbled from her presence, and how I reached my own cave I do not remember.
*Yárab, the son of Kâhtan, who lived some centuries before the time of Abraham, was the father of the ancient Arabs, and gave its name Araba to the country. In speaking of herself as “al Arab al Ariba,” She no doubt meant to convey that she was of the true Arab blood as distinguished from the naturalised Arabs, the descendants of Ismael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, who were known as “al Arab al mostáreba.” The dialect of the Koreish was usually called the clear or “perspicuous” Arabic, but the Hamaritic dialect approached nearer to the purity of the mother Syriac.—L. H. H.
*Pronounced Assh
a.—L. H. H.
*I am informed by a renowned and most learned Egyptologist, to whom I have submitted this very interesting and beautifully finished scarab, “Suten se Rā,” that he has never seen one resembling it. Although it bears a title frequently given to Egyptian royalty, he is of opinion that it is not necessarily the cartouche of a Pharaoh, on which either the throne or personal name of the monarch is generally inscribed. What the history of this particular scarab may have been we can now, unfortunately, never know, though I have little doubt but that it played some part in the tragic story of the Princess Amenartas and her lover Kallikrates, the forsworn priest of Isis.—EDITOR.
XIV
A SOUL IN HELL
It was nearly ten o’clock at night when I cast myself down upon my bed, and began to gather my scattered wits, and to reflect upon what I had seen and heard. But the more I reflected the less I could understand it. Was I mad, or drunk, or dreaming, or was I merely the victim of a gigantic and most elaborate hoax? How was it credible that I, a rational man, not unacquainted with the leading scientific facts of our history, and hitherto an absolute and utter disbeliever in all the hocus-pocus which in Europe goes by the name of the supernatural, could believe that within the last few minutes I had been engaged in conversation with a woman two thousand and odd years old? The thing was quite adverse to the experience of humanity, and absolutely and utterly impossible. It must be a hoax, and yet, if it were a hoax, what was I to make of it? What, too, could be said of the figures in the water, of the woman’s extraordinary acquaintance with the remote past, and her ignorance, or apparent ignorance, of any subsequent history? What, too, of her wonderful and awful loveliness? This, at any rate, was a patent fact, and beyond the experience of the world. No merely mortal woman could shine with such a supernatural radiance. As to that, at least, she had been in the right—it was not safe for any man to look upon such beauty. I was a hardened vessel in such matters, with the exception of one painful experience of my green and tender youth, having thrust the softer sex (I sometimes think that this is a misnomer) almost entirely out of my thoughts. But now, to my intense horror, I knew that I could never put away the vision of those glorious eyes; and alas! the very diablerie of the woman, whilst it horrified and repelled, attracted in an even greater degree. A person with the experience of two thousand years behind her, with the command of such tremendous powers, and the knowledge of a mystery that could hold off death, was certainly worth falling in love with, if ever woman was. But, alas! it was not a question of whether or no she were worth it, for so far as I could judge, not being versed in such matters, I, a Fellow of my college, noted for what my acquaintances are pleased to call my misogyny, and a respectable man now well on in middle life, had succumbed absolutely and hopelessly before this white sorceress. Nonsense; it must be nonsense! She had warned me fairly, and I had refused to take the warning. Curses on the fatal curiosity that is ever prompting man to draw the veil from woman, and curses on the natural impulse which begets it! It is the cause of half—ay, and more than half—of our misfortunes. Why cannot man rest content to live alone and be happy, and let the women live alone and be happy also? But perhaps they would not be happy, and I am not sure that we should either. Here was a nice state of affairs—I, at my age, to fall a victim to this modern Circe! But then she was not modern, at least she said not. She was almost as ancient as the original Circe.