I tore my hair, and jumped up from my couch, feeling that if I did not do something I should go quite mad. What did she mean about the scarabæus, too? It was Leo’s scarabæus, and had come out of the old coffer that Vincey had left in my rooms nearly one-and-twenty years before. Could it be, after all, that the story was true, and that the writing on the sherd was not a forgery, or the invention of some crack-brained, long-forgotten individual? And if so, could it be that Leo was the man whom She awaited—the dead man who was to be born again! Impossible! The supposition was insane! Who ever heard of a man being reborn?
But if it were possible that a woman could exist for two thousand years, this might be possible also—anything might be possible. For aught I knew I myself might be a reincarnation of some other forgotten self, or perhaps the last of a long line of ancestral selves. Well, vive la guerre! why not? Only, unfortunately, I had no recollection of these previous conditions. The idea was so absurd to me that I burst out laughing, and, addressing the sculptured picture of a grim-looking warrior on the cave wall, called out to him aloud, “Who knows, old fellow?—perhaps I was your contemporary. By Jove! perhaps I was you and you are I,” and then I laughed again at my own folly, and the sound of my laughter rang dismally along the vaulted roof, as though the ghost of the warrior had echoed the ghost of a laugh.
Next I bethought me that I had not been to see how Leo fared, so, taking one of the lamps which were burning at my bedside, I slipped off my shoes and crept down the passage to the entrance of his sleeping-cave. The draught of the night air was lifting his curtain to and fro gently, as though spirit hands were drawing and redrawing it. I slid into the vault-like apartment, and looked round. There was a light by which I could see that Leo was lying on the couch, tossing restlessly in his fever, but asleep. At his side, half prostrate on the floor, half leaning against the stone couch, was Ustane. She held his hand in one of hers, but she too dozed, and the two made a pretty, or rather a pathetic, picture. Poor Leo! his cheek was burning red, there were dark shadows beneath his eyes, and his breath came heavily. He was very, very ill; and again the horrible fear seized me that he might die, and I be left alone in the world. And yet if he lived he would perhaps be my rival with Ayesha; even if he were not the man, what chance should I, middle-aged and hideous, have against his bright youth and beauty? Well, thank Heaven! my sense of right was not dead. She had not killed that yet; and, as I stood there, I prayed to Heaven in my heart that my boy, my more than son, might live—ay, even if he proved to be the man.
Then I went back as softly as I had come, but still I could not sleep; the sight and thought of Leo lying so ill yonder had but added fuel to the fire of my unrest. My wearied body and overstrained mind awakened all my imagination into preternatural activity. Ideas, visions, almost inspirations, floated before it with startling vividness. Most of them were grotesque enough, some were ghastly, some recalled thoughts and sensations that for years had been buried in the débris of my past life. But behind and above them all hovered the shape of that awful woman, and through them gleamed the memory of her entrancing loveliness. Up and down the cave I strode—up and down.
Suddenly I observed, what I had not noticed before, that there was a narrow aperture in the rocky wall. I took up the lamp and examined it; the aperture led to a passage. Now I was still sufficiently sensible to remember that it is not pleasant, in such a situation as was ours, to find passages running into your bedchamber from no one knows where. If there are passages, people can come along them; they can come when one is asleep. Partly to see where it went to, and partly from a restless desire to be doing something, I followed this passage. It led to a stone stair, which I descended; the stair ended in another passage, or rather tunnel, also hewn out of the bed-rock, and running, so far as I could judge, exactly beneath the gallery that led to the entrance of our rooms, and across the great central cave. I went down it: it was silent as the grave, but still, drawn by some sensation or attraction that I cannot define, I followed on, my stockinged feet falling without noise on the smooth and rocky floor. When I had traversed some fifty yards of space, I came to a third passage running at right angles, and here an awful thing happened to me: the sharp draught caught my lamp and extinguished it, leaving me in utter darkness in the bowels of that mysterious place. I took a couple of strides forward so as to clear the bisecting tunnel, being terribly afraid lest I should turn up it in the dark if once I grew confused as to the direction. Then I paused to think. What was I to do? I had no match; it seemed awful to attempt that long journey back through the utter gloom, and yet I could not stand there all night, and, if I did, probably it could not help me much, for in the bowels of the rock it would be as dark at midday as at midnight. I looked back over my shoulder—not a sight or a sound. I peered forward down the darkness: surely, far away, I saw something like the faint glow of fire. Perhaps it was a cave where I could find a light—at any rate, it was worth investigating. Slowly and painfully I crept along the tunnel, keeping my hand against its wall, and feeling at every step with my foot before I set it down, fearing lest I should fall into some pit. Thirty paces—there was a light, a broad light that came and went, shining through curtains! Fifty paces—it was at hand! Sixty—oh, great heaven!
I was at the curtains, and they did not hang close, so I could see clearly into the little cavern beyond them. This had the appearance of a tomb, and was lit up by a fire that burnt in its centre with a whitish flame and without smoke. Indeed, there, to the left, was a stone shelf with a little ledge to it three inches or so high, and on the shelf lay what I imagined to be a corpse; at any rate, it looked like one, with something white thrown over it. To the right was a similar shelf, on which broidered coverings were strewn. Over the fire bent the figure of a woman who seemed to be staring at the flickering flame; she knelt sideways to me, facing the corpse, and was wrapped in a dark mantle that hid her like a nun’s cloak. Suddenly, as I was trying to make up my mind what to do, with a convulsive movement that suggested an impulse of despairing energy, the woman rose to her feet and cast the dark cloak from her.
It was She herself!
She was clothed, as I had seen her when she unveiled, in the kirtle of clinging white, cut low upon her bosom, and bound in at the waist with the barbaric double-headed snake, and her rippling black hair fell in heavy masses almost to her feet. But it was her face that caught my eye, and held me as in a vice, not this time by the force of its beauty, but with the power of fascinated terror. The beauty was still there, indeed, but the agony, the blind passion, and the awful vindictiveness displayed upon those quivering features, and in the tortured look of the upturned eyes, were such as surpass my powers of description.
For a moment she stood still, her hands raised high above her head, and as she stood the white robe slipped from her down to her golden girdle, baring the blinding loveliness of her form. She stood there, her fingers clenched, while the awful look of malevolence gathered and deepened on her face.
Suddenly I thought of what would happen if she discovered me, and the reflection turned me sick and faint. But, even if I had known that I must die if I stayed, I do not believe that I could have moved, for I was absolutely fascinated. Still I knew my danger. Supposing that she should hear me, or see me through the curtain, supposing I even sneezed, or that her magic told her that she was being watched—swift indeed would be my doom.
Down came the clenched hands to her sides, then up they rose above her head, and, as I am a living and honourable man, the white flame of the fire leapt after them, almost to the roof, throwing a fierce and ghastly glare upon She herself, upon the white figure beneath the covering, and every scroll and detail of the rockwork.
Down came the ivory arms again, and as they fell she spoke, or rather hissed, in Arabic, in a note that curdled my blood, and for a second stopped my heart.
“Curse her, may she be everlastingly accursed.”
The arms sank and the flame sank. Up they went again, and the broad tongue of f
ire shot after them; and then again they fell.
“Curse her memory—accursed be the memory of the Egyptian.”
Up again, and again down.
“Curse her, the daughter of the Nile, because of her beauty.
“Curse her, because her magic hath prevailed against me.
“Curse her, because she held my beloved from me.”
And again the flame dwindled and shrank.
She placed her hands before her eyes, and, abandoning the hissing tone, she cried aloud:—
“Where is the use of cursing?—she prevailed, and she is gone.”
Then she recommenced with an even more frightful energy:—
“Curse her where she is. Let my curses reach her where she is and disturb her rest.
“Curse her through the starry spaces. Let her shadow be accursed.
“Let my power find her even there.
“Let her hear me even there. Let her hide herself in the blackness.
“Let her go down into the pit of despair, because I shall one day find her.”
Again the flame fell, and again she covered her eyes with her hands.
14.1 “Curse her, may she be everlastingly accursed.”
“It is folly,” she wailed; “who can reach those who sleep beneath the wings of Power? Not even I can reach them.”
Then once more she began her unholy rites.
“Curse her when she shall be born again. Let her be born accursed.
“Let her be utterly accursed from the hour of her new birth until sleep finds her.
“Yea then, let her be accursed; for then shall I overtake her with my vengeance, and utterly destroy her.”
And so on. The flame rose and fell, reflecting itself in Ayesha’s agonised eyes; the hissing sound of her terrible maledictions, and no words of mine can convey how terrible they were, ran round the walls and died away in little echoes, and the fierce light and deep gloom alternated themselves on the white and dreadful form stretched upon that bier of stone.
But at length she seemed to wear herself out and ceased. She sat herself down upon the rocky floor, shaking the dense cloud of beautiful hair over her face and breast, and began to sob terribly in the torture of a heartrending despair.
“Two thousand years,” she moaned—“two thousand years have I waited and endured; but though century doth still creep on to century, and time give place to time, the sting of memory hath not lessened, the light of hope doth not shine more bright. Oh, to have lived two thousand years, with all my passion eating at my heart, and with my sin ever before me! Oh, that for me life cannot bring forgetfulness! Oh, for the weary ages that have been and are yet to come, and evermore to come, endless and without end!
“My love! my love! my love! Why did that stranger bring thee back to me after this sort? For five long centuries I have not suffered thus. Oh, if I sinned against thee, have I not wiped away the sin? When wilt thou come back to me who have all, and yet without thee have naught? What is there that I can do? What? What? What? And perchance she—perchance that Egyptian doth abide with thee where thou art, and mock my memory. Oh, why could I not die with thee, I who slew thee? Alas, that I cannot die! Alas! Alas!” and she flung herself prone upon the ground, and sobbed and wept till I thought that her heart must burst.
Suddenly she ceased, raised herself to her feet, rearranged her robe, and, tossing back her long locks impatiently, swept across to where the body lay upon the bench.
“O Kallikrates!” she cried, and I trembled at the name, “I must look upon thy face again, though it be agony. It is a generation since I looked upon thee whom I slew—slew with mine own hand,” and with trembling fingers she seized the corner of the sheet-like wrapping that covered the form upon the stone bier, and paused. When she spoke again, it was in an awed whisper, as though her thought were terrible even to herself.
“Shall I raise thee,” she said, apparently addressing the corpse, “so that thou standest there before me, as of old? I can raise thee,” and she held out her hands over the sheeted dead, while her frame became rigid and terrible to see, and her eyes grew fixed and dull. I shrank in horror behind the curtain, my hair stood up upon my head, and, whether it was my imagination or a fact I am unable to say, but I thought that the quiet form beneath the covering began to quiver, and the winding sheet to lift as though it lay on the breast of one who slept. Suddenly Ayesha withdrew her hands, and the motion of the corpse seemed to me to cease.
“To what purpose?” she said heavily. “Of what service is it to recall the semblance of life when I cannot recall the spirit? Even if thou stoodest before me thou wouldst not know me, and couldst do but what I bid thee. The life in thee would be my life, and not thy life, Kallikrates.”
For a moment she remained thus, brooding; then she cast herself down on her knees beside the form, and began to press her lips against the sheet, and to weep. There was something so horrible about the sight of this awe-inspiring woman letting loose her passion on the dead—so much more horrible even than anything which had gone before—that I could no longer bear to look at it, and, turning, began to creep, shaking as I was in every limb, slowly along the pitch-dark passage, feeling in my trembling heart that I had seen a vision of a Soul in Hell.
On I stumbled, I scarcely know how. Twice I fell, once I turned up the bisecting passage, but fortunately found out my mistake in time. For twenty minutes or more I crept along, till at last it occurred to me that I must have passed the little stair by which I had descended. So, utterly exhausted, and nearly frightened to death, I lay down there on the stone flooring, and sank into oblivion.
When I came to myself I noticed a ray of light in the passage behind me. I crept to it, and found that the weak dawn was stealing down to the little stair. Passing up it, I gained my chamber in safety, and, flinging myself on the couch, was soon lost in sleep, or rather in stupor.
XV
AYESHA GIVES JUDGMENT
The next thing that I remember was opening my eyes and perceiving the form of Job, who had now almost recovered from his attack of fever. He was standing in a beam of light that pierced into the cave from the outer air, shaking out my clothes as a makeshift for brushing them, which he could not do because there was no brush, then folding them up neatly and laying them on the foot of the stone couch. This done, he took my leather dressing-case out of the travelling bag, and opened it ready for my use. First he stood it on the foot of the couch also, then, being afraid, I suppose, that I should kick it off, he placed it upon a leopard skin on the floor, and stepped back a pace or two to observe the effect. It was not satisfactory, so he shut up the bag, turned it on end, and, having stood it against the end of the couch, rested the dressing-case on it. Next he looked at the pots full of water, which constituted our washing apparatus. “Ah!” I heard him murmur, “no hot water in this beastly place. I suppose these poor creatures only use it to boil each other in,” and he sighed deeply.
“What is the matter, Job?” I said.
“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, touching his hair. “I thought you were asleep, sir: and I am sure you seem as though you want it. One might think from the look of you that you had been having a night of it.”
I only groaned by way of answer. I had, indeed, been “having a night of it,” such as I hope never to have again.
“How is Mr. Leo, Job?”
“Much the same, sir. If he don’t soon mend, he’ll end, sir; and that’s all about it; though I must say that that there savage, Ustane, do do her best for him, almost like a baptised Christian. She is always hanging round and looking after him, and if I ventures to interfere it’s awful to see her; her hair seems to stand on end, and she curses and swears away in her heathen talk—at least I fancy she must be cursing, from the look of her.”
“And what do you do then?”
“I make her a perlite bow, and I say, ‘Young woman, your position is one that I don’t quite understand, and can’t recognise. Let me tell you that I has a duty to perform to my maste
r as is incapacitated by illness, and that I am going to perform it until I am incapacitated too,’ but she don’t take no heed, not she—only curses and swears away worse than ever. Last night she put her hand under that sort of nightshirt she wears, and whips out a knife with a kind of a curl in the blade; so I whips out my revolver, and we walks round and round each other till at last she bursts out laughing. It isn’t nice treatment for a Christian man to have to put up with from a savage, however handsome she may be, but it is what people must expect as is fools enough” (Job laid great emphasis on the “fools”) “to come to such a place to look for things no man is meant to find. It’s a judgment on us, sir—that’s my view; and I, for one, is of opinion that the judgment isn’t half done yet, and when it is done we shall be done too, and just stop in these beastly caves with the ghosts and the corpseses for once and all. And now, sir, I must be seeing about Mr. Leo’s broth, if that wild cat will let me; and perhaps you would like to get up, sir, because it’s past nine o’clock.”