Ayesha:The Return of She

ere my wits and perceptions more lively than while I travelled from that broken glacier to the ground, and never did a short journ

he crash, which told me that I had passed through ice. Therefore I should meet ice at the surface again. Oh! to think that after surviving so much I must be drowned like a kitten and beneath a sheet of ice. My hands touched it. There it was above me shining

nning from his hair and beard, was Leo. Leo alive, for he broke the thin ice with his arms as he struggled

ming it with fallen heaps of snow had raised its level very many feet. Therefore, to this avalanche, which had threatened to destroy us, we

pice passed!" he shouted in a ringing, e

ered as I too fought my wa

rd hung upon the bent breast and shoulders, and his sardonic, wrinkled features were yellow as wax. They might have been those of a death mask cut in marble. There, clad in an ample, monkish robe, and leaning upon the staff, he stood still as a statue a

her if need were. There was much need, for in the fringe of the torrent the strength that had served me so long seemed to desert me, and I became helpless; numbed, too, with the biting coldness of the

ucked beneath the surface. Moreover, he succeeded where any other swimmer of less strength must have failed. Still, I believe that we should have drowned, since here the water ran like a mill-race, had not the man upon the shore, seeing ou

ks. But still gripping that staff of salvation, to his end of which the old man clung like a limpet to a stone, while the woman clung to him, we recovered ourselves, and, sheltered somewhat by the rock, fl

eized Leo's hair and dragged him shorewards. Now he found his feet for a moment, and throwing one arm about her slender form, steadied himself thus, while with the other he

as it was with blood running from a deep cut in his head. Even then I noticed how stately and beautiful she was. Now she seemed to awa

ut we did not understand. Again he tried another language and without success. A third time and our ears were opened, for th

aid, "that you have liv

Greek I had thought little for many a year -"for then we should have c

e told from the Mountain," he muttered to hims

the truth, he would thrust us back into the river. But Leo had no s

ow was simply barbarous and mixed with various Thibetan dialects -"we se

now," he said, then broke off a

, or the goddess, but could only think of the Greek for Queen, or rather something

then you are those for whom we were bi

ons?" I gasped angrily. "Answ

n of the Gate, and the lady who wa

nt Leo bega

hat you have got your breath again, you must have

n, for my memory of the details of this scene and of the conversation that passed is very weak and blurred, was that it seemed to be a mighty wall of rock in which a pathway had been hollowed where doubtless once passed the road. On one side

her two robed men with a Tartar cast of countenance, very impassive; small eyes and yellowish skin. Even the sight of us did not appear to mov

ned, till we came to a large chamber, evidently a sleeping place, for in it were wooden bedsteads, mattresses and rugs. Here Leo was laid down, and with the assistance of one of his servants, the old Guardian undress

othing ointment, and wrapped us round with blankets. After this broth was brought, into which he mixed medicine, and giving me a portion to drink where I lay upon one of the beds,

dy, paralysing shock to the nerves and extensive cuts and contusions. These taken together produced a long period of semi-unconsciousness, followed by another period of fever and deli

f our recent and fearsome sufferings. At times I would wake up from them a little, I suppose when food was administered to me, and receive impressions of whatever was passing in the place. Thus I c

bt they are the men," then walked to the window and look

ping the stone floor. I opened my eyes and saw that it was she who had helped to rescue us, who had rescued us in fact, a tall and noble-looking lady wi

wer he bowed, pointing to the other bed where Leo lay, asleep, and thither she passed with slow, imperious movements. I saw her bend down and lift the corner o

at was almost terrible, for her soul seemed to be concentrated in her eyes, and to find expression through them. Long she gazed thus, then rose and began to walk swiftly up and down t

she whispered. "Oh

Khania, was always in the room, and that she seemed to be nursing Leo with great care and tenderness. Sometimes even she nursed me when Leo did not need attention,

them I saw that the dark, imperial woman was watching at his side. Some sense of her presence must have communicated itself to him, for he began to mutter in his sleep, now in English, now in Arabic. She b

e Khania of Kaloon? Could it be she whom we sought? Why not? And yet if I sa

d hear the beating of her heart. Now she began to speak, very low and in that same bastard Greek tongue, mixed here and there with Mongolian words such as are

. "You sleep; in sleep the eyes are opened. Answer, I bid you; say what is the bond between you and me? Why have I dreamt of you? Why do I kn

te hand and touched the hair, then said in English -"Where am I? Oh! I remember;" and their eyes met as he strove to lift himself and could not. Then he spoke again

t as honey, a low, trembling voice; "but true

ueen, do you

hat is far away. Yes; I knew it when first I saw you there by the river. Str

Vin

spering -"I know not th

" he said heavily, and seemed to

I saw her bend down her head over his sleeping face. Yes; and I saw her kiss him swiftly on the lips, t

that she di

ight see and hear the better. It was wrong, doubtless, but no common curiosity over-mastered me, wh

such fury seemed to take hold of

art. Then in this sore danger my wit came back to me and as she advanced I stretched out my shaking hand, saying -"Oh! of your pity, give me to drink. The feve

her, she held it to my lips, searching my face the while with her flaming eyes, for indeed passion, rage, and fear had lit

e said; "have dre

dreams of that fearsome prec

lse?" sh

! what a journey to have t

puzzled. "What means the man? You

the Mount of the Wavering Flame, and by

een red as dawn turn pale as eve, for my words and all which might lie behind them, had gone home. Moreover, she was in doub

ave been ill-omened, and I do not wish that one who has travelled far to visit us should be hurled to the de

eople were buried might be, I could not conceive - to my intense joy I heard the foot of

men, niece?"3 he sa

, was not Simbri's niece but his great

both of them,

thought otherwise.

Shaman (i.e. wizard)

dagger in its sheath and the di

an?" she asked again, "lookin

a, my niece. But - me

r him to another chamber, for he needs change, and

watched out of the corner of my eye. I thought that it wore a very strange expression, one moreover that alarmed me somewhat. From

r, Khania?" he s

r. The man has wisdom," she added as though in explanation, "moreover, having t

ged his

dom, and the bee which seeks honey should suck the flower - before it fades! Also, as you sa

ve them an order, and gently enough they lifted the mattress on which I lay and followed him down sundry passages and

an examination the results of which seemed to puzzle him, for he uttered a little exclamation and shook his head. After

he fever had left me and that I was on the high road to recovery. Now I remembered all the events of the previous night and was able

n to do me to death in this way or the other; sure also that he would not have hesitated to obey her. I had been spared partly because, for some unknown reason, she was afraid to kill me, and partly that she might learn how much I knew, although the "death-hounds had bayed," whatever that might me

tween her and this sick man. Why had she embraced him? I was sure that she could be no wanton, nor indeed would any woman indulge for its own sake in such folly with a stranger who hung between life and death. What she had done was done because irre

ants of an endless succession of physical bodies which they change from time to time as we change our worn-out garments, why should not others have known him? For instance that daughter of the Phara

ich she wrote upon the Sherd, enable her to pierce the darkness of the Past and recognize the priest whom she had bewitched to love her, snatching him out of the very hand of the goddess? What if it were not Ayesha, but Am

able-old-faced man, whom this Khania had called Magician, an