Chapter XVII: The Balance Turns

In a few minutes, following the lamps of the mutes, which, held
out from the body as a bearer holds water in a vessel, had the
appearance of floating down the darkness by themselves, we came
to a stair which led us to _She’s_ ante-room, the same that
Billali had crept up upon on all fours on the previous day. Here
I would have bid the Queen adieu, but she would not.

“Nay,” she said, “enter with me, oh Holly, for of a truth thy
conversation pleaseth me. Think, oh Holly: for two thousand years
have I had none to converse with save slaves and my own thoughts,
and though of all this thinking hath much wisdom come, and many
secrets been made plain, yet am I weary of my thoughts, and have
come to loathe mine own society, for surely the food that memory
gives to eat is bitter to the taste, and it is only with the
teeth of hope that we can bear to bite it. Now, though thy
thoughts are green and tender, as becometh one so young, yet are
they those of a thinking brain, and in truth thou dost bring back
to my mind certain of those old philosophers with whom in days
bygone I have disputed at Athens, and at Becca in Arabia, for
thou hast the same crabbed air and dusty look, as though thou
hadst passed thy days in reading ill-writ Greek, and been stained
dark with the grime of manuscripts. So draw the curtain, and sit
here by my side, and we will eat fruit, and talk of pleasant
things. See, I will again unveil to thee. Thou hast brought it on
thyself, oh Holly; fairly have I warned thee—and thou shalt call
me beautiful as even those old philosophers were wont to do. Fie
upon them, forgetting their philosophy!”

And without more ado she stood up and shook the white wrappings
from her, and came forth shining and splendid like some
glittering snake when she has cast her slough; ay, and fixed her
wonderful eyes upon me—more deadly than any Basilisk’s—and
pierced me through and through with their beauty, and sent her
light laugh ringing through the air like chimes of silver bells.

A new mood was on her, and the very colour of her mind seemed to
change beneath it. It was no longer torture-torn and hateful, as
I had seen it when she was cursing her dead rival by the leaping
flames, no longer icily terrible as in the judgment-hall, no
longer rich, and sombre, and splendid, like a Tyrian cloth, as in
the dwellings of the dead. No, her mood now was that of Aphrodité
triumphing. Life—radiant, ecstatic, wonderful—seemed to flow from
her and around her. Softly she laughed and sighed, and swift her
glances flew. She shook her heavy tresses, and their perfume
filled the place; she struck her little sandalled foot upon the
floor, and hummed a snatch of some old Greek epithalamium. All
the majesty was gone, or did but lurk and faintly flicker through
her laughing eyes, like lightning seen through sunlight. She had
cast off the terror of the leaping flame, the cold power of
judgment that was even now being done, and the wise sadness of
the tombs—cast them off and put them behind her, like the white
shroud she wore, and now stood out the incarnation of lovely
tempting womanhood, made more perfect—and in a way more
spiritual—than ever woman was before.

“So, my Holly, sit there where thou canst see me. It is by thine
own wish, remember—again I say, blame me not if thou dost wear
away thy little span with such a sick pain at the heart that thou
wouldst fain have died before ever thy curious eyes were set upon
me. There, sit so, and tell me, for in truth I am inclined for
praises—tell me, am I not beautiful? Nay, speak not so hastily;
consider well the point; take me feature by feature, forgetting
not my form, and my hands and feet, and my hair, and the
whiteness of my skin, and then tell me truly, hast thou ever
known a woman who in aught, ay, in one little portion of her
beauty, in the curve of an eyelash even, or the modelling of a
shell-like ear, is justified to hold a light before my
loveliness? Now, my waist! Perchance thou thinkest it too large,
but of a truth it is not so; it is this golden snake that is too
large, and doth not bind it as it should. It is a wide snake, and
knoweth that it is ill to tie in the waist. But see, give me thy
hands—so—now press them round me, and there, with but a little
force, thy fingers touch, oh Holly.”

I could bear it no longer. I am but a man, and she was more than
a woman. Heaven knows what she was—I do not! But then and there I
fell upon my knees before her, and told her in a sad mixture of
languages—for such moments confuse the thoughts—that I worshipped
her as never woman was worshipped, and that I would give my
immortal soul to marry her, which at that time I certainly would
have done, and so, indeed, would any other man, or all the race
of men rolled into one. For a moment she looked surprised, and
then she began to laugh, and clap her hands in glee.

“Oh, so soon, oh Holly!” she said. “I wondered how many minutes
it would need to bring thee to thy knees. I have not seen a man
kneel before me for so many days, and, believe me, to a woman’s
heart the sight is sweet, ay, wisdom and length of days take not
from that dear pleasure which is our sex’s only right.

“What wouldst thou?—what wouldst thou? Thou dost not know what
thou doest. Have I not told thee that I am not for thee? I love
but one, and thou art not the man. Ah Holly, for all thy
wisdom—and in a way thou art wise—thou art but a fool running
after folly. Thou wouldst look into mine eyes—thou wouldst kiss
me! Well, if it pleaseth thee, _look_,” and she bent herself
towards me, and fixed her dark and thrilling orbs upon my own;
“ay, and _kiss_ too, if thou wilt, for, thanks be given to the
scheme of things, kisses leave no marks, except upon the heart.
But if thou dost kiss, I tell thee of a surety wilt thou eat out
thy breast with love of me, and die!” and she bent yet further
towards me till her soft hair brushed my brow, and her fragrant
breath played upon my face, and made me faint and weak. Then of a
sudden, even as I stretched out my hands to clasp, she
straightened herself, and a quick change passed over her.
Reaching out her hand, she held it over my head, and it seemed to
me that something flowed from it that chilled me back to common
sense, and a knowledge of propriety and the domestic virtues.

“Enough of this wanton folly,” she said with a touch of
sternness. “Listen, Holly. Thou art a good and honest man, and I
fain would spare thee; but, oh! it is so hard for woman to be
merciful. I have said I am not for thee, therefore let thy
thoughts pass by me like an idle wind, and the dust of thy
imagination sink again into the depths—well, of despair, if thou
wilt. Thou dost not know me, Holly. Hadst thou seen me but ten
hours past when my passion seized me, thou hadst shrunk from me
in fear and trembling. I am of many moods, and, like the water in
that vessel, I reflect many things; but they pass, my Holly; they
pass, and are forgotten. Only the water is the water still, and I
still am I, and that which maketh the water maketh it, and that
which maketh me maketh me, nor can my quality be altered.
Therefore, pay no heed to what I seem, seeing that thou canst not
know what I am. If thou troublest me again I will veil myself,
and thou shalt behold my face no more.”

I rose, and sank on the cushioned couch beside her, yet quivering
with emotion, though for a moment my mad passion had left me, as
the leaves of a tree quiver still, although the gust be gone that
stirred them. I did not dare to tell her that I _had_ seen her in
that deep and hellish mood, muttering incantations to the fire in
the tomb.

“So,” she went on, “now eat some fruit; believe me, it is the
only true food for man. Oh, tell me of the philosophy of that
Hebrew Messiah, who came after me, and who thou sayest doth now
rule Rome, and Greece, and Egypt, and the barbarians beyond. It
must have been a strange philosophy that He taught, for in my day
the peoples would have naught of our philosophies. Revel and lust
and drink, blood and cold steel, and the shock of men gathered in
the battle—these were the canons of their creeds.”

I had recovered myself a little by now, and, feeling bitterly
ashamed of the weakness into which I had been betrayed, I did my
best to expound to her the doctrines of Christianity, to which,
however, with the single exception of our conception of Heaven
and Hell, I found that she paid but scant attention, her interest
being all directed towards the Man who taught them. Also I told
her that among her own people, the Arabs, another prophet, one
Mohammed, had arisen and preached a new faith, to which many
millions of mankind now adhered.

“Ah!” she said; “I see—two new religions! I have known so many,
and doubtless there have been many more since I knew aught beyond
these caves of Kôr. Mankind asks ever of the skies to vision out
what lies behind them. It is terror for the end, and but a
subtler form of selfishness—this it is that breeds religions.
Mark, my Holly, each religion claims the future for its
followers; or, at least, the good thereof. The evil is for those
benighted ones who will have none of it; seeing the light the
true believers worship, as the fishes see the stars, but dimly.
The religions come and the religions pass, and the civilisations
come and pass, and naught endures but the world and human nature.
Ah! if man would but see that hope is from within and not from
without—that he himself must work out his own salvation! He is
there, and within him is the breath of life and a knowledge of
good and evil as good and evil is to him. Thereon let him build
and stand erect, and not cast himself before the image of some
unknown God, modelled like his poor self, but with a bigger brain
to think the evil thing, and a longer arm to do it.”

I thought to myself, which shows how old such reasoning is,
being, indeed, one of the recurring qualities of theological
discussion, that her argument sounded very like some that I have
heard in the nineteenth century, and in other places than the
caves of Kôr, and with which, by the way, I totally disagree, but
I did not care to try and discuss the question with her. To begin
with, my mind was too weary with all the emotions through which I
had passed, and, in the second place, I knew that I should get
the worst of it. It is weary work enough to argue with an
ordinary materialist, who hurls statistics and whole strata of
geological facts at your head, whilst you can only buffet him
with deductions and instincts and the snowflakes of faith, that
are, alas! so apt to melt in the hot embers of our troubles. How
little chance, then, should I have against one whose brain was
supernaturally sharpened, and who had two thousand years of
experience, besides all manner of knowledge of the secrets of
Nature at her command! Feeling that she would be more likely to
convert me than I should to convert her, I thought it best to
leave the matter alone, and so sat silent. Many a time since then
have I bitterly regretted that I did so, for thereby I lost the
only opportunity I can remember having had of ascertaining what
Ayesha _really_ believed, and what her “philosophy” was.

“Well, my Holly,” she continued, “and so those people of mine have found a prophet, a false prophet thou sayest, for he is not thine own, and, indeed, I doubt it not. Yet in my day was it otherwise, for then we Arabs had many gods. Allât there was, and Saba, the Host of Heaven, Al Uzza, and Manah the stony one, for whom the blood of victims flowed, and Wadd and Sawâ, and Yaghûth the Lion of the dwellers in Yaman, and Yäûk the Horse of Morad, and Nasr the Eagle of Hamyar; ay, and many more. Oh, the folly of it all, the shame and the pitiful folly! Yet when I rose in wisdom and spoke thereof, surely they would have slain me in the name of their outraged gods. Well, so hath it ever been;—but, my Holly, art thou weary of me already, that thou dost sit so silent? Or dost thou fear lest I should teach thee my philosophy?—for know I have a philosophy. What would a teacher be without her own philosophy? and if thou dost vex me overmuch beware! for I will have thee learn it, and thou shalt be my disciple, and we twain will found a faith that shall swallow up all others. Faithless man! And but half an hour since thou wast upon thy knees—the posture does not suit thee, Holly—swearing that thou didst love me. What shall we do?—Nay, I have it. I will come and see this youth, the Lion, as the old man Billali calls him, who came with thee, and who is so sick. The fever must have run its course by now, and if he is about to die I will recover him. Fear not, my Holly, I shall use no magic. Have I not told thee that there is no such thing as magic, though there is such a thing as understanding and applying the forces which are in Nature? Go now, and presently, when I have made the drug ready, I will follow thee.”[1]

[1] Ayesha was a great chemist, indeed chemistry appears to have been her only amusement and occupation. She had one of the caves fitted up as a laboratory, and, although her appliances were necessarily rude, the results that she attained were, as will become clear in the course of this narrative, sufficiently surprising.—L. H. H.

Accordingly I went, only to find Job and Ustane in a great state
of grief, declaring that Leo was in the throes of death, and that
they had been searching for me everywhere. I rushed to the couch,
and glanced at him: clearly he was dying. He was senseless, and
breathing heavily, but his lips were quivering, and every now and
again a little shudder ran down his frame. I knew enough of
doctoring to see that in another hour he would be beyond the
reach of earthly help—perhaps in another five minutes. How I
cursed my selfishness and the folly that had kept me lingering by
Ayesha’s side while my dear boy lay dying! Alas and alas! how
easily the best of us are lighted down to evil by the gleam of a
woman’s eyes! What a wicked wretch was I! Actually, for the last
half-hour I had scarcely thought of Leo, and this, be it
remembered, of the man who for twenty years had been my dearest
companion, and the chief interest of my existence. And now,
perhaps, it was too late!

I wrung my hands, and glanced round. Ustane was sitting by the
couch, and in her eyes burnt the dull light of despair. Job was
blubbering—I am sorry I cannot name his distress by any more
delicate word—audibly in the corner. Seeing my eye fixed upon
him, he went outside to give way to his grief in the passage.
Obviously the only hope lay in Ayesha. She, and she alone—unless,
indeed, she was an imposter, which I could not believe—could save
him. I would go and implore her to come. As I started to do so,
however, Job came flying into the room, his hair literally
standing on end with terror.

“Oh, God help us, sir!” he ejaculated in a frightened whisper,
“here’s a corpse a-coming sliding down the passage!”

For a moment I was puzzled, but presently, of course, it struck
me that he must have seen Ayesha, wrapped in her grave-like
garment, and been deceived by the extraordinary undulating
smoothness of her walk into a belief that she was a white ghost
gliding towards him. Indeed, at that very moment the question was
settled, for Ayesha herself was in the apartment, or rather cave.
Job turned, and saw her sheeted form, and then, with a convulsive
howl of “Here it comes!” sprang into a corner, and jammed his
face against the wall, and Ustane, guessing whose the dread
presence must be, prostrated herself upon her face.

“Thou comest in a good time, Ayesha,” I said, “for my boy lies at
the point of death.”

“So,” she said softly; “provided he be not dead, it is no matter,
for I can bring him back to life, my Holly. Is that man there thy
servant, and is that the method wherewith thy servants greet
strangers in thy country?”

“He is frightened of thy garb—it hath a death-like air,” I
answered.

She laughed.

“And the girl? Ah, I see now. It is she of whom thou didst speak
to me. Well, bid them both to leave us, and we will see to this
sick Lion of thine. I love not that underlings should perceive my
wisdom.”

Thereon I told Ustane in Arabic and Job in English both to leave
the room; an order which the latter obeyed readily enough, and
was glad to obey, for he could not in any way subdue his fear.
But it was otherwise with Ustane.

“What does _She_ want?” she whispered, divided between her fear
of the terrible Queen and her anxiety to remain near Leo. “It is
surely the right of a wife to be near her husband when he dieth.
Nay, I will not go, my lord the Baboon.”

“Why doth not that woman leave us, my Holly?” asked Ayesha from
the other end of the cave, where she was engaged in carelessly
examining some of the sculptures on the wall.

“She is not willing to leave Leo,” I answered, not knowing what
to say. Ayesha wheeled round, and, pointing to the girl Ustane,
said one word, and one only, but it was quite enough, for the
tone in which it was said meant volumes.

“Go!”

And then Ustane crept past her on her hands and knees, and went.

“Thou seest, my Holly,” said Ayesha, with a little laugh, “it was
needful that I should give these people a lesson in obedience.
That girl went nigh to disobeying me, but then she did not learn
this morn how I treat the disobedient. Well, she has gone; and
now let me see the youth,” and she glided towards the couch on
which Leo lay, with his face in the shadow and turned towards the
wall.

“He hath a noble shape,” she said, as she bent over him to look
upon his face.

Next second her tall and willowy form was staggering back across
the room, as though she had been shot or stabbed, staggering back
till at last she struck the cavern wall, and then there burst
from her lips the most awful and unearthly scream that I ever
heard in all my life.

“What is it, Ayesha?” I cried. “Is he dead?”

She turned, and sprang towards me like a tigress.

“Thou dog!” she said, in her terrible whisper, which sounded like
the hiss of a snake, “why didst thou hide this from me?” And she
stretched out her arm, and I thought that she was about to slay
me.

“What?” I ejaculated, in the most lively terror; “what?”

“Ah!” she said, “perchance thou didst not know. Learn, my Holly,
learn: there lies—there lies my lost Kallikrates. Kallikrates,
who has come back to me at last, as I knew he would, as I knew he
would;” and she began to sob and to laugh, and generally to
conduct herself like any other lady who is a little upset,
murmuring “Kallikrates, Kallikrates!”

“Nonsense,” thought I to myself, but I did not like to say it;
and, indeed, at that moment I was thinking of Leo’s life, having
forgotten everything else in that terrible anxiety. What I feared
now was that he should die while she was “carrying on.”

“Unless thou art able to help him, Ayesha,” I put in, by way of a
reminder, “thy Kallikrates will soon be far beyond thy calling.
Surely he dieth even now.”

“True,” she said, with a start. “Oh, why did I not come before! I
am unnerved—my hand trembles, even mine—and yet it is very easy.
Here, thou Holly, take this phial,” and she produced a tiny jar
of pottery from the folds of her garment, “and pour the liquid in
it down his throat. It will cure him if he be not dead. Swift,
now! Swift! The man dies!”

I glanced towards him; it was true enough, Leo was in his
death-struggle. I saw his poor face turning ashen, and heard the
breath begin to rattle in his throat. The phial was stoppered
with a little piece of wood. I drew it with my teeth, and a drop
of the fluid within flew out upon my tongue. It had a sweet
flavour, and for a second made my head swim, and a mist gather
before my eyes, but happily the effect passed away as swiftly as
it had arisen.

When I reached Leo’s side he was plainly expiring—his golden head
was slowly turning from side to side, and his mouth was slightly
open. I called to Ayesha to hold his head, and this she managed
to do, though the woman was quivering from head to foot, like an
aspen-leaf or a startled horse. Then, forcing the jaw a little
more open, I poured the contents of the phial into his mouth.
Instantly a little vapour arose from it, as happens when one
disturbs nitric acid, and this sight did not increase my hopes,
already faint enough, of the efficacy of the treatment.

One thing, however, was certain, the death throes ceased—at first
I thought because he had got beyond them, and crossed the awful
river. His face turned to a livid pallor, and his heart-beats,
which had been feeble enough before, seemed to die away
altogether—only the eyelid still twitched a little. In my doubt I
looked up at Ayesha, whose head-wrapping had slipped back in her
excitement when she went reeling across the room. She was still
holding Leo’s head, and, with a face as pale as his own, watching
his countenance with such an expression of agonised anxiety as I
had never seen before. Clearly she did not know if he would live
or die. Five minutes slowly passed and I saw that she was
abandoning hope; her lovely oval face seemed to fall in and grow
visibly thinner beneath the pressure of a mental agony whose
pencil drew black lines about the hollows of her eyes. The coral
faded even from her lips, till they were as white as Leo’s face,
and quivered pitifully. It was shocking to see her: even in my
own grief I felt for hers.

“Is it too late?” I gasped.

She hid her face in her hands, and made no answer, and I too
turned away. But as I did so I heard a deep-drawn breath, and
looking down perceived a line of colour creeping up Leo’s face,
then another and another, and then, wonder of wonders, the man we
had thought dead turned over on his side.

“Thou seest,” I said in a whisper.

“I see,” she answered hoarsely. “He is saved. I thought we were
too late—another moment—one little moment more—and he had been
gone!” and she burst into an awful flood of tears, sobbing as
though her heart would break, and yet looking lovelier than ever
as she did it. At last she ceased.

“Forgive me, my Holly—forgive me for my weakness,” she said.
“Thou seest after all I am a very woman. Think—now think of it!
This morning didst thou speak of the place of torment appointed
by this new religion of thine. Hell or Hades thou didst call it—a
place where the vital essence lives and retains an individual
memory, and where all the errors and faults of judgment, and
unsatisfied passions and the unsubstantial terrors of the mind
wherewith it hath at any time had to do, come to mock and haunt
and gibe and wring the heart for ever and for ever with the
vision of its own hopelessness. Thus, even thus, have I lived for
full two thousand years—for some six and sixty generations, as ye
reckon time—in a Hell, as thou callest it—tormented by the memory
of a crime, tortured day and night with an unfulfilled
desire—without companionship, without comfort, without death, and
led on only down my dreary road by the marsh lights of Hope,
which, though they flickered here and there, and now glowed
strong, and now were not, yet, as my skill told me, would one day
lead unto my deliverer.

“And then—think of it still, oh Holly, for never shalt thou hear
such another tale, or see such another scene, nay, not even if I
give thee ten thousand years of life—and thou shalt have it in
payment if thou wilt—think: at last my deliverer came—he for whom
I had watched and waited through the generations—at the appointed
time he came to seek me, as I knew that he must come, for my
wisdom could not err, though I knew not when or how. Yet see how
ignorant I was! See how small my knowledge, and how faint my
strength! For hours he lay there sick unto death, and I felt it
not—I who had waited for him for two thousand years—I knew it
not. And then at last I see him, and behold, my chance is gone
but by a hair’s breadth even before I have it, for he is in the
very jaws of death, whence no power of mine can draw him. And if
he die, surely must the Hell be lived through once more—once more
must I face the weary centuries, and wait, and wait till the time
in its fulness shall bring my Beloved back to me. And then thou
gavest him the medicine, and that five minutes dragged long
before I knew if he would live or die, and I tell thee that all
the sixty generations that are gone were not so long as that five
minutes. But they passed at length, and still he showed no sign,
and I knew that if the drug works not then, so far as I have had
knowledge, it works not at all. Then thought I that he was once
more dead, and all the tortures of all the years gathered
themselves into a single venomed spear, and pierced me through
and through, because again I had lost Kallikrates! And then, when
all was done, behold! he sighed, behold! he lived, and I knew
that he would live, for none die on whom the drug takes hold.
Think of it now, my Holly—think of the wonder of it! He will
sleep for twelve hours and then the fever will have left him!”

She stopped, and laid her hand upon his golden head, and then
bent down and kissed his brow with a chastened abandonment of
tenderness that would have been beautiful to behold had not the
sight cut me to the heart—for I was jealous!