Chapter 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 she looked angelic sometimes—to be plunged into a
happy ecstasy. Suddenly, however, a new thought struck her, and
her expression became the very reverse of angelic.

“Almost had I forgotten,” she said, “that woman, Ustane. What is
she to Kallikrates—his servant, or——” and she paused, and her
voice trembled.

I shrugged my shoulders. “I understand that she is wed to him
according to 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
not outlived 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 thou art not guilty of thyself, oh Ayesha. She loves the
man, and he has been pleased 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 upon this 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 the temptation be but strong enough,
then will the man yield, for every man, like every rope, hath his
breaking strain, and passion is to men what gold 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 to look
upon them, and their Heaven will become their Hell. For man can
be bought with woman’s beauty, if it be but beautiful enough; and
woman’s beauty can be ever bought with gold, if only there be
gold enough. So was it in my day, and so it will be to the end of
time. The world is a great mart, my Holly, where all things are
for sale to him who bids the highest in the currency of our
desires.”

These remarks, which were as cynical as might have been expected
from a 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 that marks the line between thy heaven and thy hell? but
enough of this. This is no time for disputing and the challenge
of our wits. Why dost thou always dispute? Art thou also a
philosopher of these latter days? As for 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 cannot away
with. No other woman shall dwell in my Lord’s thoughts; my empire
shall be all my own. She hath had her day, let her be content;
for better is an hour with love than a century of loneliness—now
the night shall swallow her.”

“Nay, nay,” I cried, “it would be a wicked crime; and from a
crime naught 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
stands between 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 none save the strongest can endure. Those who are weak
must perish; the earth is to the strong, and the fruits thereof.
For every tree that grows a score shall wither, that the strong
one may take their share. We run to place and power over the dead
bodies of those who fail and fall; ay, we win the food we eat
from out of the mouths of starving babes. It is the scheme of
things. Thou sayest, too, that a crime breeds evil, but therein
thou dost lack experience; for out of crimes come many good
things, and out of good grows much evil. The cruel rage of the
tyrant may prove a blessing to the thousands who come after him,
and the sweetheartedness 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 not to what end his moral sense doth prompt
him; for when he striketh he is blind to where the blow shall
fall, nor can he count the airy threads that weave the web of
circumstance. Good and evil, love and hate, night and day, sweet
and bitter, man and woman, heaven above and the earth beneath—all
these things are necessary, one to the other, and who knows the
end of each? I tell thee that there is a hand of fate that twines
them up to bear the burden of its purpose, and all things are
gathered in that great rope to which all things are needful.
Therefore doth it not become us to say this thing is evil and
this good, or the dark is hateful and the light lovely; for to
other eyes than ours the evil may be the good and the darkness
more beautiful than the day, or all alike be 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 destroy all morality, as we understand it. But her
talk gave me a fresh thrill of fear; for what may not be possible
to a being who, unconstrained by human law, is also absolutely
unshackled by a moral sense of right and wrong, which, however
partial and conventional it may be, is yet based, as our
conscience tells us, upon the great wall of individual
responsibility 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 mighty rival. So I made one more appeal.

“Ayesha,” I said, “thou art too subtle for me; but thou thyself
hast told me that each man should be a law unto himself, and
follow the teaching of his heart. Hath thy heart no mercy towards
her whose place thou wouldst take? Bethink thee—as thou
sayest—though to me the thing is incredible—he whom thou desirest
has returned to thee after many ages, and but now thou hast, as
thou sayest also, wrung him from the jaws of death. Wilt thou
celebrate his coming by the murder of one who loved him, and whom
perchance he loved—one, at the least, who saved his life for thee
when the spears of thy slaves would have made an end thereof?
Thou sayest also that in past days thou didst grievously wrong
this man, that with thine own hand thou didst slay him because of
the Egyptian Amenartas whom he loved.”

“How knowest thou that, oh stranger? How knowest thou that name?
I spoke it not to thee,” she broke in with a cry, catching at my
arm.

“Perchance I dreamed it,” I answered; “strange dreams do hover
about these caves of Kôr. It seems that the dream was, indeed, a
shadow of the truth. What came to thee of thy mad crime?—two
thousand years of waiting, was it not? And now wouldst thou
repeat the history? Say what thou 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 days out of evil cometh
good. Offences must needs come; but woe to him by whom 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
unto thee that thou shalt be accursed, and pluck no fruit from
thine ancient tree of love. Also, what thinkest thou? How will
this man take thee red-handed from the slaughter of her who loved
and tended him?”

“As to that,” she answered, “I have already answered thee. Had I
slain thee as well as her, yet should he love me, Holly, because
he could not save himself therefrom any more than thou couldst
save thyself from dying, if by chance I slew thee, oh Holly. And
yet maybe there is truth in what thou dost say; for in some way
it presseth on my mind. If it may be, I will spare this woman;
for have I not told thee that I am not cruel for the sake of
cruelty? I love not to see suffering, or to cause it. Let her
come before me—quick now, before my mood changes,” and she
hastily covered her face with its gauzy wrapping.

Well pleased to have succeeded even to this extent, I passed out
into the passage and called to Ustane, whose white garment I
caught sight of some yards away, huddled up against one of the
earthenware lamps that were 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 her
noble-looking face, all stained as it was with tears, up to me
with an air 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 the custom 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. He is not a man of thine own race, and the custom
fails. Listen: perchance thou didst this thing through ignorance,
therefore, woman, do I spare thee, otherwise hadst thou died.
Listen again. Go from hence back to thine own place, and never
dare to speak to or set thine eyes upon this man again. He is not
for thee. Listen a third time. If thou breakest this 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:
“the man 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
not been 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 will not give thee my husband—never—never!”

Ayesha made a movement so swift that I could scarcely follow it,
but it seemed to me that she lightly struck the poor girl upon
the head with her hand. I looked at Ustane, and then staggered
back in horror, for there upon her hair, right across her
bronze-like tresses, were three finger-marks _white as snow_. As
for the girl herself, she had put her hands to her head, and was
looking dazed.

“Great heavens!” I said, perfectly aghast at this dreadful
manifestation of 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 she pointed to Leo’s round shaving-glass that had
been arranged by Job with other things upon his portmanteau;
“give it to this woman, my Holly, and let her see that which lies
across her hair, and whether or no I have power to slay.”

I picked up the glass, and held it before Ustane’s eyes. She
gazed, then felt at her hair, then gazed again, and then sank
upon the ground with a sort of sob.

“Now, wilt thou go, or must I strike a second time?” asked
Ayesha, in mockery. “Look, I have set my seal upon thee so that I
may know thee till 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
with that awful mark, crept from the room, sobbing bitterly.

“Look not so frighted, my Holly,” said Ayesha, when she had gone.
“I tell thee I deal not in magic—there is no such thing. ‘Tis
only a force that thou dost not understand. I marked her to
strike terror to her heart, else must I have slain her. And now I
will bid my servants to bear my Lord Kallikrates to a chamber
near mine own, that I may watch over 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 thing remember at thy
peril. Naught shalt thou say to Kallikrates as to how this woman
went, and as little as may be of me. Now, I have warned thee!”
and she slid away to give her orders, leaving me more absolutely
confounded than ever. Indeed, so bewildered was I, and racked and
torn with such a succession of various emotions, that I began to
think that I must be going mad. However, perhaps fortunately, I
had but little time to reflect, for presently the mutes arrived
to carry the sleeping Leo and our possessions across the central
cave, so for a while all was bustle. Our new rooms were situated
immediately behind what we used to call 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 quite close.

That night I passed in Leo’s room, but he slept through it like
the dead, never once stirring. I also slept fairly well, as,
indeed, I needed to do, but my sleep was full of dreams of all
the horrors and wonders I had undergone. Chiefly, however, I was
haunted by that frightful piece of _diablerie_ by which Ayesha
left her finger-marks upon her rival’s hair. There was something
so terrible about her swift, snake-like movement, and the
instantaneous blanching of that threefold line, that, if the
results to Ustane had been much more tremendous, I doubt if they
would have impressed me so deeply. To this day I often dream of
that awful scene, and see the weeping woman, bereaved, and marked
like Cain, cast a last look at her lover, and creep from the
presence 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
thousands and tens of thousands—in squadrons, companies, and
armies—with the sunlight shining through their hollow ribs. On
they rushed across the plain to Kôr, their imperial home; I saw
the drawbridges fall before them, and heard their bones clank
through the brazen gates. On they went, up the splendid streets,
on past fountains, palaces, and temples such as the eye of man
never saw. But there was no man to greet them in the
market-place, and no woman’s face appeared at the windows—only a
bodiless voice went before them, calling: “_Fallen is Imperial
Kôr!—fallen!—fallen! fallen!_” On, right through the city,
marched those gleaming phalanxes, and the rattle of their bony
tread echoed through the silent air as they pressed grimly on.
They passed through the city and clomb the wall, and marched
along the great roadway that was made upon the wall, till at
length they once more reached the drawbridge. Then, as the sun
was sinking, they returned again towards their sepulchre, and
luridly his light shone in the sockets of their empty eyes,
throwing gigantic shadows of their bones, that stretched away,
and crept and crept like huge spiders’ legs as their armies wound
across the plain. Then they came to the cave, and once more one
by one flung themselves in unending files through the hole into
the pit of bones, and I awoke, shuddering, to see _She_, who had
evidently been standing between my couch and Leo’s, glide like a
shadow from the room.

After this I slept again, soundly this time, till morning, when I
awoke 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 his right mind, the fever having left him.”

Hardly were the words out of her mouth, when Leo turned round and
stretched out his arms, yawned, opened his eyes, and, perceiving
a female 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 got the 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
past Ayesha, whom he still regarded with the utmost disgust and
horror, being by no means sure that she was not an animated
corpse; “but you mustn’t talk, Mr. Leo, you’ve been very ill, and
given us a great deal of hanxiety, and, if this lady,” looking at
Ayesha, “would be so kind as to move, I’ll bring you your soup.”

This turned Leo’s attention to the “lady,” who was standing by in
perfect silence. “Hullo!” he said; “that is not Ustane—where is
Ustane?”

Then, for the first time, Ayesha spoke to him, and her first
words were a 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 the time, but drank off his soup greedily enough,
and then turned over and slept again till the evening. When he
woke for the second time he saw me, and began to question me as
to what had happened, but I had to put him off as best I could
till the morrow, when he awoke almost miraculously better. Then I
told him something of his illness and of my doings, but as Ayesha
was present I could not tell him much except that she was the
Queen of the country, and well disposed towards us, and that it
was her pleasure to go veiled; for, though of course I spoke in
English, I was afraid that she might understand what we were
saying from the expression of our faces, and besides, I
remembered her warning.

On the following day Leo got up almost entirely recovered. The
flesh wound in his side was healed, and his constitution,
naturally a vigorous one, had shaken off the exhaustion
consequent on his terrible fever with a rapidity that I can only
attribute to the effects of the wonderful drug which Ayesha had
given to him, and also to the fact that his illness had been too
short to reduce him very much. With his returning health came
back full recollection of all his adventures up to the time when
he had lost consciousness in the marsh, and of course of Ustane
also, to whom I had discovered he had grown considerably
attached. Indeed, he overwhelmed me with questions about the poor
girl, which I did not dare to answer, for after Leo’s first
awakening _She_ had sent for me, and again warned me solemnly
that I was to reveal nothing of the story to him, delicately
hinting that if I did it would be the worse for me. She also, for
the second time, cautioned me not to tell Leo anything more than
I was obliged about herself, saying that she would reveal herself
to him in her own time.

Indeed, her whole manner changed. After all that I had seen I had
expected that she would take the earliest opportunity of claiming
the man she believed to be her old-world lover, but this, for
some reason of her 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 humility which was in striking contrast
with her former imperious bearing, addressing him always in a
tone of something very like respect, and keeping him with her as
much as possible. Of course his curiosity was as much excited
about this mysterious woman as my own had been, and he was
particularly anxious to see her face, which I had, without
entering into particulars, told him was as lovely as her form and
voice. This in itself was enough to raise the expectations of any
young man to a dangerous pitch, and, had it not been that he had
not as yet completely shaken off the effects of illness, and was
much troubled in his mind about Ustane, of whose affection and
brave devotion he spoke in touching terms, I have no doubt that
he would have entered into her plans, and fallen in love with her
by anticipation. As it was, however, he was simply 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 on
the potsherd. At last, quite driven into a corner by his
continual questions, which he showered on me while he was
dressing on this third morning, I referred him to Ayesha, saying,
with perfect truth, that I did not know where Ustane was.
Accordingly, after Leo had eaten a hearty breakfast, we adjourned
into _She’s_ presence, for her mutes had orders to admit us at
all hours.

She was, as usual, seated in what, for want of a better term, we
called her boudoir, and on the curtains being drawn she rose from
her couch and, stretching out both hands, came forward to greet
us, or rather Leo; for I, as may be imagined, was now quite left
in the cold. It was a pretty sight to see her veiled form gliding
towards the sturdy young Englishman, dressed in his grey flannel
suit; for, though he is half a Greek in blood, Leo is, with the
exception of his hair, one of the most English-looking men I ever
saw. He has nothing of the subtle form or slippery manner of the
modern Greek about him, though I presume that he got his
remarkable personal beauty from his foreign mother, whose
portrait he resembles not a little. He is very tall and
big-chested, and yet not awkward, as so many big men are, and his
head is set upon him in such a fashion as to give him a proud and
vigorous air, which was well translated in his Amahagger name of
the “Lion.”

“Greeting to thee, my young stranger lord,” she said in her
softest voice. “Right glad am I to see thee upon thy feet.
Believe me, had I not saved thee at the last, never wouldst thou
have stood upon those feet again. But the danger is done, and it
shall be my care”—and she flung a world 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 her kindness 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 thy coming.”

“Humph! old fellow,” said Leo aside to me in English, “the lady
is very civil. We seem to have tumbled into clover. I hope that
you have made the most of your opportunities. By Jove! what a
pair of arms she has got!”

I nudged him in the ribs to make him keep quiet, for I caught
sight of a gleam from Ayesha’s veiled eyes, which were regarding
me curiously.

“I trust,” went on Ayesha, “that my servants have attended well
upon thee; if there can be comfort in this poor place, be sure it
waits on thee. Is there aught that I can do for thee more?”

“Yes, oh _She_,” answered Leo hastily, “I would fain know whither
the young lady who was looking after me has gone to.”

“Ah,” said Ayesha: “the girl—yes, I saw her. Nay, I know not; she
said that she would go, I know not whither. Perchance she will
return, perchance not. It is wearisome waiting on the sick, and
these savage women 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.