Chapter XXII: Job Has a Presentiment

It was nine o’clock on the following morning when Job, who still
looked scared and frightened, came in to call me, and at the same
time breathe his gratitude at finding us alive in our beds, which
it appeared was more than he had expected. When I told him of the
awful end of poor Ustane he was even more grateful at our
survival, and much shocked, though Ustane had been no favourite
of his, or he of hers, for the matter of that. She called him
“pig” in bastard Arabic, and he called her “hussy” in good
English, but these amenities were forgotten in the face of the
catastrophe that had overwhelmed her at the hands of her Queen.

“I don’t want to say anything as mayn’t be agreeable, sir,” said
Job, when he had finished exclaiming at my tale, “but it’s my
opinion that that there _She_ is the old gentleman himself, or
perhaps his wife, if he has one, which I suppose he has, for he
couldn’t be so wicked all by himself. The Witch of Endor was a
fool to her, sir: bless you, she would make no more of raising
every gentleman in the Bible out of these here beastly tombs than
I should of growing cress on an old flannel. It’s a country of
devils, this is, sir, and she’s the master one of the lot; and if
ever we get out of it it will be more than I expect to do. I
don’t see no way out of it. That witch isn’t likely to let a fine
young man like Mr. Leo go.”

“Come,” I said, “at any rate she saved his life.”

“Yes, and she’ll take his soul to pay for it. She’ll make him a
witch, like herself. I say it’s wicked to have anything to do
with those sort of people. Last night, sir, I lay awake and read
in my little Bible that my poor old mother gave me about what is
going to happen to sorceresses and them sort, till my hair stood
on end. Lord, how the old lady would stare if she saw where her
Job had got to!”

“Yes, it’s a queer country, and a queer people too, Job,” I
answered, with a sigh, for, though I am not superstitious like
Job, I admit to a natural shrinking (which will not bear
investigation) from the things that are above Nature.

“You are right, sir,” he answered, “and if you won’t think me
very foolish, I should like to say something to you now that Mr.
Leo is out of the way”—(Leo had got up early and gone for a
stroll)—“and that is that I know it is the last country as ever I
shall see in this world. I had a dream last night, and I dreamed
that I saw my old father with a kind of night-shirt on him,
something like these folks wear when they want to be in
particular full-dress, and a bit of that feathery grass in his
hand, which he may have gathered on the way, for I saw lots of it
yesterday about three hundred yards from the mouth of this
beastly cave.

“’Job,’ he said to me, solemn like, and yet with a kind of
satisfaction shining through him, more like a Methody parson when
he has sold a neighbour a marked horse for a sound one and
cleared twenty pounds by the job than anything I can think
on—’Job, time’s up, Job; but I never did expect to have to come
and hunt you out in this ‘ere place, Job. Such ado as I have had
to nose you up; it wasn’t friendly to give your poor old father
such a run, let alone that a wonderful lot of bad characters hail
from this place Kôr.’”

“Regular cautions,” I suggested.

“Yes, sir—of course, sir, that’s just what he said they
was—’cautions, downright scorchers’—sir, and I’m sure I don’t
doubt it, seeing what I know of them, and their hot-potting
ways,” went on Job sadly. “Anyway, he was sure that time was up,
and went away saying that we should see more than we cared for of
each other soon, and I suppose he was a-thinking of the fact that
father and I never could hit it off together for longer nor three
days, and I daresay that things will be similar when we meet
again.”

“Surely,” I said, “you don’t think that you are going to die
because you dreamed you saw your old father; if one dies because
one dreams of one’s father, what happens to a man who dreams of
his mother-in-law?”

“Ah, sir, you’re laughing at me,” said Job; “but, you see, you
didn’t know my old father. If it had been anybody else—my Aunt
Mary, for instance, who never made much of a job—I should not
have thought so much of it; but my father was that idle, which he
shouldn’t have been with seventeen children, that he would never
have put himself out to come here just to see the place. No, sir;
I know that he meant business. Well, sir, I can’t help it; I
suppose every man must go some time or other, though it is a hard
thing to die in a place like this, where Christian burial isn’t
to be had for its weight in gold. I’ve tried to be a good man,
sir, and do my duty honest, and if it wasn’t for the supercilus
kind of way in which father carried on last night—a sort of
sniffing at me as it were, as though he hadn’t no opinion of my
references and testimonials—I should feel easy enough in my mind.
Any way, sir, I’ve been a good servant to you and Mr. Leo, bless
him!—why, it seems but the other day that I used to lead him
about the streets with a penny whip;—and if ever you get out of
this place—which, as father didn’t allude to you, perhaps you
may—I hope you will think kindly of my whitened bones, and never
have anything more to do with Greek writing on flower-pots, sir,
if I may make so bold as to say so.”

“Come, come, Job,” I said seriously, “this is all nonsense, you
know. You mustn’t be silly enough to go getting such ideas into
your head. We’ve lived through some queer things, and I hope that
we may go on doing so.”

“No, sir,” answered Job, in a tone of conviction that jarred on
me unpleasantly, “it isn’t nonsense. I’m a doomed man, and I feel
it, and a wonderful uncomfortable feeling it is, sir, for one
can’t help wondering how it’s going to come about. If you are
eating your dinner you think of poison and it goes against your
stomach, and if you are walking along these dark rabbit-burrows
you think of knives, and Lord, don’t you just shiver about the
back! I ain’t particular, sir, provided it’s sharp, like that
poor girl, who, now that she’s gone, I am sorry to have spoke
hard on, though I don’t approve of her morals in getting married,
which I consider too quick to be decent. Still, sir,” and poor
Job turned a shade paler as he said it, “I do hope it won’t be
that hot-pot game.”

“Nonsense,” I broke in angrily, “nonsense!”

“Very well, sir,” said Job, “it isn’t my place to differ from
you, sir, but if you happen to be going anywhere, sir, I should
be obliged if you could manage to take me with you, seeing that I
shall be glad to have a friendly face to look at when the time
comes, just to help one through, as it were. And now, sir, I’ll
be getting the breakfast,” and he went, leaving me in a very
uncomfortable state of mind. I was deeply attached to old Job,
who was one of the best and honestest men I have ever had to do
with in any class of life, and really more of a friend than a
servant, and the mere idea of anything happening to him brought a
lump into my throat. Beneath all his ludicrous talk I could see
that he himself was quite convinced that something was going to
happen, and though in most cases these convictions turn out to be
utter moonshine—and this particular one especially was to be
amply accounted for by the gloomy and unaccustomed surroundings
in which its victim was placed—still it did more or less carry a
chill to my heart, as any dread that is obviously a genuine
object of belief is apt to do, however absurd the belief may be.
Presently the breakfast arrived, and with it Leo, who had been
taking a walk outside the cave—to clear his mind, he said—and
very glad I was to see both, for they gave me a respite from my
gloomy thoughts. After breakfast we went for another walk, and
watched some of the Amahagger sowing a plot of ground with the
grain from which they make their beer. This they did in
scriptural fashion—a man with a bag made of goat’s hide fastened
round his waist walking up and down the plot and scattering the
seed as he went. It was a positive relief to see one of these
dreadful people do anything so homely and pleasant as sow a
field, perhaps because it seemed to link them, as it were, with
the rest of humanity.

As we were returning Billali met us, and informed us that it was
_She’s_ pleasure that we should wait upon her, and accordingly we
entered her presence, not without trepidation, for Ayesha was
certainly an exception to the rule. Familiarity with her might
and did breed passion and wonder and horror, but it certainly did
_not_ breed contempt.

We were as usual shown in by the mutes, and after these had
retired Ayesha unveiled, and once more bade Leo embrace her,
which, notwithstanding his heart-searchings of the previous
night, he did with more alacrity and fervour than in strictness
courtesy required.

She laid her white hand on his head, and looked him fondly in the
eyes. “Dost thou wonder, my Kallikrates,” she said, “when thou
shalt call me all thine own, and when we shall of a truth be for
one another and to one another? I will tell thee. First, must
thou be even as I am, not immortal indeed, for that I am not, but
so cased and hardened against the attacks of Time that his arrows
shall glance from the armour of thy vigorous life as the sunbeams
glance from water. As yet I may not mate with thee, for thou and
I are different, and the very brightness of my being would burn
thee up, and perchance destroy thee. Thou couldst not even endure
to look upon me for too long a time lest thine eyes should ache,
and thy senses swim, and therefore” (with a little nod) “shall I
presently veil myself again.” (This by the way she did not do.)
“No: listen, thou shalt not be tried beyond endurance, for this
very evening, an hour before the sun goes down, shall we start
hence, and by to-morrow’s dark, if all goes well, and the road is
not lost to me, which I pray it may not be, shall we stand in the
place of Life, and thou shalt bathe in the fire, and come forth
glorified, as no man ever was before thee, and then, Kallikrates,
shalt thou call me wife, and I will call thee husband.”

Leo muttered something in answer to this astonishing statement, I
do not know what, and she laughed a little at his confusion, and
went on.

“And thou, too, oh Holly; on thee also will I confer this boon,
and then of a truth shalt thou be evergreen, and this will I
do—well, because thou hast pleased me, Holly, for thou art not
altogether a fool, like most of the sons of men, and because,
though thou hast a school of philosophy as full of nonsense as
those of the old days, yet hast thou not forgotten how to turn a
pretty phrase about a lady’s eyes.”

“Hulloa, old fellow!” whispered Leo, with a return of his old
cheerfulness, “have you been paying compliments? I should never
have thought it of you!”

“I thank thee, oh Ayesha,” I replied, with as much dignity as I
could command, “but if there be such a place as thou dost
describe, and if in this strange place there may be found a fiery
virtue that can hold off Death when he comes to pluck us by the
hand, yet would I none of it. For me, oh Ayesha, the world has
not proved so soft a nest that I would lie in it for ever. A
stony-hearted mother is our earth, and stones are the bread she
gives her children for their daily food. Stones to eat and bitter
water for their thirst, and stripes for tender nurture. Who would
endure this for many lives? Who would so load up his back with
memories of lost hours and loves, and of his neighbour’s sorrows
that he cannot lessen, and wisdom that brings not consolation?
Hard is it to die, because our delicate flesh doth shrink back
from the worm it will not feel, and from that unknown which the
winding-sheet doth curtain from our view. But harder still, to my
fancy, would it be to live on, green in the leaf and fair, but
dead and rotten at the core, and feel that other secret worm of
recollection gnawing ever at the heart.”

“Bethink thee, Holly,” she said; “yet doth long life and strength
and beauty beyond measure mean power and all things that are dear
to man.”

“And what, oh Queen,” I answered, “are those things that are dear
to man? Are they not bubbles? Is not ambition but an endless
ladder by which no height is ever climbed till the last
unreachable rung is mounted? For height leads on to height, and
there is no resting-place upon them, and rung doth grow upon
rung, and there is no limit to the number. Doth not wealth
satiate, and become nauseous, and no longer serve to satisfy or
pleasure, or to buy an hour’s peace of mind? And is there any end
to wisdom that we may hope to reach it? Rather, the more we
learn, shall we not thereby be able only to better compass out
our ignorance? Did we live ten thousand years could we hope to
solve the secrets of the suns, and of the space beyond the suns,
and of the Hand that hung them in the heavens? Would not our
wisdom be but as a gnawing hunger calling our consciousness day
by day to a knowledge of the empty craving of our souls? Would it
not be but as a light in one of these great caverns, that, though
bright it burn, and brighter yet, doth but the more serve to show
the depths of the gloom around it? And what good thing is there
beyond that we may gain by length of days?”

“Nay, my Holly, there is love—love which makes all things
beautiful, and doth breathe divinity into the very dust we tread.
With love shall life roll gloriously on from year to year, like
the voice of some great music that hath power to hold the
hearer’s heart poised on eagles’ wings above the sordid shame and
folly of the earth.”

“It may be so,” I answered; “but if the loved one prove a broken
reed to pierce us, or if the love be loved in vain—what then?
Shall a man grave his sorrows upon a stone when he hath but need
to write them on the water? Nay, oh _She_, I will live my day,
and grow old with my generation, and die my appointed death, and
be forgotten. For I do hope for an immortality to which the
little span that perchance thou canst confer will be but as a
finger’s length laid against the measure of the great world; and,
mark this! the immortality to which I look, and which my faith
doth promise me, shall be free from the bonds that here must tie
my spirit down. For, while the flesh endures, sorrow and evil and
the scorpion whips of sin must endure also; but when the flesh
hath fallen from us, then shall the spirit shine forth clad in
the brightness of eternal good, and for its common air shall
breathe so rare an ether of most noble thoughts that the highest
aspiration of our manhood, or the purest incense of a maiden’s
prayer, would prove too earthly gross to float therein.”

“Thou lookest high,” answered Ayesha, with a little laugh, “and
speakest clearly as a trumpet and with no uncertain sound. And
yet methinks that but now didst thou talk of ‘that Unknown’ from
which the winding-sheet doth curtain us. But perchance, thou
seest with the eye of Faith, gazing on that brightness, that is
to be, through the painted-glass of thy imagination. Strange are
the pictures of the future that mankind can thus draw with this
brush of faith and this many-coloured pigment of imagination!
Strange, too, that no one of them doth agree with another! I
could tell thee—but there, what is the use? why rob a fool of his
bauble? Let it pass, and I pray, oh Holly, that when thou dost
feel old age creeping slowly toward thyself, and the confusion of
senility making havoc in thy brain, thou mayest not bitterly
regret that thou didst cast away the imperial boon I would have
given to thee. But so it hath ever been; man can never be content
with that which his hand can pluck. If a lamp be in his reach to
light him through the darkness, he must needs cast it down
because it is no star. Happiness danceth ever apace before him,
like the marsh-fires in the swamps, and he must catch the fire,
and he must hold the star! Beauty is naught to him, because there
are lips more honey-sweet; and wealth is naught, because others
can weigh him down with heavier shekels; and fame is naught,
because there have been greater men than he. Thyself thou saidst
it, and I turn thy words against thee. Well, thou dreamest that
thou shalt pluck the star. I believe it not, and I think thee a
fool, my Holly, to throw away the lamp.”

I made no answer, for I could not—especially before Leo—tell her
that since I had seen her face I knew that it would always be
before my eyes, and that I had no wish to prolong an existence
which must always be haunted and tortured by her memory, and by
the last bitterness of unsatisfied love. But so it was, and so,
alas, is it to this hour!

“And now,” went on _She_, changing her tone and the subject
together, “tell me, my Kallikrates, for as yet I know it not, how
came ye to seek me here? Yesternight thou didst say that
Kallikrates—him whom thou sawest—was thine ancestor. How was it?
Tell me—thou dost not speak overmuch!”

Thus adjured, Leo told her the wonderful story of the casket and
of the potsherd that, written on by his ancestress, the Egyptian
Amenartas, had been the means of guiding us to her. Ayesha
listened intently, and, when he had finished, spoke to me.

“Did I not tell thee one day, when we did talk of good and evil,
oh Holly—it was when my beloved lay so ill—that out of good came
evil, and out of evil good—that they who sowed knew not what the
crop should be, nor he who struck where the blow should fall?
See, now: this Egyptian Amenartas, this royal child of the Nile
who hated me, and whom even now I hate, for in a way she did
prevail against me—see, now, she herself hath been the very means
to bring her lover to mine arms! For her sake I slew him, and
now, behold, through her he hath come back to me! She would have
done me evil, and sowed her seeds that I might reap tares, and
behold she hath given me more than all the world can give, and
there is a strange square for thee to fit into thy circle of good
and evil, oh Holly!

“And so,” she went on, after a pause—“and so she bade her son
destroy me if he might, because I slew his father. And thou, my
Kallikrates, art the father, and in a sense thou art likewise the
son; and wouldst thou avenge thy wrong, and the wrong of that
far-off mother of thine, upon me, oh Kallikrates? See,” and she
slid to her knees, and drew the white corsage still farther down
her ivory bosom—“see, here beats my heart, and there by thy side
is a knife, heavy, and long, and sharp, the very knife to slay an
erring woman with. Take it now, and be avenged. Strike, and
strike home!—so shalt thou be satisfied, Kallikrates, and go
through life a happy man, because thou hast paid back the wrong,
and obeyed the mandate of the past.”

He looked at her, and then stretched out his hand and lifted her
to her feet.

“Rise, Ayesha,” he said sadly; “well thou knowest that I cannot
strike thee, no, not even for the sake of her whom thou slewest
but last night. I am in thy power, and a very slave to thee. How
can I kill thee?—sooner should I slay myself.”

“Almost dost thou begin to love me, Kallikrates,” she answered,
smiling. “And now tell me of thy country—’tis a great people, is
it not? with an empire like that of Rome! Surely thou wouldst
return thither, and it is well, for I mean not that thou shouldst
dwell in these caves of Kôr. Nay, when once thou art even as I
am, we will go hence—fear not but that I shall find a path—and
then shall we journey to this England of thine, and live as it
becometh us to live. Two thousand years have I waited for the day
when I should see the last of these hateful caves and this
gloomy-visaged folk, and now it is at hand, and my heart bounds
up to meet it like a child’s towards its holiday. For thou shalt
rule this England——”

“But we have a queen already,” broke in Leo, hastily.

“It is naught, it is naught,” said Ayesha; “she can be
overthrown.”

At this we both broke out into an exclamation of dismay, and
explained that we should as soon think of overthrowing ourselves.

“But here is a strange thing,” said Ayesha, in astonishment; “a
queen whom her people love! Surely the world must have changed
since I dwelt in Kôr.”

Again we explained that it was the character of monarchs that had
changed, and that the one under whom we lived was venerated and
beloved by all right-thinking people in her vast realms. Also, we
told her that real power in our country rested in the hands of
the people, and that we were in fact ruled by the votes of the
lower and least educated classes of the community.

“Ah,” she said, “a democracy—then surely there is a tyrant, for I
have long since seen that democracies, having no clear will of
their own, in the end set up a tyrant, and worship him.”

“Yes,” I said, “we have our tyrants.”

“Well,” she answered resignedly, “we can at any rate destroy
these tyrants, and Kallikrates shall rule the land.”

I instantly informed Ayesha that in England “blasting” was not an
amusement that could be indulged in with impunity, and that any
such attempt would meet with the consideration of the law and
probably end upon a scaffold.

“The law,” she laughed with scorn—“the law! Canst thou not
understand, oh Holly, that I am above the law, and so shall my
Kallikrates be also? All human law will be to us as the north
wind to a mountain. Does the wind bend the mountain, or the
mountain the wind?”

“And now leave me, I pray thee, and thou too, my own Kallikrates,
for I would get me ready against our journey, and so must ye
both, and your servant also. But bring no great quantity of
things with thee, for I trust that we shall be but three days
gone. Then shall we return hither, and I will make a plan whereby
we can bid farewell for ever to these sepulchres of Kôr. Yea,
surely thou mayst kiss my hand!”

So we went, I, for one, meditating deeply on the awful nature of the problem that now opened out before us. The terrible _She_ had evidently made up her mind to go to England, and it made me absolutely shudder to think what would be the result of her arrival there. What her powers were I knew, and I could not doubt but that she would exercise them to the full. It might be possible to control her for a while, but her proud, ambitious spirit would be certain to break loose and avenge itself for the long centuries of its solitude. She would, if necessary, and if the power of her beauty did not unaided prove equal to the occasion, blast her way to any end she set before her, and, as she could not die, and for aught I knew could not even be killed,[1] what was there to stop her? In the end she would, I had little doubt, assume absolute rule over the British dominions, and probably over the whole earth, and, though I was sure that she would speedily make ours the most glorious and prosperous empire that the world has ever seen, it would be at the cost of a terrible sacrifice of life.

[1] I regret to say that I was never able to ascertain if _She_ was invulnerable against the ordinary accidents of life. Presumably this was so, else some misadventure would have been sure to put an end to her in the course of so many centuries. True, she offered to let Leo slay her, but very probably this was only an experiment to try his temper and mental attitude towards her. Ayesha never gave way to impulse without some valid object.—L. H. H.

The whole thing sounded like a dream or some extraordinary
invention of a speculative brain, and yet it was a fact—a
wonderful fact—of which the whole world would soon be called on
to take notice. What was the meaning of it all? After much
thinking I could only conclude that this marvellous creature,
whose passion had kept her for so many centuries chained as it
were, and comparatively harmless, was now about to be used by
Providence as a means to change the order of the world, and
possibly, by the building up of a power that could no more be
rebelled against or questioned than the decrees of Fate, to
change it materially for the better.