Part 16 (2/2)
”Nay, I will not tempt thee with these common lures Go, Leo, if thou wilt Go, my love, and leave me to my loneliness and , when thou canst cross the ain, and to those things of common life which are thy joy See, Leo, I veilthe corner of her cloak about her head, then asked a sudden question through it-”Didst thou not but now return to the Sanctuary with Holly after I bade thee leaveby its doors”
”Yes, we came to seek thee,” he answered
”And found ht, as often chances to the bold-is it not so? Well, I willed that ye should coht have died”
”What didst thou there upon the throne, and whose were those for before thee?” he asked coldly
”I have ruled in many shapes and lands, Leo Perchance they were ancient coain and to hear s Or perchance they were but shadows of thy brain, pictures like those upon the fire, that it pleased th and constancy
”Leo Vincey, kno the truth; that all things are illusions, even that there exists no future and no past, that what has been and what shall be already is eternally Know that I, Ayesha, aic wraith, foul when thou seest me foul, fair when thou seest hts in the sunshi+ne of thy sone in the shadow of thy frown Think of the throned Queen before whom the shadoers bowed and worshi+p, for that is I Think of the hideous, withered Thing thou sawest naked on the rock, and flee away, for that is I Or keepall evil centred in my spirit, for that is I Now, Leo, thou hast the truth Put me from thee for ever and for ever if thou wilt, and be safe; or clasp me, clasp me to thy heart, and in payment for my lips and love take my sin upon thy head! Nay, Holly, be thou silent, for now he ht, at first, to find the door But it was not so, for he did but walk up and down the room awhile Then he came back to where Ayesha stood, and spoke quite simply and in a very quiet voice, such as reat emotion
”Ayesha,” he said, ”when I saw thee as thou wast, aged and-thou knowest how-I clung to thee Nohen thou hast told me the secret of this unholy pact of thine, ithato thee Let thy sin, great or little-whate'er it is-be ht sink to h I have no vision or power of prophecy, I ah I be innocent, let me bear it for thy sake I am content”
Ayesha heard, the cloak slipped from her head, and for a moment she stood silent like one amazed, then burst into a passion of sudden tears Down she went before hiarments, she bowed her stately shape until her forehead touched the ground Yes, that proud being, as more than mortal, whose nostrils but now had drunk the incense of the hohosts or spirits, humbled herself at this man's feet
With an exclaht, Leo sprang to one side, then stooping, lifted and led her still weeping to the couch
”Thou knowest not what thou hast done,” Ayesha said at last ”Let all thou sawest on the Mountain's crest or in the Sanctuary be but visions of the night; let that tale of an offended Goddess be a parable, a fable, if thou wilt This at least is true, that ages since I sinned for thee and against thee and another; that ages since I bought beauty and life indefinite ith I ht win thee and endow thee at a cost which feould dare; that I have paid interest on the debt, in mockery, utter loneliness, and daily pain which scarce could be endured, until the bond fell due at last and must be satisfied
”Yes, how I may not tell thee, thou and thou alone stoodst between e of this iven to us to redeem one another”
Noould have spoken, but with a motion of her hand she bade hiers has thy body passed of late upon its journey to my side; the Death-hounds, the Mountains, and the Precipice Know that these were but types and ordained foreshadowings of the last threefold trial of thy soul Fro passions of Atene which must have undone us both, thou hast escaped victorious Thou hast endured the desert loneliness of the sands and snows starving for a comfort that never came Even when the avalanche thundered round thee thy faith stood fast as it stood above the Pit of fla flood of horror sed up thy hopes As thou didst descend the glacier's steep, not knohat lay beneath that fearful path, so but now and of thine own choice, for very love ofinto an abyss that is deeper far, to share its terrors with , not all, I think,” he answered slowly
”Surely thou art wrapped in a double veil of blindness,” she cried iain: ”Hadst thou yielded to Nature's crying and rejected me but yesterday, in that foul shape Ithe poor part of priestess of a forgotten faith This was the first temptation, the ordeal of thy flesh-nay, not the first-the second, for Atene and her lurings were the first But thou wast loyal, and in thelove my beauty and my woht, when, as I was bidden to do, I showed thee that vision in the Sanctuary and confessed to thee my soul's black crime, then hopeless and helpless, unshi+elded by my earthly power, I ht of solitude This was the third appointed test, the trial of thy spirit, and by thy steadfastness, Leo, thou hast loosed the hand of Destiny froh thee ain for some true life beyond, which thou shalt share And yet, and yet, if thou shouldst suffer, as well may chance--”
”Then I suffer, and there's an end,” broke in Leo serenely ”Save for a few things my mind is clear, and there must be justice for us all at last If I have broken the bond that bound thee, if I have freed thee fro a risk upon my head, well, I have not lived, and if need be, shall not die in vain So let us have done with all these problems, or rather first answer thou ed upon that peak?”
”In flame I left thee, Leo, and in flame I did return, as in flae was in the eyes of all of you atched, and not in this shape of mine I have answered Seek to learn noI do still seek to learn Ayesha, ere betrothed to-night When wilt thou marry me?”
”Not yet, not yet,” she answered hurriedly, her voice quivering as she spoke ”Leo, thou hts awhile, and for some few months, a year perchance, be content to play the part of friend and lover”
”Why so?” he asked, with bitter disappointment ”Ayesha, those parts have been er, and, unlike thee, shall soon be old Also, life is fleeting, and sometimes I think that I near its end”
”Speak no such evil-o her sandalled foot upon the ground in anger born of fear ”Yet thou sayest truth; thou art unfortified against the accidents of tiain, and leave ive ladly, all of it, couldst thou but repay me with the boon of death to come
”Oh! ye poor mortals,” she went on, with a sudden burst of passion; ”ye beseech your Gods for the gift of norant that ye would sow a seed within your breasts whence ye arner ten thousand miseries Know ye not that this world is indeed the wide house of hell, in whose chambers from time to tihast, speeds wailing to the peace that it has won
”Think then what it is to live on here eternally and yet be hue in soul and see our beloved die and pass to lands whither we may not hope to follow; to hile drop by drop the curse of the long centuries falls upon our i on a diaetful of us, and again sink from our helpless arms into the void unknowable
”Think what it is to see the sins we sin, the te look, the word idle or unkind-aye, even the selfish thought or struggle, multiplied ten thousandfold andup upon the universal bosom of the earth to be the bane of a er writes its endless count, and a cold voice of Justice cries in our conscience-haunted solitude, 'Oh! soul unshriven, behold the ripening harvest thy wanton hand did scatter, and long in vain for the waters of forgetfulness'
”Think what it is to have every earthly wisdoht; to gather up all wealth and power and let theain, like children weary of a painted toy; to sweep the harp of fa music, to staoblet and find its wine is sand, and at length, outworn, to cast us down and pray the pitiless Gods hose stolen garain, and suffer us to slink naked to the grave
”Such is the life thou askest, Leo Say, wilt thou have it now?”
”If it may be shared with thee,” he answered ”These woes are born of loneliness, but then our perfect fellowshi+p would turn them into joy”
”Aye,” she said, ”while it was per, when the snows ether to Libya, and there thou shalt be bathed in the Fount of Life, that forbidden Essence of which once thou didst fear to drink Afterwards I ed thee”
”That place is closed for ever, Ayesha”
”Not to my feet and thine,” she answered ”Fear not, my love, were this h it with mine eyes and lay its secret bare Oh! would that thou wast as I a pillar thunder by, and thou shouldst taste its glory
”But it er or cold can starve thee, and waters droords can slay thee, or sickness sap away thy strength Had it not been for the false Atene, who disobeyed my words, as it was foredoomed that she should do, by this day ere across the h the frozen desert and the rivers Noeof the snows, for winter is at hand, and in it, as thou knowest, no htto cross the mountains and all the vast distances beyond, and the seas, and the swao by before we can even find the place;” and he fell to entreating her to let them be wed at once and journey afterwards
But she said, Nay, and nay, and nay, it should not be, till at length, as though fearing his pleading, or that of her own heart, she rose and dismissed us
”Ah! my Holly,” she said to me as we three parted, ”I promised thee and myself some few hours of rest and of the happiness of quiet, and thou seest how yptians ont to share their feasts with one grizzly skeleton, but here I counted four to-night that you both could see, and they are na, and Love-denied Doubtless also, when these are buried others will come to haunt us, and snatch the poor morsel from our lips
”So hath it ever been with s Yet I hope on, and now many a barrier lies behind us; and Leo, thou hast been tried in the appointed, triple fires and yet proved true Sweet be thy slumbers, O my love, and sweeter still thy dreams, for know, my soul shall share them I vow to thee that to-morroe'll be happy, aye, to-morroithout fail”
”Why will she not marry me at once?” asked Leo, ere alone in our chamber ”Because she is afraid,” I answered
CHAPTER XIX
LEO AND THE LEOPARD
During the weeks that followed these momentous days often and often I wondered tohad ever lived than the woman, or the spirit, e knew as She, Hes, and Ayesha Whether in fact also, or in our iination only, she had arisen froe into the full bloom of perpetual life and beauty inconceivable
These things at least were certain: Ayesha had achieved the secret of an existence so enduring that for all hu Within certain limitations-such as her utter inability to foresee the future-undoubtedly also, she was endued with powers that can only be described as supernatural