Part 21 (1/2)
CHAPTER XXIII
THE YIELDING OF AYESHA
When I had satisfied myself, Leo was still at his meal, for loss of blood or the effects of the tremendous nerve tonic which Ayesha ordered to be administered to him, had made him ravenous
I watched his face and becae indeed, but one, I think, that had coh I only fully appreciated it now, after our short separation In addition to the thinness of which I have spoken, his handsorown s that were to coer that of the Leo hohty-li-man who had chanced to love and be loved of a spiritual power incarnated in a ht of Nature's self These things were still present indeed, but the e came fro like to that which often hovered upon hers at rest
She also atching him, with speculative, dreah her, I saw those eyes blaze up, and the red blood pour to cheek and brow Yes, the hty Ayesha whose dead, slain for him, lay strewn by the thousand on yonder plain, blushed and trembled like a maiden at her first lover's kiss
Leo rose from the table ”I would that I had been with thee in the fray,” he said
”At the drift there was fighting,” she answered, ”afterwards none My ministers of Fire, Earth and Air smote, no more; I waked them from their sleep and at my command they smote for thee and saved thee”
”Many lives to take for one ht pained him
”Had they been millions and not thousands, I would have spent them every one On my head be their deaths, not on thine Or rather on hers,” and she pointed to the dead Atene ”Yes, on hers who made this war At least she should thank h the darkness”
”Yet it is terrible,” said Leo, ”to think of thee, beloved, red to the hair with slaughter”
”What reck I?” she answered with a splendid pride ”Let their blood suffice to wash the stain of thy blood from off these cruel hands that once did murder thee”
”Who a with himself, ”I who but yesterday killed two men-to save myself from treachery”
”Speak not of it,” she exclaie ”I saw the place and, Holly, thou knowest hoore that a hundred lives should pay for every drop of that dear blood of thine, and I, who lie not, have kept the oath Look now on that man who stands yonder struck by ain as he about to do to thee when I entered here?”
”To take vengeance on me for the doom of his queen and of her armies,” answered Leo, ”and Ayesha, hoest thou that a Power higher than thine oill not demand it yet?”
As he spoke a pale shadow flickered on Leo's face, such a shadow as , and in the fixed eyes of the Shaman there shone a stony smile
For a one as quickly as it came
”Nay,” she said ”I ordain that it shall not be, and save One who listeth not, what power reigns in this wide earth that dare defy my will?”
So she spoke, and as her words of awful pride-for they were very awful-rang round that stone-built chamber, a vision came to me-Holly
I saw illi suns, and sunk in the infinite void above them one vast Countenance clad in a calness Yes, and I knew that this was Destiny enthroned above the spheres Those lips moved and obedient worlds rushed upon their course Theychariots of the heavens were turned or stayed, appeared or disappeared I knew also that against this cal, woman or spirit, at th My soul reeled I was afraid
The dread phantas in new, triuht of dread; dawns the day of victory! Look!” and she pointed through the -places shattered by the hurricane, to the fla town beneath, whence rose one continual wail oftheir countless slain while the fire roared through their ho demon ”Look Leo on the smoke of the first sacrifice that I offer to thy royal state and listen to its ive thee others Thou lovest war Good! ill go down to war and the rebellious cities of the earth shall be the torches of our march”
She paused a ht with the prescience of ungarnered splendours; then like a swooping s flitted to where, by dead Atene, the gold circlet fallen from the Khania's hair lay upon the floor
She stooped, lifted it, and coh above his head Slowly she let her hand fall until the glittering coronet rested for an instant on his brow Then she spoke, in her glorious voice that rolled out rich and low, a very paean of triumph and of power
”By this poor, earthly sy of Earth; yea in its round for thee is gathered all her rule Be thou its king, and ain it sank, and again she said or rather chanted-”With this unbroken ring, token of eternity, I swear to thee the boon of endless days Endure thou while the world endures, and be its lord, and mine”
A third tiolden round I do endow thee with Wisdoold uncountable, that is the talisman whereat all nature's secret paths shall open to thy feet Victorious, victorious, tread thou her wondrous ith me, till from her topmost peak at last she wafts us to our immortal throne whereof the columns twain are Life and Death”
Then Ayesha cast away the crown and lo! it fell upon the breast of the lost Atene and rested there
”Art content with these gifts of mine, my lord?” she cried
Leo looked at her sadly and shook his head
”What more wilt thou then? Ask and I swear it shall be thine”
”Thou swearest; but wilt thou keep the oath?”
”Aye, by th that bred rant-then if I refuse it to thee, may such destruction fall uponsoul”
I heard and I think that another heard also, at least once more the stony smile shone in the eyes of the Shaive Ayesha, I ask of thee thyself-not at some distant time when I have been bathed in a ht”
She shrank back froh dismayed
”Surely,” she said slowly, ”I a abroad to read the destinies of nations in the stars, fell down a pitfall dug by idle children and broke his bones and perished there Never did I guess that with all these glories stretched before thee likea stairway for thy mortal feet to the very dome of heaven, thou wouldst still clutch at thy native earth and seek of it-but the coht that thy soul was set upon nobler aims, that thou wouldst pray h they were but yonder fallen door of wood and iron, I should break for thee the bars of Hades, and like the Eurydice of old fable draw thee living down the steeps of Death, or throne thee midst the fires of the furthest sun to watch its subject worlds at play
”Or I thought that thou wouldst bid me reveal what no woman ever told, the bitter, naked truth-allfancies of ht; even what thou knowest not and perchance ne'er shalt knoho I am and whence I cae from foul to fair, and what is the purpose of ry Goddess-who never was except in dreaht, save that thou wert far other than thou art, h a lory can throide and with s Yet thy prayer is but the same that the whole world whispers beneath the silentthe snows and on the burning desert's waste 'Oh! my love, thy lips, thy lips Oh! my love, be mine, no, beneath the her, of thee”
”Mayhap, Ayesha, thou wouldest have thought worse of me had I been content with thy suns and constellations and spiritual gifts and dominations that I neither desire nor understand
”If I had said to thee: Be thou el, not my wife; divide the ocean that I row the stars; telland of death and instruct ive up the races of mankind to my sword, and the wealth of all the earth to fill my treasuries Teach me also how to drive the hurricane as thou canst do, and to bend the laws of nature to my purpose: on earth make me half a God-as thou art
”But Ayesha, I am no God; I am a man, and as a man I seek the wos of thy power-that pohich strews thy path with dead and keeps et the areatness and be a woman and-my wife”