Part 20 (1/2)
”We have sought to look through the bottos which the Great-Great in Heaven above did not mean that men should see, and now that we have seen we are unhappier than ere, since such dreams burn themselves upon the heart as a red-hot iron burns the hide of an ox, so that the hair will never grow again where it has been and the hide is ht, I say, 'Content yourself with your watching and whatever itto you in fame and wealth' And to myself I say, 'Holder of the Axe, content yourself with the axe and what it lory'; and to both of us I say, 'Let the Dead sleep unawakened until we go to join theh'”
”Good words, Uaas, but they should have been spoken ere ever we set out on this journey”
”Not so, Macumazahn, since that journey ere fated to make to save one who lies yonder, the Lady Sad-Eyes, and, as they tell ain Also Zikali willed it, and who can resist the will of the Opener-of-Roads? So it is lory and come to kno deep is the pool of our own foolishness, who thought that we could search out the secrets of Death, and there have only found those of a witch'sdiscovered all these things I wish to be gone from this haunted land When do we , I believe, if the Lady Sad-Eyes and the others are well enough, as She-who-commands says they will be”
”Good Then I would sleep who am more weary than I was after I had killed Rezu in the battle on the ht ghosts than men, and dreaht, Uaas”
He went, and I too went to see how it fared with Inez I found that she was fast asleep but in a quite different sleep to that into which Ayesha seeed her Noas absolutely natural and looking at her lying there upon the bed, I thought how young and healthy was her appearance The woe of her also told me that she had awakened at the hour appointed by She-who-coh she appeared to be puzzled by her surroundings After she had eaten, they added that she had ”sung a song,” which was probably a hyns upon her breast” and then gone quietly to bed
My anxiety relieved as regards Inez, I returned toinclined for slu in I sat at the doorway conteht while I watched the countless fireflies that seereat owls and other fowl that haunt the dark These had co the ruins and sailed to and fro like white-winged spirits, now seen and now lost in the gloom
While I sat thus many reflections came tothe past few days Had any man ever known the like, I wondered? What could they mean and what could this marvellous woman Ayesha be? Was she perhaps a personification of Nature itself, as indeed to some extent all women are? Was she hu a departed people, faith and civilisation, and haunting the ruins where once she reigned as queen? No, the idea was ridiculous, since such beings do not exist, though it was impossible to doubt that she possessed powers beyond those of coreater than are given to any other wo I was certain, however, that the Shades I had seeination and intelligence There Uht; we had seen no dead, we had only seen pictures and ies that she drew and fashi+oned
Why did she do this, I wondered Perhaps to pretend to pohich she did not possess, perhaps out of sheer elfish mischief, or perhaps, as she asserted, just to teach us a lesson and to huht Well, if so she had succeeded, for never did I feel so crushed and humiliated as at that moment
I had seemed to descend, or ascend, into Hades, and there had only seen things that gave me little joy and did but serve to reopen old wounds Then, on awaking, I had been bewitched; yes, fresh from those visions of the ic of this woman's loveliness and charht back to my senses by her triumphantis that I could not feel angry with her, and what is more that, perhaps from vanity, I believed in her profession of friendshi+p towards aas,else in the world did I desire to depart from this haunted Kor and to bury all its recollections in such activities as fortuneto me And yet, and yet it ell to have seen it and to have plucked the flower of such marvellous experience, nor, as I knew even then, could I ever inter the memory of Ayesha the wise, the perfect in all loveliness, and the half-divine in power
When I awoke the nextthe sun ell up and after I had taken a swim in the old bath and dressed myself, I went to see how it fared with Inez I found her sitting at the door of her house looking extre a chain of some small and beautiful blue flowers of the iris tribe, of which quantities grew about, that she threaded together upon stalks of dry grass
This chain, which was just finished, she threw over her head so that it hung down upon her white robe, for now she was dressed like an Arab woh without the veil I watched her unseen for a little while then caht of h to run away; then, apparently reassured by my appearance, selected a particularly fine flower and offered it to me
I saw at once that she did not know ht that she had never seen one, exactly as Ayesha had said that it would do By way ofconversation I asked her if she felt well She replied, Oh, yes, she had never felt better, then added, ”Daddy has gone on a long journey and will not be back for weeks and weeks”
An idea came to me and I answered, ”Yes, Inez, but I am a friend of his and he has sent me to take you to a place where I hope that we shall find hi journey”
She clapped her hands and answered, ”Oh, that will be nice, I do so love travelling, especially to find Daddy, who I expect will have h they are very comfortable and pretty, seem different to what I used to wear You look very nice too and I alad of, for I have been rather lonely since my mother went to live with the saints in Heaven, because, you see, Daddy is so busy and so often away, that I do not see much of him”
Upon my word I could have hen I heard her prattle on thus It is so terribly unnatural, alroohts of a child However, under all the circunised that her cala that Ayesha had prophesied the recovery of her reat seemed to be her powers in these directions, I took such co her I went to see the two Zulus who had been wounded and found to my joy that they were now quite well and fit to travel, for here, too, Ayesha's prophecy had proved good The other one like U my breakfast Hans announced the venerable Billali, ith a sweeping bow informed me that he had come to inquire e should be ready to start, as he had received orders to see to all the necessary arrangements I replied-within an hour, and he departed in a hurry
But little after the appointed time he reappeared with a nuuard of twenty-five picked ht well in the battle Thesetheuide, carry and escort us to the other side of the great swamp, or further if we needed it, and that it was the word of She-who-commands that if so much as the smallest harm came to any one of us, even by accident, they should die every ht be, for I was not sure of the significance of this horror[] Then he asked them if they understood They replied with fervour that they understood perfectly and would lead and guard us as though ere their own mothers
[] For this see the book called ”She”-Editor
As a matter of fact they did, and I think would have done so independently of Ayesha's coaas and ht that we could destroy them all if ished, as we had destroyed Rezu and his host
I asked Billali if he were not co with us, to which he replied, No, as She-who-commands had returned to her own place and he ain where her own place uely that it was everywhere and he stared first at the heavens and then at the earth as though she inhabited enerally it was ”in the Caves,” though what he lad to haveRezu was a spectacle that he would remember with pleasure all his life Also he asked ave him a spare pencil that I possessed in a little Gerhted Thus I parted with old Billali, of whom I shall always think with a certain affection
I noticed even then that he kept very clear indeed of Uht take a last opportunity to fulfil his threats and introduce him to his terrible Axe
CHAPTER XXIV
UMSLOPOGAAS WEARS THE GREAT MEDICINE
A little while later we started, so the wounded Zulus, who I insisted should be carried for a day or two, and some on foot Inez I caused to be borne immediately in front of myself so that I could keep an eye upon her Moreover I put her in the especial charge of Hans, to whoreat fancy at once, perhaps because she remembered subconsciously that she knew hih when they nise hiain the fastest of friends, so much so that within a day or two the little Hottentot practically filled the place of aafter her exactly as a nurse does after a child, with the result that it was quite touching to see how she came to depend upon hirew of her
Once, indeed, there was trouble, since hearing a noise, I ca to shoot one of the Zulus, who stupidly, or perhaps rudely, had knocked against the litter of Inez and nearly turned it over For the rest, the Lady Sad-Eyes, as they called her, had for the time beca, laughing and singing and playing just as a healthy happy child should do
Only once did I see her wretched and weep It hen a kitten which she had insisted on bringing with her, sprang out of the litter and vanished into some bush where it could not be found Even when she was soon consoled and dried her tears, when Hans explained to her in a uese, that it had only run away because it wished to get back to its mother which it loved, and that it was cruel to separate it fro of the first day were over the crest of the cliff or volcano lip that encircles the great plain of Kor, and descending rapidly to a sheltered spot on the outer slope where our caht
Not very far from this place, as I think I have mentioned, stood, and I suppose still stands, a very curious pinnacle of rock, which, doubtless being of some harder sort, had remained when, hundreds of thousands orlava had been washed or had corroded away This rock pillar was perhaps fifty feet high and as sh it had been worked by aas-I forget which-e passed it on our inward journey, that there was a column which no monkey could climb
As ent by it for the second time, the sun had already disappeared behind the western cliff, but a fierce ray fro over us, and thence was reflected in a glow of angry light of which the focus or centre seee and obelisk-like pinnacle of rock
At the aas at the end of the line, todarkness When we had passed the coluaas to turn and look back He uttered an exclamation which made me follow his exa For there on the point of the pillar, like St Si in the sunset rays as though she were on fire, stood Ayesha herself!
It was a strange and in a way a glorious sight, for poised thus between earth and heaven, she looked like so as she seemed to do upon the darkness; since the shadows, save for the faintest outline, had sed up the coluht that was focussed on her, we could see every detail of her fore and tender eyes which gazed upwards emptily (at this old studs that glittered on her sandals and the shi+ne of the snake girdle she wore about her waist
We stared and stared till I said inconsequently, ”Learn, Uaas, what a liar is that old Billali, who told me that She-who-commands had departed froe is her own place, if she be there at all, Macurily, for my nerves were at once thrilled and torn ”Speak not eaas, for where else can she be e see her with our eyes?”
”Who am I that I should know the ways of witches who, like the winds, are able to go and come as they will? Can a woman run up a wall of rock like a lizard, Macuan so cloud, or I know not what, cut off the light so that both the pinnacle and she who stood on it became invisible A minute later it returned for a little while, and there was the point of the needle-shaped rock, but it was empty, as, save for the birds that rested on it, it had been since the beginning of the world
Then Uaas and I shook our heads and pursued our way in silence
This was the last that I saw of the glorious Ayesha, if indeed I did see her and not her ghost Yet it is true that for all the first part of the journey, till ere through the great swained that I was conscious of her presence Moreover, once others saw her, or soht have been her It happened thus
We were in the centre of the great swa came to a place where the path forked and were uncertain which road to take Finally they fixed on the right-hand path and were preparing to follow it together with those who bore the litter of Inez, by the side of which Hans alking as usual
At this uides went down upon their faces and he saw standing in front of them a white-veiled form who pointed to the left-hand path, and then seeuides rose and followed this left-hand path Hans stopped the litter till I caan to chatter in her childish fashi+on about a ”White Lady”
I had the curiosity to walk a little way along the right-hand path which they were about to take Only a few yards further on I found mire, from which I extricated myself with much difficulty but just in ti with a pole, the water beneath the uides upon the subject, but without result, for they pretended to have seen nothing and not to understand what I meant Of neither of these incidents have I any explanation to offer, except that once contracted, it is as difficult to be rid of the habit of hallucinations as of any other
It is not necessary that I should give all the details of our long ho disround beyond the horrible swa one litter for Inez in which the Zulus carried her when she was tired, we acco crossed the Za reached the house called Strathon and oxen quite safe and elcomed rapturously by my Zulu driver and the voorlooper, who hadof trekking hoh I think that, like the Zulus, he was astonished at our safe return and indeed not over-pleased to see us I told hiht in which we had rescued his daughter from the cannibals who had carried her off (infor else that I could help
Also I warned the Zulus through Uaas and Goroko, that no mention was to be made of our adventures, either then or afterwards, since if this were done the curse of the White Queen would fall on the them to disaster and death I added that the na that was connected with her, or her doings, must be locked up in their own hearts It s, not to be spoken Nor indeed did they ever speak it or tell the story of our search, because they were too reatest of all witches, and of the axe of their captain, U to recognise her old home, to all appearance just a mindless child as she had been ever since she awoke fro, however, Hans caed and that she wished to speak with -room, dressed in European clothes which she had taken fro woman