Part 7 (1/2)
And so on The flaonised eyes; the hissing sound of her terrible maledictions, and no words of mine can convey how terrible they were, ran round the walls and died away in little echoes, and the fierce light and deep gloom alternated themselves on the white and dreadful forth she seemed to wear herself out and cease She sat herself down upon the rocky floor, shook the dense cloud of her beautiful hair over her face and breast, and began to sob terribly in the torture of a heartrending despair
”Two thousand years,” she moaned--”two thousand years have I wanted and endured; but though century doth still creep on to century, and ti of ht of hope doth not shi+ne ht Oh! to have lived two thousand years, with allout my heart, and with etfulness! Oh, for the weary years that have been and are yet to come, and evermore to come, endless and without end!
”My love!thee back to me after this sort? For five hundred years I have not suffered thus Oh, if I sinned against thee, have I not wiped away the sin? When wilt thou coht? What is there that I can do? What? What? What? And perchance she-- perchance that Egyptian doth abide with thee where thou art, and mock my memory Oh, why could I not die with thee, I who slew thee? Alas, that I cannot die! Alas! Alas!” and she flung herself prone upon the ground, and sobbed and wept till I thought her heart must burst
Suddenly she ceased, raised herself to her feet, rearranged her robe, and, tossing back her long locks iure lay upon the stone
”Oh Kallikrates,” she cried, and I treh it be agony It is a generation since I looked upon thee whoers she seized the corner of the sheet-like wrapping that covered the forain, it was in a kind of ahisper, as though her idea were terrible even to herself
”Shall I raise thee,” she said, apparently addressing the corpse, ”so that thou standest there before me, as of old? I can do it,” and she held out her hands over the sheeted dead, while her whole frarew fixed and dull I shrank in horror behind the curtain, ination or a fact I aht that the quiet for sheet to lift as though it lay on the breast of one who slept Suddenly she withdrew her hands, and the motion of the corpse seelooood is it to recall the semblance of life when I cannot recall the spirit? Even if thou stoodest before me thou wouldst not know me, and couldst but do what I bid thee The life in thee would be my life, and not thy life, Kallikrates”
For a , and then cast herself down on her knees beside the forainst the sheet, and weep There was so wo loose her passion on the dead--so one before--that I could no longer bear to look at it, and, turning, began to creep, shaking as I was in every li inheart that I had seen a vision of a Soul in hell
On I stumbled, I scarcely knoice I fell, once I turned up the bisecting passage, but fortunately found out , till at last it occurred to me that I must have passed the little stair by which I had descended So, utterly exhausted, and nearly frightened to death, I sank down at length there on the stone flooring, and sank into oblivion
When I cae just behind me I crept to it, and found it was the little stair dohich the weak daas stealing Passing up it, I gainedmyself on the couch, was soon lost in slumber or rather stupor
XV
AYESHA GIVES JUDGMENT
The next thing that I re the form of Job, who had now practically recovered froht that pierced into the cave fro outthem, which he could not do because there was no brush, and then folding the theot , and opened it ready for my use First he stood it on the foot of the couch also, then, being afraid, I suppose, that I should kick it off, he placed it on a leopard skin on the floor, and stood back a step or two to observe the effect It was not satisfactory, so he shut up the bag, turned it on end, and, having rested it against the foot of the couch, placed the dressing-case on it Next he looked at the pots full of water, which constituted our washi+ng apparatus ”Ah!” I heard him murmur, ”no hot water in this beastly place I suppose these poor creatures only use it to boil each other in,” and he sighed deeply
”What is thepardon, sir,” he said, touching his hair ”I thought you were asleep, sir; and I aht think froht of it”
I only groaned by way of answer I had, indeed, been having a night of it, such as I hope never to have again
”How is Mr Leo, Job?”
”Much the same, sir If he don't soon h I e, Ustane, do do her best for hi round and looking after him, and if I ventures to interfere it's awful to see her; her hair seems to stand on end, and she curses and swears away in her heathen talk--at least I fancy she , from the look of her”
”And what do you do then?”
”Iwoman, your position is one that I don't quite understand, and can't recognise Let me tell you that I has a duty to perforoing to perform it until I am incapacitated too,' but she don't take no heed, not she--only curses and swears aorse than ever Last night she put her hand under that sort of night- shi+rt she wears and whips out a knife with a kind of a curl in the blade, so I whips out my revolver, and alks round and round each other till at last she bursts out laughing It isn't nice treate, however handsome she h” (Job laid great emphasis on the ”fools”) ”to cos no ment on us, sir--that's ment isn't half done yet, and when it is done we shall be done too, and just stop in these beastly caves with the ghosts and the corpseses for once and all And now, sir, Iabout Mr Leo's broth, if that wild cat will let et up, sir, because it's past nine o'clock”
Job's re order to a ht as I had; and, what iswith another, it appeared to me to be an utter impossibility that we should escape fro that Leo recovered, and supposing that She would let us go, which was exceedingly doubtful, and that she did not ”blast” us in some moment of vexation, and that ere not hot-potted by the Aer, it would be quite impossible for us to find our way across the network offor scores and scores of er and er households than any that could be built or designed byto do--face it out; and, speaking for my own part, I was so intensely interested in the whole weird story that, so far as I was concerned, notwithstanding the shattered state ofbetter, even if my life paid forfeit to y has charms could forbear to study such a character as that of this Ayesha when the opportunity of doing so presented itself? The very terror of the pursuit added to its fascination, and besides, as I was forced to own to ht of day, she herself had attractions that I could not forget Not even the dreadful sight which I had witnessed during the night could drive that folly from my mind; and alas! that I should have to admit it, it has not been driven thence to this hour
After I had dressedchaht to irl mutes When I had finished I went and saw poor Leo, as quite off his head, and did not even know ht he was; but she only shook her head and began to cry a little Evidently her hopes were small; and I then and there made up et She to come and see him Surely she would cure him if she chose--at any rate she said she could While I was in the room, Billali entered, and also shook his head
”He will die at night,” he said
”God forbid, my father,” I answered, and turned aith a heavy heart
”She-who-must-be-obeyed commands thy presence, ot to the curtain; ”but, oh my dear son, be more careful Yesterday I made sure in my heart that She would blast thee when thou didst not crawl upon thy storeat hall even now to do justice upon those ould have smitten thee and the Lion Come on, my son; come swiftly”
I turned, and followed hireat central cave saw that er, some robed, and some merely clad in the sweet siled with the throng, and walked up the enormous and, indeed, almost interminable cave All the way its walls were elaborately sculptured, and every twenty paces or so passages opened out of it at right angles, leading, Billali told me, to tombs, hollowed in the rock by ”the people ere before” nobody visited those tombs now, he said; and I ht of the opportunities of antiquarian research which opened out before me
At last we came to the head of the cave, where there was a rock das almost exactly similar to the one on which we had been so furiously attacked, a fact that proved to me that these das must have been used as altars, probably for the celebration of religious ceremonies, and more especially of rites connected with the interes leading, Billali informed me, to other caves full of dead bodies ”Indeed,” he added, ”the whole mountain is full of dead, and nearly all of thereat nu about in their peculiar gloomy fashi+on, which would have reduced Mark Tapley himself to misery in about five minutes On the das was a rude chair of black wood inlaid with ivory, having a seat rass fibre, and a footstool formed of a wooden slab attached to the framework of the chair
Suddenly there was a cry of ”Hiya! Hiya!” (”She! She!”), and thereupon the entire crowd of spectators instantly precipitated itself upon the ground, and lay still as though it were individually and collectively stricken dead, leavingthere like so string of guards began to defile froed themselves on either side of the das Then followed about a score oflaure, swathed fronised She herself She mounted the das and sat down upon the chair, and spoke to me in Greek, I suppose because she did not wish those present to understand what she said
”Come hither, oh Holly,” she said, ”and sit thou at my feet, and see ivesince I have heard the sound of it that htly to the words”
I bowed, and,the das, sat down at her feet
”How hast thou slept, my Holly?” she asked
”I slept not well, oh Ayesha!” I answered with perfect truth, and with an inward fear that perhaps she kne I had passed the heart of the night
”So,” she said, with a little laugh; ”I, too, have not slept well Last night I had dreams, and methinks that thou didst call them to me, oh Holly”
”Of what didst thou dream, Ayesha?” I asked indifferently
”I dreamed,” she answered quickly, ”of one I hate and one I love,” and then, as though to turn the conversation, she addressed the captain of her guard in Arabic: ”Let the ht before uard and her attendants did not prostrate the, and departed with his underlings down a passage to the right
Then came a silence She leaned her swathed head upon her hand and appeared to be lost in thought, while the rovel upon their sto their heads round a little so as to get a view of us with one eye It seemed that their Queen so rarely appeared in public that they illing to undergo this inconvenience, and even graver risks, to have the opportunity of looking on her, or rather on her gar man there except ht of the waving of lights, and heard the trauard, and with them the survivors of our would-be murderers, to the number of twenty or more, on whose countenances a natural expression of sullenness struggled with the terror that evidently filled their savage hearts They were ranged in front of the das, and would have cast themselves down on the floor of the cave like the spectators, but She stopped them
”Nay,” she said in her softest voice, ”stand; I pray you stand Perchance the ti stretched out,” and she laughedthe rank of the doomed wretches, and, wicked villains as they were, I felt sorry for them So fresh occurred, during which She appeared from the movement of her head--for, of course, we could not see her eyes--to be slowly and carefully exa herself to uest, recognise these men?”
”Ay, oh Queen, nearly all of thelower at reat company, the tale whereof I have heard”
Thus adjured, I, in as feords as I could, related the history of the cannibal feast, and of the attempted torture of our poor servant The narrative was received in perfect silence, both by the accused and by the audience, and also by She herself When I had done, Ayesha called upon Billali by na, the old man confirmed my story No further evidence was taken
”Ye have heard,” said She at length, in a cold, clear voice, very different from her usual tones--indeed, it was one of the s about this extraordinary creature that her voice had the power of suiting itself in a wonderful manner to the mood of the eance should not be done upon you?”
For some time there was no answer, but at last one of the men, a fine, broad-chested felloell on in raven features and an eye like a hawk's, spoke, and said that the orders that they had received were not to har was said of their black servant, so, egged on thereto by a woman as now dead, they proceeded to try to hot-pot him after the ancient and honourable custo him in due course As for their sudden attack upon ourselves, it was retted it He ended by huht be banished into the swaht chance; but I saritten on his face that he had but little hope of mercy