Part 9 (1/2)

”Thou shalt see, oh Holly,” she said; ”presently shall he awake in his rightleft him”

Hardly were the words out of her mouth, when Leo turned round and stretched out his ar a fe over hi her, perhaps, for Ustane At any rate, he said, in Arabic, ”Hullo, Ustane, why have you tied your head up like that? Have you got the toothache?” and then, in English, ”I say, I'un, where the deuce have we got to now--eh?”

”I a suspiciously past Ayesha, who by no means sure that she was not an animated corpse; ”but you reat deal of hanxiety, and, if this lady,” looking at Ayesha, ”would be so kind as toyou your soup”

This turned Leo's attention to the ”lady,” as standing by in perfect silence ”Hullo!” he said; ”that is not Ustane--where is Ustane?”

Then, for the first time, Ayesha spoke to hione from hence upon a visit,” she said; ”and, behold, in her place am I here as thine handmaiden”

Ayesha's silver notes seemed to puzzle Leo's half-awakened intellect, as also did her corpse-like wrappings However, he said nothing at the tih, and then turned over and slept again till the evening When he woke for the second tian to question me as to what had happened, but I had to put him off as best I could till the morrohen he awoke al of his illness and of s, but as Ayesha was present I could not tell him much except that she was the Queen of the country, and well disposed towards us, and that it was her pleasure to go veiled; for, though of course I spoke in English, I was afraid that shefrom the expression of our faces, and besides, I reot up almost entirely recovered The flesh wound in his side was healed, and his constitution, naturally a vigorous one, had shaken off the exhaustion consequent on his terrible fever with a rapidity that I can only attribute to the effects of the wonderful drug which Ayesha had given to him, and also to the fact that his illness had been too short to reduce hi health came back full recollection of all his adventures up to the time when he had lost consciousness in the marsh, and of course of Ustane also, to whorown considerably attached Indeed, he overwhelirl, which I did not dare to answer, for after Leo's first awakening She had sent forof the story to hi that if I did it would be the worse for me She also, for the second tithat she would reveal herself to hied After all that I had seen I had expected that she would take the earliest opportunity of clai the man she believed to be her old-world lover, but this, for some reason of her ohich was at the time quite inscrutable to me, she did not do All that she did was to attend to his wants quietly, and with a hu contrast with her for hi him with her as much as possible Of course his curiosity was as much excited about this mysterious woman as my own had been, and he was particularly anxious to see her face, which I had, without entering into particulars, told him was as lovely as her forh to raise the expectations of any young erous pitch, and, had it not been that he had not as yet completely shaken off the effects of illness, and was much troubled in his mind about Ustane, of whose affection and brave devotion he spoke in touching terms, I have no doubt that he would have entered into her plans, and fallen in love with her by anticipation As it was, however, he was simply wildly curious, and also, like iven to hie, he not unnaturally came to identify her with the woman spoken of on the potsherd At last, quite driven into a corner by his continual questions, which he showered on , I referred hi, with perfect truth, that I did not knohere Ustane was Accordingly, after Leo had eaten a hearty breakfast, we adjourned into She's presence, for her mutes had orders to admit us at all hours

She was, as usual, seated in what, for want of a better ter drawn she rose froreet us, or rather Leo; for I, as ined, was now quite left in the cold It was a pretty sight to see her veiled forlishh he is half a Greek in blood, Leo is, with the exception of his hair, one of theof the subtle forh I presun mother, whose portrait he rese-chested, and yet not aard, as somen are, and his head is set upon hiorous air, which ell translated in his A stranger lord,” she said in her softest voice ”Right glad am I to see thee upon thy feet Believe me, had I not saved thee at the last, never wouldst thou have stood upon those feet again But the danger is done, and it shall beinto the words--”that it doth return no more”

Leo bowed to her, and then, in his best Arabic, thanked her for all her kindness and courtesy in caring for one unknown to her

”Nay,” she answered softly, ”ill could the world spare such a man Beauty is too rare upon it Give ”

”Hulish, ”the lady is very civil We seem to have tumbled into clover I hope that you have made the most of your opportunities By Jove! what a pair of ared hiht of a glea me curiously

”I trust,” went on Ayesha, ”that my servants have attended well upon thee; if there can be comfort in this poor place, be sure it waits on thee Is there aught that I can do for thee more?”

”Yes, oh She,” answered Leo hastily, ”I would fain knohither the young lady as looking after irl--yes, I saw her Nay, I know not; she said that she would go, I know not whither Perchance she will return, perchance not It is wearisoe women are fickle”

Leo looked both sulky and distressed at this intelligence

”It's very odd,” he said toShe, ”I cannot understand,” he said; ”the young lady and I--well--in short, we had a regard for each other”

Ayesha laughed a little very musically, and then turned the subject

XIX

”GIVE ME A BLACK GOAT!”

The conversation after this was of such a desultory order that I do not quite recollect it For some reason, perhaps from a desire to keep her identity and character in reserve, Ayesha did not talk freely, as she usually did Presently, however, she inforht for our amusement I was astonished to hear this, as I fancied that the Ae in any such frivolity; but, as will presently er dance has little in coe or civilised Then, as ere about to withdraw, she suggested that Leo ht like to see soladly assented thither we departed, accompanied by Job and Billali To describe our visit would only be to repeat a great deal of what I have already said The tombs we entered were indeed different, for the whole rock was a honeycomb of sepulchres,[] but the contents were nearly always similar Afterwards we visited the pyraht, and froreat vaults occupied by the bodies of the poorer citizens of Imperial Kor These bodies were not nearly so well preserved as were those of the wealthier classes Many of the on them, also they were buried froe vault, the corpses in so thickly piled one upon another, like a heap of slain

[] For a long while it puzzled me to knohat could have been done with the enor out of these vast caves; but I afterwards discovered that it was for the most part built into the walls and palaces of Kor, and also used to line the reservoirs and sewers--L H H

Leo was of course intensely interested in this stupendous and unequalled sight, which was, indeed, enough to awake all the iination a man had in him into the most active life But to poor Job it did not prove attractive His nerves--already seriously shaken by what he had undergone since we had arrived in this terrible country --were, as ined, still further disturbed by the spectacle of these masses of departed humanity, whereof the forh their voices were for ever lost in the eternal silence of the to his evident agitation, infors, as he would soon be like the to say of a man, sir,” he ejaculated, when I translated this little re savage? Not but what I dare say he's right,” and Job sighed

When we had finished inspecting the caves, we returned and had our meal, for it was now past four in the afternoon, and we all-- especially Leo--needed soether with Job, waited on Ayesha, who set to work to terrify our poor servant still further by showing him pictures on the pool of water in the font-like vessel She learnt from me that he was one of seventeen children, and then bid him think of all his brothers and sisters, or as ether in his father's cottage Then she told him to look in the water, and there, reflected froone by, as it was recalled to our retainer's brain Soh, but sorossly exaggerated; the fact being that, in these instances, Job had been unable to recall the exact appearances of the individuals, or remembered them only by a peculiarity of his tribe, and the water could only reflect what he saith his mind's eye For it must be remembered that She's power in this matter was strictly limited; she could apparently, except in very rare instances, only photograph upon the water as actually in the mind of some one present, and then only by his will But, if she was personally acquainted with a locality, she could, as in the case of ourselves and the whale-boat, throw its reflection upon the water, and also, it see there at the time This power, however, did not extend to the minds of others For instance, she could show e chapel, as I remembered it, but not as it was at the moment of reflection; for, where other people were concerned, her art was strictly limited to the facts or memories present to their consciousness at the moment So much was this so that e tried, for her as, such as St Paul's or the Houses of Parliah we had a good general idea of their appearance, we could not recall all the architectural details, and therefore theBut Job could not be got to understand this, and, so far fro a natural explanation of the h in all conscience, nothing lorified and perfected telepathy, he set the whole thing down as a et the howl of terror which he uttered when he saw the - scattered brethren staring at hihter hich Ayesha greeted his consternation As for Leo, he did not altogether like it either, but ran his fingers through his yellow curls, and reave him the creeps

After about an hour of this amusement, in the latter part of which Job did not participate, thefor an audience Accordingly he was told to ”crawl up,” which he did as aardly as usual, and announced that the dance was ready to begin if She and the white strangers would be pleased to attend Shortly afterwards we all rose, and, Ayesha having thrown a dark cloak (the sa by the fire) over her white wrappings, we started The dance was to be held in the open air, on the sreat cave, and thither we made our way About fifteen paces from the mouth of the cave we found three chairs placed, and here we sat and waited, for as yet no dancers were to be seen The night was al risen as yet, which

”Thou wilt presently understand,” said Ayesha, with a little laugh, when Leo asked her; and we certainly did Scarcely were the words out of herup, each bearing with hi torch Whatever they were, they were burning furiously, for the flames stood out a yard or more behind each bearer On they ca burdens and looking like so many devils from hell Leo was the first to discover what these burdens were

”Great heaven!” he said, ”they are corpses on fire!”

I stared and stared again--he was perfectly right--the torches that were to light our entertainment were human mummies fro corpses, and,at a spot about twenty paces in front of us, built their ghastly burdens crossways into a huge bonfire Heavens! how they roared and flared! No tar barrel could have burnt as those reat fellow seize a fla human arm that had fallen from its parent frame, and rush off into the darkness Presently he stopped, and a tall streak of fire shot up into the air, illu That lamp was the mummy of a woman tied to a stout stake let into the rock, and he had fired her hair On he went a few paces and touched a second, then a third, and a fourth, till at last ere surrounded on all three sides by a great ring of bodies flaring furiously, therendered them so inflammable that the flaues of fire a foot or ardens with live Christians soaked in tar, and ere now treated to a similar spectacle, probably for the first ti ones

But, although this ele, to describe the awful and hideous grandeur of the spectacle thus presented to us is, I feel, so absolutely beyond in with, it appealed to the moral as well as the physical susceptibilities There was so, about the eies of the living; in itself the thing was a satire, both on the living and the dead Caesar's dust--or is it Alexander's?--hole, but the functions of these dead Caesars of the past was to light up a savage fetish dance To such base uses may we coer multitudes that we shall breed,ourthem into such a world of woe

Then there was the physical side of the spectacle, and a weird and splendid one it was Those old citizens of Kor burnt as, to judge from their sculptures and inscriptions, they had lived, very fast, and with the utmost liberality What is more, there were plenty of them As soon as ever a mummy had burnt down to the ankles, which it did in about twenty minutes, the feet were kicked away, and another one put in its place The bonfire was kept going on the saenerous scale, and its flames shot up, with a hiss and a crackle, twenty or thirty feet into the air, throwing great flashes of light far out into the glooer flitted to and fro like devils replenishi+ng the infernal fires We all stood and stared aghast--shocked, and yet fascinated at so strange a spectacle, and half expecting to see the spirits those fla froeance on their desecrators

”I prohed Ayesha, whose nerves alone did not seem to be affected; ”and, behold, I have not failed thee Also, it hath its lesson Trust not to the future, for who knohat the future ! Therefore, live for the day, and endeavour not to escape the dust which seeotten nobles and ladies would have felt had they known that they should one day flare to light the dance or boil the pot of savages? But see, here coe is lit--now for the play”

As she spoke, we perceived two lines of figures, one male and the other fe round the human bonfire, arrayed only in the usual leopard and buck skins They for each other between us and the fire, and then the dance--a sort of infernal and fiendish cancan--began To describe it is quite is and double-shuffling, it seemed to our untutored minds to be more of a play than a dance, and, as usual with this dreadful people, whose minds seem to have taken their colour from the caves in which they live, and whose jokes and amusements are drawn from the inexhaustible stores of preserved mortality hich they share their hohastly one I know that it represented an attempted murder first of all, and then the burial alive of the victirave; each act of the abo rounded off and finished with a furious anddance round the supposed victiht of the bonfire

Presently, however, this pleasing piece was interrupted Suddenly there was a slight coe powerful woorous of the dancers, ca and staggering towards us, shrieking out as she ca me a Black Goat!” and down she fell upon the rocky floor foa for a Black Goat, about as hideous a spectacle as can well be conceived

Instantly h soround

”She has got a Devil,” called out one of theoat There, Devil, keep quiet! keep quiet! You shall have the goat presently They have gone to fetch it, Devil”

”I want a Black Goat, Icreature again

”All right, Devil, the goat will be here presently; keep quiet, there's a good Devil!”

And so on till the goat, taken froed bleating on to the scene by its horns

”Is it a Black One, is it a Black One?” shrieked the possessed

”Yes, yes, Devil, as black as night;” then aside, ”keep it behind thee, don't let the Devil see that it has got a white spot on its rump and another on its belly In one minute, Devil There, cut his throat quick Where is the saucer?”

”The Goat! the Goat! the Goat! Give oat! I ive oat”

At this oat had been sacrificed, and the next minute a woman ran up with a saucer full of blood This the possessed creature, as then raving and foa her wildest, seized and drank, and was instantly recovered, and without a trace of hysteria, or fits, or being possessed, or whatever dreadful thing it was she was suffering from She stretched her arms, smiled faintly, and walked quietly back to the dancers, who presently withdrew in a double line as they had co the space between us and the bonfire deserted

I thought that the entertain rather queer, was about to ask She if we could rise, when suddenly what at first I took to be a baboon ca round the fire, and was instantlydressed in a lion's skin Then caoat, then aabout in a ludicrous way After him followed a blesbok, then an ioats, and irl sewn up in the shi+ning scaly hide of a boa-constrictor, several yards of which trailed along the ground behind her When all the beasts had collected they began to dance about in a lu, unnatural fashi+on, and to imitate the sounds produced by the respective animals they represented, till the whole air was alive with roars and bleating and the hissing of snakes This went on for a long ti tired of the pantomime, I asked Ayesha if there would be any objection to Leo andround to inspect the huainst it, we started, striking round to the left After looking at one or two of the flausted with the grotesque weirdness of the spectacle, when our attention was attracted by one of the dancers, a particularly active leopard, that had separated itself fro about in our i into a spot where the shadoas darkest, equidistant between two of the fla mummies Drawn by curiosity, we followed it, when suddenly it darted past us into the shadows beyond, and as it did so erected itself and whispered, ”Conised as that of Ustane Without waiting to consult me Leo turned and followed her into the outer darkness, and I, feeling sick enough at heart, went after them The leopard crawled on for about fifty paces--a sufficient distance to be quite beyond the light of the fire and torches--and then Leo came up with it, or, rather, with Ustane