Ayesha, the Return of She by H. Rider Haggard (distant reading txt) 📕

“Doubtless, Khania; but what is written?”

“Tell him, Shaman.”

Now Simbri passed behind the curtain and returned thence with a roll from which he read: “The heavens have declared by their signs infallible that before the next new moon, the Khan Rassen will lie dead at the hands of the stranger lord who came to this country from across the mountains.”

“Then the heavens have declared a lie,” said Leo contemptuously.

“That is as you will,” answered Atene; “but so it must befall, not by my hand or those of my servants, but by yours. And then?”

“Why by mine? Why not by Holly’s? Yet, if so, then doubtless I shall suffer the punishment of my crime at the hands of his mourning widow,” he replied exasperated.

“You are pleased to mock me, Leo Vincey, well knowing what a husband this man is to me.”

Now I felt that the crisis had come, and so did Leo, for he looked her in the face and said—“Speak on, lady, say all you wish; perhaps it will be better for us both.”

“I obey you, lord. Of the beginning of this fate I know nothing, but I read from the first page that is open to me. It has to do with this present life of mine. Learn, Leo Vincey, that from my childhood onwards you have haunted me. Oh! when first I saw you yonder by the river, your face was not strange to me, for I knew it—I knew it well in dreams. When I was a little maid and slept one day amidst the flowers by the river’s brim, it came first to me—ask my uncle here if this be not so, though it is true that your face was younger then. Afterwards again and again I saw it in my sleep and learned to know that you were mine, for the magic of my heart taught me this.

“Then passed the long years while I felt that you were drawing near to me, slowly, very slowly, but ever drawing nearer, wending onward and outward through the peoples of the world; across the hills, across the plains, across the sands, across the snows, on to my side. At length came the end, for one night not three moons ago, whilst this wise man, my uncle, and I sat together here studying the lore that he has taught me and striving to wring its secrets from the past, a vision came to me.

“Look you, I was lost in a charmed sleep which looses the spirit from the body and gives it strength to stray afar and to see those things that have been and that are yet to be. Then I saw you and your companion clinging to a point of broken ice, over the river of the gulf. I do not lie; it is written here upon the scroll. Yes, it was you, the man of my dreams, and no other, and we knew the place and hurried thither and waited by the water, thinking that perhaps beneath it you lay dead.

“Then, while we waited, lo! two tiny figures appeared far above upon the icy tongue that no man may climb, and oh! you know the rest. Spellbound we stood and saw you slip and hang, saw you sever the thin cord and rush downwards, yes, and saw that brave man, Holly, leap headlong after you.

“But mine was the hand that drew you from the torrent, where otherwise you must have drowned, you the love of the long past and of to-day, aye, and of all time. Yes, you and no other, Leo Vincey. It was this spirit that foresaw your danger and this hand which delivered you from death, and—and would you refuse them now—when I, the Khania of Kaloon, proffer them to you?”

So she spoke, and leaned upon the table, looking up into his face with lips that trembled and with appealing eyes.

“Lady,” said Leo, “you saved me, and again I thank you, though perhaps it would have been better if you had let me drown. But, forgive me the question, if all this tale be true, why did you marry another man?”

Now she shrank back as though a knife had pricked her.

“Oh! blame me not,” she moaned, “it was but policy which bound me to this madman, whom I ever loathed. They urged me to it; yes, even you, Simbri, my uncle, and for that deed accursed be your head—urged me, saying that it was necessary to end the war between Rassen’s faction and my own. That I was the last of the true race, moreover, which must be carried on; saying also that my dreams and my rememberings were but sick phantasies. So, alas! alas! I yielded, thinking to make my people great.”

“And yourself, the greatest of them, if all I hear is true,” commented Leo bluntly, for he was determined to end this thing. “Well, I do not blame you, Khania, although now you tell me that I must cut a knot you tied by taking the life of this husband of your own choice, for so forsooth it is decreed by fate, that fate which you have shaped. Yes, I must do what you will not do, and kill him. Also your tale of the decree of the heavens and of that vision which led you to the precipice to save us is false. Lady, you met me by the river because the ‘mighty’ Hesea, the Spirit of the Mountain, so commanded you.”

“How know you that?” Atene said, springing up and facing him, while the jaw of old Simbri dropped and the eyelids blinked over his glazed eyes.

“In the same way that I know much else. Lady, it would have been better if you had spoken all the truth.”

Now Atene’s face went ashen and her cheeks sank in.

“Who told you?” she whispered. “Was it you, Magician?” and she turned upon her uncle like a snake about to strike. “Oh! if so, be sure that I shall learn it, and though we are of one blood and have loved each other, I will pay you back in agony.”

“Atene, Atene,” Simbri broke in, holding up his claw-like hands, “you know well it was not I.”

“Then it was you, you ape-faced wanderer, you messenger of the evil gods? Oh! why did I not kill you at the first? Well, that fault can be remedied.”

“Lady,” I said blandly, “am I also a magician?”

“Aye,” she answered, “I think that you are, and that you have a mistress who dwells in fire.”

“Then, Khania,” I said, “such servants and such mistresses are ill to meddle with. Say, what answer has the Hesea sent to your report of our coming to this land?”

“Listen,” broke in Leo before she could reply. “I go to ask a certain question of the Oracle on yonder mountain peak. With your will or without it I tell you that I go, and afterwards you can settle which is the stronger—the Khania of Kaloon or the Hesea of the House of Fire.”

Atene listened and for a while stood silent, perhaps because she had no answer. Then she said with a little laugh—“Is that your will? Well, I think that yonder are none whom you would wish to wed. There is fire and to spare, but no lovely, shameless spirit haunts it to drive men