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

I heard Ayesha say presently, and the words struck me as dreadful in their hopeless acceptance of a doom against which even she had no strength to struggle.

“It seems that my lord has left me for awhile; I must hasten to my lord afar.”

After that I do not quite know what happened. I had lost the man who was all in all to me, friend and child in one, and I was crushed as I had never been before. It seemed so sad that I, old and outworn, should still live on whilst he in the flower of his age, snatched from joy and greatness such as no man hath known, lay thus asleep.

I think that by an afterthought, Ayesha and Oros tried to restore him, tried without result, for here her powers were of no avail. Indeed my conviction is that although some lingering life still kept him on his feet, Leo had really died at the moment of her embrace, since when I looked at him before he fell, his face was that of a dead man.

Yes, I believe that last speech of hers, although she knew it not, was addressed to his spirit, for in her burning kiss his flesh had perished.

When at length I recovered myself a little, it was to hear Ayesha in a cold, calm voice—her face I could not see for she had veiled herself—commanding certain priests who had been summoned to “bear away the body of that accursed woman and bury her as befits her rank.” Even then I bethought me, I remember, of the tale of Jehu and Jezebel.

Leo, looking strangely calm and happy, lay now upon a couch, the arms folded on his breast. When the priests had tramped away carrying their royal burden, Ayesha, who sat by his body brooding, seemed to awake, for she rose and said—“I need a messenger, and for no common journey, since he must search out the habitations of the Shades,” and she turned herself towards Oros and appeared to look at him.

Now for the first time I saw that priest change countenance a little, for the eternal smile, of which even this scene had not quite rid it, left his face and he grew pale and trembled.

“Thou art afraid,” she said contemptuously. “Be at rest, Oros, I will not send one who is afraid. Holly, wilt thou go for me—and him?”

“Aye,” I answered. “I am weary of life and desire no other end. Only let it be swift and painless.”

She mused a while, then said—“Nay, thy time is not yet, thou still hast work to do. Endure, my Holly, ‘tis only for a breath.”

Then she looked at the Shaman, the man turned to stone who all this while had stood there as a statue stands, and cried—“Awake!”

Instantly he seemed to thaw into life, his limbs relaxed, his breast heaved, he was as he had always been: ancient, gnarled, malevolent.

“I hear thee, mistress,” he said, bowing as a man bows to the power that he hates.

“Thou seest, Simbri,” and she waved her hand.

“I see. Things have befallen as Atene and I foretold, have they not? ‘Ere long the corpse of a new-crowned Khan of Kaloon,’” and he pointed to the gold circlet that Ayesha had set on Leo’s brow, “‘will lie upon the brink of the Pit of Flame’—as I foretold.” An evil smile crept into his eyes and he went on—“Hadst thou not smote me dumb, I who watched could have warned thee that they would so befall; but, great mistress, it pleased thee to smite me dumb. And so it seems, O Hes, that thou hast overshot thyself and liest broken at the foot of that pinnacle which step by step thou hast climbed for more than two thousand weary years. See what thou hast bought at the price of countless lives that now before the throne of Judgment bring accusations against thy powers misused, and cry out for justice on thy head,” and he looked at the dead form of Leo.

“I sorrow for them, yet, Simbri, they were well spent,” Ayesha answered reflectively, “who by their forewritten doom, as it was decreed, held thy knife from falling and thus won me my husband. Aye and I am happy—happier than such blind bats as thou can see or guess. For know that now with him I have re-wed my wandering soul divorced by sin from me, and that of our marriage kiss which burned his life away there shall still be born to us children of Forgiveness and eternal Grace and all things that are pure and fair.

“Look thou, Simbri, I will honour thee. Thou shalt be my messenger, and beware! beware I say how thou dost fulfil thine office, since of every syllable thou must render an account.

“Go thou down the dark paths of Death, and, since even my thought may not reach to where he sleeps tonight, search out my lord and say to him that the feet of his spouse Ayesha are following fast. Bid him have no fear for me who by this last sorrow have atoned my crimes and am in his embrace regenerate. Tell him that thus it was appointed, and thus is best, since now he is dipped indeed in the eternal Flame of Life; now for him the mortal night is done and the everlasting day arises. Command him that he await me in the Gate of Death where it is granted that I greet him presently. Thou hearest?”

“I hear, O Queen, Mighty-from-of-Old.”

“One message more. Say to Atene that I forgive her. Her heart was high and greatly did she play her part. There in the Gates we will balance our account. Thou hearest?”

“I hear, O Eternal Star that hath conquered Night.”

“Then, man, begone!”