Ayesha | Page 4

up to see him, proposing to inject
some strychnine to keep the heart going a little longer. Before I reached
the house I met the caretaker coming to seek me in a great fright, and
asked her if her master was dead. She answered No; but he was
/gone/--had got out of bed and, just as he was, barefooted, left the
house, and was last seen by her grandson among the very Scotch firs
where we were talking. The lad, who was terrified out of his wits, for
he thought that he beheld a ghost, had told her so.
"The moonlight was very brilliant that night, especially as fresh snow
had fallen, which reflected its rays. I was on foot, and began to search
among the firs, till presently just outside of them I found the track of
naked feet in the snow. Of course I followed, calling to the housekeeper
to go and wake her husband, for no one else lives near by. The spoor
proved very easy to trace across the clean sheet of snow. It ran up the
slope of a hill behind the house.
"Now, on the crest of this hill is an ancient monument of upright
monoliths set there by some primeval people, known locally as the
Devil's Ring--a sort of miniature Stonehenge in fact. I had seen it
several times, and happened to have been present not long ago at a
meeting of an archaeological society when its origin and purpose were
discussed. I remember that one learned but somewhat eccentric
gentleman read a short paper upon a rude, hooded bust and head that
are cut within the chamber of a tall, flat-topped cromlech, or dolmen,
which stands alone in the centre of the ring.
"He said that it was a representation of the Egyptian goddess, Isis, and
that this place had once been sacred to some form of her worship, or at
any rate to that of a Nature goddess with like attributes, a suggestion
which the other learned gentlemen treated as absurd. They declared that
Isis had never travelled into Britain, though for my part I do not see
why the Phoenicians, or even the Romans, who adopted her cult, more
or less, should not have brought it here. But I know nothing of such
matters and will not discuss them.

"I remembered also that Mr. Holly was acquainted with this place, for
he had mentioned it to me on the previous day, asking if the stones
were still uninjured as they used to be when he was young. He added
also, and the remark struck me, that yonder was where he would wish
to die. When I answered that I feared he would never take so long a
walk again, I noted that he smiled a little.
"Well, this conversation gave me a clue, and without troubling more
about the footprints I went on as fast as I could to the Ring, half a mile
or so away. Presently I reached it, and there--yes, there--standing by the
cromlech, bareheaded, and clothed in his night-things only, stood Mr.
Holly in the snow, the strangest figure, I think, that ever I beheld.
"Indeed never shall I forget that wild scene. The circle of rough, single
stones pointing upwards to the star-strewn sky, intensely lonely and
intensely solemn: the tall trilithon towering above them in the centre,
its shadow, thrown by the bright moon behind it, lying long and black
upon the dazzling sheet of snow, and, standing clear of this shadow so
that I could distinguish his every motion, and even the rapt look upon
his dying face, the white-draped figure of Mr. Holly. He appeared to be
uttering some invocation--in Arabic, I think--for long before I reached
him I could catch the tones of his full, sonorous voice, and see his
waving, outstretched arms. In his right hand he held the looped sceptre
which, by his express wish I send to you with the drawings. I could see
the flash of the jewels strung upon the wires, and in the great stillness,
hear the tinkling of its golden bells.
"Presently, too, I seemed to become aware of another presence, and
now you will understand why I desire and must ask that my identity
should be suppressed. Naturally enough I do not wish to be mixed up
with a superstitious tale which is, on the face of it, impossible and
absurd. Yet under all the circumstances I think it right to tell you that I
saw, or thought I saw, something gather in the shadow of the central
dolmen, or emerge from its rude chamber--I know not which for
certain--something bright and glorious which gradually took the form
of a woman upon whose forehead burned a star-like fire.
"At any rate the vision or