Ayesha | Page 6

to be dead, is still my property and
thither I travel to die.
Those whose eyes read the words I write, if any should ever read them,
may ask--What shock?
Well, I am Horace Holly, and my companion, my beloved friend, my
son in the spirit whom I reared from infancy was--nay, is--Leo Vincey.
We are those men who, following an ancient clue, travelled to the
Caves of Kor in Central Africa, and there discovered her whom we
sought, the immortal /She-who-must-be-obeyed/. In Leo she found her
love, that re-born Kallikrates, the Grecian priest of Isis whom some two
thousand years before she had slain in her jealous rage, thus executing
on him the judgment of the angry goddess. In her also I found the
divinity whom I was doomed to worship from afar, not with the flesh,
for that is all lost and gone from me, but, what is sorer still, because its
burden is undying, with the will and soul which animate a man
throughout the countless eons of his being. The flesh dies, or at least it
changes, and its passions pass, but that other passion of the spirit--that
longing for oneness--is undying as itself.

What crime have I committed that this sore punishment should be laid
upon me? Yet, in truth, is it a punishment? May it not prove to be but
that black and terrible Gate which leads to the joyous palace of
Rewards? She swore that I should ever be her friend and his and dwell
with them eternally, and I believe her.
For how many winters did we wander among the icy hills and deserts!
Still, at length, the Messenger came and led us to the Mountain, and on
the Mountain we found the Shrine, and in the Shrine the Spirit. May
not these things be an allegory prepared for our instruction? I will take
comfort. I will hope that it is so. Nay, I am sure that it is so.
It will be remembered that in Kor we found the immortal woman.
There before the flashing rays and vapours of the Pillar of Life she
declared her mystic love, and then in our very sight was swept to a
doom so horrible that even now, after all which has been and gone, I
shiver at its recollection. Yet what were Ayesha's last words? "/Forget
me not . . . have pity on my shame. I die not. I shall come again and
shall once more be beautiful. I swear it--it is true./"
Well, I cannot set out that history afresh. Moreover it is written; the
man whom I trusted in the matter did not fail me, and the book he made
of it seems to be known throughout the world, for I have found it here
in English, yes, and read it first translated into Hindostani. To it then I
refer the curious.
In that house upon the desolate sea-shore of Cumberland, we dwelt a
year, mourning the lost, seeking an avenue by which it might be found
again and discovering none. Here our strength came back to us, and
Leo's hair, that had been whitened in the horror of the Caves, grew
again from grey to golden. His beauty returned to him also, so that his
face was as it had been, only purified and saddened.
Well I remember that night--and the hour of illumination. We were
heart-broken, we were in despair. We sought signs and could find none.
The dead remained dead to us and no answer came to all our crying.
It was a sullen August evening, and after we had dined we walked upon

the shore, listening to the slow surge of the waves and watching the
lightning flicker from the bosom of a distant cloud. In silence we
walked, till at last Leo groaned--it was more of a sob than a groan-- and
clasped my arm.
"I can bear it no longer, Horace," he said--for so he called me now--"I
am in torment. The desire to see Ayesha once more saps my brain.
Without hope I shall go quite mad. And I am strong, I may live another
fifty years."
"What then can you do?" I asked.
"I can take a short road to knowledge--or to peace," he answered
solemnly, "I can die, and die I will--yes, tonight."
I turned upon him angrily, for his words filled me with fear.
"Leo, you are a coward!" I said. "Cannot you bear your part of pain as
--others do?"
"You mean as you do, Horace," he answered with a dreary laugh, "for
on you also the curse lies--with less cause. Well, you are stronger than I
am, and more tough; perhaps because you have lived longer. No, I
cannot bear it. I will die."
"It is a crime," I said, "the