or sickness, I knew the writing at
once--nobody ever made an "H" with that peculiar twirl under it except
Mr. Holly. I tore open the sealed envelope, and sure enough the first
thing my eye fell upon was the signature, _L. H. Holly_. It is long
since I read anything so eagerly as I did that letter. Here it is:--

"My dear sir,--I have ascertained that you still live, and strange to
say I still live also--for a little while.

"As soon as I came into touch with civilization again I found a copy of
your book _She_, or rather of my book, and read it--first of all in a
Hindostani translation. My host--he was a minister of some religious
body, a man of worthy but prosaic mind--expressed surprise that a 'wild
romance' should absorb me so much. I answered that those who have wide
experience of the hard facts of life often find interest in romance. Had
he known what were the hard facts to which I alluded, I wonder what that
excellent person would have said?

"I see that you carried out your part of the business well and
faithfully. Every instruction has been obeyed, nothing has been added or
taken away. Therefore, to you, to whom some twenty years ago I entrusted
the beginning of the history, I wish to entrust its end also. You were
the first to learn of _She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed_, who from century to
century sat alone, clothed with unchanging loveliness in the sepulchres
of Kor, waiting till her lost love was born again, and Destiny brought
him back to her.

"It is right, therefore, that you should be the first to learn also of
Ayesha, Hesea and Spirit of the Mountain, the priestess of that Oracle
which since the time of Alexander the Great has reigned between the
flaming pillars in the Sanctuary, the last holder of the sceptre of Hes
or Isis upon the earth. It is right also that to you first among men
I should reveal the mystic consummation of the wondrous tragedy which
began at Kor, or perchance far earlier in Egypt and elsewhere.

"I am very ill; I have struggled back to this old house of mine to die,
and my end is at hand. I have asked the doctor here, after all is over,
to send you the Record, that is unless I change my mind and burn it
first. You will also receive, if you receive anything at all, a case
containing several rough sketches which may be of use to you, and a
_sistrum_, the instrument that has been always used in the worship of
the Nature goddesses of the old Egyptians, Isis and Hathor, which you
will see is