o, to absolute rage.

"I say, Ayesha, that I will not," he repeated; "moreover, that if thou
leavest me here I will find my way down the mountain alone, and join the
battle."

"Then come," she answered, "and on thine own head be it. Nay, not on
thine beloved, on mine, on mine."

After this, by some strange reaction, she became like a merry girl,
laughing more than I have ever seen her do, and telling us many tales of
the far, far past, but none that were sad or tragic. It was very strange
to sit and listen to her while she spoke of people, one or two of them
known as names in history and many others who never have been heard
of, that had trod this earth and with whom she was familiar over two
thousand years ago. Yet she told us anecdotes of their loves and hates,
their strength or weaknesses, all of them touched with some tinge of
humorous satire, or illustrating the comic vanity of human aims and
aspirations.

At length her talk took a deeper and more personal note. She spoke of
her searchings after truth; of how, aching for wisdom, she had explored
the religions of her day and refused them one by one; of how she had
preached in Jerusalem and been stoned by the Doctors of the Law. Of
how also she had wandered back to Arabia and, being rejected by her own
people as a reformer, had travelled on to Egypt, and at the court of the
Pharaoh of that time met a famous magician, half charlatan and half
seer who, because she was far-seeing, 'clairvoyante' we should call it,
instructed her in his art so well that soon she became his master and
forced him to obey her.

Then, as though she were unwilling to reveal too much, suddenly Ayesha's
history passed from Egypt to Kor. She spoke to Leo of his arrival there,
a wanderer who was named Kallikrates, hunted by savages and accompanied
by the Egyptian Amenartas, whom she appeared to have known and hated in
her own country, and of how she entertained them. Yes, she even told of
a supper that the three of them had eaten together on the evening before
they started to discover the Place of Life, and of an evil prophecy that
this royal Amenartas had made as to the issue of their journey.

"Aye," Ayesha said, "it was such a silent night as this and such a
meal as this we ate, and Leo, not so greatly changed, save that he was
beardless then and younger, was at my side. Where thou sittest, Holly,
sat the royal Amenartas, a very fair woman; yes, even more beautiful
than I before I dippe