in a whisper, "this chieftainess is not one woman, but all women.
Beneath those robes of hers I seem to see the beauty of one who has
'gone Beyond,' of the Lily who is lost to me. Do you not feel it thus,
Macumazahn?"

Now that he mentioned it, certainly I did; indeed, I had felt it
all along although amid the rush of sensations this one had scarcely
disentangled itself in my mind. I looked at the draped shape and
saw--well, never mind whom I saw; it was not one only but several in
sequence; also a woman who at that time I did not know although I came
to know her afterwards, too well, perhaps, or at any rate quite
enough to puzzle me. The odd thing was that in this hallucination the
personalities of these individuals seemed to overlap and merge, till at
last I began to wonder whether they were not parts of the same entity
or being, manifesting itself in sundry shapes, yet springing from one
centre, as different coloured rays flow from the same crystal, while the
beams from their source of light shift and change. But the fancy is too
metaphysical for my poor powers to express as clearly as I would. Also
no doubt it was but a hallucination that had its origin, perhaps, in the
mischievous brain of her who sat before us.

At length she spoke and her voice sounded like silver bells heard over
water in a great calm. It was low and sweet, oh! so sweet that at its
first notes for a moment my senses seemed to swoon and my pulse to stop.
It was to me that she addressed herself.

"My servant here," and ever so slightly she turned her head towards the
kneeling Billali, "tells me that you who are named Watcher-in-the-Night,
understand the tongue in which I speak to you. Is it so?"

"I understand Arabic of a kind well enough, having learned it on the
East Coast and from Arabs in past years, but not such Arabic as you use,
O----" and I paused.

"Call me _Hiya_," she broke in, "which is my title here, meaning, as you
know, She, or Woman. Or if that does not please you, call me Ayesha.
It would rejoice me after so long to hear the name I bore spoken by the
lips of one of my colour and of gentle blood."

I blushed at the compliment so artfully conveyed, and repeated stupidly
enough,

"--Not such Arabic as you use, O--Ayesha."

"I thought that you would like the sound of the word better than that
of _Hiya_, though afterwards I will teach you to pronounce it as you
should, O--have you any other name save Watcher-by-Night, which se