tides
supporting a shrine, stood two of the stately women who were her
attendants.

For the rest a sweet and subtle odour pervaded the chamber which took
hold of my senses as _hasheesh_ might do, which I was sure proceeded
from her, or from her garments, for I could see no perfumes burning. She
spoke no word, yet I knew she was inviting me to come nearer and moved
forward till I reached a curious carved chair that was placed just
beneath the dais, and there halted, not liking to sit down without
permission.

For a long while she contemplated me, for as before I could feel her
eyes searching me from head to foot and as it were looking through me as
though she would discover my very soul. Then at length she moved, waving
those two ivory arms of hers outwards with a kind of swimming stroke,
whereon the women to right and left of her turned and glided away, I
know not whither.

"Sit, Allan," she said, "and let us talk, for I think we have much to
say to each other. Have you slept well? And eaten?--though I fear that
the food is but rough. Also was the bath made ready for you?"

"Yes, Ayesha," I answered to all three questions, adding, for I knew not
what to say, "It seems to be a very ancient bath."

"When I last saw it," she replied, "it was well enough with statues
standing round it worked by a sculptor who had seen beauty in his
dreams. But in two thousand years--or is it more?--the tooth of Time
bites deep, and doubtless like all else in this dead place it is now a
ruin."

I coughed to cover up the exclamation of disbelief that rose to my lips
and remarked blandly that two thousand years was certainly a long time.

"When you say one thing, Allan, and mean another, your Arabic is even
more vile than usual and does not serve to cloak your thought."

"It may be so, Ayesha, for I only know that tongue as I do many other of
the dialects of Africa by learning it from common men. My own speech
is English, in which, if you are acquainted with it, I should prefer to
talk."

"I know not English, which doubtless is some language that has arisen
since I left the world. Perhaps later you shall teach it to me. I tell
you, you anger me whom it is not well to anger, because you believe
nothing that passes my lips and yet do not dare to say so."

"How can I believe one, Ayesha, who if I understand aright, speaks of
having seen a certain bath two thousand years ago, whereas one hundred
years are the full days of man? Forgive