dess in Old
Egypt and that her name was Isis and--well, once I had to do with Isis?
Perhaps you were there and knew it, since more lives than one are given
to most of us. I must search and learn. For the rest, all have not
thought as you do, Allan. Many, on the contrary, love and seek to win
the Divine."

"So do I at a distance, Ayesha, but to come too near to it I do not
aspire. If I did perhaps I might be consumed."

"You have wisdom," she replied, not without a note of admiration in her
voice. "The moths are few that fear the flame, but those are the moths
which live. Also I think that you have scorched your wings before and
learned that fire hurts. Indeed, now I remember that I have heard of
three such fires of love through which you have flown, Allan, though all
of them are dead ashes now, or shine elsewhere. Two burned in your youth
when a certain lady died to save you, a great woman that, is it not so?
And the third, ah! she was fire indeed, though of a copper hue. What was
her name? I cannot remember, but I think it had something to do with the
wind, yes, with the wind when it wails."

I stared at her. Was this Mameena myth to be dug up again in a secret
place in the heart of Africa? And how the deuce did she know anything
about Mameena? Could she have been questioning Hans or Umslopogaas? No,
it was not possible, for she had never seen them out of my presence.

"Perhaps," she went on in a mocking voice, "perhaps once again you
disbelieve, Allan, whose cynic mind is so hard to open to new truths.
Well, shall I show you the faces of these three? I can," and she waved
her hand towards some object that stood on a tripod to the right of her
in the shadow--it looked like a crystal basin. "But what would it serve
when you who know them so well, believed that I drew their pictures out
of your own soul? Also perchance but one face would appear and that one
strange to you. [Lady Ragnall perhaps?--JB]

"Have you heard, Allan, that among the wise some hold that not all of
us is visible at once here on earth within the same house of flesh; that
the whole self in its home above, separates itself into sundry parts,
each of which walks the earth in different form, a segment of life's
circle that can never be dissolved and must unite again at last?"

I shook my head blankly, for I had never heard anything of the sort.

"You have still much to learn, Allan, although doubtless there are some
who think you wise," she went o