r wrath, wished that I had been silent.

But she was not angry, perhaps because this tale of her interviews
with goddesses, doubtless fabled, had made her humble, for she answered
quietly,

"By Aphrodite, or by Isis, or both of them I did not know. All I knew
was that I _must_ seek him, then and evermore, as seek I do to-day and
shall perchance through aeons yet unborn. So I followed, as I was taught
and commanded, the _sistrum_ being my guide, how it matters not, and
giving me the means, and so at last I came to this ancient land whereof
the ruin in which you sit was once known as Kor."

CHAPTER XIV

ALLAN MISSES OPPORTUNITY

All the while that she was talking thus the Lady or the Queen or the
Witch-woman, Ayesha, had been walking up and down the place from the
curtains to the foot of the dais, sweeping me with her scented robes as
she passed to and fro, and as she walked she waved her arms as an orator
might do to emphasise the more moving passages of her tale. Now at the
end of it, or what I took to be the end, she stepped on to the dais and
sank upon the couch as if exhausted, though I think her spirit was weary
rather than her body.

Here she sat awhile, brooding, her chin resting on her hand, then
suddenly looked up and fixing her glance upon me--for I could see the
flash of it through her thin veil--said,

"What think you of this story, Allan? Do you believe it and have you
ever heard its like?"

"_Never_," I answered with emphasis, "and of course I believe every
word. Only there are one or two questions that with your leave I would
wish to ask, Ayesha."

"By which you mean, Allan, that you believe nothing, being by nature
without faith and doubtful of all that you cannot see and touch and
handle. Well, perhaps you are wise, since what I have told you is not
all the truth. For example, it comes back to me now that it was not in
the temple on the Nile, or indeed upon the Earth, that I saw the vision
of Aphrodite and of Isis, but elsewhere; also that it was here in Kor
that I was first consumed by passion for Kallikrates whom hitherto I had
scorned. In two thousand years one forgets much, Allan. Out with your
questions and I will answer them, unless they be too long."

"Ayesha," I said humbly, reflecting to myself that my questions would,
at any rate, be shorter than her varying tale, "even I who am not
learned have heard of these goddesses of whom you speak, of the Grecian
Aphrodite who rose from