is, as I think, still far away, though
the Opener-of-Roads has told me that among a strange people I shall die
in war at last, as I desire to do, who from my boyhood have lived in
war."

"He speaks well," she answered with a note of admiration in her voice.
"By Isis, were he but white I would set him to rule these Amahagger
under me. Tell him, Allan, that if he lays Rezu low he shall have a
great reward."

"And tell the White Witch, Macumazahn," Umslopogaas replied when I had
translated, "that I seek no reward, save glory only, and with it the
sight of one who is lost to me but with whom my heart still dwells, if
indeed this Witch has strength to break the wall of blackness that is
built between me and her who is 'gone down.'"

"Strange," reflected Ayesha when she understood, "that this grim
Destroyer should yet be bound by the silken bonds of love and yearn for
one whom the grave has taken. Learn from it, Allan, that all humanity
is cast in the same mould, since my longings and your longings are his
also, though the three of us be far apart as are the sun and the moon
and the earth, and as different in every other quality. Yet it is true
that sun and moon and earth are born of the same black womb of chaos.
Therefore in the beginning they were identical, as doubtless they will
be in the end when, their journeyings done, they rush together to light
space with a flame at which the mocking gods that made them may warm
their hands. Well, so it is with men, Allan, whose soul-stuff is drawn
from the gulf of Spirit by Nature's hand, and, cast upon the cold air of
this death-driven world, freezes into a million shapes each different to
the other and yet, be sure, the same. Now talk no more, but follow me.
Slave" (this was addressed to Billali), "bid the guards lead on to the
camp of the servants of Lulala."

So we went through the silent ruins. Ayesha walked, or rather glided a
pace or two ahead, then came Umslopogaas and I side by side, while at
our heels followed Hans, very close at our heels since he did not wish
to be out of reach of the virtue of the Great Medicine and incidentally
of the protection of axe and rifle.

Thus we marched surrounded by the solemn guard for something between
a quarter and half a mile, till at length we climbed the debris of a
mighty wall that once had encompassed the city, and by the moonlight saw
beneath us a vast hollow which clearly at some unknown time had been the
bed of an enormous m