resembled the Queen of Sheba in one particular, if in no other, namely,
that there was no more spirit in me. "What am I supposed to do? I see
nothing at all."

"Look again," she said, and as she spoke the water grew clouded. Then on
it appeared a picture. I saw the interior of a Kaffir hut dimly lighted
by a single candle set in the neck of a bottle. To the left of the door
of the hut was a bedstead and on it lay stretched a wasted and dying
man, in whom, to my astonishment, I recognised Cetywayo, King of the
Zulus. At the foot of the bed stood another man--myself grown older by
many years, and leaning over the bed, apparently whispering into the
dying man's ear, was a grotesque and malevolent figure which I knew to
be that of Zikali, Opener-of-Roads, whose glowing eyes were fixed upon
the terrified and tortured face of Cetywayo. All was as it happened
afterwards, as I have written down in the book called "Finished."

I described what I saw to Ayesha, and while I was doing so the picture
vanished away, so that nothing remained save the clear water in the
marble bowl. The story did not seem to interest her; indeed, she leaned
back and yawned a little.

"Thy vision is good, Allan," she said indifferently, "and wide also,
since thou canst see what passes in the sun or distant stars, and
pictures of things to be in the water, to say nothing of other pictures
in a woman's eyes, all within an hour. Well, this savage business
concerns me not and of it I want to know no more. Yet it would appear
that here the old wizard who is thy friend, has the answer that he
desires. For there in the picture the king he hates lies dying while he
hisses in his ear and thou dost watch the end. What more can he seek?
Tell him it when ye meet, and tell him also it is my will that in future
he should trouble me less, since I love not to be wakened from my sleep
to listen to his half-instructed talk and savage vapourings. Indeed,
he presumes too much. And now enough of him and his dark plots. Ye have
your desires, all of you, and are paid in full."

"Over-paid, perhaps," I said with a sigh.

"Ah, Allan, I think that Lesson thou hast learned pleases thee but
little. Well, be comforted for the thing is common. Hast never heard
that there is but one morsel more bitter to the taste than desire
denied, namely, desire fulfilled? Believe me that there can be no
happiness for man until he attains a land where all desire is dead."

"That is what the