man ever
known the like, I wondered? What could they mean and what could this
marvellous woman Ayesha be? Was she perhaps a personification of Nature
itself, as indeed to some extent all women are? Was she human at all,
or was she some spirit symbolising a departed people, faith and
civilisation, and haunting the ruins where once she reigned as queen?
No, the idea was ridiculous, since such beings do not exist, though it
was impossible to doubt that she possessed powers beyond those of common
humanity, as she possessed beauty and fascination greater than are given
to any other woman.

Of one thing I was certain, however, that the Shades I had seemed
to visit had their being in the circle of her own imagination and
intelligence. There Umslopogaas was right; we had seen no dead, we had
only seen pictures and images that she drew and fashioned.

Why did she do this, I wondered. Perhaps to pretend to powers which she
did not possess, perhaps out of sheer elfish mischief, or perhaps, as
she asserted, just to teach us a lesson and to humble us in our own
sight. Well, if so she had succeeded, for never did I feel so crushed
and humiliated as at that moment.

I had seemed to descend, or ascend, into Hades, and there had only seen
things that gave me little joy and did but serve to reopen old wounds.
Then, on awaking, I had been bewitched; yes, fresh from those visions
of the most dear dead, I had been bewitched by the overpowering magic of
this woman's loveliness and charm, and made a fool of myself, only to be
brought back to my senses by her triumphant mockery. Oh, I was humbled
indeed, and yet the odd thing is that I could not feel angry with her,
and what is more that, perhaps from vanity, I believed in her profession
of friendship towards myself.

Well, the upshot of it was that, like Umslopogaas, more than anything
else in the world did I desire to depart from this haunted Kor and to
bury all its recollections in such activities as fortune might bring to
me. And yet, and yet it was well to have seen it and to have plucked the
flower of such marvellous experience, nor, as I knew even then, could I
ever inter the memory of Ayesha the wise, the perfect in all loveliness,
and the half-divine in power.

When I awoke the next morning the sun was well up and after I had taken
a swim in the old bath and dressed myself, I went to see how it
fared with Inez. I found her sitting at the door of her house looking
extremely