d upon Leo by the sight of his
dead self, and found it to be one of partial stupefaction. He stood
for two or three minutes staring, and said nothing, and when at last he
spoke it was only to ejaculate--

"Cover it up, and take me away."

"Nay, wait, Kallikrates," said Ayesha, who, standing with the lamp
raised above her head, flooding with its light her own rich beauty and
the cold wonder of the death-clothed form upon the bier, resembled
an inspired Sibyl rather than a woman, as she rolled out her majestic
sentences with a grandeur and a freedom of utterance which I am, alas!
quite unable to reproduce.

"Wait, I would show thee something, that no tittle of my crime may be
hidden from thee. Do thou, oh Holly, open the garment on the breast
of the dead Kallikrates, for perchance my lord may fear to touch it
himself."

I obeyed with trembling hands. It seemed a desecration and an unhallowed
thing to touch that sleeping image of the live man by my side. Presently
his broad chest was bare, and there upon it, right over the heart, was a
wound, evidently inflicted with a spear.

"Thou seest, Kallikrates," she said. "Know then that it was _I_ who slew
thee: in the Place of Life _I_ gave thee death. I slew thee because of
the Egyptian Amenartas, whom thou didst love, for by her wiles she held
thy heart, and her I could not smite as but now I smote that woman, for
she was too strong for me. In my haste and bitter anger I slew thee, and
now for all these days have I lamented thee, and waited for thy coming.
And thou hast come, and none can stand between thee and me, and of a
truth now for death I will give thee life--not life eternal, for that
none can give, but life and youth that shall endure for thousands upon
thousands of years, and with it pomp, and power, and wealth, and all
things that are good and beautiful, such as have been to no man before
thee, nor shall be to any man who comes after. And now one thing more,
and thou shalt rest and make ready for the day of thy new birth. Thou
seest this body, which was thine own. For all these centuries it hath
been my cold comfort and my companion, but now I need it no more, for
I have thy living presence, and it can but serve to stir up memories
of that which I would fain forget. Let it therefore go back to the dust
from which I held it.

"Behold! I have prepared against this happy hour!" And going to the
other shelf or stone ledge, which she said had served her for a bed,