ly Being."

We followed her through the rosy glow up to the head of the cave, till
at last we stood before the spot where the great pulse beat and the
great flame passed. And as we went we became sensible of a wild and
splendid exhilaration, of a glorious sense of such a fierce intensity of
Life that the most buoyant moments of our strength seemed flat and tame
and feeble beside it. It was the mere effluvium of the flame, the subtle
ether that it cast off as it passed, working on us, and making us feel
strong as giants and swift as eagles.

We reached the head of the cave, and gazed at each other in the glorious
glow, and laughed aloud--even Job laughed, and he had not laughed for a
week--in the lightness of our hearts and the divine intoxication of our
brains. I know that I felt as though all the varied genius of which the
human intellect is capable had descended upon me. I could have spoken
in blank verse of Shakesperian beauty, all sorts of great ideas flashed
through my mind; it was as though the bonds of my flesh had been
loosened and left the spirit free to soar to the empyrean of its native
power. The sensations that poured in upon me are indescribable. I seemed
to live more keenly, to reach to a higher joy, and sip the goblet of a
subtler thought than ever it had been my lot to do before. I was another
and most glorified self, and all the avenues of the Possible were for a
space laid open to the footsteps of the Real.

Then, suddenly, whilst I rejoiced in this splendid vigour of a new-found
self, from far, far away there came a dreadful muttering noise, that
grew and grew to a crash and a roar, which combined in itself all that
is terrible and yet splendid in the possibilities of sound. Nearer it
came, and nearer yet, till it was close upon us, rolling down like all
the thunder-wheels of heaven behind the horses of the lightning. On
it came, and with it came the glorious blinding cloud of many-coloured
light, and stood before us for a space, turning, as it seemed to us,
slowly round and round, and then, accompanied by its attendant pomp of
sound, passed away I know not whither.

So astonishing was the wondrous sight that one and all of us, save
_She_, who stood up and stretched her hands towards the fire, sank down
before it, and hid our faces in the sand.

When it was gone, Ayesha spoke.

"Now, Kallikrates," she said, "the mighty moment is at hand. When the
great flame comes again thou must stand in it. F