Ayesha, the Return of She, H. Rider Haggard [books to read now .TXT] 📗

to gaze upon it was an intoxication. Contemplating it, I understood indeed that, like to that of the fabled Helen, this gift of hers alone—and it was but one of many—must have caused infinite sorrows, had she ever been permitted to display it to the world. It would have driven humanity to madness: the men with longings and the women with jealousy and hate.

And yet in what did her surpassing beauty lie? Ayesha’s face and form were perfect, it is true; but so are those of some other women. Not in these then did it live alone, but rather, I think, especially while what I may call her human moods were on her, in the soft mystery that dwelt upon her features and gathered and changed in her splendid eyes. Some such mystery may be seen, however faintly, on the faces of certain of the masterpieces of the Greek sculptors, but Ayesha it clothed like an ever-present atmosphere, suggesting a glory that was not of earth, making her divine.

As I gazed at her and wondered thus, of a sudden she became terribly agitated, and, pointing to a shoulder of the Mountain miles and miles away, said—“Look!”

I looked, but saw nothing except a sheet of distant snow.

“Blind fool, canst thou not see that my lord is in danger of his life?” she cried. “Nay, I forgot, thou hast no vision. Take it now from me and look again;” and laying her hand, from which a strange, numbing current seemed to flow, upon my head, she muttered some swift words.

Instantly my eyes were opened, and, not upon the distant Mountain, but in the air before me as it were, I saw Leo rolling over and over at grips with a great snow-leopard, whilst the chief and huntsmen with him ran round and round, seeking an opportunity to pierce the savage brute with their spears and yet leave him unharmed.

Ayesha, rigid with terror, swayed to and fro at my side, till presently the end came, for I could see Leo drive his long knife into the bowels of the leopard, which at once grew limp, separated from him, and after a struggle or two in the bloodstained snow, lay still. Then he rose, laughing and pointing to his rent garments, whilst one of the huntsmen came forward and began to bandage some wounds in his hands and thigh with strips of linen torn from his under-robe.

The vision vanished suddenly as it had come, and I felt Ayesha leaning heavily upon my shoulder like any other frightened woman, and heard her gasp—“That danger also has passed by, but how many are there to follow? Oh! tormented heart, how long canst thou endure!”

Then her wrath flamed up against the chief and his huntsmen, and she summoned messengers and sent them out at speed with a litter and ointments, bidding them to bear back the lord Leo and to bring his companions to her very presence.

“Thou seest what days are mine, my Holly, aye, and have been these many years,” she said; “but those hounds shall pay me for this agony.”

Nor would she suffer me to reason with her.

Four hours later Leo returned, limping after the litter in which, instead of himself, for whom it was sent, lay a mountain sheep and the skin of the snow-leopard that he had placed there to save the huntsmen the labour of carrying them. Ayesha was waiting for him in the hall of her dwelling, and gliding to him—I cannot say she walked—overwhelmed him with mingled solicitude and reproaches. He listened awhile, then asked—“How dost thou know anything of this matter? The leopard skin has not yet been brought to thee.”

“I know because I saw,” she answered. “The worst hurt was above thy knee; hast thou dressed it with the salve I sent?”

“Not I,” he said. “But thou hast not left this Sanctuary; how didst thou see? By thy magic?”

“If thou wilt, at least I saw, and Holly also saw thee rolling in the snow with that fierce brute, while those curs ran round like scared children.”

“I am weary of this magic,” interrupted Leo crossly. “Cannot a man be left alone for an hour even with a leopard of the mountain? As for those brave men——”

At this moment Oros entered and whispered something, bowing low.

“As for those ‘brave men,’ I will deal with them,” said Ayesha with bitter emphasis, and covering herself—for she never appeared unveiled to the people of the Mountain—she swept from the place.

“Where has she gone, Horace?” asked Leo. “To one of her services in the Sanctuary?”

“I don’t know,” I answered; “but if so, I think it will be that chief’s burial service.”

“Will it?” he exclaimed, and instantly limped after her.

A minute or two later I thought it wise to follow. In the Sanctuary a curious scene was in progress. Ayesha was seated in front of the statue. Before her, very much frightened, knelt a brawny, red-haired chieftain and five of his followers, who still carried their hunting spears, while with folded arms and an exceedingly grim look upon his face, Leo, who, as I learned afterwards, had already interfered and been silenced, stood upon one side listening to what passed. At a little distance behind were a dozen or more of the temple guards, men armed with swords and picked for their strength and stature.

Ayesha, in her sweetest voice, was questioning the men as to how the leopard, of which the skin lay before her, had come to attack Leo. The chief answered that they had tracked the brute to its lair between two rocks; that one of them had gone in and wounded it, whereon it sprang upon him and struck him down; that then the lord Leo had engaged it while the man escaped, and was also struck down, after which, rolling with it on the ground, he stabbed and slew the animal. That was all.

“No, not all,” said Ayesha; “for you forget, cowards that you are, that, keeping yourselves in safety, you left my lord to the fury of this beast. Good. Drive them out on to the Mountain, there to perish also at the fangs of beasts, and make it known that he who gives them food or shelter dies.”

Offering no prayer for pity or excuse, the chief and his followers rose, bowed, and turned to go.

“Stay a moment, comrades,” said Leo, “and, chief, give me your arm; my scratch grows stiff; I cannot walk fast. We will finish this hunt together.”

“What doest thou? Art mad?” asked Ayesha.

“I know not whether I am mad,” he answered, “but I know that thou art wicked and unjust. Look now, than these hunters none braver ever breathed. That man”—and he pointed to the one whom the leopard had struck down—“took my place and went in before me because I ordered that we should attack the creature, and thus was felled. As thou seest all, thou mightest have seen this also. Then it sprang on me, and the rest of these, my friends, ran round waiting a chance to strike, which at first they could not do unless they would have killed me with it, since I and the brute rolled over and over in the snow. As it was, one of them seized it with his bare hands: