Ayesha: Chapter 19

Chapter 19

LEO AND THE LEOPARD

During the weeks that followed these momentous days often and often I
wondered to myself whether a more truly wretched being had ever lived
than the woman, or the spirit, whom we knew as She, Hes, and Ayesha.
Whether in fact also, or in our imagination only, she had arisen from
the ashes of her hideous age into the full bloom of perpetual life and
beauty inconceivable.

These things at least were certain: Ayesha had achieved the secret of
an existence so enduring that for all human purposes it might be called
unending. Within certain limitations--such as her utter inability to
foresee the future--undoubtedly also, she was endued with powers that
can only be described as supernatural.

Her rule over the strange community amongst whom she lived was absolute;
indeed, its members regarded her as a goddess, and as such she was
worshipped. After marvellous adventures, the man who was her very life,
I might almost say her soul, whose being was so mysteriously intertwined
with hers, whom she loved also with the intensest human passion of which
woman can be capable, had sought her out in this hidden corner of the
world.

More, thrice he had proved his unalterable fidelity to her. First,
by his rejection of the royal and beautiful, if undisciplined, Atene.
Secondly, by clinging to Ayesha when she seemed to be repulsive to every
natural sense. Thirdly, after that homage scene in the Sanctuary--though
with her unutterable perfections before his eyes this did not appear to
be so wonderful--by steadfastness in the face of her terrible avowal,
true or false, that she had won her gifts and him through some
dim, unholy pact with the powers of evil, in the unknown fruits
and consequences of which he must be involved as the price of her
possession.

Yet Ayesha was miserable. Even in her lightest moods it was clear to
me that those skeletons at the feast of which she had spoken were her
continual companions. Indeed, when we were alone she would acknowledge
it in dark hints and veiled allegories or allusions. Crushed though her
rival the Khania Atene might be, also she was still jealous of her.

Perhaps "afraid" would be a better word, for some instinct seemed to
warn Ayesha that soon or late her hour would come to Atene again, and
that then it would be her own turn to drink of the bitter waters of
despair.

What troubled her more a thousandfold, however, were her fears for Leo.
As may well be understood, to stand in his intimate relationship to this
half divine and marvellous being, and yet not to be allowed so much as
to touch her lips, did not conduce to his physical or mental well-being,
especially as he knew that the wall of separation must not be climbed
for at least two years. Little wonder that Leo lost appetite, grew thin
and pale, and could not sleep, or that he implored her continually to
rescind her decree and marry him.

But on this point Ayesha was immovable. Instigated thereto by Leo, and
I may add my own curiosity, when we were alone I questioned her again
as to the reasons of this self-denying ordinance. All she would tell me,
however, was that between them rose the barrier of Leo's mortality, and
that until his physical being had been impregnated with the mysterious
virtue of the Vapour of Life, it was not wise that she should take him
as a husband.

I asked her why, seeing that though a long-lived one, she was still a
woman, whereon her face assumed a calm but terrifying smile, and she
answered--"Art so sure, my Holly? Tell me, do your women wear such
jewels as that set upon my brow?" and she pointed to the faint but
lambent light which glowed about her forehead.

More, she began slowly to stroke her abundant hair, then her breast and
body. Wherever her fingers passed the mystic light was born, until in
that darkened room--for the dusk was gathering--she shimmered from head
to foot like the water of a phosphorescent sea, a being glorious yet
fearful to behold. Then she waved her hand, and, save for the gentle
radiance on her brow, became as she had been.

"Art so sure, my Holly?" Ayesha repeated. "Nay, shrink not; that flame
will not burn thee. Mayhap thou didst but imagine it, as I have noted
thou dost imagine many things; for surely no woman could clothe herself
in light and live, nor has so much as the smell of fire passed upon my
garments."

Then at length my patience was outworn, and I grew angry.

"I am sure of nothing, Ayesha," I answered, "except that thou wilt make
us mad with all these tricks and changes. Say, art thou a spirit then?"

"We are all spirits," she said reflectively, "and I, perhaps, more than
some. Who can be certain?"

"Not I," I answered. "Yet I implore, woman or spirit, tell me one thing.
Tell me the truth. In the beginning what wast thou to Leo, and what was
he to thee?"

She looked at me very solemnly and answered--"Does my memory deceive
me, Holly, or is it written in the first book of the Law of the Hebrews,
which once I used to study, that the sons of Heaven came down to the
daughters of men, and found that they were fair?"

"It is so written," I answered.

"Then, Holly, might it not have chanced that once a daughter of Heaven
came down to a man of Earth and loved him well? Might it not chance that
for her great sin, she, this high, fallen star, who had befouled her
immortal state for him, was doomed to suffer till at length his love,
made divine by pain and faithful even to a memory, was permitted to
redeem her?"

Now at length I saw light and sprang up eagerly, but in a cold voice she
added:

"Nay, Holly, cease to question me, for there are things of which I can
but speak to thee in figures and in parables, not to mock and bewilder
thee, but because I must. Interpret them as thou wilt. Still, Atene
thought me no mortal, since she told us that man and spirit may not
mate; and there are matters in which I let her judgment weigh with me,
as without doubt now, as in other lives, she and that old Shaman, her
uncle, have wisdom, aye, and foresight. So bid my lord press me no more
to wed him, for it gives me pain to say him nay--ah! thou knowest not
how much.

"Moreover, I will declare myself to thee, old friend; whatever else
I be, at least I am too womanly to listen to the pleadings of my best
beloved and not myself be moved. See, I have set a curb upon desire
and drawn it until my heart bleeds; but if he pursues me with continual
words and looks of burning love, who knoweth but that I shall kindle in
his flame and throw the reins of reason to the winds?

"Oh, then together we might race adown our passions' steep; together
dare the torrent that rages at its foot, and there perchance be whelmed
or torn asunder. Nay, nay, another space of journeying, but a little
space, and we reach the bridge my wisdom found, and cross it safely, and
beyond for ever ride on at ease through the happy meadows of our love."

Then she was silent, nor would she speak more upon the matter. Also--and
this was the worst of it--even now I was not sure that she told me the
truth, or, at any rate, all of it, for to Ayesha's mind truth seemed
many coloured as are the rays of light thrown from the different faces
of a cut jewel. We never could be certain which shade of it she was
pleased to present, who, whether by preference or of necessity, as
she herself had said, spoke of such secrets in figures of speech and
parables.

It is a fact that to this hour I do not know whether Ayesha is spirit
or woman, or, as I suspect, a blend of both. I do not know the limits of
her powers, or if that elaborate story of the beginning of her love for
Leo was true--which personally I doubt--or but a fable, invented by her
mind, and through it, as she had hinted, pictured on the flame for her
own hidden purposes.

I do not know whether when first we saw her on the Mountain she was
really old and hideous, or did but put on that shape in our eyes in
order to test her lover. I do not know whether, as the priest Oros bore
witness--which he may well have been bidden to do--her spirit passed
into the body of the dead priestess of Hes, or whether when she
seemed to perish there so miserably, her body and her soul were wafted
straightway from the Caves of Kor to this Central Asian peak.

I do not know why, as she was so powerful, she did not come to seek us,
instead of leaving us to seek her through so many weary years, though I
suggest that some superior force forbade her to do more than companion
us unseen, watching our every act, reading our every thought, until at
length we reached the predestined place and hour. Also, as will appear,
there were other things of which this is not the time to speak, whereby
I am still more tortured and perplexed.

In short, I know nothing, except that my existence has been intertangled
with one of the great mysteries of the world; that the glorious being
called Ayesha won the secret of life from whatever power holds it in its
keeping; that she alleged--although of this, remember, we have no actual
proof--such life was to be attained by bathing in a certain emanation,
vapour or essence; that she was possessed by a passion not easy to
understand, but terrific in its force and immortal in its nature,
concentrated upon one other being and one alone. That through this
passion also some angry fate smote her again, again, and yet again,
making of her countless days a burden, and leading the power and the
wisdom which knew all but could foreknow nothing, into abysses of
anguish, suspense, and disappointment such as--Heaven be thanked!--we
common men and women are not called upon to plumb.

For the rest, should human eyes ever fall upon it, each reader must
form his own opinion of this history, its true interpretation and
significance. These and the exact parts played by Atene and myself in
its development I hope to solve shortly, though not here.

Well, as I have said, the upshot of it all was that Ayesha was devoured
with anxiety about Leo. Except in this matter of marriage, his every
wish was satisfied, and indeed forestalled. Thus he was never again
asked to share in any of the ceremonies of the Sanctuary, though,
indeed, stripped of its rites and spiritual symbols, the religion of
the College of Hes proved pure and harmless enough. It was but a diluted
version of the Osiris and Isis worship of old Egypt, from which it
had been inherited, mixed with the Central Asian belief in the
transmigration or reincarnation of souls and the possibility of drawing
near to the ultimate Godhead by holiness of thought and life.

In fact, the head priestess and Oracle was only worshipped as a
representative of the Divinity, while the temporal aims of the College
in practice were confined to good works, although it is true that they
still sighed for their lost authority over the country of Kaloon. Thus
they had hospitals, and during the long and severe winters, when
the Tribes of the Mountain slopes were often driven to the verge of
starvation, gave liberally to the destitute from their stores of food.

Leo liked to be with Ayesha continually, so we spent each evening in her
company, and much of the day also, until she found that this inactivity
told upon him who for years had been accustomed to endure every rigour
of climate in the open air. After this came home to her--although she
was always haunted by terror lest any accident should befall him--Ayesha
insisted upon his going out to kill the wild sheep and the ibex, which
lived in numbers on the mountain ridges, placing him in the charge of
the chiefs and huntsmen of the Tribes, with whom thus he became well
acquainted. In this exercise, however, I accompanied him but rarely, as,
if used too much, my arm still gave me pain.

Once indeed such an accident did happen. I was seated in the garden
with Ayesha and watching her. Her head rested on her hand, and she was
looking with her wide eyes, across which the swift thoughts passed
like clouds over a windy sky, or dreams through the mind of a
sleeper--looking out vacantly towards the mountain snows. Seen thus her
loveliness was inexpressible, amazing; merely 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: look at the teeth marks on his arm. So if
they are to perish on the Mountain, I, who am the man to blame, perish
with them."

Now, while the hunters looked at him with fervent gratitude in their
eyes, Ayesha thought a little, then said cleverly enough--"In truth,
my lord Leo, had I known all the tale, well mightest thou have named
me wicked and unjust; but I knew only what I saw, and out of their own
mouths did I condemn them. My servants, my lord here has pleaded for
you, and you are forgiven; more, he who rushed in upon the leopard and
he who seized it with his hands shall be rewarded and advanced. Go; but
I warn you if you suffer my lord to come into more danger, you shall not
escape so easily again."

So they bowed and went, still blessing Leo with their eyes, since
death by exposure on the Mountain snows was the most terrible form of
punishment known to these people, and one only inflicted by the direct
order of Hes upon murderers or other great criminals.

When we had left the Sanctuary and were alone again in the hall, the
storm that I had seen gathering upon Leo's face broke in earnest. Ayesha
renewed her inquiries about his wounds, and wished to call Oros, the
physician, to dress them, and as he refused this, offered to do so
herself. He begged that she would leave his wounds alone, and then, his
great beard bristling with wrath, asked her solmenly if he was a child
in arms, a query so absurd that I could not help laughing.

Then he scolded her--yes, he scolded Ayesha! Wishing to know what she
meant (1) by spying upon him with her magic, an evil gift that he had
always disliked and mistrusted; (2) by condemning brave and excellent
men, his good friends, to a death of fiendish cruelty upon such
evidence, or rather out of temper, on no evidence at all; and (3) by
giving him into charge of them, as though he were a little boy, and
telling them that they would have to answer for it if he were hurt: he
who, in his time, had killed every sort of big game known and passed
through some perils and encounters?

Thus he beat her with his words, and, wonderful to say, Ayesha, this
being more than woman, submitted to the chastisement meekly. Yet had any
other man dared to address her with roughness even, I doubt not that his
speech and his life would have come to a swift and simultaneous end,
for I knew that now, as of old, she could slay by the mere effort of
her will. But she did not slay; she did not even threaten, only, as any
other loving woman might have done, she began to cry. Yes, great tears
gathered in those lovely eyes of hers and, rolling one by one down her
face, fell--for her head was bent humbly forward--like heavy raindrops
on the marble floor.

At the sight of this touching evidence of her human, loving heart all
Leo's anger melted. Now it was he who grew penitent and prayed
her pardon humbly. She gave him her hand in token of forgiveness,
saying--"Let others speak to me as they will" (sorry should I have been
to try it!) "but from thee, Leo, I cannot bear harsh words. Oh, thou art
cruel, cruel. In what have I offended? Can I help it if my spirit keeps
its watch upon thee, as indeed, though thou knewest it not, it has done
ever since we parted yonder in the Place of Life? Can I help it if, like
some mother who sees her little child at play upon a mountain's edge, my
soul is torn with agony when I know thee in dangers that I am powerless
to prevent or share? What are the lives of a few half-wild huntsmen that
I should let them weigh for a single breath against thy safety, seeing
that if I slew these, others would be more careful of thee? Whereas if I
slay them not, they or their fellows may even lead thee into perils that
would bring about--thy _death_," and she gasped with horror at the word.

"Listen, beloved," said Leo. "The life of the humblest of those men is
of as much value to him as mine is to me, and thou hast no more right to
kill him than thou hast to kill me. It is evil that because thou carest
for me thou shouldst suffer thy love to draw thee into cruelty and
crime. If thou art afraid for me, then clothe me with that immortality
of thine, which, although I dread it somewhat, holding it a thing
unholy, and, on this earth, not permitted by my Faith, I should still
rejoice to inherit for thy dear sake, knowing that then we could never
more be parted. Or, if as thou sayest, this as yet thou canst not do,
then let us be wed and take what fortune gives us. All men must die;
but at least before I die I shall have been happy with thee for a
while--yes, if only for a single hour."

"Would that I dared," Ayesha answered with a little piteous motion of
her hand. "Oh! urge me no more, Leo, lest that at last I should take the
risk and lead thee down a dreadful road. Leo, hast thou never heard of
the love which slays, or of the poison that may lurk in a cup of joy too
perfect?"

Then, as though she feared herself, Ayesha turned from him and fled.

Thus this matter ended. In itself it was not a great one, for Leo's
hurts were mere scratches, and the hunters, instead of being killed,
were promoted to be members of his body-guard. Yet it told us many
things. For instance, that whenever she chose to do so, Ayesha had
the power of perceiving all Leo's movements from afar, and even of
communicating her strength of mental vision to others, although to help
him in any predicament she appeared to have no power, which, of course,
accounted for the hideous and ever-present might of her anxiety.

Think what it would be to any one of us were we mysteriously acquainted
with every open danger, every risk of sickness, every secret peril
through which our best-beloved must pass. To see the rock trembling to
its fall and they loitering beneath it; to see them drink of water and
know it full of foulest poison; to see them embark upon a ship and be
aware that it was doomed to sink, but not to be able to warn them or to
prevent them. Surely no mortal brain could endure such constant terrors,
since hour by hour the arrows of death flit unseen and unheard past the
breasts of each of us, till at length one finds its home there.

What then must Ayesha have suffered, watching with her spirit's eyes all
the hair-breadth escapes of our journeyings? When, for instance, in the
beginning she saw Leo at my house in Cumberland about to kill himself
in his madness and despair, and by some mighty effort of her superhuman
will, wrung from whatever Power it was that held her in its fearful
thraldom, the strength to hurl her soul across the world and thereby in
his sleep reveal to him the secret of the hiding-place where he would
find her.

Or to take one more example out of many--when she saw him hanging by
that slender thread of yak's hide from the face of the waterfall of ice
and herself remained unable to save him, or even to look forward for
a single moment and learn whether or no he was about to meet a hideous
death, in which event she must live on alone until in some dim age he
was born again.

Nor can her sorrows have ended with these more material fears, since
others as piercing must have haunted her. Imagine, for instance, the
agonies of her jealous heart when she knew her lover to be exposed to
the temptations incident to his solitary existence, and more especially
to those of her ancient rival Atene, who, by Ayesha's own account, had
once been his wife. Imagine also her fears lest time and human change
should do their natural work on him, so that by degrees the memory of
her wisdom and her strength, and the image of her loveliness faded from
his thought, and with them his desire for her company; thus leaving her
who had endured so long, forgotten and alone at last.

Truly, the Power that limited our perceptions did so in purest mercy,
for were it otherwise with us, our race would go mad and perish raving
in its terrors.

Thus it would seem that Ayesha, great tormented soul, thinking to win
life and love eternal and most glorious, was in truth but another blind
Pandora. From her stolen casket of beauty and super-human power had
leapt into her bosom, there to dwell unceasingly, a hundred torturing
demons, of whose wings mere mortal kind do but feel the far-off, icy
shadowing.

Yes; and that the parallel might be complete, Hope alone still lingered
in that rifled chest.

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