United States or Eritrea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Atene, be plain, what will you with the man called Leo that he should become your lover?" asked the Shaman. She stared him straight in the eyes, and answered boldly "Nay, I will that he should become my husband." "First he must will it too, who seems to have no mind that way. Also, how can a woman have two husbands?" She laid her hand upon his shoulder and said "I have no husband.
I must love him as I must hate the other whom he loves, yet some power hardens his heart against me. Oh! great Shaman, you that peep and mutter, you who can read the future and the past, tell me what you have learned from your stars and divinations." "Already I have sought through many a secret, toilsome hour and learned this, Atene," he answered.
Now those upon the bank saw him, and a sweet voice spoke through the mist, saying "Lay down that weapon, my guest, for we are not come to harm you." It was the voice of the Khania Atene, and the man with her was the old Shaman Simbri. "What shall we do now, Horace?" asked Leo with something like a groan, for in the whole world there were no two people whom he less wished to see.
I felt it and was afraid, and Atene felt it also, for she answered "I am but a woman. What thou art, thou knowest best. Still a taper cannot shine midst yonder fires or a glow-worm against a fallen star; nor can my mortal flesh compare with the glory thou hast earned from hell in payment for thy gifts and homage to the lord of ill.
I sprang to him, and there, withered in Ayesha's kiss, slain by the fire of her love, Leo lay dead lay dead upon the breast of dead Atene! I heard Ayesha say presently, and the words struck me as dreadful in their hopeless acceptance of a doom against which even she had no strength to struggle. "It seems that my lord has left me for awhile; I must hasten to my lord afar."
Then Ayesha cast away the crown and lo! it fell upon the breast of the lost Atene and rested there. "Art content with these gifts of mine, my lord?" she cried. Leo looked at her sadly and shook his head. "What more wilt thou then? Ask and I swear it shall be thine." "Thou swearest; but wilt thou keep the oath?" "Aye, by myself I swear; by myself and by the Strength that bred me.
Seated in a chair hewn from the rock was the Hesea, wearing a broidered, purple mantle above her gauzy wrappings that enveloped her from head to foot. There, too, standing near to her were the Khania Atene and her uncle the old Shaman, who looked but ill at ease, and lastly, stretched upon his funeral couch, the fiery light beating upon his stark form and face, lay the dead Khan, Rassen.
"We came as fast as we might, O Hes," said Leo; "and if thy spies could visit those mountains, where no man was, and find a path down that hideous precipice, they must have been able also to tell thee the reason of our delay. Therefore I pray, ask it not of us." "Nay, I will ask it of Atene herself, and she shall surely answer me, for she stands without," replied the Hesea in a cold voice.
Drink, drink deep. You'll never guess the liquor's bad till to-morrow though it be mixed with a husband's poisoned blood," and again Rassen screamed in his unholy mirth. To all these bitter insults, venomed with the sting of truth, Atene listened without a word. Then, she turned to us and bowed. "My guests," she said, "I pray you pardon me for all I cannot help.
Ayesha waited for me through two thousand years; Atene could marry a man she hated for power's sake, and then could poison him, as perhaps she would poison me when I wearied her. I know not what oaths I swore to Amenartas, if such a woman lived. I remember the oaths I swore to Ayesha.
Word Of The Day