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Updated: June 15, 2025
From the Mountain peak behind us went up sudden sheets of flame; it spouted fire as a whale spouts foam. The scene was dreadful. In front, the towers of Kaloon lurid in a monstrous sunset. Above, a gloom as of an eclipse. Around the darkling, sunburnt plain. On it Atene's advancing army, and our rushing wedge of horsemen destined, it would appear, to inevitable doom. Ayesha let fall her rein.
"It is this, O Hes," I answered. "Yonder lady and her uncle the Shaman Simbri saved us from death in the waters of the river that bounds the precipices of Kaloon. Afterwards we were ill, and they treated us kindly, but the Khania became enamoured of my foster-son."
By way of return, I helped them as I was best able to draw up a scheme for the government of the conquered country of Kaloon, and with my advice upon many other questions. And so at length the long months wore away, till at the approach of summer the snows melted. Then I said that I must be gone.
It is the privilege of the rulers of Kaloon; also, I think, that the Khania has questions to ask of its Oracle." "Who is its Oracle?" I asked with eagerness. "The Oracle," he replied darkly, "is a Voice. It was ever so, was it not?" "Yes; I have heard that from Atene, but a voice implies a speaker. Is this speaker she whom you name Mother?" "Perhaps, friend Holly." "And is this Mother a spirit?"
"Remember the dead heaped upon the plains of Kaloon. Remember the departing of the Shaman Simbri with his message and the words that she spoke then. Remember the passing of the Hesea from the Mountain point. Stranger from the West, surely as to-morrow's sun must rise, as she went, so she will return again, and in my borrowed garment I await her advent."
At first the priest seemed puzzled what to do, then explained that the forthcoming ceremony was one of betrothal. On learning this Leo raised no further objections, asking only with some nervousness whether the Khania would be present. Oros answered "No," as she had already departed to Kaloon, vowing war and vengeance.
Who was this lady whom the Guardian had called the Khania of Kaloon? Could it be she whom we sought? Why not? And yet if I saw Ayesha, surely I should know her, surely there would be no room for doubt. Back she went again to the bed, kneeling down beside Leo, and in the intense silence which followed for he had ceased his mutterings I thought that I could hear the beating of her heart.
While this fray went on, Oros came to Ayesha, told her a spy had reported that Leo, bound in a two-wheeled carriage and accompanied by Atene, Simbri and a guard, had passed through the enemy's camp at night, galloping furiously towards Kaloon. "Spare thy words, I know it," she answered, and he fell back behind her.
Therefore they pray her not to destroy them." "Then does that light not always shine thus?" he asked again. "Nay, but seldom. Once about three months ago, and now to-night, but before that not for years. Let us pray that it portends no misfortune to Kaloon and its inhabitants."
Ayesha saw them, and said to me with something of her ancient fire and pride "I tread the plain of Kaloon no more, yet as a parting gift have I read this high-stomached people a lesson that they needed long. Not for many a generation, O Holly, will they dare to lift spear against the College of Hes and its subject Tribes."
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