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Updated: June 17, 2025
But what of this creature? I would not pursue the thought. I was mistaken. Doubtless she was what the priest Oros had said some half-supernatural being to whom certain powers were given, and, doubtless, she had come to spy on us in our rest that she might make report to the giver of those powers. Comforting myself thus I fell asleep again, for fatigue overcame even such doubts and fears.
"I" and he gave a name that was familiar to me, but which I forget "am sent, my lords, by Oros, who commands me to say that the Hesea would speak with you both and at once." Now Leo sat up yawning and asked what was the matter. I told him, whereon he said he wished that Ayesha could have waited till daylight, then added "Well, there is no help for it.
That guide of yours must surely be something hateful and hideous, for were she a wholesome woman she would not fear to show her face." Now the Shaman plucked his mistress by the sleeve, and the priest Oros, bowing to her, prayed her to be silent and cease to speak such ill-omened words into the air, which might carry them she knew not whither.
"For every drop I'll take a hundred lives. By myself I swear it," Ayesha muttered with a groan. Then she cried in a ringing voice, "Back and to horse, for I have deeds to do this day. Nay, bide thou here, Holly; we go a shorter path while the army skirts the gorge. Oros, give him food and drink and bathe that hurt upon his head. It is but a bruise, for his hood and hair are thick."
When all had gone, leaving us alone, save for the priest Oros and the priestess Papave, who remained in attendance on their mistress, Ayesha, who sat gazing before her with dreaming, empty eyes, seemed to awake, for she rose and said "A noble chant, is it not, and an ancient?
The night drew towards the dawn, and we stood upon the peak above the gulf of fire, four of us only Ayesha and I, and Oros and Papave. For the bearers had laid down the body of Leo upon its edge and gone their way. The curtain of flame flared in front of us, its crest bent over like a billow in the gale, and to leeward, one by one, floated the torn-off clouds and pinnacles of fire.
"Do these candles of yours ever go out?" asked Leo of Oros, placing his hand before his dazzled eyes. "How can they," replied the priest, in his smooth, matter-of-fact voice, "seeing that they rise from the eternal fire which the builders of this hall worshipped? These stones were worked to and fro by means of pulleys connected with iron rods.
"Come with me, my Holly," and, followed by the main body of the horsemen, she rode a little way into the river, and there waited until the shattered troops had fallen back upon us. Oros whispered to me "It is madness, the Hesea will be slain." "Thinkest thou so?" I answered.
Soon we had left the melancholy procession behind us and, issuing from the gorge, turned up the Mountain slope towards the edge of the bright snows that lay not far above. It was as we came out of this darksome valley, where the overhanging pine trees almost eclipsed the light, that suddenly we missed our guide. "Has she gone back to to reason with the Khania?" I asked of Oros.
In the morning I discovered that whatever else about her might be false, Ayesha was a true chemist, the very greatest, I suppose, who ever lived. For as I dressed myself, those priests whom we had seen in the laboratory, staggered into the room carrying between them a heavy burden, that was covered with a cloth, and, directed by Oros, placed it upon the floor. "What is that?" I asked of Oros.
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