“And so,” she went on, after a pause—­“and so she bade her son destroy me if he might, because I slew his father.  And thou, my Kallikrates, art the father, and in a sense thou art likewise the son; and wouldst thou avenge thy wrong, and the wrong of that far-off mother of thine, upon me, oh Kallikrates?  See,” and she slid to her knees, and drew the white corsage still farther down her ivory bosom—­“see, here beats my heart, and there by thy side is a knife, heavy, and long, and sharp, the very knife to slay an erring woman with.  Take it now, and be avenged.  Strike, and strike home!—­so shalt thou be satisfied, Kallikrates, and go through life a happy man, because thou hast paid back the wrong, and obeyed the mandate of the past.”

He looked at her, and then stretched out his hand and lifted her to her feet.

“Rise, Ayesha,” he said sadly; “well thou knowest that I cannot strike thee, no, not even for the sake of her whom thou slewest but last night.  I am in thy power, and a very slave to thee.  How can I kill thee?—­sooner should I slay myself.”

“Almost dost thou begin to love me, Kallikrates,” she answered, smiling.  “And now tell me of thy country—­’tis a great people, is it not? with an empire like that of Rome!  Surely thou wouldst return thither, and it is well, for I mean not that thou shouldst dwell in these caves of Kor.  Nay, when once thou art even as I am, we will go hence—­fear not but that I shall find a path—­and then shall we journey to this England of thine, and live as it becometh us to live.  Two thousand years have I waited for the day when I should see the last of these hateful caves and this gloomy-visaged folk, and now it is at hand, and my heart bounds up to meet it like a child’s towards its holiday.  For thou shalt rule this England——­”

“But we have a queen already,” broke in Leo, hastily.

“It is naught, it is naught,” said Ayesha; “she can be overthrown.”

At this we both broke out into an exclamation of dismay, and explained that we should as soon think of overthrowing ourselves.

“But here is a strange thing,” said Ayesha, in astonishment; “a queen whom her people love!  Surely the world must have changed since I dwelt in Kor.”

Again we explained that it was the character of monarchs that had changed, and that the one under whom we lived was venerated and beloved by all right-thinking people in her vast realms.  Also, we told her that real power in our country rested in the hands of the people, and that we were in fact ruled by the votes of the lower and least educated classes of the community.

“Ah,” she said, “a democracy—­then surely there is a tyrant, for I have long since seen that democracies, having no clear will of their own, in the end set up a tyrant, and worship him.”

“Yes,” I said, “we have our tyrants.”

“Well,” she answered resignedly, “we can at any rate destroy these tyrants, and Kallikrates shall rule the land.”