Ah!  I thought, Ayesha has cast herself into the pit.  The tragedy is finished!

Then it was that the wondrous music came.  Of course it may have been only the sound of priests chanting beyond us, but I do not think so, since its quality was quite different to any that I heard in the temple before or afterwards:  to any indeed that ever I heard upon the earth.

I cannot describe it, but it was awful to listen to, yet most entrancing.  From the black, smoke-veiled pit where the fire had burned it welled and echoed—­now a single heavenly voice, now a sweet chorus, and now an air-shaking thunder as of a hundred organs played to time.

That diverse and majestic harmony seemed to include, to express every human emotion, and I have often thought since then that in its all-embracing scope and range, this, the song or paean of her re-birth was symbolical of the infinite variety of Ayesha’s spirit.  Yet like that spirit it had its master notes; power, passion, suffering, mystery and loveliness.  Also there could be no doubt as to the general significance of the chant by whomsoever it was sung.  It was the changeful story of a mighty soul; it was worship, worship, worship of a queen divine!

Like slow clouds of incense fading to the bannered roof of some high choir, the bursts of unearthly melodies grew faint; in the far distance of the hollow pit they wailed themselves away.

Look! from the east a single ray of upward-springing light.

“Behold the dawn,” said the quiet voice of Oros.

That ray pierced the heavens above our heads, a very sword of flame.  It sank downwards, swiftly.  Suddenly it fell, not upon us, for as yet the rocky walls of our chamber warded it away, but on to the little promontory at its edge.

Oh! and there—­a Glory covered with a single garment—­stood a shape celestial.  It seemed to be asleep, since the eyes were shut.  Or was it dead, for at first that face was a face of death?  Look, the sunlight played upon her, shining through the thin veil, the dark eyes opened like the eyes of a wondering child; the blood of life flowed up the ivory bosom into the pallid cheeks; the raiment of black and curling tresses wavered in the wind; the head of the jewelled snake that held them sparkled beneath her breast.

Was it an illusion, or was this Ayesha as she had been when she entered the rolling flame in the caverns of Kor?  Our knees gave way beneath us, and down, our arms about each other’s necks, Leo and I sank till we lay upon the ground.  Then a voice sweeter than honey, softer than the whisper of a twilight breeze among the reeds, spoke near to us, and these were the words it said—­“Come hither to me, Kallikrates, who would pay thee back that redeeming kiss of faith and love thou gavest me but now!”

Leo struggled to his feet.  Like a drunken man he staggered to where Ayesha stood, then overcome, sank before her on his knees.