“Only, thou Beautiful,” he answered, “a dim shadow of things to come.  I have what thou dost lack with all thy wisdom, the gift of foresight, and here I see a dead man lying——­”

“Another word,” she broke in with fury born of some dark fear, “and thou shalt be that man.  Fool, put me not in mind that now I have strength again to rid me of the ancient foes I hate, lest I should use a sword thou thrustest to my hand,” and her eyes that had been so calm and happy, blazed upon him like fire.

The old wizard felt their fearsome might and shrank from it till the wall stayed him.

“Great One! now as ever I salute thee.  Yes, now as at the first beginning whereof we know alone,” he stammered.  “I had no more to say; the face of that dead man was not revealed to me.  I saw only that some crowned Khan of Kaloon to be shall lie here, as he whom the flame has taken lay an hour ago.”

“Doubtless many a Khan of Kaloon will lie here,” she answered coldly.  “Fear not, Shaman, my wrath is past, yet be wise, mine enemy, and prophesy no more evil to the great.  Come, let us hence.”

So, still led by Leo, she passed from that chamber and stood presently upon the apex of the soaring pillar.  The sun was up now, flooding the Mountain flanks, the plains of Kaloon far beneath and the distant, misty peaks with a sheen of gold.  Ayesha stood considering the mighty prospect, then addressing Leo, she said—­“The world is very fair; I give it all to thee.”

Now Atene spoke for the first time.

“Dost thou mean Hes—­if thou art still the Hesea and not a demon arisen from the Pit—­that thou offerest my territories to this man as a love-gift?  If so, I tell thee that first thou must conquer them.”

“Ungentle are thy words and mien,” answered Ayesha, “yet I forgive them both, for I also can scorn to mock a rival in my hour of victory.  When thou wast the fairer, thou didst proffer him these very lands, but say, who is the fairer now?  Look at us, all of you, and judge,” and she stood by Atene and smiled.

The Khania was a lovely woman.  Never to my knowledge have I seen one lovelier, but oh! how coarse and poor she showed beside the wild, ethereal beauty of Ayesha born again.  For that beauty was not altogether human, far less so indeed than it had been in the Caves of Kor; now it was the beauty of a spirit.

The little light that always shone upon Ayesha’s brow; the wide-set, maddening eyes which were filled sometimes with the fire of the stars and sometimes with the blue darkness of the heavens wherein they float; the curved lips, so wistful yet so proud; the tresses fine as glossy silk that still spread and rippled as though with a separate life; the general air, not so much of majesty as of some secret power hard to be restrained, which strove in that delicate body and proclaimed its presence to the most careless; that flame of the soul within whereof Oros had spoken,