As each vague Being appeared and bowed its starry head she raised her sceptre in answering salutation.  We could hear the distant tinkle of the sistrum bells, the only sound in all that place, yes, and see her lips move, though no whisper reached us from them.  Surely spirits were worshipping her!

We gripped each other.  We shrank back and found the door.  It gave to our push.  Now we were in the passages again, and now we had reached our room.

At its entrance Oros was standing as we had left him.  He greeted us with his fixed smile, taking no note of the terror written on our faces.  We passed him, and entering the room stared at each other.

“What is she?” gasped Leo.  “An angel?”

“Yes,” I answered, “something of that sort.”  But to myself I thought that there are doubtless many kinds of angels.

“And what were those—­those shadows—­doing?” he asked again.

“Welcoming her after her transformation, I suppose.  But perhaps they were not shadows—­only priests disguised and conducting some secret ceremonial!”

Leo shrugged his shoulders but made no other answer.

At length the door opened, and Oros, entering, said that the Hesea commanded our presence in her chamber.

So, still oppressed with fear and wonder—­for what we had seen was perhaps more dreadful than anything that had gone before—­we went, to find Ayesha seated and looking somewhat weary, but otherwise unchanged.  With her was the priestess Papave, who had just unrobed her of the royal mantle which she wore in the Sanctuary.

Ayesha beckoned Leo to her, taking his hand and searching his face with her eyes, not without anxiety as I thought.

Now I turned, purposing to leave them alone, but she saw, and said to me, smiling—­“Why wouldst thou forsake us, Holly?  To go back to the Sanctuary once more?” and she looked at me with meaning in her glance.  “Hast thou questions to ask of the statue of the Mother yonder that thou lovest the place so much?  They say it speaks, telling of the future to those who dare to kneel beside it uncompanioned from night till dawn.  Yet I have often done so, but to me it has never spoken, though none long to learn the future more.”

I made no answer, nor did she seem to expect any, for she went on at once—­“Nay, bide here and let us have done with all sad and solemn thoughts.  We three will sup together as of old, and for awhile forget our fears and cares, and be happy as children who know not sin and death, or that change which is death indeed.  Oros, await my lord without.  Papave, I will call thee later to disrobe me.  Till then let none disturb us.”

The room that Ayesha inhabited was not very large, as we saw by the hanging lamps with which it was lighted.  It was plainly though richly furnished, the rock walls being covered with tapestries, and the tables and chairs inlaid with silver, but the only token that here a woman had her home was that about it stood several bowls of flowers.  One of these, I remember, was filled with the delicate harebells I had admired, dug up roots and all, and set in moss.