“Aye,” she said, “while it was permitted to endure.  So be it, Leo.  In the spring, when the snows melt, we will journey together to Libya, and there thou shalt be bathed in the Fount of Life, that forbidden Essence of which once thou didst fear to drink.  Afterwards I will wed thee.”

“That place is closed for ever, Ayesha.”

“Not to my feet and thine,” she answered.  “Fear not, my love, were this mountain heaped thereon, I would blast a path through it with mine eyes and lay its secret bare.  Oh! would that thou wast as I am, for then before tomorrow’s sun we’d watch the rolling pillar thunder by, and thou shouldst taste its glory.

“But it may not be.  Hunger or cold can starve thee, and waters drown; swords can slay thee, or sickness sap away thy strength.  Had it not been for the false Atene, who disobeyed my words, as it was foredoomed that she should do, by this day we were across the mountains, or had travelled northward through the frozen desert and the rivers.  Now we must await the melting of the snows, for winter is at hand, and in it, as thou knowest, no man can live upon their heights.”

“Eight months till April before we can start, and how long to cross the mountains and all the vast distances beyond, and the seas, and the swamps of Kor?  Why, at the best, Ayesha, two years must go by before we can even find the place;” and he fell to entreating her to let them be wed at once and journey afterwards.

But she said, Nay, and nay, and nay, it should not be, till at length, as though fearing his pleading, or that of her own heart, she rose and dismissed us.

“Ah! my Holly,” she said to me as we three parted, “I promised thee and myself some few hours of rest and of the happiness of quiet, and thou seest how my desire has been fulfilled.  Those old Egyptians were wont to share their feasts with one grizzly skeleton, but here I counted four to-night that you both could see, and they are named Fear, Suspense, Foreboding, and Love-denied.  Doubtless also, when these are buried others will come to haunt us, and snatch the poor morsel from our lips.

“So hath it ever been with me, whose feet misfortune dogs.  Yet I hope on, and now many a barrier lies behind us; and Leo, thou hast been tried in the appointed, triple fires and yet proved true.  Sweet be thy slumbers, O my love, and sweeter still thy dreams, for know, my soul shall share them.  I vow to thee that to-morrow we’ll be happy, aye, to-morrow without fail.”

“Why will she not marry me at once?” asked Leo, when we were alone in our chamber.  “Because she is afraid,” I answered.

CHAPTER XIX

LEO AND THE LEOPARD

During the weeks that followed these momentous days often and often I wondered to myself whether a more truly wretched being had ever lived than the woman, or the spirit, whom we knew as She, Hes, and Ayesha.  Whether in fact also, or in our imagination only, she had arisen from the ashes of her hideous age into the full bloom of perpetual life and beauty inconceivable.