Ayesha asked to see this afterwards and was but ill-pleased with the result of her experiment.  She pointed out to me that lines and blotches of gold ran for an inch or more down the substance of the steel, which she feared that they might weaken or distemper, whereas it had been her purpose that the hilt only should be altered.[*]

[*] I proved in after days how real were Ayesha’s alchemy, and the knowledge which enabled her to solve the secret that chemists have hunted for in vain, and, like Nature’s self, to transmute the commonest into the most precious of the metals.  At the first town that I reached on the frontiers of India, I took this knife to a jeweller, a native, who was as clever as he proved dishonest, and asked him to test the handle.  He did so with acids and by other means, and told me that it was of very pure gold, twenty-four carats, I think he said.  Also he pointed out that this gold became gradually merged into the steel of the blade in a way which was quite inexplicable to him, and asked me to clear up the matter.  Of course I could not, but at his request I left the knife in his shop to give him an opportunity of examining it further.  The next day I was taken ill with one of the heart-attacks to which I have been liable of late, and when I became able to move about again a while afterwards, I found that this jeweller had gone, none knew whither.  So had my knife.—­L.  H. H.

Often since that time I have marvelled how Ayesha performed this miracle, and from what substances she gathered or compounded the lightning-like material, which was her servant in the work; also, whether or no it had been impregnated with the immortalizing fire of Life that burned in the caves of Kor.[*] Yet to this hour I have found no answer to the problem, for it is beyond my guessing.

[*] Recent discoveries would appear to suggest that this mysterious “Fire of Life,” which, whatever else it may have been, was evidently a force and no true fire, since it did not burn, owed its origin to the emanations from radium, or some kindred substance.  Although in the year 1885, Mr. Holly would have known nothing of the properties of these marvellous rays or emanations, doubtless Ayesha was familiar with them and their enormous possibilities, of which our chemists and scientific men have, at present, but explored the fringe.—­Editor.

I suppose that, in preparation for her conquest of the inhabitants of this globe—­to which, indeed, it would have sufficed unaided by any other power—­the manufacture of gold from iron went on in the cave unceasingly.

However this may be, during the few days that we remained together Ayesha never so much as spoke of it again.  It seemed to have served her purpose for the while, or in the press of other and more urgent matters to have been forgotten or thrust from her mind.  Still, amongst others, of which I have said nothing, since it is necessary to select, I record this strange incident, and our conversations concerning it at length, for the reason that it made a great impression upon me and furnishes a striking example of Ayesha’s dominion over the hidden forces of Nature whereof we were soon to experience a more fearful instance.