Those whose eyes read the words I write, if any should ever read them, may ask—­What shock?

Well, I am Horace Holly, and my companion, my beloved friend, my son in the spirit whom I reared from infancy was—­nay, is—­Leo Vincey.

We are those men who, following an ancient clue, travelled to the Caves of Kor in Central Africa, and there discovered her whom we sought, the immortal She-who-must-be-obeyed.  In Leo she found her love, that re-born Kallikrates, the Grecian priest of Isis whom some two thousand years before she had slain in her jealous rage, thus executing on him the judgment of the angry goddess.  In her also I found the divinity whom I was doomed to worship from afar, not with the flesh, for that is all lost and gone from me, but, what is sorer still, because its burden is undying, with the will and soul which animate a man throughout the countless eons of his being.  The flesh dies, or at least it changes, and its passions pass, but that other passion of the spirit—­that longing for oneness—­is undying as itself.

What crime have I committed that this sore punishment should be laid upon me?  Yet, in truth, is it a punishment?  May it not prove to be but that black and terrible Gate which leads to the joyous palace of Rewards?  She swore that I should ever be her friend and his and dwell with them eternally, and I believe her.

For how many winters did we wander among the icy hills and deserts!  Still, at length, the Messenger came and led us to the Mountain, and on the Mountain we found the Shrine, and in the Shrine the Spirit.  May not these things be an allegory prepared for our instruction?  I will take comfort.  I will hope that it is so.  Nay, I am sure that it is so.

It will be remembered that in Kor we found the immortal woman.  There before the flashing rays and vapours of the Pillar of Life she declared her mystic love, and then in our very sight was swept to a doom so horrible that even now, after all which has been and gone, I shiver at its recollection.  Yet what were Ayesha’s last words? “Forget me not . . . have pity on my shame.  I die not.  I shall come again and shall once more be beautiful.  I swear it—­it is true.”

Well, I cannot set out that history afresh.  Moreover it is written; the man whom I trusted in the matter did not fail me, and the book he made of it seems to be known throughout the world, for I have found it here in English, yes, and read it first translated into Hindostani.  To it then I refer the curious.

In that house upon the desolate sea-shore of Cumberland, we dwelt a year, mourning the lost, seeking an avenue by which it might be found again and discovering none.  Here our strength came back to us, and Leo’s hair, that had been whitened in the horror of the Caves, grew again from grey to golden.  His beauty returned to him also, so that his face was as it had been, only purified and saddened.