“By my last birth I am an Arab lady of royal blood, a descendant of the Kings of the East.  There I dwelt in the wilderness and ruled a people, and at night I gathered wisdom from the stars and the spirits of the earth and air.  At length I wearied of it all and my people too wearied of me and besought me to depart, for, Allan, I would have naught to do with men, yet men went mad because of my beauty and slew each other out of jealousy.  Moreover other peoples made war upon my people, hoping to take me captive that I might be a wife to their kings.  So I left them, and being furnished with great wealth in hoarded gold and jewels, together with a certain holy man, my master, I wandered through the world, studying the nations and their worships.  At Jerusalem I tarried and learned of Jehovah who is, or was, its God.

“At Paphos in the Isle of Chitim I dwelt a while till the folk of that city thought that I was Aphrodite returned to earth and sought to worship me.  For this reason and because I made a mock of Aphrodite, I, who, as I have said, would have naught to do with men, she through her priests cursed me, saying that her yoke should lie more heavily upon my neck from age to age than on that of any woman who had breathed beneath the sun.

“It was a wondrous scene,” she added reflectively, “that of the cursing, since for every word I gave back two.  Moreover I told the hoary villain of a high-priest to make report to his goddess that long after she was dead in the world, I would live on, for the spirit of prophecy was on me in that hour.  Yet the curse fell in its season, since in her day, doubt it or not, Aphrodite had strength, as indeed under other names she has and will have while the world endures, and for aught I know, beyond it.  Do they worship her now in any land, Allan?”

“No, only her statues because of their beauty, though Love is always worshipped.”

“Yes, who can testify to that better than you yourself, Allan, if he who is called Zikali tells me the truth concerning you in the dreams he sends?  As for the statues, I saw some of them as they left the master’s hand in Greece, and when I told him that he might have found a better model, once I was that model.  If this marble still endures, it must be the most famous of them all, though perchance Aphrodite has shattered it in her jealous rage.  You shall tell me of these statues afterwards; mine had a mark on the left shoulder like to a mole, but the stone was imperfect, not my flesh, as I can prove if you should wish.”

Thinking it better not to enter on a discussion as to Ayesha’s shoulder, I remained silent and she went on.