“I am ready to make this journey through the gate of Death, Ayesha, if indeed you can show me the road.  For one purpose and no other I came to Kor, namely to learn, if so I might, whether those who have died upon the world, live on elsewhere.  Now, what must I do?”

CHAPTER XXI

THE LESSON

“Yes,” answered Ayesha, laughing very softly, “for that purpose alone, O truth-seeking Allan, whose curiosity is so fierce that the wide world cannot hold it, did you come to Kor and not to seek wealth or new lands, or to fight more savages.  No, not even to look upon a certain Ayesha, of whom the old wizard told you, though I think you have always loved to try to lift the veil that hides women’s hearts, if not their faces.  Yet it was I who brought you to Kor for my own purposes, not your desire, nor Zikali’s map and talisman, since had not the white lady who lies sick been stolen by Rezu, never would you have pursued the journey nor found the way hither.”

“How could you have had anything to do with that business?” I asked testily, for my nerves were on edge and I said the first thing that came into my mind.

“That, Allan, is a question over which you will wonder for a long while either beneath or beyond the sun, as you will wonder concerning much that has to do with me, which your little mind, shut in its iron box of ignorance and pride, cannot understand to-day.

“For example, you have been wondering, I am sure, how the lightning killed those eleven men whose bodies you went to look on an hour or two ago, and left the rest untouched.  Well, I will tell you at once that it was not lightning that killed them, although the strength within me was manifest to you in storm, but rather what that witch-doctor of your following called wizardry.  Because they were traitors who betrayed your army to Rezu, I killed them with my wrath and by the wand of my power.  Oh! you do not believe, yet perhaps ere long you will, since thus to fulfil your prayer I must also kill you—­almost.  That is the trouble, Allan.  To kill you outright would be easy, but to kill you just enough to set your spirit free and yet leave one crevice of mortal life through which it can creep back again, that is most difficult; a thing that only I can do and even of myself I am not sure.”

“Pray do not try the experiment——­” I began thoroughly alarmed, but she cut me short.

“Disturb me no more, Allan, with the tremors and changes of your uncertain mind, lest you should work more evil than you think, and making mine uncertain also, spoil my skill.  Nay, do not try to fly, for already the net has thrown itself about you and you cannot stir, who are bound like a little gilded wasp in the spider’s web, or like birds beneath the eyes of basilisks.”

This was true, for I found that, strive as I would, I could not move a limb or even an eyelid.  I was frozen to that spot and there was nothing for it except to curse my folly and say my prayers.