She grew silent and brooded a while, resting her chin upon her hand and staring down the hall.  Thus the aspect of her face was different from any that I had seen it wear.  No longer had it the allure of Aphrodite or the majesty of Hera; rather might it have been that of Athene herself.  So wise it seemed, so calm, so full of experience and of foresight, that almost it frightened me.

What was this woman’s true story, I wondered, what her real self, and what the sum of her gathered knowledge?  Perhaps it was accident, or perhaps, again, she guessed my mind.  At any rate her next words seemed in some sense an answer to these speculations.  Lifting her eyes she contemplated me a while, then said,

“My friend, we part to meet no more in thy life’s day.  Often thou wilt wonder concerning me, as to what in truth I am, and mayhap in the end thy judgment will be to write me down some false and beauteous wanderer who, rejected of the world or driven from it by her crimes, made choice to rule among savages, playing the part of Oracle to that little audience and telling strange tales to such few travellers as come her way.  Perhaps, indeed, I do play this part among many others, and if so, thou wilt not judge me wrongly.

“Allan, in the old days, mariners who had sailed the northern seas, told me that therein amidst mist and storm float mountains of ice, shed from dizzy cliffs which are hid in darkness where no sun shines.  They told me also that whereas above the ocean’s breast appears but a blue and dazzling point, sunk beneath it is oft a whole frozen isle, invisible to man.

“Such am I, Allan.  Of my being thou seest but one little peak glittering in light or crowned with storm, as heaven’s moods sweep over it.  But in the depths beneath are hid its white and broad foundations, hollowed by the seas of time to caverns and to palaces which my spirit doth inhabit.  So picture me, therefore, as wise and fair, but with a soul unknown, and pray that in time to come thou mayest see it in its splendour.

“Hadst thou been other than thou art, I might have shown thee secrets, making clear to thee the parable of much that I have told thee in metaphor and varying fable, aye, and given thee great gifts of power and enduring days of which thou knowest nothing.  But of those who visit shrines, O Allan, two things are required, worship and faith, since without these the oracles are dumb and the healing waters will not flow.

“Now I, Ayesha, am a shrine; yet to me thou broughtest no worship until I won it by a woman’s trick, and in me thou hast no faith.  Therefore for thee the oracle will not speak and the waters of deliverance will not flow.  Yet I blame thee not, who art as thou wast made and the hard world has shaped thee.

“And so we part:  Think not I am far from thee because thou seest me not in the days to come, since like that Isis whose majesty alone I still exercise on earth, I, whom men name Ayesha, am in all things.  I tell thee that I am not One but Many and, being many, am both Here and Everywhere.  When thou standest beneath the sky at night and lookest on the stars, remember that in them mine eyes behold thee; when the soft winds of evening blow, that my breath is on thy brow and when the thunder rolls, that there am I riding on the lightnings and rushing with the gale.”