At the moment I was out of my litter and walking with Umslopogaas at the end of the line, to make sure that no one straggled in the oncoming darkness.  When we had passed the column by some forty or fifty yards, something caused Umslopogaas to turn and look back.  He uttered an exclamation which made me follow his example, with the result that I saw a very wonderful thing.  For there on the point of the pillar, like St. Simeon Stylites on his famous column, glowing in the sunset rays as though she were on fire, stood Ayesha herself!

It was a strange and in a way a glorious sight, for poised thus between earth and heaven, she looked like some glowing angel rather than a woman, standing as she seemed to do upon the darkness; since the shadows, save for the faintest outline, had swallowed up the column that supported her.  Moreover, in the intense, rich light that was focussed on her, we could see every detail of her form and face, for she was unveiled, and even her large and tender eyes which gazed upwards emptily (at this moment they seemed very tender), yes, and the little gold studs that glittered on her sandals and the shine of the snake girdle she wore about her waist.

We stared and stared till I said inconsequently,

“Learn, Umslopogaas, what a liar is that old Billali, who told me that She-who-commands had departed from Kor to her own place.”

“Perhaps this rock edge is her own place, if she be there at all, Macumazahn.”

“If she be there,” I answered angrily, for my nerves were at once thrilled and torn.  “Speak not empty words, Umslopogaas, for where else can she be when we see her with our eyes?”

“Who am I that I should know the ways of witches who, like the winds, are able to go and come as they will?  Can a woman run up a wall of rock like a lizard, Macumazahn?”

“Doubtless——­” and I began some explanation which I have forgotten, when a passing cloud, or I know not what, cut off the light so that both the pinnacle and she who stood on it became invisible.  A minute later it returned for a little while, and there was the point of the needle-shaped rock, but it was empty, as, save for the birds that rested on it, it had been since the beginning of the world.

Then Umslopogaas and I shook our heads and pursued our way in silence.

This was the last that I saw of the glorious Ayesha, if indeed I did see her and not her ghost.  Yet it is true that for all the first part of the journey, till we were through the great swamp in fact, from time to time I was conscious, or imagined that I was conscious of her presence.  Moreover, once others saw her, or someone who might have been her.  It happened thus.

We were in the centre of the great swamp and the trained guides who were leading came to a place where the path forked and were uncertain which road to take.  Finally they fixed on the right-hand path and were preparing to follow it together with those who bore the litter of Inez, by the side of which Hans was walking as usual.