CHAPTER XX
AYESHA'S ALCHEMY
It was shortly after this incident of the snow-leopard that one of thesedemon familiars of Ayesha's, her infinite ambition, made its formidableappearance. When we had dined with her in the evening, Ayesha's habitwas to discuss plans for our mighty and unending future, that awfulinheritance which she had promised to us.
Here I must explain, if I have not done so already, that she hadgraciously informed me that notwithstanding my refusal in past yearsof such a priceless opportunity, I also was to be allowed to bathe mysuperannuated self in the vital fires, though in what guise I shouldemerge from them, like Herodotus when he treats of the mysteries of oldEgypt, if she knew, she did not think it lawful to reveal.
Secretly I hoped that my outward man might change for the better, as theprospect of being fixed for ever in the shape of my present and somewhatunpleasing personality, did not appeal to me as attractive. In truth, sofar as I was concerned, the matter had an academic rather than an actualinterest, such as we take in a fairy tale, since I did not believe thatI should ever put on this kind of immortality. Nor, I may add, now asbefore, was I at all certain that I wished to do so.
These plans of Ayesha's were far reaching and indeed terrific.Her acquaintance with the modern world, its political and socialdevelopments, was still strictly limited; for if she had the power tofollow its growth and activities, certainly it was one of which she madeno use.
In practice her knowledge seemed to be confined to what she had gatheredduring the few brief talks which took place between us upon this subjectin past time at Kor. Now her thirst for information proved insatiable,although it is true that ours was scarcely up to date, seeing that eversince we lost touch with the civilized peoples, namely, for the lastfifteen years or so, we had been as much buried as she was herself.
Still we were able to describe to her the condition of the nations andtheir affairs as they were at the period when we bade them farewell,and, more or less incorrectly, to draw maps of the various countries andtheir boundaries, over which she pondered long.
The Chinese were the people in whom she proved to be most interested,perhaps because she was acquainted with the Mongolian type, and likeourselves, understood a good many of their dialects. Also she had amotive for her studies, which one night she revealed to us in the mostmatter-of-fact fashion.
Those who have read the first part of her history, which I left inEngland to be published, may remember that when we found her at Kor,_She_ horrified us by expressing a determination to possess herself ofGreat Britain, for the simple reason that we belonged to that country.Now, however, like her powers, her ideas had grown, for she purposed tomake Leo the absolute monarch of the world. In vain did he assure hermost earnestly that he desired no such empire. She merely laughed at himand said--"If I arise amidst the Peoples, I must rule the Peoples, forhow can Ayesha take a second place among mortal men? And thou, my Leo,rulest me, yes, mark the truth, thou art my master! Therefore it isplain that thou wilt be the master of this earth, aye, and perchance ofothers which do not yet appear, for of these also I know something, and,I think, can reach them if I will, though hitherto I have had no mindthat way. My true life has not yet begun. Its little space within thisworld has been filled with thought and care for thee; in waiting tillthou wast born again, and during these last years of separation, untilthou didst return.
"But now a few more months, and the days of preparation past, endowedwith energy eternal, with all the wisdom of the ages, and with astrength that can bend the mountains or turn the ocean from its bed,and we begin to be. Oh! how I sicken for that hour when first, like twinstars new to the firmament of heaven, we break in our immortal splendourupon the astonished sight of men. It will please me, I tell thee,Leo, it will please me, to see Powers, Principalities and Dominions,marshalled by their kings and governors, bow themselves before ourthrones and humbly crave the liberty to do our will. At least," sheadded, "it will please me for a little time, until we seek higherthings."
So she spoke, while the radiance upon her brow increased and spreaditself, gleaming above her like a golden fan, and her slumbrous eyestook fire from it till, to my thought, they became glowing mirrors inwhich I saw pomp enthroned and suppliant peoples pass.
"And how," asked Leo, with something like a groan--for this vision ofuniversal rule viewed from afar did not seem to charm him--"how, Ayesha,wilt thou bring these things about?"
"How, my Leo? Why, easily enough. For many nights I have listened tothe wise discourses of our Holly here, at least he thinks them wise whostill has so much to learn, and pored over his crooked maps, comparingthem with those that are written in my memory, who of late have hadno time for the study of such little matters. Also I have weighed andpondered your reports of the races of this world; their various follies,their futile struggling for wealth and small supremacies, and I havedetermined that it would be wise and kind to weld them to one whole,setting ourselves at the head of them to direct their destinies, andcause wars, sickness, and poverty to cease, so that these creatures ofa little day (ephemeridae was the word she used) may live happy from thecradle to the grave.
"Now, were it not because of thy strange shrinking from bloodshed,however politic and needful--for my Leo, as yet thou art no truephilosopher--this were quickly done, since I can command a weapon whichwould crush their armouries and whelm their navies in the deep; yes, I,whom even the lightnings and Nature's elemental powers must obey. Butthou shrinkest from the sight of death, and thou believest that Heavenwould be displeased because I make myself--or am chosen--the instrumentof Heaven. Well, so let it be, for thy will is mine, and therefore wewill tread a gentler path."
"And how wilt thou persuade the kings of the earth to place their crownsupon thy head?" I asked, astonished.
"By causing their peoples to offer them to us," she answered suavely."Oh! Holly, Holly, how narrow is thy mind, how strained the quality ofthine imagination! Set its poor gates ajar, I pray, and bethink thee.When we appear among men, scattering gold to satisfy their want, cladin terrifying power, in dazzling beauty and in immortality of days, willthey not cry, 'Be ye our monarchs and rule over us!'"
"Perhaps," I answered dubiously, "but where wilt thou appear?"
She took a map of the eastern hemisphere which I had drawn and, placingher finger upon Pekin, said--"There is the place that shall be our homefor some few centuries, say three, or five, or seven, should it take solong to shape this people to my liking and our purposes. I havechosen these Chinese because thou tellest me that their numbers areuncountable, that they are brave, subtle, and patient, and though nowpowerless because ill-ruled and untaught, able with their multitudes toflood the little western nations. Therefore among them we will begin ourreign and for some few ages be at rest while they learn wisdom from us,and thou, my Holly, makest their armies unconquerable and givest theirland good government, wealth, peace, and a new religion."
What the new religion was to be I did not ask. It seemed unnecessary,since I was convinced that in practice it would prove a form ofAyesha-worship, Indeed, my mind was so occupied with conjectures, someof them quaint and absurd enough, as to what would happen at the firstappearance of Ayesha in China that I forgot this subsidiary developmentof our future rule.
"And if the 'little western nations' will not wait to be flooded?"suggested Leo with irritation, for her contemptuous tone angered him,one of a prominent western nation. "If they combine, for instance, andattack thee first?"
"Ah!" she said, with a flash of her eyes. "I have thought of it, and formy part hope that it will chance, since then thou canst not blame me ifI put out my strength. Oh! then the East, that has slept so long, shallawake--shall awake, and upon battlefield after battlefield such ashistory cannot tell of, thou shalt see my flaming standards sweep on tovictory. One by one thou shalt watch the nations fall and perish, untilat length I build thy throne upon the hecatombs of their countless deadand crown thee emperor of a world regenerate in blood and fire."
r /> Leo, whom this new gospel of regeneration seemed to appall, who was,in fact, a hater of absolute monarchies and somewhat republican in hisviews and sympathies, continued the argument, but I took no furtherheed. The thing was grotesque in its tremendous and fantastic absurdity;Ayesha's ambitions were such as no imperial-minded madman couldconceive.
Yet--here came the rub--I had not the slightest doubt but that she waswell able to put them into practice and carry them to some marvellousand awful conclusion. Why not? Death could not touch her; she hadtriumphed over death. Her beauty--that "cup of madness" in her eyes, asshe named it once to me--and her reckless will would compel the hosts ofmen to follow her. Her piercing intelligence would enable her to inventnew weapons with which the most highly-trained army could not possiblycompete. Indeed, it might be as she said, and as I for one believed,with good reason, it proved, that she held at her command the elementalforces of Nature, such as those that lie hid in electricity, which wouldgive all living beings to her for a prey.
Ayesha was still woman enough to have worldly ambitions, and the mostdread circumstance about her superhuman powers was that they appeared tobe unrestrained by any responsibility to God or man. She was as we mightwell imagine a fallen angel to be, if indeed, as she herself once hintedand as Atene and the old Shaman believed, this were not her true placein creation. By only two things that I was able to discover could she bemoved--her love for Leo and, in a very small degree, her friendship formyself.
Yet her devouring passion for this one man, inexplicable in itsendurance and intensity, would, I felt sure even then, in the future asin the past, prove to be her heel of Achilles. When Ayesha was dipped inthe waters of Dominion and Deathlessness, this human love left her heartmortal, that through it she might be rendered harmless as a child, whootherwise would have devastated the universe.
I was right.
Whilst I was still indulging myself in these reflections and hopingthat Ayesha would not take the trouble to read them in my mind, I becameaware that Oros was bowing to the earth before her.
"Thy business, priest?" she asked sharply; for when she was with LeoAyesha did not like to be disturbed.
"Hes, the spies are returned."
"Why didst thou send them out?" she asked indifferently. "What need haveI of thy spies?"
"Hes, thou didst command me."
"Well, their report?"
"Hes, it is most grave. The people of Kaloon are desperate because ofthe drought which has caused their crops to fail, so that starvationstares them in the eyes, and this they lay to the charge of thestrangers who came into their land and fled to thee. The Khania Atenealso is mad with rage against thee and our holy College. Labouring nightand day, she has gathered two great armies, one of forty, and one oftwenty thousand men, and the latter of these she sends against theMountain under the command of her uncle, Simbri the Shaman. In case itshould be defeated she purposes to remain with the second and greaterarmy on the plains about Kaloon."
"Tidings indeed," said Ayesha with a scornful laugh. "Has her hatemade this woman mad that she dares thus to match herself against me? MyHolly, it crossed thy mind but now that it was I who am mad, boastingof what I have no power to perform. Well, within six days thou shaltlearn--oh! verily thou shalt learn, and, though the issue be so verysmall, in such a fashion that thou wilt doubt no more for ever. Stay,I will look, though the effort of it wearies me, for those spies may bebut victims to their own fears, or to the falsehoods of Atene."
Then suddenly, as was common with her when thus Ayesha threw her sightafar, which either from indolence, or because, as she said, it exhaustedher, she did but rarely, her lovely face grew rigid like that of aperson in a trance; the light faded from her brow, and the great pupilsof her eyes contracted themselves and lost their colour.
In a little while, five minutes perhaps, she sighed like one awakeningfrom a deep sleep, passed her hand across her forehead and was as shehad been, though somewhat languid, as though strength had left her.
"It is true enough," she said, "and soon I must be stirring lest manyof my people should be killed. My lord, wouldst thou see war? Nay,thou shalt bide here in safety whilst I go forward--to visit Atene as Ipromised."
"Where thou goest, I go," said Leo angrily, his face flushing to theroots of his hair with shame.
"I pray thee not, I pray thee not," she answered, yet without venturingto forbid him. "We will talk of it hereafter. Oros, away! Send round theFire of Hes to every chief. Three nights hence at the moonrise bidthe Tribes gather--nay, not all, twenty thousand of their best will beenough, the rest shall stay to guard the Mountain and this Sanctuary.Let them bring food with them for fifteen days. I join them at thefollowing dawn. Go."
He bowed and went, whereon, dismissing the matter from her mind, Ayeshabegan to question me again about the Chinese and their customs.
It was in course of a somewhat similar conversation on the followingnight, of which, however, I forget the exact details, that a remark ofLeo's led to another exhibition of Ayesha's marvellous powers.
Leo--who had been considering her plans for conquest, and againcombating them as best he could, for they were entirely repugnant to hisreligious, social and political views--said suddenly that after all theymust break down, since they would involve the expenditure of sums ofmoney so vast that even Ayesha herself would be unable to providethem by any known methods of taxation. She looked at him and laughed alittle.
"Verily, Leo," she said, "to thee, yes; and to Holly here I must seem assome madcap girl blown to and fro by every wind of fancy, and buildingme a palace wherein to dwell out of dew and vapours, or from thesubstance of the sunset fires. Thinkest thou then that I would enter onthis war--one woman against all the world"--and as she spoke her shapegrew royal and in her awful eyes there came a look that chilled myblood--"and make no preparation for its necessities? Why, since last wespoke upon this matter, foreseeing all, I have considered in my mind,and now thou shalt learn how, without cost to those we rule--and forthat reason alone shall they love us dearly--I will glut the treasuriesof the Empress of the Earth.
"Dost remember, Leo, how in Kor I found but a single pleasure during allthose weary ages--that of forcing my mother Nature one by one to yieldme up her choicest secrets; I, who am a student of all things which areand of the forces that cause them to be born. Now follow me, both ofyou, and ye shall look on what mortal eyes have not yet beheld."
"What are we to see?" I asked doubtfully, having a lively recollectionof Ayesha's powers as a chemist.
"That thou shalt learn, or shalt not learn if it pleases thee to staybehind. Come, Leo, my love, my love, and leave this wise philosopherfirst to find his riddle and next to guess it."
Then turning her back to me she smiled on him so sweetly that althoughreally he was more loth to go than I, Leo would have followed herthrough a furnace door, as indeed, had he but known it, he was about todo.
So they started, and I accompanied them since with Ayesha it wasuseless to indulge in any foolish pride, or to make oneself a victim toconsistency. Also I was anxious to see her new marvel, and did not careto rely for an account of it upon Leo's descriptive skill, which at itsbest was never more than moderate.
She took us down passages that we had not passed before, to a door whichshe signed to Leo to open. He obeyed, and from the cave within issued aflood of light. As we guessed at once, the place was her laboratory,for about it stood metal flasks and various strange-shaped instruments.Moreover, there was a furnace in it, one of the best conceivable, for itneeded neither fuel nor stoking, whose gaseous fires, like those of thetwisted columns in the Sanctuary, sprang from the womb of the volcanobeneath our feet.
When we entered two priests were at work there: one of them stirring acauldron with an iron rod and the other receiving its molten contentsinto a mould of clay. They stopped to salute Ayesha, but she bade themto continue their task, asking them if all went well.
"Very well, O Hes," they answered; and we passed through that cave andsu
ndry doors and passages to a little chamber cut in the rock. Therewas no lamp or flame of fire in it, and yet the place was filled with agentle light which seemed to flow from the opposing wall.
"What were those priests doing?" I said, more to break the silence thanfor any other reason.
"Why waste breath upon foolish questions?" she replied. "Are no metalssmelted in thy country, O Holly? Now hadst thou sought to know what I amdoing--But that, without seeing, thou wouldst not believe, so, Doubter,thou shalt see."
Then she pointed to and bade us don, two strange garments that hung uponthe wall, made of a material which seemed to be half cloth and half woodand having headpieces not unlike a diver's helmet.
So under her directions Leo helped me into mine, lacing it up behind,after which, or so I gathered from the sounds--for no light came throughthe helmet--she did the same service for him.
"I seem very much in the dark," I said presently; for now there wassilence again, and beneath this extinguisher I felt alarmed and wishedto be sure that I was not left alone.
"Aye Holly," I heard Ayesha's mocking voice make answer, "in the dark,as thou wast ever, the thick dark of ignorance and unbelief. Well, now,as ever also, I will give thee light." As she spoke I heard somethingroll back; I suppose that it must have been a stone door.
Then, indeed, there was light, yes, even through the thicknesses of thatprepared garment, such light as seemed to blind me. By it I saw that thewall opposite to us had opened and that we were all three of us, on thethreshold of another chamber. At the end of it stood something likea little altar of hard, black stone, and on this altar lay a mass ofsubstance of the size of a child's head, but fashioned, I suppose fromfantasy, to the oblong shape of a human eye.
Out of this eye there poured that blistering and intolerable light. Itwas shut round by thick, funnel-shaped screens of a material that lookedlike fire-brick, yet it pierced them as though they were but muslin.More, the rays thus directed upwards struck full upon a lump of metalheld in place above them by a massive frame-work.
And what rays they were! If all the cut diamonds of the world werebrought together and set beneath a mighty burning-glass, the lightflashed from them would not have been a thousandth part so brilliant.They scorched my eyes and caused the skin of my face and limbs to smart,yet Ayesha stood there unshielded from them. Aye, she even went down thelength of the room and, throwing back her veil, bent over them, as itseemed a woman of molten steel in whose body the bones were visible, andexamined the mass that was supported by the hanging cradle.
"It is ready and somewhat sooner than I thought," she said. Then asthough it were but a feather weight, she lifted the lump in herbare hands and glided back with it to where we stood, laughing andsaying--"Tell me now, O thou well-read Holly, if thou hast ever heard ofa better alchemist than this poor priestess of a forgotten faith?" Andshe thrust the glowing substance up almost to the mask that hid my face.
Then I turned and ran, or rather waddled, for in that gear I could notrun, out of the chamber until the rock wall beyond stayed me, and there,with my back towards her, thrust my helmeted head against it, for I feltas though red-hot bradawls had been plunged into my eyes. So I stoodwhile she laughed and mocked behind me until at length I heard the doorclose and the blessed darkness came like a gift from Heaven.
Then Ayesha began to loose Leo from his ray-proof armour, if so it canbe called, and he in turn loosed me; and there in that gentle radiancewe stood blinking at each other like owls in the sunlight, while thetears streamed down our faces.
"Well, art satisfied, my Holly?" she asked.
"Satisfied with what?" I answered angrily, for the smarting of myeyes was unbearable. "Yes, with burnings and bedevilments I am wellsatisfied."
"And I also," grumbled Leo, who was swearing softly but continuously tohimself in the other corner of the place.
But Ayesha only laughed, oh! she laughed until she seemed the goddessof all merriment come to earth, laughed till she also wept, thensaid--"Why, what ingratitude is this? Thou, my Leo, didst wish to seethe wonders that I work, and thou, O Holly, didst come unbidden after Ibade thee stay behind, and now both of you are rude and angry, aye, andweeping like a child with a burnt finger. Here take this," and she gaveus some salve that stood upon a shelf, "and rub it on your eyes and thesmart will pass away."
So we did, and the pain went from them, though, for hours afterwards,mine remained red as blood.
"And what are these wonders?" I asked her presently. "If thou meanestthat unbearable flame----"
"Nay, I mean what is born of the flame, as, in thine ignorance thou dostcall that mighty agent. Look now;" and she pointed to the metallic lumpshe had brought with her, which, still gleaming faintly, lay upon thefloor. "Nay, it has no heat. Thinkest thou that I would wish to burn mytender hands and so make them unsightly? Touch it, Holly."
But I would not, who thought to myself that Ayesha might be wellaccustomed to the hottest fires, and feared her impish mischief. Ilooked, however, long and earnestly.
"Well, what is it, Holly?"
"Gold," I said, then corrected myself and added, "Copper," for the dull,red glow might have been that of either metal.
"Nay, nay," she answered, "it is gold, pure gold."
"The ore in this place must be rich," said Leo, incredulously, for Iwould not speak any more.
"Yes, my Leo, the iron ore is rich."
"Iron ore?" and he looked at her.
"Surely," she answered, "for from what mine do men dig out gold in suchgreat masses? Iron ore, beloved, that by my alchemy I change to gold,which soon shall serve us in our need."
Now Leo stared and I groaned, for I did not believe that it was gold,and still less that she could make that metal. Then, reading my thought,with one of those sudden changes of mood that were common to her, Ayeshagrew very angry.
"By Nature's self!" she cried; "wert thou not my friend, Holly, the foolwhom it pleases me to cherish, I would bind that right hand of thinein those secret rays till the very bones within it were turned to gold.Nay, why should I be vexed with thee, who art both blind and deaf?Yet thou _shalt_ be persuaded," and leaving us, she passed down thepassages, called something to the priests who were labouring in theworkshop, then returned to us.
Presently they followed her, carrying on a kind of stretcher betweenthem an ingot of iron ore that seemed to be as much as they could lift.
"Now," she said, "how wilt thou that I mark this mass which as thou mustadmit is only iron? With the sign of Life? Good," and at her bidding thepriests took cold-chisels and hammers and roughly cut upon its surfacethe symbol of the looped cross--the _crux ansata_.
"It is not enough," she said when they had finished. "Holly, lend methat knife of thine, to-morrow I will return it to thee, and of morevalue."
So I drew my hunting knife, an Indian-made thing, that had a handle ofplated iron, and gave it her.
"Thou knowest the marks on it," and she pointed to various dents and tothe maker's name upon the blade; for though the hilt was Indian work thesteel was of Sheffield manufacture.
I nodded. Then she bade the priests put on the ray-proof armour thatwe had discarded, and told us to go without the chamber and lie in thedarkness of the passage with our faces against the floor.
This we did, and remained so until, a few minutes later, she called usagain. We rose and returned into the chamber to find the priests, whohad removed the protecting garments, gasping and rubbing the salve upontheir eyes; to find also that the lump of iron ore and my knife weregone. Next she commanded them to place the block of gold-coloured metalupon their stretcher and to bring it with them. They obeyed, and wenoted that, although those priests were both of them strong men theygroaned beneath its weight.
"How came it," said Leo, "that thou, a woman, couldst carry what thesemen find so heavy?"
"It is one of the properties of that force which thou callest fire," sheanswered sweetly, "to make what has been exposed to it, if for a littlewhile only, as light as thistle-down
. Else, how could I, who am sofrail, have borne yonder block of gold?"
"Quite so! I understand now," answered Leo.
Well, that was the end of it. The lump of metal was hid away in a kindof rock pit, with an iron cover, and we returned to Ayesha's apartments.
"So all wealth is thine, as well as all power," said Leo, presently, forremembering Ayesha's awful threat I scarcely dared to open my mouth.
"It seems so," she answered wearily, "since centuries ago I discoveredthat great secret, though until ye came I had put it to no use. Hollyhere, after his common fashion, believes that this is magic, but I tellthee again that there is no magic, only knowledge which I have chancedto win."
"Of course," said Leo, "looked at in the right way, that is in thy way,the thing is simple." I think he would have liked to add, "as lying,"but as the phrase would have involved explanations, did not. "Yet,Ayesha," he went on, "hast thou thought that this discovery of thinewill wreck the world?"
"Leo," she answered, "is there then nothing that I can do which willnot wreck this world, for which thou hast such tender care, who shouldstkeep all thy care--for me?"
I smiled, but remembering in time, turned the smile into a frown atLeo, then fearing lest that also might anger her, made my countenance asblank as possible.
"If so," she continued, "well, let the world be wrecked. But whatmeanest thou? Oh! my lord, Leo, forgive me if I am so dull that I cannotalways follow thy quick thought--I who have lived these many yearsalone, without converse with nobler minds, or even those to which mineown is equal."
"It pleases thee to mock me," said Leo, in a vexed voice, "and that isnot too brave."
Now Ayesha turned on him fiercely, and I looked towards the door. Buthe did not shrink, only folded his arms and stared her straight inthe face. She contemplated him a little, then said--"After that greatordained reason which thou dost not know, I think, Leo, that why I lovethee so madly is that thou alone art not afraid of me. Not like Hollythere, who, ever since I threatened to turn his bones to gold--which,indeed, I was minded to do," and she laughed--"trembles at my footstepsand cowers beneath my softest glance.
"Oh! my lord, how good thou art to me, how patient with my moods andwoman's weaknesses," and she made as though she were about to embracehim. Then suddenly remembering herself, with a little start that somehowconveyed more than the most tragic gesture, she pointed to the couchin token that he should seat himself. When he had done so she drew afootstool to his feet and sank upon it, looking up into his face withattentive eyes, like a child who listens for a story.
"Thy reasons, Leo, give me thy reasons. Doubtless they are good, and,oh! be sure I'll weigh them well."
"Here they are in brief," he answered. "The world, as thou knewest inthy--" and he stopped.
"Thy earlier wanderings there," she suggested.
"Yes--thy earlier wanderings there, has set up gold as the standard ofits wealth. On it all civilizations are founded. Make it as common as itseems thou canst, and these must fall to pieces. Credit will fail and,like their savage forefathers, men must once more take to barter tosupply their needs as they do in Kaloon to-day."
"Why not?" she asked. "It would be more simple and bring them closer tothe time when they were good and knew not luxury and greed."
"And smashed in each other's heads with stone axes," added Leo.
"Who now pierce each other's hearts with steel, or those leaden missilesof which thou hast told me. Oh! Leo, when the nations are beggared andtheir golden god is down; when the usurer and the fat merchant trembleand turn white as chalk because their hoards are but useless dross;when I have made the bankrupt Exchanges of the world my mock, and laughacross the ruin of its richest markets, why, then, will not true worthcome to its heritage again?
"What of it if I do discomfort those who think more of pelf than ofcourage and of virtue; those who, as that Hebrew prophet wrote, layfield to field and house to house, until the wretched whom they haverobbed find no place left whereon to dwell? What if I proved your sagestchapmen fools, and gorge your greedy moneychangers with the gold thatthey desire until they loathe its very sight and touch? What if I upholdthe cause of the poor and the oppressed against the ravening lusts ofMammon? Why, will not this world of yours be happier then?"
"I do not know," answered Leo. "All that I know is that it would be adifferent world, one shaped upon a new plan, governed by untried lawsand seeking other ends. In so strange a place who can say what might ormight not chance?"
"That we shall learn in its season, Leo. Or, rather, if it be againstthy wish, we will not turn this hidden page. Since thou dost desire it,that old evil, the love of lucre, shall still hold its mastery upon theearth. Let the peoples keep their yellow king, I'll not crown anotherin his place, as I was minded--such as that living Strength thou sawestburning eternally but now; that Power whereof I am the mistress, whichcan give health to men, or even change the character of metals, and intruth, if I so desire, obedient to my word, destroy a city or rend thisMountain from its roots.
"But see, Holly is wearied with much wondering and needs his rest. Oh,Holly! thou wast born a critic of things done, not a doer of them. Iknow thy tribe for even in my day the colleges of Alexandria echoed withtheir wranglings and already the winds blew thick with the dust of theirforgotten bones. Holly, I tell thee that at times those who create andact are impatient of such petty doubts and cavillings. Yet fear not, oldfriend, nor take my anger ill. Already thy heart is gold without alloy,so what need have I to gild thy bones?"
I thanked Ayesha for her compliment, and went to my bed wondering whichwas real, her kindness or her wrath, or if both were but assumed. AlsoI wondered in what way she had fallen foul of the critics of Alexandria.Perhaps once she had published a poem or a system of philosophy and beenroughly handled by them! It is quite possible, only if Ayesha had everwritten poetry I think that it would have endured, like Sappho's.
In the morning I discovered that whatever else about her might be false,Ayesha was a true chemist, the very greatest, I suppose, who everlived. For as I dressed myself, those priests whom we had seen inthe laboratory, staggered into the room carrying between them a heavyburden, that was covered with a cloth, and, directed by Oros, placed itupon the floor.
"What is that?" I asked of Oros.
"A peace-offering sent by the Hesea," he said, "with whom, as I am told,you dared to quarrel yesterday."
Then he withdrew the cloth, and there beneath it shone that great lumpof metal which, in the presence of myself and Leo, had been marked withthe Symbol of Life, that still appeared upon its surface. Only now itwas gold, not iron, gold so good and soft that I could write my nameupon it with a nail. My knife lay with it also, and of that too thehandle, though not the blade, had been changed from iron into gold.
Ayesha asked to see this afterwards and was but ill-pleased with theresult of her experiment. She pointed out to me that lines and blotchesof gold ran for an inch or more down the substance of the steel, whichshe feared that they might weaken or distemper, whereas it had been herpurpose that the hilt only should be altered.[*]
[*] I proved in after days how real were Ayesha's alchemy, and the knowledge which enabled her to solve the secret that chemists have hunted for in vain, and, like Nature's self, to transmute the commonest into the most precious of the metals. At the first town that I reached on the frontiers of India, I took this knife to a jeweller, a native, who was as clever as he proved dishonest, and asked him to test the handle. He did so with acids and by other means, and told me that it was of very pure gold, twenty-four carats, I think he said. Also he pointed out that this gold became gradually merged into the steel of the blade in a way which was quite inexplicable to him, and asked me to clear up the matter. Of course I could not, but at his request I left the knife in his shop to give him an opportunity of examining it further. The next day I was taken ill with one of the heart-attacks to which I have been liable of late, and when
I became able to move about again a while afterwards, I found that this jeweller had gone, none knew whither. So had my knife.--L. H. H.
Often since that time I have marvelled how Ayesha performed thismiracle, and from what substances she gathered or compounded thelightning-like material, which was her servant in the work; also,whether or no it had been impregnated with the immortalizing fire ofLife that burned in the caves of Kor.[*] Yet to this hour I have foundno answer to the problem, for it is beyond my guessing.
[*] Recent discoveries would appear to suggest that this mysterious "Fire of Life," which, whatever else it may have been, was evidently a force and no true fire, since it did not burn, owed its origin to the emanations from radium, or some kindred substance. Although in the year 1885, Mr. Holly would have known nothing of the properties of these marvellous rays or emanations, doubtless Ayesha was familiar with them and their enormous possibilities, of which our chemists and scientific men have, at present, but explored the fringe.--Editor.
I suppose that, in preparation for her conquest of the inhabitants ofthis globe--to which, indeed, it would have sufficed unaided by anyother power--the manufacture of gold from iron went on in the caveunceasingly.
However this may be, during the few days that we remained togetherAyesha never so much as spoke of it again. It seemed to have served herpurpose for the while, or in the press of other and more urgent mattersto have been forgotten or thrust from her mind. Still, amongst others,of which I have said nothing, since it is necessary to select, I recordthis strange incident, and our conversations concerning it at length,for the reason that it made a great impression upon me and furnishes astriking example of Ayesha's dominion over the hidden forces of Naturewhereof we were soon to experience a more fearful instance.