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_ Verily and indeed it is the unexpected that happens! Probably if there
was one person upon the earth from whom the Editor of this, and of a
certain previous history, did not expect to hear again, that person
was Ludwig Horace Holly. This, too, for a good reason; he believed him
to have taken his departure from the earth.
When Mr. Holly last wrote, many, many years ago, it was to transmit
the manuscript of /She/, and to announce that he and his ward, Leo
Vincey, the beloved of the divine Ayesha, were about to travel to
Central Asia in the hope, I suppose, that there she would fulfil her
promise and appear to them again.
Often I have wondered, idly enough, what happened to them there;
whether they were dead, or perhaps droning their lives away as monks
in some Thibetan Lamasery, or studying magic and practising asceticism
under the tuition of the Eastern Masters trusting that thus they would
build a bridge by which they might pass to the side of their adored
Immortal.
Now at length, when I had not thought of them for months, without a
single warning sign, out of the blue as it were, comes the answer to
these wonderings!
To think--only to think--that I, the Editor aforesaid, from its
appearance suspecting something quite familiar and without interest,
pushed aside that dingy, unregistered, brown-paper parcel directed in
an unknown hand, and for two whole days let it lie forgotten. Indeed
there it might be lying now, had not another person been moved to
curiosity, and opening it, found within a bundle of manuscript badly
burned upon the back, and with this two letters addressed to myself.
Although so great a time had passed since I saw it, and it was shaky
now because of the author's age or sickness, I knew the writing at
once--nobody ever made an "H" with that peculiar twirl under it except
Mr. Holly. I tore open the sealed envelope, and sure enough the first
thing my eye fell upon was the signature, /L. H. Holly/. It is long
since I read anything so eagerly as I did that letter. Here it is:--
"My dear sir,--I have ascertained that you still live, and strange
to say I still live also--for a little while.
"As soon as I came into touch with civilization again I found a
copy of your book /She/, or rather of my book, and read it--first
of all in a Hindostani translation. My host--he was a minister of
some religious body, a man of worthy but prosaic mind--expressed
surprise that a 'wild romance' should absorb me so much. I
answered that those who have wide experience of the hard facts of
life often find interest in romance. Had he known what were the
hard facts to which I alluded, I wonder what that excellent person
would have said?
"I see that you carried out your part of the business well and
faithfully. Every instruction has been obeyed, nothing has been
added or taken away. Therefore, to you, to whom some twenty years
ago I entrusted the beginning of the history, I wish to entrust
its end also. You were the first to learn of /She-Who-Must-Be-
Obeyed/, who from century to century sat alone, clothed with
unchanging loveliness in the sepulchres of Kor, waiting till her
lost love was born again, and Destiny brought him back to her.
"It is right, therefore, that you should be the first to learn also
of Ayesha, Hesea and Spirit of the Mountain, the priestess of that
Oracle which since the time of Alexander the Great has reigned
between the flaming pillars in the Sanctuary, the last holder of
the sceptre of Hes or Isis upon the earth. It is right also that
to you first among men I should reveal the mystic consummation of
the wondrous tragedy which began at Kor, or perchance far earlier
in Egypt and elsewhere.
"I am very ill; I have struggled back to this old house of mine to
die, and my end is at hand. I have asked the doctor here, after
all is over, to send you the Record, that is unless I change my
mind and burn it first. You will also receive, if you receive
anything at all, a case containing several rough sketches which
may be of use to you, and a /sistrum/, the instrument that has
been always used in the worship of the Nature goddesses of the old
Egyptians, Isis and Hathor, which you will see is as beautiful as
it is ancient. I give it to you for two reasons; as a token of my
gratitude and regard, and as the only piece of evidence that is
left to me of the literal truth of what I have written in the
accompanying manuscript, where you will find it often mentioned.
Perhaps also you will value it as a souvenir of, I suppose, the
strangest and loveliest being who ever was, or rather, is. It was
her sceptre, the rod of her power, with which I saw her salute the
Shadows in the Sanctuary, and her gift to me.
"It has virtues also; some part of Ayesha's might yet haunts the
symbol to which even spirits bowed, but if you should discover
them, beware how they are used.
"I have neither the strength nor the will to write more. The Record
must speak for itself. Do with it what you like, and believe it or
not as you like. I care nothing who know that it is true.
"Who and what was Ayesha, nay, what /is/ Ayesha? An incarnate
essence, a materialised spirit of Nature the unforeseeing, the
lovely, the cruel and the immortal; ensouled alone, redeemable
only by Humanity and its piteous sacrifice? Say you! I have done
with speculations who depart to solve these mysteries.
"/I/ wish you happiness and good fortune. Farewell to you and to
all.
"L. Horace Holly."
I laid the letter down, and, filled with sensations that it is useless
to attempt to analyse or describe, opened the second envelope, of
which I also print the contents, omitting only certain irrelevant
portions, and the name of the writer as, it will be noted, he requests
me to do.
This epistle, that was dated from a remote place upon the shores of
Cumberland, ran as follows:--
"Dear sir,--As the doctor who attended Mr. Holly in his last
illness I am obliged, in obedience to a promise that I made to
him, to become an intermediary in a some what strange business,
although in truth it is one of which I know very little, however
much it may have interested me. Still I do so only on the strict
understanding that no mention is to be made of my name in
connexion with the matter, or of the locality in which I practise.
"About ten days ago I was called in to see Mr. Holly at an old
house upon the Cliff that for many years remained untenanted
except by the caretakers, which house was his property, and had
been in his family for generations. The housekeeper who summoned
me told me that her master had but just returned from abroad,
somewhere in Asia, she said, and that he was very ill with his
heart--dying, she believed; both of which suppositions proved to
be accurate.
"I found the patient sitting up in bed (to ease his heart), and a
strange-looking old man he was. He had dark eyes, small but full
of fire and intelligence, a magnificent and snowy-white beard that
covered a chest of extraordinary breadth, and hair also white,
which encroached upon his forehead and face so much that it met
the whiskers upon his cheeks. His arms were remarkable for their
length and strength, though one of them seemed to have been much
torn by some animal. He told me that a dog had done this, but if
so it must have been a dog of unusual power. He was a very ugly
man, and yet, forgive the bull, beautiful. I cannot describe what
I mean better than by saying that his face was not like the face
of any ordinary mortal whom I have met in my limited experience.
Were I an artist who wished to portray a wise and benevolent, but
rather grotesque spirit, I should take that countenance as a
model.
"Mr. Holly was somewhat vexed at my being called in, which had been
done without his knowledge. Soon we became friendly enough,
however, and he expressed gratitude for the relief that I was able
to give him, though I could not hope to do more. At different
times he talked a good deal of the various countries in which he
had travelled, apparently for very many years, upon some strange
quest that he never clearly denned to me. Twice also he became
light-headed, and spoke, for the most part in languages that I
identified as Greek and Arabic; occasionally in English also, when
he appeared to be addressing himself to a being who was the object
of his veneration, I might almost say of his worship. What he said
then, however, I prefer not to repeat, for I heard it in my
professional capacity.
"One day he pointed to a rough box made of some foreign wood (the
same that I have now duly despatched to you by train), and, giving
me your name and address, said that without fail it was to be
forwarded to you after his death. Also he asked me to do up a
manuscript, which, like the box, was to be sent to you.
"He saw me looking at the last sheets, which had been burned away,
and said (I repeat his exact words)--
"'Yes, yes, that can't be helped now, it must go as it is. You see
I made up my mind to destroy it after all, and it was already on
the fire when the command came--the clear, unmistakable command--
and I snatched it off again.'
"What Mr. Holly meant by this 'command' I do not know, for he would
speak no more of the matter.
"I pass on to the last scene. One night about eleven o'clock,
knowing that my patient's end was near, I went up to see him,
proposing to inject some strychnine to keep the heart going a
little longer. Before I reached the house I met the caretaker
coming to seek me in a great fright, and asked her if her master
was dead. She answered No; but he was /gone/--had got out of bed
and, just as he was, barefooted, left the house, and was last seen
by her grandson among the very Scotch firs where we were talking.
The lad, who was terrified out of his wits, for he thought that he
beheld a ghost, had told her so.
"The moonlight was very brilliant that night, especially as fresh
snow had fallen, which reflected its rays. I was on foot, and
began to search among the firs, till presently just outside of
them I found the track of naked feet in the snow. Of course I
followed, calling to the housekeeper to go and wake her husband,
for no one else lives near by. The spoor proved very easy to trace
across the clean sheet of snow. It ran up the slope of a hill
behind the house.
"Now, on the crest of this hill is an ancient monument of upright
monoliths set there by some primeval people, known locally as the
Devil's Ring--a sort of miniature Stonehenge in fact. I had seen
it several times, and happened to have been present not long ago
at a meeting of an archaeological society when its origin and
purpose were discussed. I remember that one learned but somewhat
eccentric gentleman read a short paper upon a rude, hooded bust
and head that are cut within the chamber of a tall, flat-topped
cromlech, or dolmen, which stands alone in the centre of the ring.
"He said that it was a representation of the Egyptian goddess,
Isis, and that this place had once been sacred to some form of her
worship, or at any rate to that of a Nature goddess with like
attributes, a suggestion which the other learned gentlemen treated
as absurd. They declared that Isis had never travelled into
Britain, though for my part I do not see why the Phoenicians, or
even the Romans, who adopted her cult, more or less, should not
have brought it here. But I know nothing of such matters and will
not discuss them.
"I remembered also that Mr. Holly was acquainted with this place,
for he had mentioned it to me on the previous day, asking if the
stones were still uninjured as they used to be when he was young.
He added also, and the remark struck me, that yonder was where he
would wish to die. When I answered that I feared he would never
take so long a walk again, I noted that he smiled a little.
"Well, this conversation gave me a clue, and without troubling more
about the footprints I went on as fast as I could to the Ring,
half a mile or so away. Presently I reached it, and there--yes,
there--standing by the cromlech, bareheaded, and clothed in his
night-things only, stood Mr. Holly in the snow, the strangest
figure, I think, that ever I beheld.
"Indeed never shall I forget that wild scene. The circle of rough,
single stones pointing upwards to the star-strewn sky, intensely
lonely and intensely solemn: the tall trilithon towering above
them in the centre, its shadow, thrown by the bright moon behind
it, lying long and black upon the dazzling sheet of snow, and,
standing clear of this shadow so that I could distinguish his
every motion, and even the rapt look upon his dying face, the
white-draped figure of Mr. Holly. He appeared to be uttering some
invocation--in Arabic, I think--for long before I reached him I
could catch the tones of his full, sonorous voice, and see his
waving, outstretched arms. In his right hand he held the looped
sceptre which, by his express wish I send to you with the
drawings. I could see the flash of the jewels strung upon the
wires, and in the great stillness, hear the tinkling of its golden
bells.
"Presently, too, I seemed to become aware of another presence, and
now you will understand why I desire and must ask that my identity
should be suppressed. Naturally enough I do not wish to be mixed
up with a superstitious tale which is, on the face of it,
impossible and absurd. Yet under all the circumstances I think it
right to tell you that I saw, or thought I saw, something gather
in the shadow of the central dolmen, or emerge from its rude
chamber--I know not which for certain--something bright and
glorious which gradually took the form of a woman upon whose
forehead burned a star-like fire.
"At any rate the vision or reflection, or whatever it was, startled
me so much that I came to a halt under the lee of one of the
monoliths, and found myself unable even to call to the distraught
man whom I pursued.
"Whilst I stood thus it became clear to me that Mr. Holly also saw
something. At least he turned towards the Radiance in the shadow,
uttered one cry; a wild, glad cry, and stepped forward; then
seemed to fall /through it/ on to his face.
"When I reached the spot the light had vanished, and all I found
was Mr. Holly, his arms still outstretched, and the sceptre
gripped tightly in his hand, lying quite dead in the shadow of the
trilithon."
The rest of the doctor's letter need not be quoted as it deals only
with certain very improbable explanations of the origin of this figure
of light, the details of the removal of Holly's body, and of how he
managed to satisfy the coroner that no inquest was necessary.
The box of which he speaks arrived safely. Of the drawings in it I
need say nothing, and of the /sistrum/ or sceptre only a few words. It
was fashioned of crystal to the well-known shape of the /Crux-ansata/,
or the emblem of life of the Egyptians; the rod, the cross and the
loop combined in one. From side to side of this loop ran golden wires,
and on these were strung gems of three colours, glittering diamonds,
sea-blue sapphires, and blood-red rubies, while to the fourth wire,
that at the top, hung four little golden bells.
When I took hold of it first my arm shook slightly with excitement,
and those bells began to sound; a sweet, faint music like to that of
chimes heard far away at night in the silence of the sea. I thought
too, but perhaps this was fancy, that a thrill passed from the
hallowed and beautiful thing into my body.
On the mystery itself, as it is recorded in the manuscript, I make no
comment. Of it and its inner significations every reader must form his
or her own judgment. One thing alone is clear to me--on the hypothesis
that Mr. Holly tells the truth as to what he and Leo Vincey saw and
experienced, which I at least believe--that though sundry
interpretations of this mystery were advanced by Ayesha and others,
none of them are quite satisfactory.
Indeed, like Mr. Holly, I incline to the theory that She, if I may
still call her by that name although it is seldom given to her in
these pages, put forward some of them, such as the vague Isis-myth,
and the wondrous picture-story of the Mountain-fire, as mere veils to
hide the truth which it was her purpose to reveal at last in that song
she never sang.
The Editor.
AYESHA
The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed _
Read next: CHAPTER I - THE DOUBLE SIGN
Read previous: DEDICATION / AUTHOR'S NOTE
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