第102章

WHAT WE SAW.

THEN came a few moments' pause, during which Ayesha seemed to be gathering up her strength for the fiery trial, while we clung to each other, and waited in utter silence.

At last, from far, far away, came the first murmur of sound, that grew and grew till it began to crash and bellow in the distance.As she heard it, Ayesha swiftly threw off her gauzy wrapping, loosened the golden snake from her kirtle, and then, shaking her lovely hair about her like a garment, beneath its cover slipped the kirtle off and replaced the snaky belt around her and outside the masses of falling hair.There she stood before us as Eve might have stood before Adam, clad in nothing but her abundant locks, held round her by the golden band; and no words of mine can tell how sweet she lookedand yet how divine.Nearer and nearer came the thunder wheels of fire, and as they came she pushed one ivory arm through the dark masses of her hair and flung it round Leo's neck.

"Oh, my love, my love!" she murmured, "wilt thou ever know how I have loved thee?" and she kissed him on the forehead, and then went and stood in the pathway of the flame of Life.

There was, I remember, to my mind something very touching about her words and that embrace upon the forehead.It was like a mother's kiss, and seemed to convey a benediction with it.

On came the crashing, rolling noise, and the sound thereof was as the sound of a forest being swept flat by a mighty wind, and then tossed up by it like so much grass, and thundered down a mountain-side.Nearer and nearer it came; now flashes of light, forerunners of the revolving pillar of flame, were passing like arrows through the rosy air; and now the edge of the pillar itself appeared.Ayesha turned towards it, and stretched out her arms to greet it.On it came very slowly, and lapped her round with flame.I saw the fire run up her form.I saw her lift it with both hands as though it were water, and pour it over her head.I even saw her open her mouth and draw it down into her lungs, and a dread and wonderful sight it was.

Then she paused, and stretched out her arms, and stood there quite still, with a heavenly smile upon her face, as though she were the very Spirit of the Flame.

The mysterious fire played up and down her dark and rolling locks, twining and twisting itself through and around them like threads of golden lace; it gleamed upon her ivory breast and shoulder, from which the hair had slipped aside; it slid along her pillared throat and delicate features, and seemed to find a home in the glorious eyes that shone and shone, more brightly even than the spiritual essence.

Oh, how beautiful she looked there in the flame! No angel out of heaven could have worn a greater loveliness.Even now my heart faints before the recollection of it, as she stood and smiled at our awed faces, and I would give half my remaining time upon this earth to see her once like that again.

But suddenlymore suddenly than I can describea kind of change came over her face, a change which Icould not define or explain on paper, but none the less a change.The smile vanished, and in its place there came a dry, hard look; the rounded face seemed to grow pinched, as though some great anxiety were leaving its impress upon it.The glorious eyes, too, lost their light, and, as I thought, the form its perfect shape and erectness.

I rubbed my eyes, thinking that I was the victim of some hallucination, or that the refraction from the intense light produced an optical delusion; and, as Idid so, the flaming pillar slowly twisted and thundered off whithersoever it passes to in the bowels of the great earth, leaving Ayesha standing where it had been.

As soon as it was gone, she stepped forward to Leo's sideit seemed to me that there was no spring in her step and stretched out her hand to lay it on his shoulder.I gazed at her arm.Where was its wonderful roundness and beauty? It was getting thin and angular.

And her faceby Heaven! _i_ her face was growing old before my eyes! _i_ I suppose that Leo saw it alsocertainly he recoiled a step or two.

"What is it, my Kallikrates?" she said, and her voicewhat was the matter with those deep and thrilling notes? They were quite high and cracked.

"Why, what is itwhat is it?" she said, confusedly.

"I feel dazed.Surely the quality of the fire hath not altered.Can the principle of Life alter? Tell me, Kallikrates, is there aught wrong with my eyes? I see not clear," and she put her hand to her head and touched her hairand oh, _i_ horror of horrors! _i_it all fell upon the floor.

"Oh, _i_ look!look!look! _i_ " shrieked Job, in a shrill falsetto of terror, his eyes nearly dropping out of his head, and foam upon his lips." _i_ Look!look!look! _i_ she's shrivelling up! she's turning into a monkey;" and down he fell upon the ground, foaming and gnashing in a fit.

True enoughI faint even as I write it in the living presence of that terrible recollectionshe was shrivelling up; the golden snake that had encircled her gracious form slipped over her hips and to the ground; smaller and smaller she grew; her skin changed color, and in place of the perfect whiteness of its lustre it turned dirty brown and yellow, like an old piece of withered parchment._i_ She _i_ felt at her head: the delicate hand was nothing but a claw now, a human talon like that of a badly preserved Egyptian mummy, and then she seemed to realize what kind of change was passing over her, and she shriekedah, she shrieked!she rolled upon the floor and shrieked!

Smaller she grew, and smaller yet, till she was no larger than a baboon.Now the skin was puckered into a million wrinkles, and on the shapeless face was the stamp of unutterable age.I never saw anything like it; nobody ever saw anything like the frightful age that was graven on that fearful countenance, no bigger now than that of a two months' child, though the skull remained the same size, or nearly so, and let all men pray to God they never may, if they wish to keep their reason.