第55章

A SOUL IN HELL.

It was nearly ten o'clock at night when I cast myself down upon my bed, and began to gather my scattered wits, and reflect upon what I had seen and heard.But the more I reflected the less I could make of it.Was I mad, or drunk, or dreaming, or was I merely the victim of a gigantic and most elaborate hoax? How was it possible that I, a rational man, not unacquainted with the leading scientific facts of our history, and hitherto an absolute and utter disbeliever in all the hocus-pocus that in Europe goes by the name of the supernatural, could believe that I had, within the last few minutes, been engaged in conversation with a woman two thousand and odd years old? The thing was contrary to the experience of human nature, and absolutely and utterly impossible.It must be a hoax;and yet, if it were a hoax, what was I to make of it?

What, too, was to be said of the figures on the water, of the woman's extraordinary acquaintance with the remote past, and, her ignorance, or apparent ignorance, of any subsequent history? What, too, of her wonderful and awful loveliness? This, at any rate, was a patent fact, and beyond the experience of the world.No merely mortal woman could shine with such a supernatural radiance.About that she had, at any rate, been in the rightit was not safe for any man to look upon such beauty.I was a hardened vessel in such matters, having, with the exception of one painful experience of my green and tender youth, put the softer sex (I sometimes think that this is a misnomer) almost entirely out of my thoughts.But now, to my intense horror, I _i_ knew _i_ that I could never put away the vision of those glorious eyes; and, alas! the very _i_ diablerie _i_ of the woman, while it horrified and repelled, attracted in even a greater degree.A person with the experience of two thousand years at her back, with the command of such tremendous powers and the knowledge of a mystery that could hold off death, was certainly worth falling in love with, if ever woman was.But, alas! it was not a question of whether or not she was worth it, for, so far as Icould judge, not being versed in such matters, I, a fellow of my college, noted for what my acquaintances are pleased to call my misogyny, and a respectable man now well on in middle life, had fallen absolutely and hopelessly in love with this white sorceress.

Nonsense; it must be nonsense! She had warned me fairly, and I had refused to take the warning.Curses on the fatal curiosity that is ever prompting man to draw the veil from woman, and curses on the natural impulse that begets it! It is the cause of halfay, and more than half, of our misfortunes.Why cannot man be content to live alone and be happy, and let the women live alone and be happy too? but perhaps they would not be happy, and I am not sure that we should either.Here was a nice state of affairs.I, at my age, to fall a victim to this modern Circe! But then she was not modern, at least she said not.She was almost as ancient as the original Circe.

I tore my hair, and jumped up from my couch, feeling that if I did not do something I should go off my head.What did she mean about the scarabaeus too? It was Leo's scarabaeus, and had come out of the old coffer that Vincey had left in my rooms nearly one-and-twenty years before.Could it be, after all, that the whole story was true, and the writing on the sherd was not a forgery, or the invention of some crack brained, long-forgotten individual? And if so, could it be that _i_ Leo _i_ was the man that _i_ She _i_was waiting forthe dead man who was to be born again? Impossible again! The whole thing was gibberish! Who ever heard of a man being born again?

But if it were possible that a woman could exist for two thousand years, this might be possible alsoanything might be possible.I myself might, for aught I knew, be a reincarnation of some other forgotten self, or perhaps the last of a long line of ancestral selves.Well, _i_ vive la guerre! _i_ why not? Only, unfortunately, I had no recollection of these previous conditions.The idea was so absurd to me that I burst out laughing, and, addressing the sculptured picture of a grim-looking warrior on the cave wall, called out to him aloud, "Who knows, Old fellow?perhaps I was your contemporary.By Jove! perhaps I was you and you are I," and then I laughed again at my own folly, and the sound of my laughter rang dismally along the vaulted roof, as though the ghost of the warrior had uttered the ghost of a laugh.

Next I bethought me that I had not been to see how Leo was, so, taking up one of the lamps which was burning at my bedside, I slipped off my shoes and crept down the passage to the entrance of his sleeping-cave.The draught of the night air was lifting his curtain to and fro gently, as though spirit hands were drawing and redrawing it.I slid into the vault like apartment, and looked round.There was a light by which I could see that Leo was lying on the couch, tossing restlessly in his fever, but asleep.At his side, half-lying on the floor, half-leaning against the stone couch, was Ustane.She held his hand in one of hers, but she too was dozing, and the two made a pretty, or rather a pathetic, picture.Poor Leo! his cheek was burning red, there were dark shadows beneath his eyes, and his breath came heavily.He was very, very ill; and again the horrible fear seized me that he might die, and I be left alone in the world.And yet if he lived he would perhaps be my rival with Ayesha; even if he were not the man, what chance should I, middle-aged and hideous, have against his bright youth and beauty? Well, thank Heaven! my sense of right was not dead._i_ She _i_ had not killed that yet; and, as I stood there, I prayed to the Almighty in my heart that my boy, my more than son, might liveay, even if he proved to be the man.