第99章

"I swear, even in this first most holy hour of completed womanhood, that I will abandon Evil and cherish Good.I swear that I will be ever guided by thy voice in the straightest path of Duty.I swear that I will eschew Ambition, and through all my length of endless days set Wisdom over me as a guiding star to lead me unto Truth and a knowledge of the Right.Iswear also that I will honor and will cherish thee, Kallikrates, who hast been swept by the wave of time back into my arms, ay, till the very end, come it soon or late.I swearnay, I will swear no more, for what are words? Yet shalt thou learn that Ayesha hath no false tongue.

"So I have sworn, and thou, my Holly, art witness to my oath.Here, too, are we wed, my husband, with the gloom for bridal canopywed till the end of all things; here do we write our marriage vows upon the rushing winds which shall bear them up to heaven, and round and continually round this rolling world.

"And for a bridal gift I crown thee with my beauty's starry crown, and enduring life, and wisdom without measure, and wealth that none can count.Behold! the great ones of the earth shall creep about thy feet, and their fair women shall cover up their eyes because of the shining glory of thy countenance, and their wise ones shall be abased before thee.Thou shalt read the hearts of men as an open writing, and hither and thither shalt thou lead them as thy pleasure listeth.

Like that old Sphinx of Egypt shalt thou sit aloft from age to age, and ever shall they cry to thee to solve the riddle of thy greatness that doth not pass away, and ever shalt thou mock them with thy silence!

"Behold! once more I kiss thee, and by that kiss Igive to thee dominion over sea and earth, over the peasant in his hovel, over the monarch in his palace halls, and cities crowned with towers, and those who breathe therein.Whate'er the sun shakes out his spears, and the lonesome waters mirror up the moon, whate'er storms roll, and heaven's painted bows arch in the skyfrom the pure North clad in snows, across the middle spaces of the world, to where the amorous South, lying like a bride upon her blue couch of seas, breathes in sighs made sweet with the odor of myrtlesthere shall thy power pass and thy dominion find a home.Nor sickness, nor icy-fingered fear, nor sorrow, and pale waste of form and mind hovering ever o'er humanity, shall so much as shadow thee with the shadow of their wings.As a god shalt thou be, holding good and evil in the hollow of thy hand, and I, even I, Ihumble myself before thee.Such is the power of Love, and such is the bridal gift I give unto thee, Kallikrates, beloved of Ra, my Lord and Lord of All.

"And now it is done, and, come storm, come shine, come good, come evil, come life, come death, it never, never can be undone.For, of a truth, that which is, is, and being done, is done for aye, and cannot be altered.I have saidLet us hence, that all things may be accomplished in their order;" and, taking one of the lamps, she advanced towards the end of the chamber that was roofed in by the swaying stone, where she halted.

We followed her, and perceived that in the wall of the cone there was a stair, or, to be more accurate, that some projecting knobs of rock had been so shaped as to form a good imitation of a stair.Down this Ayesha began to climb, springing from step to step, like a chamois, and after her we followed with less grace.

When we had descended some fifteen or sixteen steps we found that they ended in a tremendous rocky slope, running first outward and then inwardlike the slope of an inverted cone, or tunnel.The slope was very steep, and often precipitous, but it was nowhere impassable, and by the light of the lamps we went down it with no great difficulty, though it was gloomy work enough travelling on thus, no one of us knew whither, into the dead heart of a volcano.As we went, however, I took the precaution of noting our route as well as Icould; and this was not difficult, owing to the extraordinary and most fantastic shape of the rocks that were strewn about, many of which, in that dim light, looked more like the grim faces carven upon mediaeval gargoyles than ordinary boulders.

For a long period we travelled on thus, half an hour Ishould say, till, after we had descended for many hundreds of feet, I perceived that we were reaching the point of the inverted cone.In another minute we were there, and found that at the very apex of the funnel was a passage, so low and narrow that we had to stoop as we crept along it in Indian file.After some fifty yards of this creeping, the passage suddenly widened into a cave, so huge that we could see neither the roof nor the sides.We only knew that it was a cave by the echo of our tread and the perfect quiet of the heavy air.On we went for many minutes in absolute awed silence, like lost souls in the depths of Hades, Ayesha's white and ghostlike form flitting in front of us, till once more the cavern ended in a passage which opened into a second cavern much smaller than the first.Indeed, we could clearly make out the arch and stony banks of this second cave, and, from their rent and jagged appearance, discovered that, like the first long passage down which we had passed through the cliff before we reached the quivering spur, it had to all appearance been torn in the bowels of the rock by the terrific force of some explosive gas.At length this cave ended in a third passage, through which gleamed a faint glow of light.

I heard Ayesha give a sigh of relief as this light dawned upon us.