Then, as though she were unwilling to reveal too much, suddenly Ayesha’s history passed from Egypt to Kor.  She spoke to Leo of his arrival there, a wanderer who was named Kallikrates, hunted by savages and accompanied by the Egyptian Amenartas, whom she appeared to have known and hated in her own country, and of how she entertained them.  Yes, she even told of a supper that the three of them had eaten together on the evening before they started to discover the Place of Life, and of an evil prophecy that this royal Amenartas had made as to the issue of their journey.

“Aye,” Ayesha said, “it was such a silent night as this and such a meal as this we ate, and Leo, not so greatly changed, save that he was beardless then and younger, was at my side.  Where thou sittest, Holly, sat the royal Amenartas, a very fair woman; yes, even more beautiful than I before I dipped me in the Essence, fore-sighted also, though not so learned as I had grown.  From the first we hated each other, and more than ever now, when she guessed how I had learned to look upon thee, her lover, Leo; for her husband thou never wast, who didst flee too fast for marriage.  She knew also that the struggle between us which had begun of old and afar was for centuries and generations, and that until the end should declare itself neither of us could harm the other, who both had sinned to win thee, that wast appointed by fate to be the lodestone of our souls.  Then Amenartas spoke and said—­“’Lo! to my sight, Kallikrates, the wine in thy cup is turned to blood, and that knife in thy hand, O daughter of Yarab’—­for so she named me—­’drips red blood.  Aye, and this place is a sepulchre, and thou, O Kallikrates, sleepest here, nor can she, thy murderess, kiss back the breath of life into those cold lips of thine.’

“So indeed it came about as was ordained,” added Ayesha reflectively, “for I slew thee in yonder Place of Life, yes, in my madness I slew thee because thou wouldst not or couldst not understand the change that had come over me, and shrankest from my loveliness like a blind bat from the splendour of flame, hiding thy face in the tresses of her dusky hair—­Why, what is it now, thou Oros?  Can I never be rid of thee for an hour?”

“O Hes, a writing from the Khania Atene,” the priest said with his deprecating bow.

“Break the seal and read,” she answered carelessly.  “Perchance she has repented of her folly and makes submission.”

So he read—­

“To the Hesea of the College on the Mountain, known as Ayesha upon earth, and in the household of the Over-world whence she has been permitted to wander, as ‘Star-that-hath-fallen—­’”

“A pretty sounding name, forsooth,” broke in Ayesha; “ah! but, Atene, set stars rise again—­even from the Under-world.  Read on, thou Oros.”

“Greetings, O Ayesha.  Thou who art very old, hast gathered much wisdom in the passing of the centuries, and with other powers, that of making thyself seem fair in the eyes of men blinded by thine arts.  Yet one thing thou lackest that I have—­vision of those happenings which are not yet.  Know, O Ayesha, that I and my uncle, the great seer, have searched the heavenly books to learn what is written there of the issue of this war.