“Ay, for a time; but even to the world are they born again and again.  I, yes I, Ayesha[*]—­for that, stranger, is my name—­I say to thee that I wait now for one I loved to be born again, and here I tarry till he finds me, knowing of a surety that hither he will come, and that here, and here only, shall he greet me.  Why, dost thou believe that I, who am all-powerful, I, whose loveliness is more than the loveliness of the Grecian Helen, of whom they used to sing, and whose wisdom is wider, ay, far more wide and deep than the wisdom of Solomon the Wise—­I, who know the secrets of the earth and its riches, and can turn all things to my uses—­I, who have even for a while overcome Change, that ye call Death—­why, I say, oh stranger, dost thou think that I herd here with barbarians lower than the beasts?”

[*] Pronounced Assha.—­L.  H. H.

“I know not,” I said humbly.

“Because I wait for him I love.  My life has perchance been evil, I know not—­for who can say what is evil and what good?—­so I fear to die even if I could die, which I cannot until mine hour comes, to go and seek him where he is; for between us there might rise a wall I could not climb, at least, I dread it.  Surely easy would it be also to lose the way in seeking in those great spaces wherein the planets wander on for ever.  But the day will come, it may be when five thousand more years have passed, and are lost and melted into the vault of Time, even as the little clouds melt into the gloom of night, or it may be to-morrow, when he, my love, shall be born again, and then, following a law that is stronger than any human plan, he shall find me here, where once he knew me, and of a surety his heart will soften towards me, though I sinned against him; ay, even though he knew me not again, yet will he love me, if only for my beauty’s sake.”

For a moment I was dumbfounded, and could not answer.  The matter was too overpowering for my intellect to grasp.

“But even so, oh Queen,” I said at last, “even if we men be born again and again, that is not so with thee, if thou speakest truly.”  Here she looked up sharply, and once more I caught the flash of those hidden eyes; “thou,” I went on hurriedly, “who hast never died?”

“That is so,” she said; “and it is so because I have, half by chance and half by learning, solved one of the great secrets of the world.  Tell me, stranger:  life is—­why therefore should not life be lengthened for a while?  What are ten or twenty or fifty thousand years in the history of life?  Why in ten thousand years scarce will the rain and storms lessen a mountain top by a span in thickness?  In two thousand years these caves have not changed, nothing has changed but the beasts, and man, who is as the beasts.  There is naught that is wonderful about the matter, couldst thou but understand.  Life is wonderful, ay, but that it should be a little lengthened is not wonderful.  Nature hath her animating spirit as well as man, who