[*] Ayesha was a great chemist, indeed chemistry appears to have been her only amusement and occupation.  She had one of the caves fitted up as a laboratory, and, although her appliances were necessarily rude, the results that she attained were, as will become clear in the course of this narrative, sufficiently surprising.—­L.  H. H.

Accordingly I went, only to find Job and Ustane in a great state of grief, declaring that Leo was in the throes of death, and that they had been searching for me everywhere.  I rushed to the couch, and glanced at him:  clearly he was dying.  He was senseless, and breathing heavily, but his lips were quivering, and every now and again a little shudder ran down his frame.  I knew enough of doctoring to see that in another hour he would be beyond the reach of earthly help—­perhaps in another five minutes.  How I cursed my selfishness and the folly that had kept me lingering by Ayesha’s side while my dear boy lay dying!  Alas and alas! how easily the best of us are lighted down to evil by the gleam of a woman’s eyes!  What a wicked wretch was I!  Actually, for the last half-hour I had scarcely thought of Leo, and this, be it remembered, of the man who for twenty years had been my dearest companion, and the chief interest of my existence.  And now, perhaps, it was too late!

I wrung my hands, and glanced round.  Ustane was sitting by the couch, and in her eyes burnt the dull light of despair.  Job was blubbering—­I am sorry I cannot name his distress by any more delicate word—­audibly in the corner.  Seeing my eye fixed upon him, he went outside to give way to his grief in the passage.  Obviously the only hope lay in Ayesha.  She, and she alone—­unless, indeed, she was an imposter, which I could not believe—­could save him.  I would go and implore her to come.  As I started to do so, however, Job came flying into the room, his hair literally standing on end with terror.

“Oh, God help us, sir!” he ejaculated in a frightened whisper, “here’s a corpse a-coming sliding down the passage!”

For a moment I was puzzled, but presently, of course, it struck me that he must have seen Ayesha, wrapped in her grave-like garment, and been deceived by the extraordinary undulating smoothness of her walk into a belief that she was a white ghost gliding towards him.  Indeed, at that very moment the question was settled, for Ayesha herself was in the apartment, or rather cave.  Job turned, and saw her sheeted form, and then, with a convulsive howl of “Here it comes!” sprang into a corner, and jammed his face against the wall, and Ustane, guessing whose the dread presence must be, prostrated herself upon her face.

“Thou comest in a good time, Ayesha,” I said, “for my boy lies at the point of death.”

“So,” she said softly; “provided he be not dead, it is no matter, for I can bring him back to life, my Holly.  Is that man there thy servant, and is that the method wherewith thy servants greet strangers in thy country?”