one cry; a wild, glad cry, and stepped forward; then seemed to
fall _through it_ on to his face.

"When I reached the spot the light had vanished, and all I found was Mr.
Holly, his arms still outstretched, and the sceptre gripped tightly in
his hand, lying quite dead in the shadow of the trilithon."

The rest of the doctor's letter need not be quoted as it deals only with
certain very improbable explanations of the origin of this figure of
light, the details of the removal of Holly's body, and of how he managed
to satisfy the coroner that no inquest was necessary.

The box of which he speaks arrived safely. Of the drawings in it I need
say nothing, and of the _sistrum_ or sceptre only a few words. It was
fashioned of crystal to the well-known shape of the _Crux-ansata_, or
the emblem of life of the Egyptians; the rod, the cross and the loop
combined in one. From side to side of this loop ran golden wires, and on
these were strung gems of three colours, glittering diamonds, sea-blue
sapphires, and blood-red rubies, while to the fourth wire, that at the
top, hung four little golden bells.

When I took hold of it first my arm shook slightly with excitement, and
those bells began to sound; a sweet, faint music like to that of chimes
heard far away at night in the silence of the sea. I thought too, but
perhaps this was fancy, that a thrill passed from the hallowed and
beautiful thing into my body.

On the mystery itself, as it is recorded in the manuscript, I make no
comment. Of it and its inner significations every reader must form his
or her own judgment. One thing alone is clear to me--on the hypothesis
that Mr. Holly tells the truth as to what he and Leo Vincey saw
and experienced, which I at least believe--that though sundry
interpretations of this mystery were advanced by Ayesha and others, none
of them are quite satisfactory.

Indeed, like Mr. Holly, I incline to the theory that She, if I may still
call her by that name although it is seldom given to her in these pages,
put forward some of them, such as the vague Isis-myth, and the wondrous
picture-story of the Mountain-fire, as mere veils to hide the truth
which it was her purpose to reveal at last in that song she never sang.

The Editor.

AYESHA

The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed

CHAPTER I

THE DOUBLE SIGN

Hard on twenty years have gone by since that night of Leo's vision--the
most awful years, perhaps, which were ever en