s the ripple
of the sea, whose noontide rest is drowsy Summer, and whose sleep is
Winter's night, hear thou the supplication of thy chosen child and
minister:

"Of old thou gavest me thine own strength with deathless days, and
beauty above every daughter of this Star. But I sinned against thee
sore, and for my sin I paid in endless centuries of solitude, in the
vileness that makes me loathsome to my lover's eyes, and for its diadem
of perfect power sets upon my brow this crown of naked mockery. Yet in
thy breath, the swift essence that brought me light, that brought me
gloom, thou didst vow to me that I who cannot die should once more pluck
the lost flower of my immortal loveliness from this foul slime of shame.

"Therefore, merciful Mother that bore me, to thee I make my prayer.
Oh, let his true love atone my sin; or, if it may not be, then give me
death, the last and most blessed of thy boons!"

CHAPTER XVI

THE CHANGE

She ceased, and there was a long, long silence. Leo and I looked at
each other in dismay. We had hoped against hope that this beautiful
and piteous prayer, addressed apparently to the great, dumb spirit of
Nature, would be answered. That meant a miracle, but what of it? The
prolongation of the life of Ayesha was a miracle, though it is true that
some humble reptiles are said to live as long as she had done.

The transference of her spirit from the Caves of Kor to this temple was
a miracle, that is, to our western minds, though the dwellers in these
parts of Central Asia would not hold it so. That she should re-appear
with the same hideous body was a miracle. But was it the same body? Was
it not the body of the last Hesea? One very ancient woman is much like
another, and eighteen years of the working of the soul or identity
within might well wear away their trivial differences and give to the
borrowed form some resemblance to that which it had left.

At least the figures on that mirror of the flame were a miracle. Nay,
why so? A hundred clairvoyants in a hundred cities can produce or see
their like in water and in crystal, the difference being only one
of size. They were but reflections of scenes familiar to the mind of
Ayesha, or perhaps not so much as that. Perhaps they were only phantasms
called up in _our_ minds by her mesmeric force.

Nay, none of these things were true miracles, since all, however
strange, might be capable of explanation. What right then had we to
expect a marvel now