his lips and in very truth is become the
'Star-which-hath-burst-the-bonds-of-Night,' and, re-arisen, shines for
ever--shines with its twin immortal to set no more--my Holly. Well,
he is gone, and ere now, those that serve me in the Under-world--dost
remember?--thou sawest their captains in the Sanctuary--bend the head at
great Ayesha's word and make her place ready near her spouse.

"But oh, what folly has been mine. When even here my wrath can show such
power, how could I hope that my lord would outlive the fires of my love?
Still it was better so, for he sought not the pomp I would have given
him, nor desired the death of men. Yet such pomp must have been his
portion in this poor shadow of a world, and the steps that encircle an
usurper's throne are ever slippery with blood.

"Thou art weary, my Holly, go rest thee. To-morrow night we journey to
the Mountain, there to celebrate these obsequies."

I crept into the room adjoining--it had been Simbri's--and laid me down
upon his bed, but to sleep I was not able. Its door was open, and in the
light of the burning city that shone through the casements I could
see Ayesha watching by her dead. Hour after hour she watched, her head
resting on her hand, silent, stirless. She wept not, no sigh escaped
her; only watched as a tender woman watches a slumbering babe that she
knows will awake at dawn.

Her face was unveiled and I perceived that it had greatly changed. All
pride and anger were departed from it; it was grown soft, wistful, yet
full of confidence and quietness. For a while I could not think of what
it reminded me, till suddenly I remembered. Now it was like, indeed the
counterpart almost, of the holy and majestic semblance of the statue
of the Mother in the Sanctuary. Yes, with just such a look of love and
power as that mother cast upon her frightened child new-risen from its
dream of death, did Ayesha gaze upon her dead, while her parted lips
also seemed to whisper "some tale of hope, sure and immortal."

At length she rose and came into my chamber.

"Thou thinkest me fallen and dost grieve for me, my Holly," she said in
a gentle voice, "knowing my fears lest some such fate should overtake my
lord."

"Ay, Ayesha, I grieve for thee as for myself."

"Spare then thy pity, Holly, since although the human part of me would
have kept him on the earth, now my spirit doth rejoice that for a while
he has burst his mortal bonds. For many an age, although I knew it not,