y bury you nicely."

"Be silent," I said in my sternest manner. Then, unable to bear more of
Ayesha's mockery, for I felt that as usual she was mocking me, I added
with all the dignity that I could command,

"I am ready to make this journey through the gate of Death, Ayesha, if
indeed you can show me the road. For one purpose and no other I came to
Kor, namely to learn, if so I might, whether those who have died upon
the world, live on elsewhere. Now, what must I do?"

CHAPTER XXI

THE LESSON

"Yes," answered Ayesha, laughing very softly, "for that purpose alone,
O truth-seeking Allan, whose curiosity is so fierce that the wide world
cannot hold it, did you come to Kor and not to seek wealth or new lands,
or to fight more savages. No, not even to look upon a certain Ayesha,
of whom the old wizard told you, though I think you have always loved to
try to lift the veil that hides women's hearts, if not their faces. Yet
it was I who brought you to Kor for my own purposes, not your desire,
nor Zikali's map and talisman, since had not the white lady who lies
sick been stolen by Rezu, never would you have pursued the journey nor
found the way hither."

"How could you have had anything to do with that business?" I asked
testily, for my nerves were on edge and I said the first thing that came
into my mind.

"That, Allan, is a question over which you will wonder for a long while
either beneath or beyond the sun, as you will wonder concerning much
that has to do with me, which your little mind, shut in its iron box of
ignorance and pride, cannot understand to-day.

"For example, you have been wondering, I am sure, how the lightning
killed those eleven men whose bodies you went to look on an hour or two
ago, and left the rest untouched. Well, I will tell you at once that it
was not lightning that killed them, although the strength within me
was manifest to you in storm, but rather what that witch-doctor of your
following called wizardry. Because they were traitors who betrayed your
army to Rezu, I killed them with my wrath and by the wand of my power.
Oh! you do not believe, yet perhaps ere long you will, since thus to
fulfil your prayer I must also kill you--almost. That is the trouble,
Allan. To kill you outright would be easy, but to kill you just enough
to set your spirit free and yet leave one crevice of mortal life through
which it can creep back again, that is most difficult; a thing that only
I can do and even