ered.

She laughed.

"And the girl? Ah, I see now. It is she of whom thou didst speak to me.
Well, bid them both to leave us, and we will see to this sick Lion of
thine. I love not that underlings should perceive my wisdom."

Thereon I told Ustane in Arabic and Job in English both to leave the
room; an order which the latter obeyed readily enough, and was glad to
obey, for he could not in any way subdue his fear. But it was otherwise
with Ustane.

"What does _She_ want?" she whispered, divided between her fear of the
terrible Queen and her anxiety to remain near Leo. "It is surely the
right of a wife to be near her husband when he dieth. Nay, I will not
go, my lord the Baboon."

"Why doth not that woman leave us, my Holly?" asked Ayesha from the
other end of the cave, where she was engaged in carelessly examining
some of the sculptures on the wall.

"She is not willing to leave Leo," I answered, not knowing what to say.
Ayesha wheeled round, and, pointing to the girl Ustane, said one word,
and one only, but it was quite enough, for the tone in which it was said
meant volumes.

"Go!"

And then Ustane crept past her on her hands and knees, and went.

"Thou seest, my Holly," said Ayesha, with a little laugh, "it was
needful that I should give these people a lesson in obedience. That girl
went nigh to disobeying me, but then she did not learn this morn how
I treat the disobedient. Well, she has gone; and now let me see the
youth," and she glided towards the couch on which Leo lay, with his face
in the shadow and turned towards the wall.

"He hath a noble shape," she said, as she bent over him to look upon his
face.

Next second her tall and willowy form was staggering back across the
room, as though she had been shot or stabbed, staggering back till at
last she struck the cavern wall, and then there burst from her lips the
most awful and unearthly scream that I ever heard in all my life.

"What is it, Ayesha?" I cried. "Is he dead?"

She turned, and sprang towards me like a tigress.

"Thou dog!" she said, in her terrible whisper, which sounded like the
hiss of a snake, "why didst thou hide this from me?" And she stretched
out her arm, and I thought that she was about to slay me.

"What?" I ejaculated, in the most lively terror; "what?"

"Ah!" she said, "perchance thou didst not know. Learn, my Holly, learn:
there lies--there lies my lost Kallikrates. Kallikrates, who has come
back to me at last, as I kn