A mixed vision, this of
yours, Leo, with its mountain peak shaped like a _crux-ansata_ and the
rest. Do you suggest that Ayesha is re-incarnated in Central Asia--as a
female Grand Lama or something of that sort?"
"I never thought of it, but why not?" asked Leo quietly. "Do you
remember a certain scene in the Caves of Kor yonder, when the living
looked upon the dead, and dead and living were the same? And do you
remember what Ayesha swore, that she would come again--yes, to this
world; and how could that be except by re-birth, or, what is the same
thing, by the transmigration of the spirit?"
I did not answer this argument. I was struggling with myself.
"No sign has come to me," I said, "and yet I have had a part in the
play, humble enough, I admit, and I believe that I have still a part."
"No," he said, "no sign has come to you. I wish that it had. Oh! how I
wish you could be convinced as I am, Horace!"
Then we were silent for a long while, silent, with our eyes fixed upon
the sky.
It was a stormy dawn. Clouds in fantastic masses hung upon the ocean.
One of them was like a great mountain, and we watched it idly. It
changed its shape, the crest of it grew hollow like a crater. From this
crater sprang a projecting cloud, a rough pillar with a knob or lump
resting on its top. Suddenly the rays of the risen sun struck upon this
mountain and the column and they turned white like snow.
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