' I would rather take my share of a bad world and keep my
hope of a better. Also I do not think that he knows anything of Ayesha
and her destiny."
"So would I," I answered, "though perhaps he is right after all. Who can
tell? Moreover, what is the use of reasoning? Leo, we have no choice;
we follow our fate. To what that fate may lead us we shall learn in due
season."
Then we went to rest, for it was late, though I found little sleep that
night. The warnings of the ancient abbot, good and learned man as he
was, full also of ripe experience and of the foresighted wisdom that
is given to such as he, oppressed me deeply. He promised us sorrow and
bloodshed beyond the mountains, ending in death and rebirths full of
misery. Well, it might be so, but no approaching sufferings could stay
our feet. And even if they could, they should not, since to see her face
again I was ready to brave them all. And if this was my case what must
be that of Leo!
A strange theory that of Kou-en's, that Ayesha was the goddess in
old Egypt to whom Kallikrates was priest, or at the least her
representative. That the royal Amenartas, with whom he fled, seduced him
from the goddess to whom he was sworn. That this goddess incarnate
in Ayesha--or using the woman Ayesha and her passions as her
instruments--was avenged upon them both at Kor, and that there in an
after age the bolt she shot fell back upon her own head.
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