"
"Yes," I said, "quite enough. Now sit still, and don't start or talk
loud, for that steersman is probably a spy, and I can feel old Simbri's
eyes fixed upon our backs. Don't interrupt either, for our time alone
may be short."
Then I set to work and told him everything I knew, while he listened in
blank astonishment.
"Great Heavens! what a tale," he exclaimed as I finished. "Now, who is
this Hesea who sent the letter from the Mountain? And who, who is the
Khania?"
"Who does your instinct tell you that she is, Leo?"
"Amenartas?" he whispered doubtfully. "The woman who wrote the _Sherd_,
whom Ayesha said was the Egyptian princess--my wife two thousand years
ago? Amenartas re-born?"
I nodded. "I think so. Why not? As I have told you again and again, I
have always been certain of one thing, that if we were allowed to see
the next act of the piece, we should find Amenartas, or rather the
spirit of Amenartas, playing a leading part in it; you will remember I
wrote as much in that record.
"If the old Buddhist monk Kou-en could remember _his_ past, as thousands
of them swear that they do, and be sure of his identity continued from
that past, why should not this woman, with so much at stake, helped as
she is by the wizardry of the Shaman, her uncle, faintly remember hers?
"At any rate, Leo, why should she not still be sufficiently under its
influence to cause her, without any fault or seeking of her own, to fall
madly in love at first sight with a man whom, after all, she has always
loved?"
"The argument seems sound enough, Horace, and if so I am sorry for the
Khania, who hasn't much choice in the matter--been forced into it, so to
speak.
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