Go; but
I warn you if you suffer my lord to come into more danger, you shall not
escape so easily again."
So they bowed and went, still blessing Leo with their eyes, since
death by exposure on the Mountain snows was the most terrible form of
punishment known to these people, and one only inflicted by the direct
order of Hes upon murderers or other great criminals.
When we had left the Sanctuary and were alone again in the hall, the
storm that I had seen gathering upon Leo's face broke in earnest. Ayesha
renewed her inquiries about his wounds, and wished to call Oros, the
physician, to dress them, and as he refused this, offered to do so
herself. He begged that she would leave his wounds alone, and then, his
great beard bristling with wrath, asked her solmenly if he was a child
in arms, a query so absurd that I could not help laughing.
Then he scolded her--yes, he scolded Ayesha! Wishing to know what she
meant (1) by spying upon him with her magic, an evil gift that he had
always disliked and mistrusted; (2) by condemning brave and excellent
men, his good friends, to a death of fiendish cruelty upon such
evidence, or rather out of temper, on no evidence at all; and (3) by
giving him into charge of them, as though he were a little boy, and
telling them that they would have to answer for it if he were hurt: he
who, in his time, had killed every sort of big game known and passed
through some perils and encounters?
Thus he beat her with his words, and, wonderful to say, Ayesha, this
being more than woman, submitted to the chastisement meekly.
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