She paused a moment, her delicate nostrils quivering, and her face alight with the prescience of ungarnered splendours; then like a swooping swallow flitted to where, by dead Atene, the gold circlet fallen from the Khania’s hair lay upon the floor.
She stooped, lifted it, and coming to Leo held it high above his head. Slowly she let her hand fall until the glittering coronet rested for an instant on his brow. Then she spoke, in her glorious voice that rolled out rich and low, a very paean of triumph and of power.
“By this poor, earthly symbol I create thee King of Earth; yea in its round for thee is gathered all her rule. Be thou its king, and mine!”
Again the coronet was held aloft, again it sank, and again she said or rather chanted—“With this unbroken ring, token of eternity, I swear to thee the boon of endless days. Endure thou while the world endures, and be its lord, and mine.”
A third time the coronet touched his brow.
“By this golden round I do endow thee with Wisdom’s perfect gold uncountable, that is the talisman whereat all nature’s secret paths shall open to thy feet. Victorious, victorious, tread thou her wondrous ways with me, till from her topmost peak at last she wafts us to our immortal throne whereof the columns twain are Life and Death.”
Then Ayesha cast away the crown and lo! it fell upon the breast of the lost Atene and rested there.
“Art content with these gifts of mine, my lord?” she cried.
Leo looked at her sadly and shook his head.
“What more wilt thou then? Ask and I swear it shall be thine.”