“Well, from that moment I was sure that whoever this Khania may be, she had nothing to do with Ayesha; they are so different that they never could have been the same—like the hair. So I lay quiet and let her talk, and coax, and threaten on, until at length she drew herself up and marched from the room, and I heard her lock the door behind her. That’s all I have to tell you, and quite enough too, for I don’t think that the Khania has done with me, and, to say the truth, I am afraid of her.”
“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.”