“I would learn how old thou art and what thou hast seen, O Sphinx.”
“Hundreds of millions of years ago,” answered the lips of stone, “I was shaped in the womb of Fire and cast forth in the agony of the birth of the world. For tens of millions of years I lay beneath deep water, and grew in their darkness. The waters receded and lo! I was a mountain of which the point appeared amidst a forest. Great creatures crept about my flanks, they roared round me in the mists, thousands of generations of them, now of this shape and now of that. The mists departed; I looked upon the sun, a huge ball of flaming red that day by day rose up over against me. In its fierce heat the forests withered and passed away in fire. Sands appeared out of it that, driven by great winds, shaped me to my lion’s shape. A river rolled at my feet, the river Nile. New beasts took refuge in my shade in place of the reptiles that were gone; they fought and ravened and mated and bore their young about me.
“More millions of years went by and there came yet other beasts, hairy creatures that ran upon two legs and jabbered. These passed and behold there were men, now of this colour and now of that. Tribe by tribe these men butchered each other for food and women, dashing out the brains of their enemies with stones and devouring them, cooked first in the rays of the sun, and then with fire which they had learned to make.
“These passed away and there appeared other men who wore garments of skins and killed their prey with flint-headed arrows and spears. Yonder in the cliff you may find their graves covered with flat stones. These men worshipped the sun and me, the rock upon which his rays fell at dawn. Thus first I became a god. Again there was war around me and my worshippers were slain, they and their fair-haired children were all slain. Still their dark-hued conquerors worshipped the sun and me. Moreover, they were artists and with hard tools they fashioned my face and form as these appear to-day. Afterwards they built pyramids and tombs and in them kings and princes were laid to rest. For generation after generation I watched them come and go, till at length there were no more of them, and white-robed priests crept about the ruins of their temples as still they creep to-day. Such is my history, O Man, that is yet but begun, for when all the gods are gone and none pour offerings to me or them, still lost in memories I, who was from the beginning, shall remain until the end. Yet was it of this that thou wouldst ask me?”
“Nay, O Sphinx. Tell me, what is the name of that wind among the palm trees of which the sound is as the voice of woman? Whence comes it and whither does it go?”
“That wind, O Man, blew at the begetting of the world and will blow until its death, for without it no life can be. It came from God and to God it returns again, and in heaven and earth its name is Love.”
Now Khian would have asked more questions, but could not for suddenly all his dream vanished and his eyes opened to behold, not the face of the Sphinx, mighty and solemn, but the ebon features of the giant Ru.
“What is love, O Ru?” he asked, yawning.
“Love!” answered Ru, astonished. “What do I know about love? There are so many sorts of love; that of men for women, or of women for men, which is a curse and a madness sent into the world by Set to be its torment; that of kings for power which is the father of war; that of merchants for wealth which breeds theft and misery; that of the learned for wisdom, a bird which never can be snared; that of the mother for her child, which is holy; and that of the slave for him or her he serves, which is the only sort I know. Ask it of Roy the Prophet, though I think he has forgotten all love save that of the gods and death.”
“It is of the first that I would learn, O Ru, and of it I think that Roy can tell me nothing, who, as you say, has forgotten all. Whom shall I ask of this?”