“Hypnotic suggestion,” thought I to myself, “and I only hope to heaven that it will work.”
Ayesha seemed to guess what was passing through my mind, for she nodded and said,
“Have no fear, Allan, for I am what the black axe-bearer and the little yellow man called a ‘witch’ which means, as you who are instructed know, one who has knowledge of medicine and other things and who holds a key to some of the mysteries that lie hid in Nature.”
“For instance,” I suggested, “of how to transport yourself into a battle at the right moment, and out of it again—also at the right moment.”
“Yes, Allan, since watching from afar, I saw that those Amahagger curs were about to flee and that I was needed there to hearten them and to put fear into the army of Rezu. So I came.”
“But how did you come, Ayesha?”
She laughed as she answered,
“Perhaps I did not come at all. Perhaps you only thought I came; since I seemed to be there the rest matters nothing.”
As I still looked unconvinced she went on,
“Oh! foolish man, seek not to learn of that which is too high for you. Yet listen. You in your ignorance suppose that the soul dwells within the body, do you not?”