she herself had said, spoke of such secrets in figures of speech and
parables.

It is a fact that to this hour I do not know whether Ayesha is spirit
or woman, or, as I suspect, a blend of both. I do not know the limits of
her powers, or if that elaborate story of the beginning of her love for
Leo was true--which personally I doubt--or but a fable, invented by her
mind, and through it, as she had hinted, pictured on the flame for her
own hidden purposes.

I do not know whether when first we saw her on the Mountain she was
really old and hideous, or did but put on that shape in our eyes in
order to test her lover. I do not know whether, as the priest Oros bore
witness--which he may well have been bidden to do--her spirit passed
into the body of the dead priestess of Hes, or whether when she
seemed to perish there so miserably, her body and her soul were wafted
straightway from the Caves of Kor to this Central Asian peak.

I do not know why, as she was so powerful, she did not come to seek us,
instead of leaving us to seek her through so many weary years, though I
suggest that some superior force forbade her to do more than companion
us unseen, watching our every act, reading our every thought, until at
length we reached the predestined place and hour. Also, as will appear,
there were other things of which this is not the time to speak, whereby
I am still more tortured and perplexed.

In short, I know nothing, except that my existence has been intertangled
with one of the great mysteries of the world; that the glorious being
called Ayesha won the secret of life from whatever power holds it in its
keeping; that she alleged--although of this, remember, we have no actual