great beard bristling with wrath, asked her solmenly if he was a child
in arms, a query so absurd that I could not help laughing.

Then he scolded her--yes, he scolded Ayesha! Wishing to know what she
meant (1) by spying upon him with her magic, an evil gift that he had
always disliked and mistrusted; (2) by condemning brave and excellent
men, his good friends, to a death of fiendish cruelty upon such
evidence, or rather out of temper, on no evidence at all; and (3) by
giving him into charge of them, as though he were a little boy, and
telling them that they would have to answer for it if he were hurt: he
who, in his time, had killed every sort of big game known and passed
through some perils and encounters?

Thus he beat her with his words, and, wonderful to say, Ayesha, this
being more than woman, submitted to the chastisement meekly. Yet had any
other man dared to address her with roughness even, I doubt not that his
speech and his life would have come to a swift and simultaneous end,
for I knew that now, as of old, she could slay by the mere effort of
her will. But she did not slay; she did not even threaten, only, as any
other loving woman might have done, she began to cry. Yes, great tears
gathered in those lovely eyes of hers and, rolling one by one down her
face, fell--for her head was bent humbly forward--like heavy raindrops
on the marble floor.

At the sight of this touching evidence of her human, loving heart all
Leo's anger melted. Now it was he who grew penitent and prayed
her pardon humbly. She gave him her hand in token of forgiveness,
saying--"Let others speak to me as they will" (sorry should I have been
to try it!) "but from thee, Leo, I cannot bear harsh words. Oh, thou art
cruel, cruel. In what have I offended? Can I help it if my spirit keeps