"Ah!" she said, with a flash of her eyes. "I have thought of it, and for
my part hope that it will chance, since then thou canst not blame me if
I put out my strength. Oh! then the East, that has slept so long, shall
awake--shall awake, and upon battlefield after battlefield such as
history cannot tell of, thou shalt see my flaming standards sweep on to
victory. One by one thou shalt watch the nations fall and perish, until
at length I build thy throne upon the hecatombs of their countless dead
and crown thee emperor of a world regenerate in blood and fire."

Leo, whom this new gospel of regeneration seemed to appall, who was,
in fact, a hater of absolute monarchies and somewhat republican in his
views and sympathies, continued the argument, but I took no further
heed. The thing was grotesque in its tremendous and fantastic absurdity;
Ayesha's ambitions were such as no imperial-minded madman could
conceive.

Yet--here came the rub--I had not the slightest doubt but that she was
well able to put them into practice and carry them to some marvellous
and awful conclusion. Why not? Death could not touch her; she had
triumphed over death. Her beauty--that "cup of madness" in her eyes, as
she named it once to me--and her reckless will would compel the hosts of
men to follow her. Her piercing intelligence would enable her to invent
new weapons with which the most highly-trained army could not possibly
compete. Indeed, it might be as she said, and as I for one believed,
with good reason, it proved, that she held at her command the elemental
forces of Nature, such as those that lie hid in electricity, which would
give all living beings to her for a prey.

Ayesha was still woman enough to have worldly ambitions, and the most
dread circumstance about her superhuman powers was that they appeared to