impostor, which I could not believe -- could save him. I would go and implore her to come. As I started to do so, however, Job came flying into the room, his hair literally standing on end with terror.

`Oh, God help us, sir!' he ejaculated in a frightened whisper, `here's a corpse a-coming sliding down the passage!'

For a moment I was puzzled, but presently, of course, it struck me that he must have seen Ayesha, wrapped in her grave-like garment, and been deceived by the extraordinary undulating smoothness of her walk into a belief that she was a white ghost gliding towards him. Indeed, at that very moment the question was settled, for Ayesha herself was in the apartment, or rather cave. Job turned, and saw her sheeted form, and then, with a convulsive howl of `Here it comes!' sprang into a corner, and jammed his face against the wall, and Ustane, guessing whose the dread presence must be, prostrated herself upon her face.

`Thou comest in a good time, Ayesha,' I said, `for my boy lies at the point of death.'

`So,' she said softly; `provided he be not dead, it is no matter, for I can bring him back to life, my Holly. Is that man there thy servant, and is that the method wherewith thy servants greet strangers in thy country?'

`He is frightened of thy garb -- it hath a death-like air,' I answered.

She laughed.

`And the girl? Ah, I see now. It is her of whom thou didst speak to me. Well, bid them both to leave us, and we will see to this sick Lion of thine. I love not that underlings should perceive my wisdom.'

Thereon I told Ustane in Arabic and Job in English both to leave the room; an order which the latter obeyed readily enough, and was glad to obey, for he could not in any way subdue his fear. But it was otherwise with Ustane.

`What does She want?' she whispered, divided between her fear of the terrible Queen and her anxiety to remained near Leo. `It is surely the right of a wife to be near her husband when he dieth. Nay, I will not go, my lord, the Baboon.'

`Why doth not that woman leave us, my Holly?' asked Ayesha, from the other end of the cave, where she was engaged in carelessly examining some of the sculptures on the wall.

`She is not willing to leave Leo,' I answered, not knowing what to say. Ayesha wheeled round, and, pointing to the girl Ustane, said one word, and one only, but it was quite enough, for the tone in which it was said meant volumes.

`Go!'

And then Ustane crept past her on her hands and knees, and went.

`Thou seest, my Holly,' said Ayesha, with a little laugh, `it was needful that I should give these people a lesson in obedience. That girl went nigh to disobeying me, but then she did not learn this morn how I treat the disobedient. Well, she has gone; and now let me see the youth,' and she glided towards the couch on which Leo lay, with his face in the shadow and turned toward the wall.

`He hath a noble shape,' she said, as she bent over him to look upon his face.

Next second her tall and willowy form was staggering back across the room, as though she had been shot or stabbed, staggering back till at last she struck the cavern wall, and then there burst from her lips the most awful and unearthly scream that I ever heard in all my life.