One more word. It is clear that I did not touch more than the fringe of the real Ayesha. In a thousand ways she bewitched and deceived me so that I never plumbed her nature's depths. Perhaps this was my own fault because from the first I shewed a lack of faith in her and she wished to pay me back in her own fashion, or perhaps she had other private reasons for her secrecy. Certainly the character she discovered to me differed in many ways from that which she revealed to Mr. Holly and to Leo Vincey, or Kallikrates, whom, it seems, once she slew in her jealousy and rage.
She told me as much as she thought it fit that I should know, and no more!
ALLAN QUATERMAIN.
The Grange, Yorkshire.
CHAPTER I
THE TALISMAN
I believe it was the old Egyptians, a very wise people, probably indeed much wi
