Page:Ayesha, the return of She (IA cu31924013476175).pdf/109

Rh  of the Shamans or Seers of this land, and, having been warned of your coming quite recently, I awaited your arrival.

Indeed, that is strange, most courteous also. So here physician and magician mean the same.

You say it, he answered with a grave bow; but tell me, if you will, how did you find your way to a land whither visitors do not wander?

Oh! I answered, perhaps we are but travellers, or perhaps we also have studied—medicine.

I think that you must have studied it deeply, since otherwise you would not have lived to cross those mountains in search of—now, what did you seek? Your companion, I think, spoke of a queen—yonder, on the banks of the torrent.

Did he? Did he, indeed? Well, that is strange since he seems to have found one, for surely that royal-looking lady, named Khania, who sprang into the stream and saved us, must be a queen.

A queen she is, and a great one, for in our land Khania means queen, though how, friend Holly, a man who has lain senseless can have learned this, I do not know. Nor do I know how you come to speak our language.

That is simple, for the tongue you talk is very ancient, and as it chances in my own country it has been my lot to study and to teach it. It is Greek, but although it is still spoken in the world, how it reached these mountains I cannot say.

I will tell you, he answered. Many generations ago a great conqueror born of the nation that spoke this tongue fought his way through the country to the south of us. He was driven back, but a general of his of another race advanced and crossed the mountains, and overcame the people of this land, bringing with him his master's language and his own worship. Here he established his dynasty, and here it remains, for being ringed in