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312  cavilling and suspicious mind, remembering what I said but now, believest that I lie to thee.

I protested that I was only reflecting upon an apparent variation between two statements.

Play not with words, she answered; in thy heart thou didst write me down a liar, and I take that ill. Know, foolish man, that when I said that the Macedonian Alexander lived before me, I meant before this present life of mine. In the existence that preceded it, though I outlasted him by thirty years, we were born in the same summer, and I knew him well, for I was the Oracle whom he consulted most upon his wars, and to my wisdom he owed his victories. Afterwards we quarrelled, and I left him and pushed forward with Rassen. From that day the bright star of Alexander began to wane.

At this Leo made a sound that resembled a whistle. In a very agony of apprehension, beating back the criticisms and certain recollections of the strange tale of the old abbot, Kou-en, which would rise within me, I asked quickly—

And dost thou, Ayesha, remember well all that befel thee in this former life?

Nay, not well, she answered, meditatively, only the greater facts, and those I have for the most part recovered by that study of secret things which thou callest vision or magic. For instance, my Holly, I recall that thou wast living in that life. Indeed I seem to see an ugly philosopher clad in a dirty robe and filled both with wine and the learning of others, who disputed with Alexander till he grew wroth with him and caused him to be banished, or drowned: I forget which.

I suppose that I was not called Diogenes? I asked tartly, suspecting, perhaps not without cause, that Ayesha was amusing herself by fooling me.

No, she replied gravely, I do not think that was thy name. The Diogenes thou speakest of was a much more famous man, one of real if crabbed wisdom;