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232 again. For a while longer Ayesha continued the motions of her hands, then let fall her veil and rose.

Look, I have laid a spell upon her, she said, beckoning to me to draw near.

I did so and perceived that now the eyes of Inez were shut and that she seemed to be plunged in a deep and natural sleep.

So she will remain for this night and the day which follows, said Ayesha, and when she wakes it will be, I think, to believe herself once more a happy child. Not until she sees her home again will she find her womanhood, and then all this story will be forgotten by her. Of her father you must tell her that he died when you went out to hunt the river-beasts together, and if she seeks for certain others, that they have gone away. But I think that she will ask little more when she learns that he is dead, since I have laid that command upon her soul.

Hypnotic suggestion, thought I to myself, and I only hope to heaven that it will work.

Ayesha seemed to guess what was passing through my mind, for she nodded and said,

Have no fear, Allan, for I am what the black axe-bearer and the little yellow man call a witch which means, as you who are instructed know, one who has knowledge of medicine and other things and who holds a key to some of the mysteries that lie hid in Nature.

For instance, I suggested, of how to transport yourself into a battle at the right moment, and out of it again—also at the right moment.

Yes, Allan, since watching all from afar, I saw that those Amahagger curs were about to flee and that I was needed there to hearten them and to put fear into the army of Rezu. So I came.

But how did you come, Ayesha?

She laughed as she answered,

Perhaps I did not come at all. Perhaps you all only thought I came; since I seemed to be there the rest matters nothing.

As I still looked unconvinced she went on,

Oh! foolish man, seek not to learn of that which is too high for you. Yet, listen. You in your ignorance suppose that the soul dwells within the body, do you not?