She

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SHE

By H. Rider Haggard


First Published 1886.




IN EARTH AND SKIE AND SEA

STRANGE THYNGS THER BE

Doggerel couplet from the

Sherd of Amenartas



I inscribe this history to

ANDREW LANG

in token of personal regard

and of

my sincere admiration for his learning and his works


ORIGINAL PREPARER'S NOTE

This text was prepared from an 1888 edition published by Longmans,
Green, and Co., London. A number of fragments of Greek text, and
sketches, have been omitted due to the difficulty of representing
them as plain text. However, small fragments of Greek have been
transcribed in brackets "{}" using an Oxford English Dictionary
alphabet table, without diacritical marks.


PREPARER'S NOTE--UNICODE EDITION

A number of fragments of Greek and other text, omitted from the
original posting, have been restored in this Unicode text.
Sketches, however, have not yet been restored.




SHE



INTRODUCTION

In giving to the world the record of what, looked at as an adventure
only, is I suppose one of the most wonderful and mysterious experiences
ever undergone by mortal men, I feel it incumbent on me to explain what
my exact connection with it is. And so I may as well say at once that I
am not the narrator but only the editor of this extraordinary history,
and then go on to tell how it found its way into my hands.

Some years ago I, the editor, was stopping with a friend, "_vir
doctissimus et amicus neus_," at a certain University, which for the
purposes of this history we will call Cambridge, and was one day much
struck with the appearance of two persons whom I saw going arm-in-arm
down the street. One of these gentlemen was I think, without exception,
the handsomest young fellow I have ever seen. He was very tall, very
broad, and had a look of power and a grace of bearing that seemed as
native to him as it is to a wild stag. In addition his face was almost
without flaw--a good face as well as a beautiful one, and when he lifted
his hat, which he did just then to a passing lady, I saw that his head
was covered with little golden curls growing close to the scalp.

"Good gracious!" I said to my friend, with whom I was walking, "why,
that fellow looks like a statue of Apollo come to life. What a splendid
man he is!"

"Yes," he answered, "he is the handsomest man in the University, and one
of the nicest too. They call him 'the Greek god'; but look at the other
one, he's Vincey's (that's the god's name) guardian, and supposed to be
full of every kind of information. They call him 'Charon.'" I looked,
and found the older man quite as interesting in his way as the glorified
specimen of humanity at his side. He appeared to be about forty years
of age, and was I think as ugly as his companion was handsome. To begin
with, he was shortish, rather bow-legged, very deep chested, and with
unusually long arms. He had dark hair and small eyes, and the hair grew
right down on his forehead, and his whiskers grew right up to his hair,
so that there was uncommonly little of his countenance to be seen.
Altogether he reminded me forcibly of a gorilla, and yet there was
something very pleasing and genial about the man's eye. I remember
saying that I should like to know him.

"All right," answered my friend, "nothing easier. I know Vincey;
I'll introduce you," and he did, and for some minutes we stood
chatting--about the Zulu people, I think, for I had just returned from
the Cape at the time. Presently, however, a stoutish lady, whose name
I do not remember, came along the pavement, accompanied by a pretty
fair-haired girl, and these two Mr. Vincey, who clearly knew them well,
at once joined, walking off in their company. I remember being rather
amused because of the change in the expression of the elder man, whose
name I discovered was Holly, when he saw the ladies advancing. He
suddenly stopped short in his talk, cast a reproachful look at his
companion, and, with an abrupt nod to myself, turned and marched off
alone across the street. I heard afterwards that he was popularly
supposed to be as much afraid of a woman as most people are of a mad
dog, which accounted for his precipitate retreat. I cannot say, however,
that young Vincey showed much aversion to feminine society on this
occasion. Indeed I remember laughing, and remarking to my friend at
the time that he was not the sort of man whom it would be desirable to
introduce to the lady one was going to marry, since it was exceedingly
probable that the acquaintance would end in a transfer of her
affections. He was altogether too good-looking, and, what is more,
he had none of that consciousness and conceit about him which usually
afflicts handsome men, and makes them deservedly disliked by their
fellows.

That same evening my visit came to an end, and this was the last I saw
or heard of "Charon" and "the Greek god" for many a long day. Indeed, I
have never seen either of them from that hour to this, and do not think
it probable that I shall. But a month ago I received a letter and two
packets, one of manuscript, and on opening the first found that it was
signed by "Horace Holly," a name that at the moment was not familiar to
me. It ran as follows:--

"---- College, Cambridge, May 1, 18--

"My dear Sir,--You will be surprised, considering the very slight nature
of our acquaintance, to get a letter from me. Indeed, I think I had
better begin by reminding you that we once met, now some five years ago,
when I and my ward Leo Vincey were introduced to you in the street at
Cambridge. To be brief and come to my business. I have recently
read with much interest a book of yours describing a Central African
adventure. I take it that this book is partly true, and partly an effort
of the imagination. However this may be, it has given me an idea. It
happens, how you will see in the accompanying manuscript (which together
with the Scarab, the 'Royal Son of the Sun,' and the original sherd, I
am sending to you by hand), that my ward, or rather my adopted son Leo
Vincey and myself have recently passed through a real African adventure,
of a nature so much more marvellous than the one which you describe,
that to tell the truth I am almost ashamed to submit it to you lest you
should disbelieve my tale. You will see it stated in this manuscript
that I, or rather we, had made up our minds not to make this history
public during our joint lives. Nor should we alter our determination
were it not for a circumstance which has recently arisen. We are for
reasons that, after perusing this manuscript, you may be able to guess,
going away again this time to Central Asia where, if anywhere upon this
earth, wisdom is to be found, and we anticipate that our sojourn there
will be a long one. Possibly we shall not return. Under these altered
conditions it has become a question whether we are justified in
withholding from the world an account of a phenomenon which we believe
to be of unparalleled interest, merely because our private life is
involved, or because we are afraid of ridicule and doubt being cast
upon our statements. I hold one view about this matter, and Leo
holds another, and finally, after much discussion, we have come to a
compromise, namely, to send the history to you, giving you full leave to
publish it if you think fit, the only stipulation being that you shall
disguise our real names, and as much concerning our personal identity as
is consistent with the maintenance of the _bona fides_ of the narrative.

"And now what am I to say further? I really do not know beyond once more
repeating that everything is described in the accompanying manuscript
exactly as it happened. As regards _She_ herself I have nothing to add.
Day by day we gave greater occasion to regret that we did not better
avail ourselves of our opportunities to obtain more information from
that marvellous woman. Who was she? How did she first come to the Caves
of Kor, and what was her real religion? We never ascertained, and now,
alas! we never shall, at least not yet. These and many other questions
arise in my mind, but what is the good of asking them now?

"Will you undertake the task? We give you complete freedom, and as a
reward you will, we believe, have the credit of presenting to the world
the most wonderful history, as distinguished from romance, that its
records can show. Read the manuscript (which I have copied out fairly
for your benefit), and let me know.

"Believe me, very truly yours, "L. Horace Holly.[*]

"P.S.--Of course, if any profit results from the sale of the writing
should you care to undertake its publication, you can do what you
like with it, but if there is a loss I will leave instructions with my
lawyers, Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, to meet it. We entrust the sherd,
the scarab, and the parchments to your keeping, till such time as we
demand them back again. --L. H. H."

[*] This name is varied throughout in accordance with the
writer's request.--Editor.

This letter, as may be imagined, astonished me considerably, but when I
came to look at the MS., which the pressure of other work prevented me
from doing for a fortnight, I was still more astonished, as I think the
reader will be also, and at once made up my mind to press on with the
matter. I wrote to this effect to Mr. Holly, but a week afterwards
received a letter from that gentleman's lawyers, returning my own, with
the information that their client and Mr. Leo Vincey had already left
this country for Thibet, and they did not at present know their address.

Well, that is all I have to say. Of the history itself the reader must
judge. I give it him, with the exception of a very few alterations,
made with the object of concealing the identity of the actors from the
general public, exactly as it came to me. Personally I have made up my
mind to refrain from comments. At first I was inclined to believe that
this history of a woman on whom, clothed in the majesty of her almost
endless years, the shadow of Eternity itself lay like the dark wing
of Night, was some gigantic allegory of which I could not catch the
meaning. Then I thought that it might be a bold attempt to portray the
possible results of practical immortality, informing the substance of
a mortal who yet drew her strength from Earth, and in whose human bosom
passions yet rose and fell and beat as in the undying world around her
the winds and the tides rise and fall and beat unceasingly. But as I
went on I abandoned that idea also. To me the story seems to bear the
stamp of truth upon its face. Its explanation I must leave to others,
and with this slight preface, which circumstances make necessary, I
introduce the world to Ayesha and the Caves of Kor.--The Editor.

P.S.--There is on consideration one circumstance that, after a reperusal
of this history, struck me with so much force that I cannot resist
calling the attention of the reader to it. He will observe that so far
as we are made acquainted with him there appears to be nothing in the
character of Leo Vincey which in the opinion of most people would have
been likely to attract an intellect so powerful as that of Ayesha. He is
not even, at any rate to my view, particularly interesting. Indeed, one
might imagine that Mr. Holly would under ordinary circumstances have
easily outstripped him in the favour of _She_. Can it be that extremes
meet, and that the very excess and splendour of her mind led her by
means of some strange physical reaction to worship at the shrine of
matter? Was that ancient Kallikrates nothing but a splendid animal
loved for his hereditary Greek beauty? Or is the true explanation what
I believe it to be--namely, that Ayesha, seeing further than we can
see, perceived the germ and smouldering spark of greatness which lay hid
within her lover's soul, and well knew that under the influence of her
gift of life, watered by her wisdom, and shone upon with the sunshine
of her presence, it would bloom like a flower and flash out like a star,
filling the world with light and fragrance?

Here also I am not able to answer, but must leave the reader to form his
own judgment on the facts before him, as detailed by Mr. Holly in the
following pages.



I

MY VISITOR

There are some events of which each circumstance and surrounding detail
seems to be graven on the memory in such fashion that we cannot forget
it, and so it is with the scene that I am about to describe. It rises
as clearly before my mind at this moment as thought it had happened but
yesterday.

It was in this very month something over twenty years ago that I, Ludwig
Horace Holly, was sitting one night in my rooms at Cambridge, grinding
away at some mathematical work, I forget what. I was to go up for my
fellowship within a week, and was expected by my tutor and my college
generally to distinguish myself. At last, wearied out, I flung my book
down, and, going to the mantelpiece, took down a pipe and filled it.
There was a candle burning on the mantelpiece, and a long, narrow glass
at the back of it; and as I was in the act of lighting the pipe I caught
sight of my own countenance in the glass, and paused to reflect. The
lighted match burnt away till it scorched my fingers, forcing me to drop
it; but still I stood and stared at myself in the glass, and reflected.

"Well," I said aloud, at last, "it is to be hoped that I shall be able
to do something with the inside of my head, for I shall certainly never
do anything by the help of the outside."

This remark will doubtless strike anybody who reads it as being slightly
obscure, but I was in reality alluding to my physical deficiencies.
Most men of twenty-two are endowed at any rate with some share of the
comeliness of youth, but to me even this was denied. Short, thick-set,
and deep-chested almost to deformity, with long sinewy arms, heavy
features, deep-set grey eyes, a low brow half overgrown with a mop of
thick black hair, like a deserted clearing on which the forest had once
more begun to encroach; such was my appearance nearly a quarter of a
century ago, and such, with some modification, it is to this day.
Like Cain, I was branded--branded by Nature with the stamp of abnormal
ugliness, as I was gifted by Nature with iron and abnormal strength and
considerable intellectual powers. So ugly was I that the spruce
young men of my College, though they were proud enough of my feats of
endurance and physical prowess, did not even care to be seen walking
with me. Was it wonderful that I was misanthropic and sullen? Was it
wonderful that I brooded and worked alone, and had no friends--at least,
only one? I was set apart by Nature to live alone, and draw comfort
from her breast, and hers only. Women hated the sight of me. Only a week
before I had heard one call me a "monster" when she thought I was out
of hearing, and say that I had converted her to the monkey theory. Once,
indeed, a woman pretended to care for me, and I lavished all the pent-up
affection of my nature upon her. Then money that was to have come to me
went elsewhere, and she discarded me. I pleaded with her as I have never
pleaded with any living creature before or since, for I was caught by
her sweet face, and loved her; and in the end by way of answer she took
me to the glass, and stood side by side with me, and looked into it.

"Now," she said, "if I am Beauty, who are you?" That was when I was only
twenty.

And so I stood and stared, and felt a sort of grim satisfaction in the
sense of my own loneliness; for I had neither father, nor mother, nor
brother; and as I did so there came a knock at my door.

I listened before I went to open it, for it was nearly twelve o'clock at
night, and I was in no mood to admit any stranger. I had but one friend
in the College, or, indeed, in the world--perhaps it was he.

Just then the person outside the door coughed, and I hastened to open
it, for I knew the cough.

A tall man of about thirty, with the remains of great personal beauty,
came hurrying in, staggering beneath the weight of a massive iron box
which he carried by a handle with his right hand. He placed the box upon
the table, and then fell into an awful fit of coughing. He coughed and
coughed till his face became quite purple, and at last he sank into
a chair and began to spit up blood. I poured out some whisky into a
tumbler, and gave it to him. He drank it, and seemed better; though his
better was very bad indeed.

"Why did you keep me standing there in the cold?" he asked pettishly.
"You know the draughts are death to me."

"I did not know who it was," I answered. "You are a late visitor."

"Yes; and I verily believe it is my last visit," he answered, with a
ghastly attempt at a smile. "I am done for, Holly. I am done for. I do
not believe that I shall see to-morrow."

"Nonsense!" I said. "Let me go for a doctor."

He waved me back imperiously with his hand. "It is sober sense; but I
want no doctors. I have studied medicine and I know all about it. No
doctors can help me. My last hour has come! For a year past I have
only lived by a miracle. Now listen to me as you have never listened to
anybody before; for you will not have the opportunity of getting me to
repeat my words. We have been friends for two years; now tell me how
much do you know about me?"

"I know that you are rich, and have had a fancy to come to College long
after the age that most men leave it. I know that you have been married,
and that your wife died; and that you have been the best, indeed almost
the only friend I ever had."

"Did you know that I have a son?"

"No."

"I have. He is five years old. He cost me his mother's life, and I have
never been able to bear to look upon his face in consequence. Holly,
if you will accept the trust, I am going to leave you that boy's sole
guardian."

I sprang almost out of my chair. "_Me!_" I said.

"Yes, you. I have not studied you for two years for nothing. I have
known for some time that I could not last, and since I realised the fact
I have been searching for some one to whom I could confide the boy and
this," and he tapped the iron box. "You are the man, Holly; for, like a
rugged tree, you are hard and sound at core. Listen; the boy will be the
only representative of one of the most ancient families in the world,
that is, so far as families can be traced. You will laugh at me when
I say it, but one day it will be proved to you beyond a doubt, that my
sixty-fifth or sixty-sixth lineal ancestor was an Egyptian priest
of Isis, though he was himself of Grecian extraction, and was called
Kallikrates.[*] His father was one of the Greek mercenaries raised
by Hak-Hor, a Mendesian Pharaoh of the twenty-ninth dynasty, and his
grandfather or great-grandfather, I believe, was that very Kallikrates
mentioned by Herodotus.[+] In or about the year 339 before Christ, just
at the time of the final fall of the Pharaohs, this Kallikrates (the
priest) broke his vows of celibacy and fled from Egypt with a Princess
of Royal blood who had fallen in love with him, and was finally wrecked
upon the coast of Africa, somewhere, as I believe, in the neighbourhood
of where Delagoa Bay now is, or rather to the north of it, he and his
wife being saved, and all the remainder of their company destroyed in
one way or another. Here they endured great hardships, but were at last
entertained by the mighty Queen of a savage people, a white woman of
peculiar loveliness, who, under circumstances which I cannot enter into,
but which you will one day learn, if you live, from the contents of
the box, finally murdered my ancestor Kallikrates. His wife, however,
escaped, how, I know not, to Athens, bearing a child with her, whom she
named Tisisthenes, or the Mighty Avenger. Five hundred years or more
afterwards, the family migrated to Rome under circumstances of which no
trace remains, and here, probably with the idea of preserving the idea
of vengeance which we find set out in the name of Tisisthenes, they
appear to have pretty regularly assumed the cognomen of Vindex, or
Avenger. Here, too, they remained for another five centuries or more,
till about 770 A.D., when Charlemagne invaded Lombardy, where they were
then settled, whereon the head of the family seems to have attached
himself to the great Emperor, and to have returned with him across the
Alps, and finally to have settled in Brittany. Eight generations later
his lineal representative crossed to England in the reign of Edward
the Confessor, and in the time of William the Conqueror was advanced to
great honour and power. From that time to the present day I can trace
my descent without a break. Not that the Vinceys--for that was the final
corruption of the name after its bearers took root in English soil--have
been particularly distinguished--they never came much to the fore.
Sometimes they were soldiers, sometimes merchants, but on the whole they
have preserved a dead level of respectability, and a still deader level
of mediocrity. From the time of Charles II. till the beginning of the
present century they were merchants. About 1790 by grandfather made a
considerable fortune out of brewing, and retired. In 1821 he died, and
my father succeeded him, and dissipated most of the money. Ten years ago
he died also, leaving me a net income of about two thousand a year. Then
it was that I undertook an expedition in connection with _that_," and he
pointed to the iron chest, "which ended disastrously enough. On my way
back I travelled in the South of Europe, and finally reached Athens.
There I met my beloved wife, who might well also have been called the
'Beautiful,' like my old Greek ancestor. There I married her, and there,
a year afterwards, when my boy was born, she died."

[*] The Strong and Beautiful, or, more accurately, the
Beautiful in strength.

[+] The Kallikrates here referred to by my friend was a
Spartan, spoken of by Herodotus (Herod. ix. 72) as being
remarkable for his beauty. He fell at the glorious battle of
Plataea (September 22, B.C. 479), when the Lacedaemonians
and Athenians under Pausanias routed the Persians, putting
nearly 300,000 of them to the sword. The following is a
translation of the passage, "For Kallikrates died out of the
battle, he came to the army the most beautiful man of the
Greeks of that day--not only of the Lacedaemonians
themselves, but of the other Greeks also. He when Pausanias
was sacrificing was wounded in the side by an arrow; and
then they fought, but on being carried off he regretted his
death, and said to Arimnestus, a Plataean, that he did not
grieve at dying for Greece, but at not having struck a blow,
or, although he desired so to do, performed any deed worthy
of himself." This Kallikrates, who appears to have been as
brave as he was beautiful, is subsequently mentioned by
Herodotus as having been buried among the {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL
SIGMA~} (young commanders), apart from the other Spartans
and the Helots.--L. H. H.

He paused a while, his head sunk upon his hand, and then continued--

"My marriage had diverted me from a project which I cannot enter into
now. I have no time, Holly--I have no time! One day, if you accept my
trust, you will learn all about it. After my wife's death I turned my
mind to it again. But first it was necessary, or, at least, I conceived
that it was necessary, that I should attain to a perfect knowledge of
Eastern dialects, especially Arabic. It was to facilitate my studies
that I came here. Very soon, however, my disease developed itself, and
now there is an end of me." And as though to emphasise his words he
burst into another terrible fit of coughing.

I gave him some more whisky, and after resting he went on--

"I have never seen my boy, Leo, since he was a tiny baby. I never could
bear to see him, but they tell me that he is a quick and handsome child.
In this envelope," and he produced a letter from his pocket addressed
to myself, "I have jotted down the course I wish followed in the boy's
education. It is a somewhat peculiar one. At any rate, I could not
entrust it to a stranger. Once more, will you undertake it?"

"I must first know what I am to undertake," I answered.

"You are to undertake to have the boy, Leo, to live with you till he is
twenty-five years of age--not to send him to school, remember. On his
twenty-fifth birthday your guardianship will end, and you will then,
with the keys that I give you now" (and he placed them on the table)
"open the iron box, and let him see and read the contents, and say
whether or no he is willing to undertake the quest. There is no
obligation on him to do so. Now, as regards terms. My present income is
two thousand two hundred a year. Half of that income I have secured
to you by will for life, contingently on your undertaking the
guardianship--that is, one thousand a year remuneration to yourself, for
you will have to give up your life to it, and one hundred a year to
pay for the board of the boy. The rest is to accumulate till Leo is
twenty-five, so that there may be a sum in hand should he wish to
undertake the quest of which I spoke."