However, perhaps fortunately, I had but little time
to reflect, for presently the mutes arrived to carry the sleeping Leo
and our possessions across the central cave, so for a while all was
bustle. Our new rooms were situated immediately behind what we used to
call Ayesha's boudoir--the curtained space where I had first seen her.
Where she herself slept I did not then know, but it was somewhere quite
close.
That night I passed in Leo's room, but he slept through it like the
dead, never once stirring. I also slept fairly well, as, indeed, I
needed to do, but my sleep was full of dreams of all the horrors
and wonders I had undergone. Chiefly, however, I was haunted by that
frightful piece of _diablerie_ by which Ayesha left her finger-marks
upon her rival's hair. There was something so terrible about her swift,
snake-like movement, and the instantaneous blanching of that threefold
line, that, if the results to Ustane had been much more tremendous, I
doubt if they would have impressed me so deeply.
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