Ayesha listened in icy silence, and made no remark. When he had
finished, however, she addressed Ustane.
"Hast thou aught to say, woman? Thou silly straw, thou feather, who
didst think to float towards thy passion's petty ends, even against the
great wind of my will! Tell me, for I fain would understand. Why didst
thou this thing?"
And then I think I saw the most tremendous exhibition of moral courage
and intrepidity that it is possible to conceive. For the poor doomed
girl, knowing what she had to expect at the hands of her terrible Queen,
knowing, too, from bitter experience, how great was her adversary's
power, yet gathered herself together, and out of the very depths of her
despair drew materials to defy her.
"I did it, oh _She_," she answered, drawing herself up to the full of
her stately height, and throwing back the panther skin from her head,
"because my love is stronger than the grave. I did it because my life
without this man whom my heart chose would be but a living death.
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