Ayesha

Ayesha

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Title: Ayesha The Return of She
Author: H. Rider Haggard
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AYESHA: THE RETURN OF SHE By H. Rider Haggard
First Published 1905.

AYESHA
THE RETURN OF SHE
BY
H. RIDER HAGGARD

"Here ends this history so far as it concerns science and the outside

world. What its end will be as regards Leo and myself is more than I
can guess. But we feel that it is not reached. . . . Often I sit alone at
night, staring with the eyes of my mind into the blackness of unborn
time, and wondering in what shape and form the great drama will be
finally developed, and where the scene of its next act will be laid. And
when, ultimately, that /final/ development occurs, as I have no doubt it
must and will occur, in obedience to a fate that never swerves and a
purpose which cannot be altered, what will be the part played therein
by that beautiful Egyptian Amenar-tas, the Princess of the royal house
of the Pharaohs, for the love of whom the priest Kallikrates broke his
vows to Isis, and, pursued by the vengeance of the outraged goddess,
fled down the coast of Lybia to meet his doom at Kor?"-- /She/, Silver
Library Edition, p. 277.

DEDICATION
My dear Lang,
The appointed years--alas! how many of them--are gone by, leaving
Ayesha lovely and loving and ourselves alive. As it was promised in
the Caves of Kor /She/ has returned again.
To you therefore who accepted the first, I offer this further history of
one of the various incarnations of that Immortal.
My hope is that after you have read her record, notwithstanding her
subtleties and sins and the shortcomings of her chronicler (no easy
office!) you may continue to wear your chain of "loyalty to our lady
Ayesha." Such, I confess, is still the fate of your old friend
H. RIDER HAGGARD.
DITCHINGHAM, 1905.

AUTHOR'S NOTE
Not with a view of conciliating those readers who on principle object to
sequels, but as a matter of fact, the Author wishes to say that he does
not so regard this book.
Rather does he venture to ask that it should be considered as the
conclusion of an imaginative tragedy (if he may so call it) whereof one
half has been already published.
This conclusion it was always his desire to write should he be destined
to live through those many years which, in obedience to his original

design, must be allowed to lapse between the events of the first and
second parts of the romance.
In response to many enquiries he may add that the name Ayesha, which
since the days of the prophet Mahomet, who had a wife so called, and
perhaps before them, has been common in the East, should be
pronounced /Assha/.

INTRODUCTION
Verily and indeed it is the unexpected that happens! Probably if there
was one person upon the earth from whom the Editor of this, and of a
certain previous history, did not expect to hear again, that person was
Ludwig Horace Holly. This, too, for a good reason; he believed him to
have taken his departure from the earth.
When Mr. Holly last wrote, many, many years ago, it was to transmit
the manuscript of /She/, and to announce that he and his ward, Leo
Vincey, the beloved of the divine Ayesha, were about to travel to
Central Asia in the hope, I suppose, that there she would fulfil her
promise and appear