that brings the lover joy and forgetfulness of self and takes away the
awful loneliness of the soul, if only for a little while?"

Not wishing to drift into discussion on the matter of love, Alan asked
the priestess to define her "soul," whence it came and whither she
believed it to be going.

"My soul is I, Vernoon," she answered, "and already very, very old. Thus
it has ruled amongst this people for thousands of years."

"How is that?" he asked, "seeing that the Asika dies?"

"Oh! no, Vernoon, she does not die; she only changes. The old body dies,
the spirit enters into another body which is waiting. Thus until I was
fourteen I was but a common girl, the daughter of a headman of that
village yonder, at least so they tell me, for of this time I have no
memory. Then the Asika died and as I had the secret marks and the beauty
that is hers the priests burnt her body before Big Bonsa and suffocated
me, the child, in the smoke of the burning. But I awoke again and when
I awoke the past was gone and the soul of the Asika filled me, bringing
with it its awful memories, its gathered wisdom, its passion of love and
hate, and its power to look backward and before."

"Do you ever do these things?" asked Alan.

"Backward, yes, before very little; since you came, not at all, because
my heart is a coward and I fear what I might see. Oh! Vernoon, Vernoon,
I know you and your thoughts. You think me a beautiful beast who loves
like a beast, who loves you because you are white and different from our
men. Well, what there is of the beast in me the gods of my people gave,