Ayesha, the Return of She

Ayesha, the Return of She is a novel written by H. Rider Haggard and first published in 1905.

Ayesha is the sequel to She and follows Leo Vincey and Horace Holly as they travel to Central Asia in search of Ayesha, the immortal woman who once ruled the lost kingdom of Kôr.

Believing her to be reincarnated, they face treacherous landscapes and hostile tribes.

Eventually they find her in a desolate mountain kingdom, where Ayesha's love for Leo endures, but her beauty and power are diminished by the consequences of her immortality. The novel explores themes of love, obsession and the supernatural, and continues the epic story of Ayesha's tragic destiny.

"Hard on twenty years have gone by since that night of Leo’s vision—the most awful years, perhaps, which were ever endured by men—twenty years of search and hardship ending in soul-shaking wonder and amazement.
My death is very near to me, and of this I am glad, for I desire to pursue the quest in other realms, as it has been promised to me that I shall do. I desire to learn the beginning and the end of the spiritual drama of which it has been my strange lot to read some pages upon earth."