"I believe it was the old Egyptians – a very wise people, probably indeed much wiser than we know for in the leisure of their ample centuries they had time to think out things – who declared that each individual personality is made up of six or seven different elements, although the Bible only allows us three, namely body soul and spirit..."

Wanting to learn if he can communicate with deceased loved ones, adventurer and trader Allan Quatermain seeks a meeting with the feared Zulu witch-doctor Zikali. He tells Allan he must seek out a great white sorceress who rules a hidden kingdom far to the north, and he charges Allan to take a message to her. En route, Quatermain encounters emigrant Scotsmen, cannibals, witch doctors, the beautiful Inez, and of course the mysterious She, or Ayesha.

Although third in order of publication, this book is first in the chronology of the adventures of She.