"It is a real grief to use, but the best part of the festival in honor of
your birthday will not be particularly successful, for the priests of
Serapis spitefully refuse us the Hebe about whom Lysias has made us so
curious.  Asclepiodorus, it would seem, keeps her in concealment, and
carries his audacity so far as to tell us that someone has carried her
off from the temple.  He insinuates that we have stolen her, and demands
her restitution in the name of all his associates."

"You are doing the man an injustice; our dove has followed the lure of a
dove-catcher who will not allow me to have her, and who is now billing
and cooing with her in his own nest.  I am cheated, but I can scarcely
be angry with the Roman, for his claim was of older standing than mine."

"The Roman?"  asked Cleopatra, rising from her seat and turning pale.
"But that is impossible.  You are making common cause with Eulaeus, and
want to set me against Publius Scipio.  At the banquet last night you
showed plainly enough your ill-feeling against him."

"You seem to feel more warmly towards him.  But before I prove to you
that I am neither lying nor joking, may I enquire what has this man, this
many-named Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, to recommend him above any
handsome well-grown Macedonian, who is resolute in my cause, in the whole
corps of your body guard, excepting his patrician pride?  He is as bitter
and ungenial as a sour apple, and all the very best that you--a subtle
thinker, a brilliant and cultivated philosopher--can find to say is no
more appreciated by his meanly cultivated intellect than the odes of
Sappho by a Nubian boatman."

"It is exactly for that," cried the queen, "that I value him; he is
different from all of us; we who--how shall I express myself--who always
think at second-hand, and always set our foot in the rut trodden by the
master of the school we adhere to; who squeeze our minds into the moulds
that others have carved out, and when we speak hesitate to step beyond
the outlines of those figures of rhetoric which we learned at school!
You have burst these bonds, but even your mighty spirit still shows
traces of them.  Publius Scipio, on the contrary, thinks and sees and
speaks with perfect independence, and his upright sense guides him to the
truth without any trouble or special training.  His society revives me
like the fresh air that I breathe when I come out into the open air from
the temple filled with the smoke of incense--like the milk and bread
which a peasant offered us during our late excursion to the coast, after
we had been living for a year on nothing but dainties."

"He has all the admirable characteristics of a child!"  interrupted
Euergetes.  "And if that is all that appears estimable to you in the
Roman your son may soon replace the great Cornelius."

"Not soon! no, not till he shall have grown older than you are, and a
man, a thorough man, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot,
for such a man is Publius!  I believe--nay, I am sure--that he is
incapable of any mean action, that he could not be false in word or
even in look, nor feign a sentiment be did not feel."

"Why so vehement, sister?  So much zeal is quite unnecessary on this
occasion!  You know well enough that I have my easy days, and that this
excitement is not good for you; nor has the Roman deserved that you
should be quite beside yourself for his sake.  The fellow dared in my
presence to look at you as Paris might at Helen before he carried her
off, and to drink out of your cup; and this morning he no doubt did not
contradict what he conveyed to you last night with his eyes--nay, perhaps
by his words.  And yet, scarcely an hour before, he had been to the
Necropolis to bear his sweetheart away from the temple of the gloomy
Serapis into that of the smiling Eros."

"You shall prove this!" cried the queen in great excitement.  "Publius is
my friend--"

"And I am yours!"

"You have often proved the reverse, and now again with lies
and cheating--"

"You seem," interrupted Euergetes, "to have learned from your
unphilosophical favorite to express your indignation with extraordinary
frankness; to-day however I am, as I have said, as gentle as a kitten--"

"Euergetes and gentleness!" cried Cleopatra with a forced laugh.  "No,
you only step softly like a cat when she is watching a bird, and your
gentleness covers some ruthless scheme, which we shall find out soon
enough to our cost.  You have been talking with Eulaeus to-day; Eulaeus,
who fears and hates Publius, and it seems to me that you have hatched
some conspiracy against him; but if you dare to cast a single stone in
his path, to touch a single hair of his head, I will show you that even a
weak woman can be terrible.  Nemesis and the Erinnyes from Alecto to
Megaera, the most terrible of all the gods, are women!"

Cleopatra had hissed rather than spoken these words, with her teeth set
with rage, and had raised her small fist to threaten her brother; but
Euergetes preserved a perfect composure till she had ceased speaking.
Then he took a step closer to her, crossed his arms over his breast, and
asked her in the deepest bass of his fine deep voice:

"Are you idiotically in love with this Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica,
or do you purpose to make use of him and his kith and kin in Rome against
me?"

Transported with rage, and without blenching in the least at her
brother's piercing gaze, she hastily retorted: "Up to this moment only
the first perhaps--for what is my husband to me?  But if you go on as you
have begun I shall begin to consider how I may make use of his influence
and of his liking for me, on the shores of the Tiber."

"Liking!"  cried Euergetes, and he laughed so loud and violently that
Zoe, who was listening at the tent door, gave a little scream, and
Cleopatra drew back a step.  "And to think that you--the most prudent of
the prudent--who can hear the dew fall and the grass grow, and smell here
in Memphis the smoke of every fire that is lighted in Alexandria or in
Syria or even in Rome--that you, my mother's daughter, should be caught
over head and ears by a broad-shouldered lout, for all the world like a
clumsy town-girl or a wench at a loom.  This ignorant Adonis, who knows
so well how to make use of his own strange and resolute personality, and
of the power that stands in his background, thinks no more of the hearts
he sets in flames than I of the earthen jar out of which water is drawn
when I am thirsty.  You think to make use of him by the 'Tiber; but he
has anticipated you, and learns from you all that is going on by the Nile
and everything they most want to know in the Senate.

"You do not believe me, for no one ever is ready to believe anything that
can diminish his self-esteem--and why should you believe me?  I frankly
confess that I do not hesitate to lie when I hope to gain more by untruth
than by that much-belauded and divine truth, which, according to your
favorite Plato, is allied to all earthly beauty; but it is often just as
useless as beauty itself, for the useful and the beautiful exclude each
other in a thousand cases, for ten when they coincide.  There, the gong
is sounding for the third time.  If you care for plain proof that the
Roman, only an hour before he visited you this morning, had our
little Hebe carried off from the temple, and conveyed to the house of
Apollodorus, the sculptor, at Memphis, you have only to come to see me in
my rooms early to-morrow after the first morning sacrifice.  You will at
any rate wish to come and congratulate me; bring your children with you,
as I propose making them presents.  You might even question the Roman
himself at the banquet to-day, but he will hardly appear, for the
sweetest gifts of Eros are bestowed at night, and as the temple of
Serapis is closed at sunset Publius has never yet seen his Irene in the
evening.  May I expect you and the children after morning sacrifice?"

Before Cleopatra had time to answer this question another trumpet-blast
was heard, and she exclaimed: "That is Philometor, come to fetch us to
the banquet.  I will ere long give the Roman the opportunity of defending
himself, though--in spite of your accusations--I trust him entirely.
This morning I asked him solemnly whether it was true that he was in love
with his friend's charming Hebe, and he denied it in his firm and manly
way, and his replies were admirable and worthy of the noblest mind, when
I ventured to doubt his sincerity.  He takes truth more seriously than
you do.  He regards it not only as beautiful and right to be truthful,
he says, but as prudent too; for lies can only procure us a small short-
lived advantage, as transitory as the mists of night which vanish as soon
as the sun appears, while truth is like the sunlight itself, which as
often as it is dimmed by clouds reappears again and again.  And, he says,
what makes a liar so particularly contemptible in his eyes is, that to
attain his end, he must be constantly declaring and repeating the horror
he has of those who are and do the very same thing as he himself.  The
ruler of a state cannot always be truthful, and I often have failed in
truth; but my intercourse with Publius has aroused much that is good in
me, and which had been slumbering with closed eyes; and if this man
should prove to be the same as all the rest of you, then I will follow
your road, Euergetes, and laugh at virtue and truth, and set the busts of
Aristippus and Strato on the pedestals where those of Zeno and
Antisthenes now stand."

"You mean to have the busts of the philosophers moved again?"  asked King
Philometor, who, as he entered the tent, had heard the queen's last
words.  "And Aristippus is to have the place of honor?  I have no
objection--though he teaches that man must subjugate matter and not
become subject to it.--["Mihi res, non me rebus subjungere."]--This
indeed is easier to say than to do, and there is no man to whom it is
more impossible than to a king who has to keep on good terms with Greeks
and Egyptians, as we have, and with Rome as well.  And besides all this
to avoid quarrelling with a jealous brother, who shares our kingdom!  If
men could only know how much they would have to do as kings only in
reading and writing, they would take care never to struggle for a crown!
Up to this last half hour I have been examining and deciding applications
and petitions.  Have you got through yours, Euergetes?  Even more had
accumulated for you than for us."

"All were settled in an hour," replied the other promptly.  "My eye is
quicker than the mouth of your reader, and my decisions commonly consist
of three words while you dictate long treatises to your scribes.  So I
had done when you had scarcely begun, and yet I could tell you at once,
if it were not too tedious a matter, every single case that has come
before me for months, and explain it in all its details."

"That I could not indeed," said Philometor modestly, "but I know and
admire your swift intelligence and accurate memory."

"You see I am more fit for a king than you are;" laughed Euergetes.  "You
are too gentle and debonair for a throne!  Hand over your government to
me.  I will fill your treasury every year with gold.  I beg you now, come
to Alexandria with Cleopatra for good, and share with me the palace and
the gardens in the Bruchion.  I will nominate your little Philopator heir
to the throne, for I have no wish to contract a permanent tie with any
woman, as Cleopatra belongs to you.  This is a bold proposal, but
reflect, Philometor, if you were to accept it, how much time it would
give you for your music, your disputations with the Jews, and all your
other favorite occupations."

"You never know how far you may go with your jest!"  interrupted
Cleopatra.  "Besides, you devote quite as much time to your studies in
philology and natural history as he does to music and improving
conversations with his learned friends."

"Just so," assented Philometor, "and you may be counted among the sages
of the Museum with far more reason than I."

"But the difference between us," replied Euergetes, "is that I despise
all the philosophical prattlers and rubbish-collectors in Alexandria
almost to the point of hating them, while for science I have as great a
passion as for a lover.  You, on the contrary, make much of the learned
men, but trouble yourself precious little about science."

"Drop the subject, pray," begged Cleopatra.  "I believe that you two have
never yet been together for half an hour without Euergetes having begun
some dispute, and Philometor having at last given in, to pacify him.  Our
guests must have been waiting for us a long time.  Had Publius Scipio
made his appearance?"

"He had sent to excuse himself," replied the king as he scratched the
poll of Cleopatra's parrot, parting its feathers with the tips of his
fingers.  "Lysias, the Corinthian, is sitting below, and he says he does
not know where his friend can be gone."

"But we know very well," said Euergetes, casting an ironical glance at
the queen.  "It is pleasant to be with Philometor and Cleopatra, but
better still with Eros and Hebe.  Sister, you look pale--shall I call for
Zoe?"

Cleopatra shook her head in negation, but she dropped into a seat, and
sat stooping, with her head bowed over her knees as if she were
dreadfully tired.  Euergetes turned his back on her, and spoke to his
brother of indifferent subjects, while she drew lines, some straight and
some crooked, with her fan-stick through the pile of the soft rug on the
floor, and sat gazing thoughtfully at her feet.  As she sat thus her eye
was caught by her sandals, richly set with precious stones, and the
slender toes she had so often contemplated with pleasure; but now the
sight of them seemed to vex her, for in obedience to a swift impulse she
loosened the straps, pushed off her right sandal with her left foot,
kicked it from her, and said, turning to her husband:

"It is late and I do not feel well, and you may sup without me."

"By the healing Isis!"  exclaimed Philometor, going up to her.  "You look
suffering.  Shall I send for the physicians?  Is it really nothing more
than your usual headache?  The gods be thanked!  But that you should be
unwell just to-day!  I had so much to say to you; and the chief thing of
all was that we are still a long way from completeness in our
preparations for our performance.  If this luckless Hebe were not--"

"She is in good hands," interrupted Euergetes.  "The Roman, Publius
Scipio, has taken her to a place of safety; perhaps in order to present
her to me to morrow morning in return for the horses from Cyrene which I
sent him to-day.  How brightly your eyes sparkle, sister--with joy no
doubt at this good idea.  This evening, I dare say he is rehearsing the
little one in her part that she may perform it well to-morrow.  If we are
mistaken--if Publius is ungrateful and proposes keeping the dove, then
Thais, your pretty Athenian waiting-woman, may play the part of Hebe.
What do you think of that suggestion, Cleopatra?"

"That I forbid such jesting with me!"  cried the queen vehemently.
"No one has any consideration for me--no one pities me, and I suffer
fearfully!  Euergetes scorns me--you, Philometor, would be glad to drag
me down!  If only the banquet is not interfered with, and so long as
nothing spoils your pleasure!--Whether I die or no, no one cares!"

With these words the queen burst into tears, and roughly pushed away her
husband as he endeavored to soothe her.  At last she dried her eyes, and
said: "Go down-the guests are waiting."

"Immediately, my love," replied Philometor.  "But one thing I must tell
you, for I know that it will arouse your sympathy.  The Roman read to you
the petition for pardon for Philotas, the chief of the Chrematistes
and 'relative of the king,' which contains such serious charges against
Eulaeus.  I was ready with all my heart to grant your wish and to pardon
the man who is the father of these miserable water-bearers; but, before
having the decree drawn up, I had the lists of the exiles to the gold-
mines carefully looked through, and there it was discovered that Philotas
and his wife have both been dead more than half a year.  Death has
settled this question, and I cannot grant to Publius the first service he
has asked of me--asked with great urgency too.  I am sorry for this, both
for his sake and for that of poor Philotas, who was held in high esteem
by our mother."

"May the ravens devour them!" answered Cleopatra, pressing her forehead
against the ivory frame which surrounded the stuffed back of her seat.
"Once more I beg of you excuse me from all further speech."  This time
the two kings obeyed her wishes.  When Euergetes offered her his hand she
said with downcast eyes, and poking her fan-stick into the wool of the
carpet:

"I will visit you early to-morrow."

"After the first sacrifice," added Euergetes.  "If I know you well,
something that you will then hear will please you greatly; very greatly
indeed, I should think.  Bring the children with you; that I ask of you
as a birthday request."




CHAPTER XX.

The royal chariot in which Klea was standing, wrapped in the cloak and
wearing the hat of the captain of the civic guard, went swiftly and
without stopping through the streets of Memphis.  As long as she saw
houses with lighted windows on each side of the way, and met riotous
soldiers and quiet citizens going home from the taverns, or from working
late in their workshops, with lanterns in their hands or carried by their
slaves--so long her predominant feeling was one of hatred to Publius; and
mixed with this was a sentiment altogether new to her--a sentiment that
made her blood boil, and her heart now stand still and then again beat
wildly--the thought that he might be a wretched deceiver.  Had he not
attempted to entrap one of them--whether her sister or herself it was all
the same--wickedly to betray her, and to get her into his power!

"With me," thought she, "he could not hope to gain his evil ends, and
when he saw that I knew how to protect myself he lured the poor
unresisting child away with him, in order to ruin her and to drag her
into shame and misery.  Just like Rome herself, who seizes on one country
after another to make them her own, so is this ruthless man.  No sooner
had that villain Eulaeus' letter reached him, than he thought himself
justified in believing that I too was spellbound by a glance from his
eyes, and would spread my wings to fly into his arms; and so he put out
his greedy hand to catch me too, and threw aside the splendor and
delights of a royal banquet to hurry by night out into the desert, and to
risk a hideous death--for the avenging deities still punish the
evildoer."

By this time she was shrouded in total darkness, for the moon was still
hidden by black clouds.  Memphis was already behind her, and the chariot
was passing through a tall-stemmed palm-grove, where even at mid-day deep
shades intermingled with the sunlight.  When, just at this spot, the
thought once more pierced her soul that the seducer was devoted to death,
she felt as though suddenly a bright glaring light had flashed up in her
and round her, and she could have broken out into a shout of joy like one
who, seeking retribution for blood, places his foot at last on the breast
of his fallen foe.  She clenched her teeth tightly and grasped her
girdle, in which she had stuck the knife given her by the smith.

If the charioteer by her side had been Publius, she would have stabbed
him to the heart with the weapon with delight, and then have thrown
herself under the horses' hoofs and the brazen wheels of the chariot.

But no!  Still more gladly would she have found him dying in the desert,
and before his heart had ceased to beat have shouted in his ear how much
she hated him; and then, when his breast no longer heaved a breath--then
she would have flung herself upon him, and have kissed his dimmed eyes.

Her wildest thoughts of vengeance were as inseparable from tender pity
and the warmest longings of a heart overflowing with love, as the dark
waters of a river are from the brighter flood of a stream with which it
has recently mingled.  All the passionate impulses which had hitherto
been slumbering in her soul were set free, and now raised their clamorous
voices as she was whirled across the desert through the gloom of night.
The wishes roused in her breast by her hatred appealing to her on one
side and her love singing in her ear, in tempting flute-tones, on the
other, jostled and hustled one another, each displacing the other as they
crowded her mind in wild confusion.  As she proceeded on her journey she
felt that she could have thrown herself like a tigress on her victim, and
yet--like an outcast woman--have flung herself at Publius' knees in
supplication for the love that was denied her.  She had lost all idea of
time and distance, and started as from a wild and bewildering dream when
the chariot suddenly halted, and the driver said in his rough tones:

"Here we are, I must turn back again."

She shuddered, drew the cloak more closely round her, sprang out on to
the road, and stood there motionless till the charioteer said:

"I have not spared my horses, my noble gentleman.  Won't you give me
something to get a drop of wine?"  Klea's whole possessions were two
silver drachma, of which she herself owned one and the other belonged to
Irene.  On the last anniversary but one of his mother's death, the king
had given at the temple a sum to be divided among all the attendants,
male and female, who served Serapis, and a piece of silver had fallen to
the share of herself and her sister.  Klea had them both about her in a
little bag, which also contained a ring that her mother had given her at
parting, and the amulet belonging to Serapion.  The girl took out the two
silver coins and gave them to the driver, who, after testing the liberal
gift with his fingers, cried out as he turned his horses:

"A pleasant night to you, and may Aphrodite and all the Loves be
favorable!"

"Irene's drachma!"  muttered Klea to herself, as the chariot rolled away.
The sweet form of her sister rose before her mind; she recalled the hour
when the girl--still but a child--had entrusted it to her, because she
lost everything unless Klea took charge of it for her.

"Who will watch her and care for her now?"  she asked herself, and she
stood thinking, trying to defend herself against the wild wishes which
again began to stir in her, and to collect her scattered thoughts.  She
had involuntarily avoided the beam of light which fell across the road
from the tavern-window, and yet she could not help raising her eyes and
looking along it, and she found herself looking through the darkness
which enveloped her, straight into the faces of two men whose gaze was
directed to the very spot where she was standing.  And what faces they
were that she saw!  One, a fat face, framed in thick hair and a short,
thick and ragged beard, was of a dusky brown and as coarse and brutal as
the other was smooth, colorless and lean, cruel and crafty.  The eyes of
the first of these ruffians were prominent, weak and bloodshot, with a
fixed glassy stare, while those of the other seemed always to be on the
watch with a restless and uneasy leer.

These were Euergetes' assassins--they must be!  Spellbound with terror
and revulsion she stood quite still, fearing only that the ruffians might
hear the beating of her heart, for she felt as if it were a hammer swung
up and down in an empty space, and beating with loud echoes, now in her
bosom and now in her throat.

"The young gentleman must have gone round behind the tavern--he knows the
shortest way to the 'tombs.  Let us go after him, and finish off the
business at once," said the broad-shouldered villain in a hoarse whisper
that broke down every now and then, and which seemed to Klea even more
repulsive than the monster's face.

"So that he may hear us go after him-stupid!"  answered the other.  "When
he has been waiting for his sweetheart about a quarter of an hour I will
call his name in a woman's voice, and at his first step towards the
desert do you break his neck with the sand-bag.  We have plenty of time
yet, for it must still be a good half hour before midnight."

"So much the better," said the other.  "Our wine-jar is not nearly empty
yet, and we paid the lazy landlord for it in advance, before he crept
into bed."

"You shall only drink two cups more," said the punier villain.  "For this
time we have to do with a sturdy fellow, Setnam is not with us now to
lend a hand in the work, and the dead meat must show no gaping thrusts or
cuts.  My teeth are not like yours when you are fasting--even cooked food
must not be too tough for them to chew it, now-a-days.  If you soak
yourself in drink and fail in your blow, and I am not ready with the
poisoned stiletto the thing won't come off neatly.  But why did not the
Roman let his chariot wait?"

"Aye! why did he let it go away?"  asked the other staring open-mouthed
in the direction where the sound of wheels was still to be heard.  His
companion mean while laid his hand to his ear, and listened.  Both were
silent for a few minutes, then the thin one said:

"The chariot has stopped at the first tavern.  So much the better.  The
Roman has valuable cattle in his shafts, and at the inn down there, there
is a shed for horses.  Here in this hole there is hardly a stall for an
ass, and nothing but sour wine and mouldy beer.  I don't like the
rubbish, and save my coin for Alexandria and white Mariotic; that is
strengthening and purifies the blood.  For the present I only wish we
were as well off as those horses; they will have plenty of time to
recover their breath."

"Yes, plenty of time," answered the other with a broad grin, and then he
with his companion withdrew into the room to fill his cup.

Klea too could hear that the chariot which had brought her hither, had
halted at the farther tavern, but it did not occur to her that the driver
had gone in to treat himself to wine with half of Irene's drachma.  The
horses should make up for the lost time, and they could easily do it, for
when did the king's banquets ever end before midnight?

As soon as Plea saw that the assassins were filling their earthen cups,
she slipped softly on tiptoe behind the tavern; the moon came out from
behind the clouds for a few minutes, she sought and found the short way
by the desert-path to the Apis-tombs, and hastened rapidly along it.  She
looked straight before her, for whenever she glanced at the road-side,
and her eye was caught by some dried up shrub of the desert, silvery in
the pale moonlight, she fancied she saw behind it the face of a murderer.

The skeletons of fallen beasts standing up out of the dust, and the
bleached jawbones of camels and asses, which shone much whiter than the
desert-sand on which they lay, seemed to have come to life and motion,
and made her think of the tiger-teeth of the bearded ruffian.

The clouds of dust driven in her face by the warm west wind, which had
risen higher, increased her alarm, for they were mingled with the colder
current of the night-breeze; and again and again she felt as if spirits
were driving her onwards with their hot breath, and stroking her face
with their cold fingers.  Every thing that her senses perceived was
transformed by her heated imagination into a fearful something; but more
fearful and more horrible than anything she heard, than any phantom that
met her eye in the ghastly moonlight, were her own thoughts of what was
to be done now, in the immediate future--of the fearful fate that
threatened the Roman and Irene; and she was incapable of separating one
from the other in her mind, for one influence alone possessed her, heart
and soul: dread, dread; the same boundless, nameless, deadly dread--alike
of mortal peril and irremediable shame, and of the airiest phantoms and
the merest nothings.

A large black cloud floated slowly across the moon and utter darkness hid
everything around, even the undefined forms which her imagination had
turned to images of dread.  She was forced to moderate her pace, and find
her way, feeling each step; and just as to a child some hideous form that
looms before him vanishes into nothingness when he covers his eyes with
his hand, so the profound darkness which now enveloped her, suddenly
released her soul from a hundred imaginary terrors.

She stood still, drew a deep breath, collected the whole natural force of
her will, and asked herself what she could do to avert the horrid issue.

Since seeing the murderers every thought of revenge, every wish to punish
the seducer with death, had vanished from her mind; one desire alone
possessed her now--that of rescuing him, the man, from the clutches of
these ravening beasts.  Walking slowly onwards she repeated to herself
every word she had heard that referred to Publius and Irene as spoken by
Euergetes, Eulaeus, the recluse, and the assassins, and recalled every
step she had taken since she left the temple; thus she brought herself
back to the consciousness that she had come out and faced danger and
endured terror, solely and exclusively for Irene's sake.  The image of
her sister rose clearly before her mind in all its bright charm, undimmed
by any jealous grudge which, indeed, ever since her passion had held her
in its toils had never for the smallest fraction of a minute possessed
her.

Irene had grown up under her eye, sheltered by her care, in the sunshine
of her love.  To take care of her, to deny herself, and bear the severest
fatigue for her had been her pleasure; and now as she appealed to her
father--as she wont to do--as if he were present, and asked him in an
inaudible cry: "Tell me, have I not done all for her that I could do?"
and said to herself that he could not possibly answer her appeal but with
assent, her eyes filled with tears; the bitterness and discontent which
had lately filled her breast gradually disappeared, and a gentle, calm,
refreshing sense of satisfaction came over her spirit, like a cooling
breeze after a scorching day.

As she now again stood still, straining her eyes which were growing more
accustomed to the darkness, to discover one of the temples at the end of
the alley of sphinxes, suddenly and unexpectedly at her right hand a
solemn and many-voiced hymn of lamentation fell upon her ear.  This was
from the priests of Osiris-Apis who were performing the sacred mysteries
of their god, at midnight, on the roof of the temple.  She knew the hymn
well--a lament for the deceased Osiris which implored him with urgent
supplication to break the power of death, to rise again, to bestow new
light and new vitality on the world and on men, and to vouchsafe to all
the departed a new existence.

The pious lament had a powerful effect on her excited spirit.  Her
parents too perhaps had passed through death, and were now taking part in
the conduct of the destiny of the world and of men in union with the life
giving God.  Her breath came fast, she threw up her arms, and, for the
first time since in her wrath she had turned her back on the holy of
holies in the temple of Serapis, she poured forth her whole soul with
passionate fervor in a deep and silent prayer for strength to fulfil her
duty to the end,--for some sign to show her the way to save Irene from
misfortune, and Publius from death.  And as she prayed she felt no longer
alone--no, it seemed to her that she stood face to face with the
invincible Power which protects the good, in whom she now again had
faith, though for Him she knew no name; as a daughter, pursued by foes,
might clasp her powerful father's knees and claim his succor.

She had not stood thus with uplifted arms for many minutes when the moon,
once more appearing, recalled her to herself and to actuality.  She now
perceived close to her, at hardly a hundred paces from where she stood,
the line of sphinxes by the side of which lay the tombs of Apis near
which she was to await Publius.  Her heart began to beat faster again,
and her dread of her own weakness revived.  In a few minutes she must
meet the Roman, and, involuntarily putting up her hand to smooth her
hair, she was reminded that she still wore Glaucus' hat on her head and
his cloak wrapped round her shoulders.  Lifting up her heart again in a
brief prayer for a calm and collected mind, she slowly arranged her dress
and its folds, and as she did so the key of the tomb-cave, which she
still had about her, fell under her hand.  An idea flashed through her
brain--she caught at it, and with hurried breath followed it out, till
she thought she had now hit upon the right way to preserve from death the
man who was so rich and powerful, who had given her nothing but taken
everything from her, and to whom, nevertheless, she--the poor water-
bearer whom he had thought to trifle with--could now bestow the most
precious of the gifts of the immortals, namely, life.

Serapion had said, and she was willing to believe, that Publius was not
base, and he certainly was not one of those who could prove ungrateful to
a preserver.  She longed to earn the right to demand something of him,
and that could be nothing else but that he should give up her sister and
bring Irene back to her.

When could it be that he had come to an understanding with the
inexperienced and easily wooed maiden?  How ready she must have been to
clasp the hand held out to her by this man!  Nothing surprised her in
Irene, the child of the present; she could comprehend too that Irene's
charm might quickly win the heart even of a grave and serious man.

And yet--in all the processions it was never Irene that he had gazed at,
but always herself, and how came it to pass that he had given a prompt
and ready assent to the false invitation to go out to meet her in the
desert at midnight?  Perhaps she was still nearer to his heart than
Irene, and if gratitude drew him to her with fresh force then--aye then--
he might perhaps woo her, and forget his pride and her lowly position,
and ask her to be his wife.

She thought this out fully, but before she had reached the half circle
enclosed by the Philosophers' busts the question occurred to her mind.
And Irene?

Had she gone with him and quitted her without bidding her farewell
because the young heart was possessed with a passionate love for Publius
--who was indeed the most lovable of men?  And he?  Would he indeed, out
of gratitude for what she hoped to do for him, make up his mind, if she
demanded it, to make her Irene his wife--the poor but more than lovely
daughter of a noble house?

And if this were possible, if these two could be happy in love and honor,
should she Klea come between the couple to divide them?  Should she
jealously snatch Irene from his arms and carry her back to the gloomy
temple which now--after she had fluttered awhile in sportive freedom
in the sunny air--would certainly seem to her doubly sinister and
unendurable?  Should she be the one to plunge Irene into misery--Irene,
her child, the treasure confided to her care, whom she had sworn to
cherish?

"No, and again no," she said resolutely.  "She was born for happiness,
and I for endurance, and if I dare beseech thee to grant me one thing
more, O thou infinite Divinity! it is that Thou wouldst cut out from my
soul this love which is eating into my heart as though it were rotten
wood, and keep me far from envy and jealousy when I see her happy in his
arms.  It is hard--very hard to drive one's own heart out into the desert
in order that spring may blossom in that of another: but it is well so--
and my mother would commend me and my father would say I had acted after
his own heart, and in obedience to the teaching of the great men on these
pedestals.  Be still, be still my aching heart--there--that is right!"

Thus reflecting she went past the busts of Zeno and Chrysippus, glancing
at their features distinct in the moonlight: and her eyes falling on the
smooth slabs of stone with which the open space was paved, her own shadow
caught her attention, black and sharply defined, and exactly resembling
that of some man travelling from one town to another in his cloak and
broad-brimmed hat.

"Just like a man!"  she muttered to herself; and as, at the same moment,
she saw a figure resembling her own, and, like herself, wearing a hat,
appear near the entrance to the tombs, and fancied she recognized it as
Publius, a thought, a scheme, flashed through her excited brain, which at
first appalled her, but in the next instant filled her with the ecstasy
which an eagle may feel when he spreads his mighty wings and soars above
the dust of the earth into the pure and infinite ether.  Her heart beat
high, she breathed deeply and slowly, but she advanced to meet the Roman,
drawn up to her full height like a queen, who goes forward to receive
some equal sovereign; her hat, which she had taken off, in her left hand,
and the Smith's key in her right-straight on towards the door of the
Apis-tombs.




CHAPTER XXI.

The man whom Klea had seen was in fact none other than Publius.  He was
now at the end of a busy day, for after he had assured himself that Irene
had been received by the sculptor and his wife, and welcomed as if she
were their own child, he had returned to his tent to write once more a
dispatch to Rome.  But this he could not accomplish, for his friend
Lysias paced restlessly up and down by him as he sat, and as often as he
put the reed to the papyrus disturbed him with enquiries about the
recluse, the sculptor, and their rescued protegee.

When, finally, the Corinthian desired to know whether he, Publius,
considered Irene's eyes to be brown or blue, he had sprung up
impatiently, and exclaimed indignantly:

"And supposing they were red or green, what would it matter to me!"

Lysias seemed pleased rather than vexed with this reply, and he was on
the point of confessing to his friend that Irene had caused in his heart
a perfect conflagration--as of a forest or a city in flames--when a
master of the horse had appeared from Euergetes, to present the four
splendid horses from Cyrene, which his master requested the noble Roman
Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica to accept in token of his friendship.

The two friends, who both were judges and lovers of horses, spent at
least an hour in admiring the fine build and easy paces of these valuable
beasts.  Then came a chamberlain from the queen to invite Publius to go
to her at once.

The Roman followed the messenger after a short delay in his tent, in
order to take with him the gems representing the marriage of Hebe, for on
his way from the sculptor's to the palace it had occurred to him that he
would offer them to the queen, after he had informed her of the parentage
of the two water-carriers.  Publius had keen eyes, and the queen's
weaknesses had not escaped him, but he had never suspected her of being
capable of abetting her licentious brother in forcibly possessing himself
of the innocent daughter of a noble father.  He now purposed to make her
a present--as in some degree a substitute for the representation his
friend had projected, and which had come to nothing--of the picture which
she had hoped to find pleasure in reproducing.

Cleopatra received him on her roof, a favor of which few could boast; she
allowed him to sit at her feet while she reclined on her couch, and gave
him to understand, by every glance of her eyes and every word she spoke,
that his presence was a happiness to her, and filled her with passionate
delight.  Publius soon contrived to lead the conversation to the subject
of the innocent parents of the water-bearers, who had been sent off to
the goldmines; but Cleopatra interrupted his speech in their favor and
asked him plainly, undisguisedly, and without any agitation, whether it
was true that he himself desired to win the youthful Hebe.  And she met
his absolute denial with such persistent and repeated expressions of
disbelief, assuming at last a tone of reproach, that he grew vexed and
broke out into a positive declaration that he regarded lying as unmanly
and disgraceful, and could endure any insult rather than a doubt of his
veracity.

Such a vehement and energetic remonstrance from a man she had
distinguished was a novelty to Cleopatra, and she did not take it amiss,
for she might now believe--what she much wished to believe--that Publius
wanted to have nothing to do with the fair Hebe, that Eulaeus had
slandered her friend, and that Zoe had been in error when, after her vain
expedition to the temple--from which she had then just returned--she had
told her that the Roman was Irene's lover, and must at the earliest hour
have betrayed to the girl herself, or to the priests in the Serapeum,
what was their purpose regarding her.

In the soul of this noble youth there was nothing false--there could be