"How much we can conceal by words without being guilty of falsehood!" he
murmured, while recalling what he had told the women.

Ay, he had been Cleopatra's confidant in his early youth, but how he had
loved her, how, even as a boy, he had been subject to her, body and soul!
He had allowed her to see it, displayed, confessed it; and she had
accepted it as her rightful due. She had repelled with angry pride his
only attempt to clasp her, in his overflowing affection, in his arms; but
to show his love for her is a crime for which the loftiest woman pardons
the humblest suitor, and a few hours later Cleopatra had met him with the
old affectionate familiarity.

Again he recalled the torments which he had endured when compelled to
witness how completely she yielded to the passion which drew her to
Antony. At that time the Roman had merely swept through her life like a
swiftly passing meteor, but many things betrayed that she did not forget
him; and while Archibius had seen without pain her love for the great
Caesar bud and grow, the torturing feeling of jealousy again stirred in
his heart, though youth was past, when at Tarsus, on the river Cydnus,
she renewed the bond which still united her to Antony.

Now his hair had grown grey, and though nothing had clouded his
friendship for the Queen, though he had always been ready to serve her,
this foolish feeling had not been banished, and again and again mastered
his whole being. He by no means undervalued Antony's attractions; but he
saw his foibles no less clearly. All in all, whenever he thought of this
pair, he felt like the lover of art who entrusts the finest gem in his
collection to a rich man who knows not how to prize its real value, and
puts it in the wrong place.

Yet he wished the Roman the most brilliant victory; for his defeat would
have been Cleopatra's also, and would she endure the consequences of such
a disaster?

The galley was approaching the flickering circle of light at the foot of
the Pharos, and Archibius was just producing the token which was to
secure the lifting of the chain, when his name echoed through the
stillness of the night.

It was Dion hailing him from a boat tossing near the mouth of the harbour
on the waves surging in from the turbulent sea. He had recognized
Archibius's swift galley from the bust of Epicurus which was illumined by
the light of the lantern in the prow. Cleopatra had had it placed upon
the ship which, by her orders, had