y among the garden palms.
I woke, and as I woke the sense of trouble pressed in upon me, for I
remembered that before this day was gathered to the past I must dip
my hands in blood--yes, in the blood of Cleopatra, who trusted me! Why
could I not hate her as I should? There had been a time when I looked on
to this act of vengeance with somewhat of a righteous glow of zeal. And
now--and now--why, I would frankly give my royal birthright to be free
from its necessity! But, alas! I knew that there was no escape. I
must drain this cup or be for ever cast away. I felt the eyes of Egypt
watching me, and the eyes of Egypt's Gods. I prayed to my Mother Isis
to give me strength to do this deed, and prayed as I had never prayed
before; and oh, wonder! no answer came. Nay, how was this? What, then,
had loosed the link between us that, for the first time, the Goddess
deigned no reply to her son and chosen servant? Could it be that I
had sinned in heart against her? What had Charmion said--that I loved
Cleopatra? Was this sickness love? Nay! a thousand times nay!--it was
but the revolt of Nature against an act of treachery and blood. The
Goddess did but try my strength, or perchance she also turned her holy
countenance from murder?

I rose filled with terror and despair, and went about my task like a man
without a soul. I conned the fatal lists and noted all the plans--ay, in
my brain I gathered up the very words of that proclamation of my Royalty
which, on the morrow, I should issue to the startled world.

"Citizens of Alexandria and dwellers in the land of Egypt," it began,
"Cleopatra the Macedonian hath, by the command of the Gods, suffered
justice for her crimes----"

All these and other things I did, but I did them as a man without a
soul--as a man moved by a force from without and not from within. And so
the minutes wore away. In the third hour of the afternoon I went as by
appointment fixed to the house where my uncle Sepa lodged, that same
house to which I had been brought some three months gone when I entered
Alexandria for the first time. And here I found the leaders of the
revolt in the city assembled in secret conclave to the number of
seven. When I had entered, and the doors were barred, they prostrated
themselves, and cried, "Hail, Pharaoh!" but I bade them rise, saying
that I was not yet Pharaoh, for the chicken was still in the egg.

"Yea, Prince," said my uncle, "but his beak shows through. Not in
vain hath Egypt