an! I
have known no peace from childhood up, and it seems none shall I know.
Scarce by a very little have I escaped thy dagger's point, Harmachis,
when this new trouble, that, like a storm, has gathered beneath the
horizon's rim, suddenly bursts over me. Didst mark that tigerish fop?
Well should I love to trap him! How soft he spoke! Ay, he purred like
a cat, and all the time he stretched his claws. Didst hear the letter,
too? it has an ugly sound. I know this Antony. When I was but a child,
budding into womanhood, I saw him; but my eyes were ever quick, and I
took his measure. Half Hercules and half a fool, with a dash of genius
veining his folly through. Easily led by those who enter at the gates of
his voluptuous sense; but if crossed, an iron foe. True to his friends,
if, indeed, he loves them; and ofttimes false to his own interest.
Generous, hardy, and in adversity a man of virtue; in prosperity a sot
and a slave to woman. That is Antony. How deal with such a man,
whom fate and opportunity, despite himself, have set on the crest of
fortune's wave? One day it will overwhelm him; but till that day he
sweeps across the world and laughs at those who drown."

"Antony is but a man," I answered, "and a man with many foes; and, being
but a man, he can be overthrown."

"Ay, he can be overthrown; but he is one of three, Harmachis. Now that
Cassius hath gone where all fools go, Rome has thrown out a hydra head.
Crush one, and another hisses in thy face. There's Lepidus, and with
him, that young Octavianus, whose cold eyes may yet with a smile of
triumph look on the murdered forms of empty, worthless Lepidus, of
Antony, and of Cleopatra. If I go not to Cilicia, mark thou! Antony will
knit up a peace with these Parthians, and, taking the tales they tell
of me for truth--and, indeed, there is truth in them--will fall with all
his force on Egypt. And how then?"

"How then? Why, then we'll drum him back to Rome."

"Ah, thou sayest so, and, perchance, Harmachis, had I not won that game
we played together some twelve days gone, thou, being Pharaoh, mightest
well have done this thing, for round thy throne old Egypt would have
gathered. But Egypt loves not me nor my Greek blood; and I have but now
scattered that great plot of thine, in which half the land was meshed.
Will these men, then, arise to succour me? Were Egypt true to me, I
could, indeed, hold my own against all the force that Rome may bring;
but Egypt hates me, and had