heart
I read the lesson of his woes. For were we not akin in wretchedness? Had
not the same woman robbed us of Empire, Friends, and Honour? But pity
has no place in politics, nor could it turn my feet from the path of
vengeance it was ordained that I should tread. Caesar drew nigh; Pelusium
fell; the end was at hand. It was Charmion who brought the tidings to
the Queen and Antony, as they slept in the heat of the day, and I came
with her.

"Awake!" she cried. "Awake! This is no time for sleep! Seleucus hath
surrendered Pelusium to Caesar, who marches straight on Alexandria!"

With a great oath, Antony sprang up and clutched Cleopatra by the arm.

"Thou hast betrayed me--by the Gods I swear it! Now thou shalt pay the
price!" And snatching up his sword he drew it.

"Stay thy hand, Antony!" she cried. "It is false--I know naught of
this!" And she sprang upon him, and clung about his neck, weeping. "I
know naught, my Lord. Take thou the wife of Seleucus and his little
children, whom I hold in guard, and avenge thyself. O Antony, Antony!
why dost thou doubt me?"

Then Antony threw down his sword upon the marble, and, casting himself
upon the couch, hid his face, and groaned in bitterness of spirit.

But Charmion smiled, for it was she who had sent secretly to Seleucus,
her friend, counselling him to surrender forthwith, saying that no fight
would be made at Alexandria. And that very night Cleopatra took all her
great store of pearls and emeralds--those that remained of the treasure
of Menkau-ra--all her wealth of gold, ebony, ivory, and cinnamon,
treasure without price, and placed it in the mausoleum of granite which,
after our Egyptian fashion, she had built upon the hill that is by the
Temple of the Holy Isis. These riches she piled up upon a bed of flax,
that, when she fired it, all might perish in the flame and escape the
greed of money-loving Octavianus. And she slept henceforth in this tomb,
away from Antony; but in the daytime she still saw him at the palace.

But a little while after, when Caesar with all his great force
had already crossed the Caponic mouth of the Nile and was hard on
Alexandria, I came to the palace, whither Cleopatra had summoned me.
There I found her in the Alabaster Hall, royally clad, a wild light in
her eyes, and, with her, Iras and Charmion, and before her guards; and
stretched here and there upon the marble, bodies of dead men, among whom
lay one yet dying.

"Greeting, thou Olympus!