e movements of the fleet and the
army, a large body of troops having been marched during the night to the
neighbouring hills overlooking the sea.

The notes sounded bold and warlike. The well-armed galleys presented
a stately appearance. How often Cleopatra had seen unexpected events
occur, apparent impossibilities become possible! Had not the victory
of Octavianus at Actium been a miracle? What if Fate, like a capricious
ruler, now changed from frowns to smiles? What if Antony proved himself
the hero of yesterday, the general he had been in days of yore?

She had refused to see him again before the battle, that she might not
divert his thoughts from the great task approaching. But now, as she
beheld him, clad in glittering armour like the god of war himself, ride
before the troops on his fiery Barbary charger, greeting them with the
gay salutation whose warmth sprung from the heart and which had so
often kindled the warriors to glowing enthusiasm, she was forced to do
violence to her own feelings to avoid calling him and saying that her
thoughts would follow his course. But she refrained, and when his purple
cloak vanished from her sight her head drooped again. How different
in former days were the cheers of the troops when he showed himself to
them! This lukewarm response to his gay, glad greeting was no omen of
victory.

CHAPTER XXII.

Dion, too, witnessed the departure of the troops. Gorgias, whom he had
found among the Ephebi, accompanied him and, like the Queen, they saw,
in the cautious manner with which the army greeted the general, a bad
omen for the result of the battle. The architect had presented Dion
to the youths as the ghost of a dead man, who, as soon as he was asked
whence he came or whither he was going, would be compelled to vanish
in the form of a fly. He could venture to do this; he knew the
Ephebi--there was no traitor in their ranks.

Dion, the former head of the society, had been welcomed like a beloved
brother risen from the dead, and he had the gratification, after so
long a time, of turning the scale as speaker in a debate. True, he had
encountered very little opposition, for the resolve to hold aloof from
the battle against the Romans had been urged upon the Ephebi by the
Queen herself through Antyllus, who, however, had already left the
meeting when Dion joined it. It had seemed to Cleopatra a crime to claim
the blood of the noblest sons of the city for a cause which she herself