f the
candlelight. The draught kept it continually in motion, and it wavered
to and fro in the hall, like the restless souls of the damned. Wherever
the eye turned it met darkness. The end of the hall seemed black--black
as the anteroom of Hades--yet through it pierced a brilliant moving bar;
sunbeams which streamed from the stairway into the tomb and amid which
danced tiny motes. How the scene impressed the eye! The home of gloomy
Hecate! And the Queen and her impending fate. A picture flooded with
light, standing forth in radiant relief against the darkness of the
heavy, majestic forms surrounding it in a wide circle. This tomb in
this light would be a palace meet for the gloomy rule of the king of the
troop of demons conjured up by the power of a magician--if they have a
ruler. But where am I wandering? 'The artist!' I hear you exclaim again,
'the artist! Instead of rushing forward and interposing, he stands
studying the light and its effects in the royal tomb.' Yes, yes; I had
come too late, too late--far too late! On the stairs leading to the
lower story of the building I saw it, but I was not to blame for the
delay--not in the least!

"At first I had been unable to see the men--or even a shadow; but I
beheld plainly in the brightest glare of the light the body of Mark
Antony on the couch and, in the dusk farther towards the right, Iras
and Charmian trying to raise a trapdoor. It was the one which closed
the passage leading to the combustible materials stored in the cellar.
A sign from the Queen had commanded them to fire it. The first steps
of the staircase, down which I was hastening, were already behind
me--then--then Proculejus, with two men, suddenly dashed from the
intense darkness on the other side. Scarcely able to control myself,
I sprang down the remaining steps, and while Iras's shrill cry, 'Poor
Cleopatra, they will capture you!' still rang in my ears, I saw the
betrayed Queen turn from the door through which, resolved on death, she
was saying something to Gallus, perceive Proculejus close behind her,
thrust her hand into her girdle, and with the speed of lightning--you
have already heard so--throw up her arm with the little dagger to bury
the sharp blade in her breast. What a picture! In the full radiance of
the brilliant light, she resembled a statue of triumphant victory or of
noble pride in great deeds accomplished; and then, then, only an instant
later, what an outrage was inflicted!

"Like a rob