women's
apartment reminded him of the envy of the gods which his friend had
feared for him. But he often fancied that his mother's statue in the
tablinum looked specially happy when the young mistress of the house
entered it.

Barine, too, felt that her happiness as wife and mother in her
magnificent home would have been overwhelming had not a wise destiny
imposed upon her, just at this time, grief for those whom she loved.

Dion instantly devoted himself again to the affairs of the city and his
own business. He and the woman he loved, who had first become really his
own during a time of sore privation, had run into the harbour and gazed
quietly at the storms of life. The anchor of love, which moored their
ship to the solid earth, had been tested in the solitude of the Serpent
Island.

CHAPTER XXIV.

The fisherman and his family had watched the departure of their beloved
guests with sorrowful hearts, and the women had shed many tears,
although the sons of Pyrrhus had been dismissed from the fleet and were
again helping their father at home, as in former times.

Besides, Dion had made the faithful freedman a prosperous man, and given
his daughter, Dione, a marriage dowry. She was soon to become the
wife of the captain of the Epicurus, Archibius's swift galley, whose
acquaintance she had made when the vessel, on several occasions, brought
Charmian's Nubian maid to the island. Anukis's object in making these
visits was not only to see her friend, but to induce him to catch one of
the poisonous serpents in the neighbouring island and keep it ready for
the Queen.

Since Cleopatra had ascertained that no poison caused a less painful
death than the fangs of the asp, she had resolved that the bite of one
of these reptiles should release her from the burden of life. The clever
Ethiopian had thought of inducing her friend Pyrrhus to procure the
adder, but it had required all Aisopion's skill in persuasion, and the
touching manner in which she understood how to describe the Queen's
terrible situation and severe suffering, to conquer the reluctance of
the upright man. At last she succeeded in persuading him to measure a
queen by a different standard from a woman of the people, and inducing
him to arrange the manner and time of conveying the serpent into the
well-guarded palace. A signal was to inform him when the decisive hour
arrived. After that he was to be ready with the asp in the fish-market
every day. Probably