Never did the notes of the great water-organ of the palace sound so sweet in any ears as these words in those of the Roman ladies.  They bore with complacency a piece of petty tyranny on the part of Pothinus, which at another time they would have found galling indeed.  Report had it that Cleopatra had gathered an army in Syria, and the eunuch, with his royal puppet, was going forth to the frontier town of Pelusium, to head the forces that should resist the invasion.  Cornelia and Fabia were informed that they would accompany the royal party on its progress to the frontier.  Pothinus clearly was beginning to fear the results of his “honourable entertainment,” and did not care to have his guests out of his sight.  It was vexatious to be thus at his mercy; but Cornelia was too joyous in soul, at that time, to bear the indignity heavily.  They had to part with Monime and Berenice, but Agias went with them; and Cornelia sent off another letter to Italy, in renewed hope that the seas would be clear and it would find its way safely to Drusus.

Very luxurious was the progress of the royal party to Pelusium.  The king, his escort, and his unwilling guests travelled slowly by water, in magnificent river barges that were fitted with every requisite or ornament that mind of man might ask or think.  They crossed the Lake Mareotis, glided along one of the minor outlets of the delta until they reached the Bolbitinic branch of the Nile, then, by canals and natural water-courses, worked their way across to Bubastis, and thence straight down the Pelusiac Nile to Pelusium.  And thus it was Cornelia caught glimpses of that strange, un-Hellenized country that stretched away to the southward, tens and hundreds of miles, to Memphis and its pyramids, and Thebes and its temples—­ancient, weird, wonderful; a civilization whereof everything was older than human thought might trace; a civilization that was almost like the stars, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.  Almost would Cornelia have been glad if the prows of the barges had been turned up the river, and she been enabled to behold with her own eyes the mighty piles of Cheops, Chephren, Mycerinus, Sesostris, Rhampsinitus, and a score of other Pharaohs whose deeds are recorded in stone imperishable.  But the barges glided again northward, and Cornelia only occasionally caught some glimpse of a massive temple, under whose huge propylons the priests had chanted their litanies to Pakht or Ptah for two thousand years, or passed some boat gliding with its mourners to the necropolis, there to leave the mummy that was to await the judgment of Osiris.  And down the long valley swept the hot winds from the realm of the Pygmies, and from those strange lakes and mountains whence issued the boundless river, which was the life-giver and mother of all the fertile country of Egypt.