The face of the Greek was livid.  He raised his manacled hands, and strained at the irons in sheer despair.  The soldiers caught him roughly to hale him away.

“Mercy! kyrios! kyrios!” he shrieked.  “Spare me the torments of Hades!  The Furies will pursue me forever!  Pity!  Mercy!”

Cornelia had reentered the room, and saw this last scene.

“When my uncle and Ahenobarbus were nigh their deaths,” she said stingingly, “this man observed that often, in times of mortal peril, skeptics call on the gods.”

“The rule is proved,” said Caesar, casting a cynical smile after the soldiers with their victim.  “All men need gods, either to worship when they live, or to dread when they die.”

Chapter XXV

Calm after Storm

I

Like all human things, the war ended.  The Alexandrians might rage and dash their numbers against the palace walls.  Ganymed and young Ptolemaeus, who had gone out to him, pressed the siege, but all in vain.  And help came to the hard-pressed Romans at last.  Mithridates, a faithful vassal king, advanced his army over Syria, and came down into the Delta, sweeping all before him.  Then Caesar effected a junction with the forces of his ally, and there was one pitched battle on the banks of the Nile, where Ptolemaeus was defeated, and drowned in his flight.  Less than a month later Alexandria capitulated, and saw the hated consular insignia again within her gates.  There was work to do in Egypt, and Caesar—­just named dictator at Rome and consul for five years—­devoted himself to the task of reform and reorganization.  Cleopatra was to be set back upon her throne, and her younger brother, another Ptolemaeus, was to be her colleague.  So out of war came peace, and the great Imperator gave laws to yet another kingdom.

But before Caesar sailed away to chastise Pharnaces of Pontus, and close up his work in the East, ere returning to break down the stand of the desperate Pompeians in Africa, there was joy and high festival in the palace of Alexandria; and all the noble and great of the capital were at the feast,—­the wedding feast of Cornelia and the favourite staff officer of the Imperator.  The soft warm air of the Egyptian springtime blew over the festoons of flowers and over the carpets of blossoms; never before was the music more sweet and joyous.  And overhead hung the great light-laden dome of the glowing azure, where the storks were drifting northward with the northward march of the sun.

And they sang the bridal hymns, both Greek and Latin, and cried “Hymen” and “Talasio”; and when evening came,

  “The torches tossed their tresses of flame,”

as said the marriage song of Catullus; and underneath the yellow veil of the bride gleamed forth the great diamond necklace, the gift of Cleopatra, which once had been the joy of some Persian princess before the Greeks took the hoard at Persepolis.