was.  And having at length come thither, seeing no one save some few peasants going out to labour on the lands, I turned the ass loose in that same field where we had found him, and we boarded the craft while the crew were yet sleeping.  Then, waking them, we bade them make all sail, saying that we had left the eunuch to sojourn a while behind us, as in truth we had.  So we sailed, having first hidden away the gems and such of the ornaments of gold as we could bring to the boat.

We spent four days and more in coming to Alexandria, for the wind was for the most part against us; and they were happy days!  At first, indeed, Cleopatra was somewhat silent and heavy at heart, for what she had seen and felt in the womb of the pyramid weighed her down.  But soon her Imperial spirit awoke and shook the burden from her breast, and she became herself again—­now gay, now learned; now loving, and now cold; now queenly, and now altogether simple—­ever changing as the winds of heaven, and as the heaven, deep, beauteous, and unsearchable!

Night after night for those four perfect nights, the last happy hours I ever was to know, we sat hand in hand upon the deck and heard the waters lap the vessel’s side, and watched the soft footfall of the moon as she trod the depths of Nile.  There we sat and talked of love, talked of our marriage and all that we would do.  Also I drew up plans of war and of defence against the Roman, which now we had the means to carry out; and she approved them, sweetly saying that what seemed good to me was good to her.  And so the time passed all too swiftly.

Oh those nights upon the Nile! their memory haunts me yet!  Yet in my dreams I see the moonbeams break and quiver, and hear Cleopatra’s murmured words of love mingle with the sound of murmuring waters.  Dead are those dear nights, dead is the moon that lit them; the waters which rocked us on their breast are lost in the wide salt sea, and where we kissed and clung there lips unborn shall kiss and cling!  How beautiful was their promise, doomed, like an unfruitful blossom, to wither, fall, and rot! and their fulfilment, ah, how drear!  For all things end in darkness and in ashes, and those who sow in folly shall reap in sorrow.  Ah! those nights upon the Nile!

And so at length once more we stood within the hateful walls of that fair palace on the Lochias, and the dream was done.

“Whither hast thou wandered with Cleopatra, Harmachis?” Charmion asked of me when I met her by chance on that day of return.  “On some new mission of betrayal?  Or was it but a love-journey?”

“I went with Cleopatra upon secret business of the State,” I answered sternly.

“So!  Those who go secretly, go evilly; and foul birds love to fly at night.  Not but what thou art wise, for it would scarce beseem thee, Harmachis, to show thy face openly in Egypt.”

I heard, and felt my passion rise within me, for I could ill bear this fair girl’s scorn.