And I, thinking that I might so more swiftly strike, rose and seated myself some little way from her on the couch, while, flinging back her head, she gazed on me with her slumbrous eyes.

Now was my occasion, for her throat and breast were bare, and, with a mighty effort, once again I lifted my hand to clutch the dagger-hilt.  But, more quick than thought, she caught my fingers with her own and gently held them.

“Why lookest thou so wildly, Harmachis?” she said.  “Art sick?”

“Ay, sick indeed!” I gasped.

“Then lean thou on the cushions and rest thee,” she answered, still holding my hand, from which the strength had fled.  “The fit will surely pass.  Too long hast thou laboured with thy stars.  How soft is the night air that flows from yonder casement heavy with the breath of lilies!  Hark to the whisper of the sea lapping against the rocks, that, though it is faint, yet, being so strong, doth almost drown the quick cool fall of yonder fountain.  List to Philomel; how sweet from a full heart of love she sings her message to her dear!  Indeed it is a lovely night, and most beautiful is Nature’s music, sung with a hundred voices from wind and trees and birds and ocean’s wrinkled lips, and yet sung all to tune.  Listen, Harmachis:  I have guessed something concerning thee.  Thou, too, art of a royal race; no humble blood pours in those veins of thine.  Surely such a shoot could spring but from the stock of Princes?  What! gazest thou at the leafmark on my breast?  It was pricked there in honour of great Osiris, whom with thee I worship.  See!”

“Let me hence,” I groaned, striving to rise; but all my strength had gone.

“Nay, not yet awhile.  Thou wouldst not leave me yet? thou canst not leave me yet.  Harmachis, hast thou never loved?”

“Nay, nay, O Queen!  What have I to do with love?  Let me hence!—­I am faint—­I am fordone!”

“Never to have loved—­’tis strange!  Never to have known some woman-heart beat all in tune to thine—­never to have seen the eyes of thy adored aswim with passion’s tears, as she sighed her vows upon thy breast!—­Never to have loved!—­never to have lost thyself in the mystery of another’s soul; nor to have learned how Nature can overcome our naked loneliness, and with the golden web of love of twain weave one identity!  Why, it is never to have lived, Harmachis!”

And ever as she murmured she drew nearer to me, till at last, with a long, sweet sigh, she flung one arm about my neck, and gazed upon me with blue, unfathomable eyes, and smiled her dark, slow smile, that, like an opening flower, revealed beauty within beauty hidden.  Nearer she bent her queenly form, and still more near—­now her perfumed breath played upon my hair, and now her lips met mine.

And woe is me!  In that kiss, more deadly and more strong than the embrace of Death, were forgotten Isis, my heavenly Hope, Oaths, Honour, Country, Friends, all things—­all things save that Cleopatra clasped me in her arms, and called me Love and Lord.