At length Cleopatra spoke.  “This is a heavy matter,” she said, “and therefore, noble Dellius, we must have time to let our judgment ripen.  Rest thou here, and make thee as merry as our poor circumstances allow.  Thou shalt have thy answer within ten days.”

The envoy thought awhile, then replied smiling:  “It is well, O Egypt; on the tenth day from now I will attend for my answer, and on the eleventh I sail hence to join Antony my Lord.”

Once more, at a sign from Cleopatra, the trumpets blared, and he withdrew bowing.

CHAPTER X

OF THE TROUBLE OF CLEOPATRA; OF HER OATH TO HARMACHIS; AND OF THE TELLING BY HARMACHIS TO CLEOPATRA OF THE SECRET OF THE TREASURE THAT LAY BENEATH THE MASS OF “HER”

That same night Cleopatra summoned me to her private chamber.  I went, and found her much troubled in mind; never before had I seen her so deeply moved.  She was alone, and, like some trapped lioness, walked to and fro across the marble floor, while thought chased thought across her mind, each, as clouds scudding over the sea, for a moment casting its shadow in her deep eyes.

“So thou art come, Harmachis,” she said, resting for a while, as she took my hand.  “Counsel me, for never did I need counsel more.  Oh, what days have the Gods measured out to me—­days restless as the ocean!  I have known no peace from childhood up, and it seems none shall I know.  Scarce by a very little have I escaped thy dagger’s point, Harmachis, when this new trouble, that, like a storm, has gathered beneath the horizon’s rim, suddenly bursts over me.  Didst mark that tigerish fop?  Well should I love to trap him!  How soft he spoke!  Ay, he purred like a cat, and all the time he stretched his claws.  Didst hear the letter, too? it has an ugly sound.  I know this Antony.  When I was but a child, budding into womanhood, I saw him; but my eyes were ever quick, and I took his measure.  Half Hercules and half a fool, with a dash of genius veining his folly through.  Easily led by those who enter at the gates of his voluptuous sense; but if crossed, an iron foe.  True to his friends, if, indeed, he loves them; and ofttimes false to his own interest.  Generous, hardy, and in adversity a man of virtue; in prosperity a sot and a slave to woman.  That is Antony.  How deal with such a man, whom fate and opportunity, despite himself, have set on the crest of fortune’s wave?  One day it will overwhelm him; but till that day he sweeps across the world and laughs at those who drown.”

“Antony is but a man,” I answered, “and a man with many foes; and, being but a man, he can be overthrown.”

“Ay, he can be overthrown; but he is one of three, Harmachis.  Now that Cassius hath gone where all fools go, Rome has thrown out a hydra head.  Crush one, and another hisses in thy face.  There’s Lepidus, and with him, that young Octavianus, whose cold eyes may yet with a smile of triumph look on the murdered forms of empty, worthless Lepidus, of Antony, and of Cleopatra.  If I go not to Cilicia, mark thou!  Antony will knit up a peace with these Parthians, and, taking the tales they tell of me for truth—­and, indeed, there is truth in them—­will fall with all his force on Egypt.  And how then?”