with marble statues.  There was only one way of access to this retreat, which was fitted up with regal splendor; day and night it was fanned by currents of soft air, and no one could penetrate uninvited to disturb the queen’s retirement, for veteran guards watched at the foot of the broad stair that led to the roof, chosen from the Macedonian “Garde noble,” and owing as implicit obedience to Cleopatra as to the king himself.  This select corps was now, at sunset, relieving guard, and the queen could hear the words spoken by the officers in command and the clatter of the shields against the swords as they rattled on the pavement, for she had come out of her tent into the open air, and stood gazing towards the west, where the glorious hues of the sinking sun flooded the bare, yellow limestone range of the Libyan hills, with their innumerable tombs and the separate groups of pyramids; while the wonderful coloring gradually tinged with rose-color the light silvery clouds that hovered in the clear sky over the valley of Memphis, and edged them as with a rile of living gold.

The queen stepped out of her tent, accompanied by a young Greek girl—­the fair Zoe, daughter of her master of the hunt Zenodotus, and Cleopatra’s favorite lady-in-waiting—­but though she looked towards the west, she stood unmoved by the magic of the glorious scene before her; she screened her eyes with her hand to shade them from the blinding rays, and said: 

“Where can Cornelius be staying!  When we mounted our chariots before the temple he had vanished, and as far as I can see the road in the quarters of Sokari and Serapis I cannot discover his vehicle, nor that of Eulaeus who was to accompany him.  It is not very polite of him to go off in this way without taking leave; nay, I could call it ungrateful, since I had proposed to tell him on our way home all about my brother Euergetes, who has arrived to-day with his friends.  They are not yet acquainted, for Euergetes was living in Cyrene when Publius Cornelius Scipio landed in Alexandria.  Stay! do you see a black shadow out there by the vineyard at Kakem; That is very likely he; but no—­you are right, it is only some birds, flying in a close mass above the road.  Can you see nothing more?  No!—­and yet we both have sharp young eyes.  I am very curious to know whether Publius Scipio will like Euergetes.  There can hardly be two beings more unlike, and yet they have some very essential points in common.”

“They are both men,” interrupted Zoe, looking at the queen as if she expected cordial assent to this proposition.

“So they are,” said Cleopatra proudly.  “My brother is still so young that, if he were not a king’s son, he would hardly have outgrown the stage of boyhood, and would be a lad among other Epheboi,—­[Youths above 18 were so called]—­and yet among the oldest there is hardly a man who is his superior in strength of will and determined energy.  Already, before I married Philometor, he had clutched