“My lord,” said the veteran soldier to the girl, “bid me greet you, and says that he found neither the Roman Publius Scipio, nor his friend the Corinthian at home.  He is prevented from coming to you himself; he has his hands full of business, for soldiers in the service of both the kings are quartered within the White Wall, and all sorts of squabbles break out between them.  Still, you cannot remain in this room, for it will shortly be occupied by a party of young officers who began the fray.  Glaucus proposes for your choice that you should either allow me to conduct you to his wife or return to the temple to which you are attached.  In the latter case a chariot shall convey you as far as the second tavern in Khakem on the borders of the desert-for the city is full of drunken soldiery.  There you may probably find an escort if you explain to the host who you are.  But the chariot must be back again in less than an hour, for it is one of the king’s, and when the banquet is over there may be a scarcity of chariots.”

“Yes—­I will go back to the place I came from,” said Klea eagerly, interrupting the messenger.  “Take me at once to the chariot.”

“Follow me, then,” said the old man.

“But I have no veil,” observed Klea, “and have only this thin robe on.  Rough soldiers snatched my wrapper from my face, and my cloak from off my shoulders.”

“I will bring you the captain’s cloak which is lying here in the orderly’s room, and his travelling-hat too; that will hide your face with its broad flap.  You are so tall that you might be taken for a man, and that is well, for a woman leaving the palace at this hour would hardly pass unmolested.  A slave shall fetch the things from your temple to-morrow.  I may inform you that my master ordered me take as much care of you as if you were his own daughter.  And he told me too—­and I had nearly forgotten it—­to tell you that your sister was carried off by the Roman, and not by that other dangerous man, you would know whom he meant.  Now wait, pray, till I return; I shall not be long gone.”

In a few minutes the guard returned with a large cloak in which he wrapped Klea, and a broad-brimmed travelling-hat which she pressed down on her head, and he then conducted her to that quarter of the palace where the king’s stables were.  She kept close to the officer, and was soon mounted on a chariot, and then conducted by the driver—­who took her for a young Macedonian noble, who was tempted out at night by some assignation—­as far as the second tavern on the road back to the Serapeum.

CHAPTER XIX.

While Klea had been listening to the conversation between Euergetes and Eulaeus, Cleopatra had been sitting in her tent, and allowing herself to be dressed with no less care than on the preceding evening, but in other garments.