“I fancied,” said Euergetes, “that your desire to wish me joy was the principal thing that had brought you here, and, indeed, my vanity requires me to believe it.  Philometor was with me quite early, and fulfilled that duty with touching affection.  When will he go into the banqueting-hall?”

“In half an hour; and till then tell me, I entreat you, what yesterday you—­”

“The best events are those that are long in preparing,” interrupted her brother.  “May I ask you to let the children, with their attendants, retire for a few minutes into the inner rooms?”

“At once!” cried Cleopatra eagerly, and she pushed her eldest boy, who clamorously insisted on remaining with his uncle, violently out of the door without giving his attendant time to quiet him or take him in her arms.

While she was endeavoring, with angry scolding and cross words, to hasten the children’s departure, Eulaeus came into the room.  Euergetes, as soon as he saw him, set every limb with rigid resolve, and drew breath so deeply that his broad chest heaved high, and a strong respiration parted his lips as he went forward to meet the eunuch, slowly but with an enquiring look.

Eulaeus cast a significant glance at Hierax and Cleopatra, went quite close up to the king, whispered a few words into his ear, and answered his brief questions in a low voice.

“It is well,” said Euergetes at last, and with a decisive gesture of his hand he dismissed Eulaeus and his friend from the room.

Then he stood, as pale as death, his teeth set in his under-lip, and gazing blankly at the ground.

He had his will, Publius Cornelius Scipio lived no more; his ambition might reach without hindrance the utmost limits of his desires, and yet he could not rejoice; he could not escape from a deep horror of himself, and he struck his broad forehead with his clenched fists.  He was face to face with his first dastardly murder.

“And what news does Eulaeus bring?” asked Cleopatra in anxious excitement, for she had never before seen her brother like this; but he did not hear these words, and it was not till she had repeated them with more insistence that he collected himself, stared at her from head to foot with a fixed, gloomy expression, and then, letting his hand fall on her shoulder so heavily that her knees bent under her and she gave a little cry, asked her in a low but meaning tone: 

“Are you strong enough to bear to hear great news?”

“Speak,” she said in a low voice, and her eyes were fixed on his lips while she pressed her hand on her heart.  Her anxiety to hear fettered her to him, as with a tangible tie, and he, as if he must burst it by the force of his utterance, said with awful solemnity, in his deepest tones and emphasizing every syllable: 

“Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica is dead.”

At these words Cleopatra’s pale cheeks were suddenly dyed with a crimson glow, and clenching her little hands she struck them together, and exclaimed with flashing eyes: