Cleopatra — Volume 03 eBook

Georg Ebers
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 60 pages of information about Cleopatra — Volume 03.

Cleopatra — Volume 03 eBook

Georg Ebers
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 60 pages of information about Cleopatra — Volume 03.
hours more bewitching, yet even in childhood she had preferred a winding path to a straight one.  It seemed as if her shrewdness scorned to attain the end desired by the simple method lying close at hand.  How willingly his mother and his younger sister Charmian had cared for the slaves and nursed them when they were ill; nay, Charmian had gained in her Nubian maid Aniukis a friend who would have gone to death for her sake!  Cleopatra, too, when a child, had found sincere delight in taking a bouquet to his parents’ sick old housekeeper and sitting by her bedside to shorten the time for her with merry talk.  She had gone to her unasked, while Iras had often been punished because she had made the lives of numerous slaves in her parents’ household still harder by unreasonable harshness.  This trait in her character had roused her uncle’s anxiety and, in after-years, her treatment of her inferiors had been such that he could not number her among the excellent of her sex.  Therefore he was the more joyfully surprised by the loyal, unselfish love with which she devoted herself to the service of the Queen.  Cleopatra had gratified Charmian’s wish to have her niece for an assistant; and Iras, who had never been a loving daughter to her own faithful mother, had served her royal mistress with the utmost tenderness.

Archibius valued this loyalty highly, but he knew what awaited any one who became the object of her hatred, and the fear that it would involve Barine in urgent peril was added to his still greater anxiety for Cleopatra.

When about to depart, burdened by the sorrowful conviction that he was powerless against his niece’s malevolent purpose, he was detained by the representation that every fresh piece of intelligence would first reach the Sebasteum and her.  Some question might easily arise which his calm, prudent mind could decide far better than hers, whose troubled condition resembled a shallow pool disturbed by stones flung into the waves.

The apartments of his sister Charmian, which were connected with his by a corridor, were empty, and Iras begged him to remain there a short time.  The anxiety and dread that oppressed her heart would kill her.  To know that he was near would be the greatest comfort.

When Archibius hesitated because he deemed it his duty to urge Caesarion, over whom he possessed some influence, to give up his foolish wishes for his mother’s sake, Iras assured him that he would not find the youth.  He had gone hunting with Antyllus and some other friends.  She had approved the plan, because it removed him from the city and Barine’s dangerous house.

“As the Queen does not wish him to know the terrible news yet,” she concluded, “his presence would only have caused us embarrassment.  So stay, and when it grows dark go with us to the Lochias.  I think it will please the sorrowing woman, when she lands, to see your familiar face, which will remind her of happier days.  Do me the favour to stay.”  She held out both hands beseechingly as she spoke, and Archibius consented.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Cleopatra — Volume 03 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.