CHAPTER XIX.

Night brought little sleep to Cleopatra.  Memory followed memory, plan was added to plan.  The resolve made the day before was the right one.  To-day she would begin its execution.  Whatever might happen, she was prepared for every contingency.

Ere she went to her work she granted a second audience to the Roman envoy.  Timagenes exerted all his powers of eloquence, skill in persuasion, wit, and ingenuity.  He again promised to Cleopatra life and liberty, and to her children the throne; but when he insisted upon the surrender or death of Mark Antony as the first condition of any further negotiations, Cleopatra remained steadfast, and the ambassador set forth on his way home without any pledge.

After he had gone, the Queen and Iras looked over the plans for the tomb brought by Gorgias, but the intense agitation of her soul distracted Cleopatra’s attention, and she begged him to come again at a later hour.  When she was alone, she took out the letters which Caesar and Antony had written to her.  How acute, subtle, and tender were those of the former; how ardent, impassioned, yet sincere were those of the mighty and fiery orator, whose eloquence swept the listening multitudes with him, yet whom her little hand had drawn wherever she desired!

Her heart throbbed faster when she thought of the meeting with Antony, now close at hand; for Charmian had gone with the Nubian to invite him to join her again.  They had started several hours ago, and she awaited their return with increasing impatience.  She had summoned him for their last mutual battle.  That he would come she did not doubt.  But could she succeed in rekindling his courage?  Two persons so closely allied should sink and perish, still firmly united, in the final battle, if victory was denied.

Archibius was now announced.

It soothed her merely to gaze into the faithful countenance, which recalled so many of her happiest memories.

She opened her whole soul to him without reserve, and he drew himself up to his full height, as if restored to youth; while when she told him that she would never sully herself by treachery to her lover and husband, and had resolved to die worthy of her name, the expression of his eyes revealed that she had chosen the right path.

Ere she had made the request that he should undertake the education and guidance of the children, he voluntarily proposed to devote his best powers to them.  The plan of uniting Didymus’s garden with the Lochias and giving it to the little ones also met with his approval.  His sister had already told him that Cleopatra had determined to build her tomb.  He hoped, he added, that its doors would not open to her for many years.