[At the banquets of the Egyptians a small figure in the shape of a mummy was passed around to remind the guests that they, too, would soon be in the same condition, and have no more time to enjoy life and its pleasures.  The Romans imitated this custom by sending the larva, a statuette in the form of a skeleton, to make the round of the revellers.  The Greek love of beauty converted this ugly scarecrow into a winged genius.]

We know, without its aid, that pleasure will soon be over!—­Xuthus, a joyous festal song!—­And you, Metrodor, lead the dancers!  The first beaker to the fairest, the best, the wisest, the most cherished, the most fervently beloved of women!” As he spoke he waved his goblet aloft, the flute-player, Xuthus, beckoned to the chorus, and the dancer Metrodor, in the guise of a butterfly, led forth a bevy of beautiful girls, who, in the cloud of ample robes of transparent coloured bombyx which floated around them, executed the most graceful figures and now hovered like mists, now flitted to and fro as if borne on wings, affording the most charming variety to the delighted spectators.

The “Comrades of Death” had again become companions in pleasure; and when Charmian, who did not lose sight of her mistress, noticed the sorrowful quiver of her lips and glided out of the circle of guests, the faithful Nubian had approached to inform her of Dion’s arrival.

Then—­but this she concealed from her friends—­she hastened to her own apartments to prepare to go out, and when Iras opened the door to enter her rooms she went to speak to her about the night attendance upon the Queen.  But her niece had not perceived her; shaken by convulsive sobs, she had pressed her face among the cushions of a couch, and there suffered the fierce anguish which had stirred the inmost depths of her being to rave itself out with the full vehemence of her passionate nature.  Charmian called her name and, weeping herself, ripened her arms to her, and for the first time since her return from Actium her sister’s daughter again sank upon her breast, and they held each other in a close embrace until Charmian’s exclamation, “With her, for her unto death!” was answered by Iras’s “To the tomb!”

This was a word which, in many an hour of the silent night, had stirred the soul of the woman who had been the youthful playmate of the Queen who, with bleeding heart, sat below among the revellers at the noisy banquet and forced her to ask the question:  “Is not your fate bound to hers?  What can life offer you without her?”

Now, this word was spoken by other lips, and, like an echo of Iras’s exclamation, came the answer:  “Unto death, like you, if she precedes us to the other world.  Whatever may follow dying, nowhere shall she lack Charmian’s hand and heart.”

“Nor the love and service of Iras,” was the answering assurance.

So they had parted, and the agitation of this fateful moment was still visible in the features of the woman who had formerly sacrificed to her royal playfellow her love, and now offered her life.