“Charmian led me to the cabin.  There I first realized what I had done.  I had hoped to aid in crushing the hated foe, and now perhaps it was I who had built for him the bridge to victory, to sovereignty, to our destruction.  Pursued by such thoughts, as if by the Furies, I paced restlessly to and fro.

“Suddenly I heard a loud noise on deck.  A crashing blow seemed to shake the huge ship.  We were pursued!  A Roman galley had boarded mine!  This was my thought as I grasped the dagger Antony had given me.

“But Charmian came back with tidings which seemed scarcely less terrible than the baseless fear.  I had angrily commanded her to leave me because she had urged me to revoke the command to turn back.  Now, deadly pale, she announced that Mark Antony had left his galley, followed me in a little five-oared boat, and come on board our ship.

“My blood froze in my veins.

“He had come, I imagined, to force me to return to the battle and, drawing a long breath, my defiant pride urged me to show him that I was the Queen and would obey only my own will, while my heart impelled me to sink at his feet and beseech him, without heeding me, to issue any order which promised to secure a victory.

“But he did not come.

“I sent Charmian up again.  Antony had been unable to continue the conflict when parted from me.  Now he sat in front of the cabin with his head resting on his hands, staring at the planks of the deck like one distraught.  He, he—­Antony!  The bravest horseman, the terror of the foe, let his arms fall like a shepherd-boy whose sheep are stolen by the wolves.  Mark Antony, the hero who had braved a thousand dangers, had flung down his sword.  Why, why?  Because a woman had yielded to idle fears, obeyed the yearning of a mother’s heart, and fled?  Of all human weaknesses, not one had been more alien than cowardice to the man whose recklessness had led him to many an unprecedented venture.  And now?  No, a thousand times no!  Fire and water would unite sooner than Mark Antony and cowardice!  He had been under the coercive power of a demon; a mysterious spell had forced him—­”

“The mightiest power, love,” interrupted Iras with enthusiastic warmth—­“a love as great and overmastering as ever subjugated the soul of man.”

“Ay, love,” repeated Cleopatra, in a hollow tone.  Then her lips curled with a faint tinge of derision, and her voice expressed the very bitterness of doubt, as she continued:  “Had it been merely the love which makes two mortals one, transfers the heart of one to the other, it might perchance have borne my timorous soul into the hero’s breast!  But no.  Violent tempests had raged before the battle.  It had not been possible always to appear before him in the guise in which we would fain be seen by those whom we love.

“Even now, when your skilful hands have served me—­there is the mirror—­the image it reflects—­seems to me like a carefully preserved wreck—­”