to gaze into the beaker before I filled it for him?  How grateful I was to Anubis when he finally consented to trust to my care this marvel of the temple treasures, when the first trial succeeded, and Antony, at my bidding, placed the magnificent wreath which he wore upon the bald brow of that crabbed old follower of Aristoteles, Diomedes, whom he detested in his inmost soul!  It was scarcely a year ago, and you know how rarely at first I used the power of the terrible vessel.  The man whom I loved obeyed my slightest glance, without its aid.  But later—­before the battle—­I felt how gladly he would have sent me, who might ruin all, back to Egypt.  Besides, I felt—­I have already said so—­that something had come between us.  Yet, often as he was on the point of sacrificing me to the importunate Romans, I need only bid him gaze into the beaker, and exclaim ’You will not send me hence.  We belong together.  Whither one goes, the other will follow!’ and he besought me not to leave him.  The very morning before the battle I gave him the drinking cup, urging him, whatever might happen, never, never to leave me.  And he obeyed this time also, though the person to whom a magic spell bound him was a fleeing woman.  It is terrible.  And yet, have I a right to execrate the thrall of the beaker?  Scarcely!  For without the Magian’s glittering vessel—­a secret voice in my soul has whispered the warning a thousand times during the sleepless nights—­he would have taken another on the galley.  And I believe I know this other—­I mean the woman whose singing enthralled my heart too at the Adonis festival just before our departure.  I noticed the look with which his eyes sought hers.  Now I know that it was not merely my old deceitful foe, jealousy, which warned me against her.  Alexas, the most faithful of his friends, also confirmed what I merely feared—­ah! and he told me other things which the stars had revealed to him.  Besides, he knows the siren, for she was the wife of his own brother.  To protect his honour, he cast off the coquettish Circe.”

“Barine!” fell in resolute tones from the lips of Iras.

“So you know her?” asked Cleopatra, eagerly.  The girl raised her clasped hands beseechingly to the Queen, exclaiming: 

“I know this woman only too well, and how my heart rages against her!  O my mistress, that I, too, should aid in darkening this hour!  Yet it must be said.  That Antony visited the singer, and even took his son there more than once, is known throughout the city.  Yet that is not the worst.  A Barine entering into rivalry with you!  It would be too ridiculous.  But what bounds can be set to the insatiate greed of these women?  No rank, no age is sacred.  It was dull in the absence of the court and the army.  There were no men who seemed worth the trouble of catching, so she cast her net for boys, and the one most closely snared was the King Caesarion.”

“Caesarion!” exclaimed Cleopatra, her pale cheeks flushing.  “And his tutor Rhodon?  My strict commands?”