“My estate in the lake region is remote enough, and will be at her disposal,” interrupted the other.  “The house is always kept ready for my reception.  I will do my best to persuade her, for your advice is prudent.  She must be withdrawn from the boy’s eyes.”

“I shall learn the result of your mission tomorrow,” cried Dion eagerly—­“nay, this evening.  If she consents, I will tell Iras, as if by accident, that Barine has gone to Upper Egypt to drink new milk, or something of that kind.  Iras is a shrewd woman, and will be glad if she can keep aloof from such trifles during the time which will decide the fate of Cleopatra and of the world.”

“My thoughts, too, are always with the army,” said Archibius.  “How trivial everything else seems compared with the result which will be determined in the next few days!  But life is made up of trifles.  They are food, drink, maintenance.  Should the Queen return triumphant, and find Caesarion in wrong paths—­”

“We must close them against him,” exclaimed Dion.

“That the boy may not follow Barine?” asked Archibius, shaking his head.  “I think we need feel no anxiety on that score.  He will doubtless eagerly desire to do so, but with him there is a wide gulf between the wish and its fulfilment.  Antyllus is differently constituted.  He would be quite capable of ordering a horse to be saddled, or the sails of a boat to be spread in order to pursue her—­beyond the Cataract if necessary.  So we must maintain the utmost secrecy concerning the place to which Barine voluntarily exiles herself.”

“But she is not yet on her way,” replied Dion with a faint sigh.  “She is bound to this city by many ties.”

“I know it,” answered Archibius, confirming his companion’s fear.  The latter, pointing to the equipage, said in a rapid, earnest tone:  “Gorgias is beckoning.  But, before we part, let me beseech you to do everything to persuade Barine to leave here.  She is in serious danger.  Conceal nothing from her, and say that her friends will not leave her too long in solitude.”

Archibius, with a significant glance, shook his finger at the young man in playful menace, and then went up to the carriage.

Caesarion’s clear-cut but pallid face, whose every feature resembled that of his father, the great Caesar, bent towards them from the opening above the door, as he greeted both with a formal bend of the head and a patronizing glance.  His eyes had sparkled with boyish glee when he first caught sight of the friend from whom he had been separated several weeks, but to the stranger he wished to assume the bearing which beseemed a king.  He desired to make him feel his superior position, for he was ill-disposed towards him.  He had seen him favoured by the woman whom he imagined he loved, and whose possession he had been promised by the secret science of the Egyptians, whose power to unveil the mysteries of the future he firmly believed.  Antyllus, Antony’s son,