At last, the second hour after midnight, Cleopatra appeared.

Charmian believed that she must be the sport of some delusion, for the Queen’s eyes which, when she had left her, were full of tears, now sparkled with the radiant light of joy and, as her friend took the crown from her head, she exclaimed: 

“Why did you depart from the banquet so early?  Perhaps it was the last, but I remember no festival more brilliant.  It was like the springtime of my love.  Mark Antony would have touched the heart of a stone statue by that blending of manly daring and humble devotion which no woman can resist.  As in former days, hours shrivelled into moments.  We were again young, once more united.  We were together here at Lochias to-night, and yet in distant years and other places.  The notes of the singers, the melodies of the musicians, the figures executed by the dancers, were lost upon us.  We soared back, hand in hand, to a magic world, and the fairy drama in the realms of the blessed, which passed before us in dazzling splendour and blissful joy, was the dream which I loved best when a child, and at the same time the happiest portion of the life of the Queen of Egypt.

“It began before the gate of the garden of Epicurus, and continued on the river Cydnus.  I again beheld myself on the golden barge, garlanded with wreaths of flowers, reclining on the purple couch with roses strewn around me and beneath my jewelled sandals.  A gentle breeze swelled the silken sails; my female companions raised their clear voices in song to the accompaniment of lutes; the perfumes floating around us were borne by the wind to the shore, conveying the tidings that the bliss believed by mortals to be reserved for the gods alone was drawing near.  And even as his heart and his enraptured senses yielded to my sway, his mind, as he himself confessed, was under the thrall of mine.  We both felt happy, united by ties which nothing, not even misfortune, could sever.  He, the ruler of the world, was conquered, and delighted to obey the behests of the victor, because he felt that she before whom he bowed was his own obedient slave.  And no magic goblet effected all this.  I breathed more freely, as if relieved from the oppressive delusion—­the fire had consumed it also—­which had burdened my soul until a few hours ago.  No magic spell, only the gifts of mind and soul which the vanquished victor, the woman Cleopatra, owed to the favour of the immortals, had compelled his lofty manhood to yield.

“From the Cydnus he brought me hither to the blissful days which we were permitted to pass in my city of Alexandria.  A thousand sunny hours, musical, echoing surges which long since dashed down the stream of Time, he recalled to life, and I—­I did the same, and our memories blended into one.  What never-to-be-forgotten moments we experienced when, with reckless mirth, we mingled unrecognized among the joyous throng!  What Olympic delight elated our hearts when the plaudits of thousands greeted