Octavianus desired to retain the enthusiastic admiration of the youth, who perhaps was destined to lofty achievements, so he continued in a confidential tone:  “To you, my young friend, I can venture to speak more frankly.  I will gladly grant the most aspiring wishes of this fascinating and, I repeat, very remarkable woman, but first I need her for my triumph.  The Romans would have cause to reproach me if I deprived them of the sight of this Queen, this peerless woman, in many respects the first of her time.  We shall soon set out for Syria.  The Queen and her children I shall send in three days to Rome.  If, in the triumphal procession there, she creates the sensation I anticipate from a spectacle so worthy of admiration, she shall learn how I reward those who oblige me.”

Dolabella had listened in silence.  When the Caesar entered the carriage, he requested permission to remain behind.

Octavianus drove alone eastward to the camp where, in the vicinity of the Hippodrome, men were surveying the ground on which the suburb of Nikopolis—­city of victory—­was to be built to commemorate for future generations the victory of the first Emperor over Antony and Cleopatra.  It grew, but never attained any great importance.

The noble Cornelius gazed indignantly after his sovereign’s fiery steeds; then, drawing up his stately figure to its full height, he entered the palace with a firm step.  The act might cost him his life, but he would do what he believed to be his duty to the noble woman who had honoured him with her friendship.  This rare sovereign was too good to feast the eyes of the rabble.

A few minutes later Cleopatra knew her impending ignominy.

CHAPTER XXV.

The next morning the Queen had many whispered conversations with Charmian, and the latter with Anukis.  The day before, Archibius’s gardener had brought to his master’s sister some unusually fine figs, which grew in the old garden of Epicurus.  This fruit was also mentioned, and Anukis went to Kanopus, and thence, in the steward’s carriage, with a basket of the very best ones to the fish-market.  There she had a great deal to say to Pyrrhus, and the freedman went to his boat with the figs.

Shortly after the Nubian’s return the Queen came back to the palace from the mausoleum.  Her features bore an impress of resolution usually alien to them; nay, the firmly compressed lips gave them an expression of actual sternness.  She knew what duty required, and regarded her approaching end as an inevitable necessity.  Death seemed to her like a journey which she must take in order to escape the most terrible disgrace.  Besides, life after the death of Antony was no longer the same; it had been only a tiresome delay and waiting for the children’s sake.

The visit to the tomb had been intended, as it were, to announce her coming to her husband.  She had remained a long time in the silent hall, where she had garlanded the coffin with flowers, kissed it, talked to the dead man as if he were still alive, and told him that the day had come when what he had mentioned in his will as the warmest desire of his heart—­to rest beside her in the same tomb—­would be fulfilled.  Among the thousand forms of suffering which had assailed her, nothing had seemed so hard to bear as to be deprived of his society and love.