site to the chimney, awaited the
sovereign.

Barine had already seen this magnificent hall, and others still more
beautiful in the Sebasteum, and the splendour therefore neither excited
nor abashed her; only she would fain have avoided the numerous train of
courtiers. Could it be Cleopatra's intention to question her before the
eyes of all these men, women, and boys?

She no longer felt afraid, but her heart still throbbed quickly. It had
beat in the same way in her girlhood, when she was asked to sing in the
presence of strangers.

At last she heard doors open, and an invisible hand parted the heavy
curtains at her right. She expected to see the Regent, the Keeper of the
Seal, and the whole brilliantly adorned train of attendants who always
surrounded the Queen on formal occasions, enter the magnificent hall.
Else why had it been selected as the scene of this nocturnal trial?

But what was this?

While she was still recalling the display at the Adonis festival, the
curtains began to close again. The courtiers around the throne
straightened their bowed figures, the pages forgot their fatigue, and all
joined in the Greek salutation of welcome, and the "Life! happiness!
health!" with which the Egyptians greeted their sovereign.

The woman of middle height who now appeared before the curtain, and who,
as she crossed the wide hall alone and unattended, seemed to Barine even
smaller than when surrounded by the gay throng at the Adonis festival,
must be the Queen. Ay, it was she!

Iras was already standing by her side, and Charmian was approaching with
the "introducer." The women rendered her various little services thus
Iras took from her shoulders the purple mantle, with its embroidery of
black and gold dragons. What an exquisite masterpiece of the loom it must
be!

All the dangers against which she must defend herself flashed swiftly
through Barine's mind; yet, for an instant, she felt the foolish feminine
desire to see and handle the costly mantle.

But Iras had already laid it on the arm of one of the waiting maids, and
Cleopatra now glanced around her, and with a youthful, elastic step
approached the throne.

Once more the feeling of timidity which she had had in her girlhood
overpowered Barine, but with it came the memory of the garden of
Epicurus, and Archibius's assurance that she, too, would have left the
Queen with her heart overflowing with warm enthusiasm had not a
disturbing influence interposed bet