ndertaken to provide the gifts. How could she have found
time and thought for such affairs? She had returned from the chief priest
late in the evening, yet had asked for a minute description of the
condition in which they found Mark Antony. The report made by Iras
harmonized with the state in which she had herself seen him during and
after the battle. Ay, his brooding gloom seemed to have deepened.
Charmian had helped her dress in the morning, and had been on the point
of making her difficult confession, and owning that she had aided Barine
to escape the punishment of her royal mistress; but ere she could begin,
Timagenes was announced, for Cleopatra had not risen from her couch until
a late hour.

The object for which the Queen had sought the temple had not been gained;
but the consultation with Gorgias had diverted her mind, and the emotions
which the thought of her last resting-place had evoked now drowned
everything else, as the roar of the surf dominates the twittering of the
swallows on the rocky shore.

Ay, she needed calmness! She must weigh and ponder over many things in
absolute quietude, and this she could not obtain at Lochias. Then her
glance rested upon the little sanctuary of Berenike, which she had
ordered removed to make room for a garden near at hand, where the
children could indulge their love of creative work. It was empty. She
need fear no interruption there. The interior contained only a single,
quiet, pleasant chamber, with the image of Berenike. The "Introducer"
commanded the guard to admit no other visitors, and soon the little white
marble, circular room with its vaulted roof received the Queen. She sank
down on one of the bronze benches opposite to the statue. All was still;
in this cool silence her mind, trained to thought, could find that for
which it longed--clearness of vision, a plain understanding of her own
feelings and position in the presence of the impending decision.

At first her thoughts wandered to and fro like a dove ere it chooses the
direction of its flight; but after the question why she was having a tomb
built so hurriedly, when she would be permitted to live, her mind found
the right track. Among the Scythian guards, the Mauritanians, and
Blemmyes in the army there were plenty of savage fellows whom a word from
her lips and a handful of gold would have set upon the vanquished Antony,
as the huntsman's "Seize him!" urges the hounds. A hint, and among the
wretched magicians