of mail of solid
gold.

Yet, even before the revel began, she had been forced to acknowledge to
herself that the commencement of the end was approaching; for, a few
hours after she had so generously rewarded the man, he had deserted to
the foe. Then Antony had challenged Octavianus to a duel, and received
the unfeeling reply that he would find many roads to death open.

This was the language of the cold-hearted foe, secure of superior power.
How sadly, too, she had been disappointed in the hope--that the veterans
who had served under Antony would desert their new commander at the first
summons and flock to his standard!--for all her husband's efforts in this
direction, spite of the bewitching power of his eloquence, failed, while
every hour brought tidings of the treacherous desertion from his army of
individual warriors and whole maniples. His foe deemed his cause so weak
that he did not even resist Mark Antony's attempts to win the soldiers by
promises.

From all these signs Cleopatra now saw plainly, in her lover's victory,
only the last flicker of a dying fire; but so long as it burned he should
see her follow its light.

Therefore she had entered the festal hall with the victor of the day. She
had witnessed a strange festival. It began with tears and reminded
Cleopatra of the saying that she herself resembled a banquet served to
celebrate a victory before the battle was won. The cup-bearers had
scarcely advanced to the guests with their golden vessels when Antony
turned to them, exclaiming: "Pour generously, men; perhaps to-morrow you
will serve another master!"

Then, unlike his usual self, he grew thoughtful and murmured under his
breath, "And I shall probably be lying outside a corpse, a miserable
nothing."

Loud sobs from the cup-bearers and servants followed these words; but he
addressed them calmly, assuring them that he would not take them into a
battle from which he expected an honourable death rather than rescue and
victory.

At this Cleopatra's tears flowed also. If this reckless man of pleasure,
this notorious spendthrift and disturber of the public peace, with his
insatiate desires, had inspired bitter hostility, few had gained the warm
love of so many hearts. One glance at his heroic figure; one memory of
the days when even his foes conceded that he was never greater than in
the presence of the most imminent peril, never more capable of awakening
in others the hope of brighter times than amid