flooded the bare, yellow limestone range of the Libyan hills, with
their innumerable tombs and the separate groups of pyramids; while the
wonderful coloring gradually tinged with rose-color the light silvery
clouds that hovered in the clear sky over the valley of Memphis, and
edged them as with a rile of living gold.

The queen stepped out of her tent, accompanied by a young Greek
girl--the fair Zoe, daughter of her master of the hunt Zenodotus, and
Cleopatra's favorite lady-in-waiting--but though she looked towards the
west, she stood unmoved by the magic of the glorious scene before her;
she screened her eyes with her hand to shade them from the blinding
rays, and said:

"Where can Cornelius be staying! When we mounted our chariots before the
temple he had vanished, and as far as I can see the road in the quarters
of Sokari and Serapis I cannot discover his vehicle, nor that of Eulaeus
who was to accompany him. It is not very polite of him to go off in this
way without taking leave; nay, I could call it ungrateful, since I had
proposed to tell him on our way home all about my brother Euergetes, who
has arrived to-day with his friends. They are not yet acquainted, for
Euergetes was living in Cyrene when Publius Cornelius Scipio landed in
Alexandria. Stay! do you see a black shadow out there by the vineyard
at Kakem; That is very likely he; but no--you are right, it is only some
birds, flying in a close mass above the road. Can you see nothing more?
No!--and yet we both have sharp young eyes. I am very curious to know
whether Publius Scipio will like Euergetes. There can hardly be two
beings more unlike, and yet they have some very essential points in
common."

"They are both men," interrupted Zoe, looking at the queen as if she
expected cordial assent to this proposition.

"So they are," said Cleopatra proudly. "My brother is still so young
that, if he were not a king's son, he would hardly have outgrown the
stage of boyhood, and would be a lad among other Epheboi,--[Youths above
18 were so called]--and yet among the oldest there is hardly a man who
is his superior in strength of will and determined energy. Already,
before I married Philometor, he had clutched Alexandria and Cyrene,
which by right should belong to my husband, who is the eldest of us
three, and that was not very brotherly conduct--and indeed we had other
grounds for being angry with him; but when I saw him again for the first
time after nine months