ambassadors from foreign powers, were reclining on long rows of couches,
and talking over their wine, the feast itself being ended.

The Greeks and the dark-hued Egyptians were about equally represented in
this motley assembly; but among them, and particularly among the learned
and the fighting men, there were also several Israelites and Syrians.

The royal pair were received by the company with acclamations and marks
of respect; Cleopatra smiled as sweetly as ever, and waved her fan
graciously as she descended from her litter; still she vouchsafed not
the slightest attention to any one present, for she was seeking Publius,
at first among those who were nearest to the couch prepared for her,
and then among the other Hellenes, the Egyptians, the Jews, the
ambassadors--still she found him not, and when at last she enquired for
the Roman of the chief chamberlain at her side, the official was sent
for who had charge of the foreign envoys. This was an officer of very
high rank, whose duty it was to provide for the representatives of
foreign powers, and he was now near at hand, for he had long been
waiting for an opportunity to offer to the queen a message of
leave-taking from Publius Cornelius Scipio, and to tell her from him,
that he had retired to his tent because a letter had come to him from
Rome.

"Is that true?" asked the queen letting her feather fan droop, and
looking her interlocutor severely in the face.

"The trireme Proteus, coming from Brundisium, entered the harbor
of Eunostus only yesterday," he replied; "and an hour ago a mounted
messenger brought the letter. Nor was it an ordinary letter but a
despatch from the Senate--I know the form and seal."

"And Lysias, the Corinthian?"

"He accompanied the Roman."

"Has the Senate written to him too?" asked the queen annoyed, and
ironically. She turned her back on the officer without any kind of
courtesy, and turning again to the chamberlain she went on, in incisive
tones, as if she were presiding at a trial:

"King Euergetes sits there among the Egyptians near the envoys from
the temples of the Upper Country. He looks as if he were giving them a
discourse, and they hang on his lips. What is he saying, and what does
all this mean?"

"Before you came in, he was sitting with the Syrians and Jews, and
telling them what the merchants and scribes, whom he sent to the South,
have reported of the lands lying near the lakes through which the Nile
is said to flow.