e-oared boat, and come on board our ship.

"My blood froze in my veins.

"He had come, I imagined, to force me to return to the battle and,
drawing a long breath, my defiant pride urged me to show him that I was
the Queen and would obey only my own will, while my heart impelled me to
sink at his feet and beseech him, without heeding me, to issue any order
which promised to secure a victory.

"But he did not come.

"I sent Charmian up again. Antony had been unable to continue the
conflict when parted from me. Now he sat in front of the cabin with his
head resting on his hands, staring at the planks of the deck like one
distraught. He, he--Antony! The bravest horseman, the terror of the
foe, let his arms fall like a shepherd-boy whose sheep are stolen by
the wolves. Mark Antony, the hero who had braved a thousand dangers,
had flung down his sword. Why, why? Because a woman had yielded to idle
fears, obeyed the yearning of a mother's heart, and fled? Of all human
weaknesses, not one had been more alien than cowardice to the man whose
recklessness had led him to many an unprecedented venture. And now? No,
a thousand times no! Fire and water would unite sooner than Mark Antony
and cowardice! He had been under the coercive power of a demon; a
mysterious spell had forced him--"

"The mightiest power, love," interrupted Iras with enthusiastic
warmth--"a love as great and overmastering as ever subjugated the soul
of man."

"Ay, love," repeated Cleopatra, in a hollow tone. Then her lips curled
with a faint tinge of derision, and her voice expressed the very
bitterness of doubt, as she continued: "Had it been merely the love
which makes two mortals one, transfers the heart of one to the other, it
might perchance have borne my timorous soul into the hero's breast!
But no. Violent tempests had raged before the battle. It had not been
possible always to appear before him in the guise in which we would fain
be seen by those whom we love.

"Even now, when your skilful hands have served me--there is the
mirror--the image it reflects--seems to me like a carefully preserved
wreck--"

"O my royal mistress," cried Iras, raising her hands beseechingly, "must
I again declare that neither the grey hairs which are again brown, nor
the few lines which Olympus will soon render invisible, nor whatever
else perhaps disturbs you in the image you behold reflected, impairs
your beauty? Unclouded and secure of victory, the spell of your godli