them. No feeble merchantman, hugging coasts and headlands, was
Demetrius. He pushed his three barques boldly forward toward the
watery sky-line; the rising and setting sun by day and the slowly
circling stars by night were all-sufficient pilots; and so the ships
flew onward, and, late though the season was, no tempest racked them,
no swollen billow tossed them.

Cornelia sat for hours on the poop, beneath a crimson awning, watching
the foam scudding out from under the swift-moving keel, and feeling
the soft, balmy Notos, the kind wind of the south, now and then puff
against her face, when the west wind veered away, and so brought up a
whiff of the spices and tropic bloom of the great southern continent,
over the parching deserts and the treacherous quicksands of the Syrtes
and the broad "unharvested sea."

Cornelia had seen the cone of AEtna sinking away in the west, and then
she looked westward no more. For eastward and ever eastward fared the
ships, and on beyond them on pinions of mind flew Cornelia. To Africa,
to the Orient! And she dreamed of the half-fabulous kingdoms of
Assyria and Babylonia; of the splendours of Memphis and Nineveh and
Susa and Ecbatana; of Eastern kings and Eastern gold, and Eastern pomp
and circumstance of war; of Ninus, and Cyrus the Great, and Alexander;
of Cheops and Sesostris and Amasis; of the hanging gardens; of the
treasures of Sardanapalus; of the labyrinth of Lake Moeris; of a
thousand and one things rare and wonderful. Half was she persuaded
that in the East the heart might not ache nor the soul grow cold with
pain. And all life was fair to Cornelia. She was sure of meeting
Drusus soon or late now, if so be the gods--she could not help using
the expression despite her atheism--spared him in war. She could wait;
she could be very patient. She was still very young. And when she
counted her remaining years to threescore, they seemed an eternity.
The pall which had rested on her life since her uncle and her lover
parted after their stormy interview was lifted; she could smile, could
laugh, could breathe in the fresh air, and cry, "How good it all is!"

Demetrius held his men under control with an iron hand. If ever the
pirate ship was filled with sights and sounds unseemly for a lady's
eyes and ears, there were none of them now. Cornelia was a princess,
abjectly waited on by her subjects. Demetrius's attention outran all
her least desires. He wearied her with presents of jewellery and