f the Gypsies, you mean.

CLEOPATRA. You must not be disrespectful to me, or the Sphinx will let
the Romans eat you. Come up. It is quite cosy here.

CAESAR (to himself). What a dream! What a magnificent dream! Only let me
not wake, and I will conquer ten continents to pay for dreaming it out
to the end. (He climbs to the Sphinx's flank, and presently reappears to
her on the pedestal, stepping round its right shoulder.)

CLEOPATRA. Take care. That's right. Now sit down: you may have its
other paw. (She seats herself comfortably on its left paw.) It is
very powerful and will protect us; but (shivering, and with plaintive
loneliness) it would not take any notice of me or keep me company. I am
glad you have come: I was very lonely. Did you happen to see a white cat
anywhere?

CAESAR (sitting slowly down on the right paw in extreme wonderment).
Have you lost one?

CLEOPATRA. Yes: the sacred white cat: is it not dreadful? I brought him
here to sacrifice him to the Sphinx; but when we got a little way from
the city a black cat called him, and he jumped out of my arms and
ran away to it. Do you think that the black cat can have been my
great-great-great-grandmother?

CAESAR (staring at her). Your great-great-great-grandmother! Well, why
not? Nothing would surprise me on this night of nights.

CLEOPATRA. I think it must have been. My great-grandmother's
great-grandmother was a black kitten of the sacred white cat; and the
river Nile made her his seventh wife. That is why my hair is so wavy.
And I always want to be let do as I like, no matter whether it is the
will of the gods or not: that is because my blood is made with Nile
water.

CAESAR. What are you doing here at this time of night? Do you live here?

CLEOPATRA. Of course not: I am the Queen; and I shall live in the palace
at Alexandria when I have killed my brother, who drove me out of it.
When I am old enough I shall do just what I like. I shall be able to
poison the slaves and see them wriggle, and pretend to Ftatateeta that
she is going to be put into the fiery furnace.

CAESAR. Hm! Meanwhile why are you not at home and in bed?

CLEOPATRA. Because the Romans are coming to eat us all. YOU are not at
home and in bed either.

CAESAR (with conviction). Yes I am. I live in a tent; and I am now in
that tent, fast asleep and dreaming. Do you suppose that I believe you
are real, you impossible little dream witch?

CLEOPATRA (giggling and leaning trustfully towa