I woke to find myself in my own chamber in the tower of the palace. I was so weak that I scarce could lift my hand, and life seemed but to flutter in my breast as flutters a dying dove. I could not turn my head; I could not stir; yet in my heart there was a sense of rest and of dark trouble done. The light from the lamp hurt my eyes: I shut them, and, as I shut them, heard the sweep of a woman’s robes upon the stair, and a swift, light step that I knew well. It was that of Cleopatra!
She entered and drew near. I felt her come! Every pulse of my poor frame beat an answer to her footfall, and all my mighty love and hate rose from the darkness of my death-like sleep, and rent me in their struggle! She leaned over me; her ambrosial breath played upon my face: I could hear the beating of her heart! Lower she leaned, till at last her lips touched me softly on the brow.
“Poor man!” I heard her murmur. “Poor, weak, dying Man! Fate hath been hard to thee! Thou wert too good to be the sport of such a one as I—the pawn that I must move in my play of policy! Ah, Harmachis! thou shouldst have ruled the game! Those plotting priests could give thee learning; but they could not give thee knowledge of mankind, nor fence thee against the march of Nature’s law. And thou didst love me with all thy heart—ah! well I know it! Manlike, thou didst love the eyes that, as a pirate’s lights, beckoned thee to shipwrecked ruin, and didst hang doting on the lips which lied thy heart away and called thee ‘slave’! Well; the game was fair, for thou wouldst have slain me; and yet I grieve. So thou dost die? and this is my farewell to thee! Never may we meet again on earth; and, perchance, it is well, for who knows, when my hour of tenderness is past, how I might deal with thee, didst thou live? Thou dost die, they say—those learned long-faced fools, who, if they let thee die, shall pay the price. And where, then, shall we meet again when my last throw is thrown? We shall be equal there, in the kingdom that Osiris rules. A little time, a few years—perhaps to-morrow—and we shall meet; then, knowing all I am, how wilt thou greet me? Nay, here, as there, still must thou worship me! for injuries cannot touch the immortality of such a love as thine. Contempt alone, like acid, can eat away the love of noble hearts, and reveal the truth in its pitiful nakedness. Thou must still cling to thee, Harmachis; for, whatever my sins, yet I am great and set above thy scorn. Would that I could have loved thee as thou lovest me! Almost I did so when thou slewest those guards; and yet—not quite.
“What a fenced city is my heart, that none can take it, and, even when I throw the gates wide, no man may win its citadel! Oh, to put away this loneliness and lose me in another’s soul! Oh, for a year, a month, an hour to quite forget policy, peoples, and my pomp of place, and be but a loving woman! Harmachis, fare thee well! Go join great Julius whom thy art called up from death before me, and take Egypt’s greetings to him. Ah well! I fooled thee, and I fooled Cæsar—perchance before all is done Fate will find me, and myself I shall be fooled. Harmachis, fare thee well!”
She turned to go, and as she turned I heard the sweep of another dress and the light fall of another woman’s foot.
“Ah! it is thou, Charmion. Well, for all thy watching the man dies.”
“Ay,” she answered, in a voice thick with grief. “Ay, O Queen, so the physicians say. Forty hours has he lain in stupor so deep that at times his breath could barely lift this tiny feather’s weight, and hardly could my ear, placed against his breast, take notice of the rising of his heart. I have watched him now for ten long days, watched him day and night, till my eyes stare wide with want of sleep, and for faintness I can scarce keep myself from falling. And this is the end of all my labour! The coward blow of that accursed Brennus has done its work, and Harmachis dies!”
“Love counts not its labour, Charmion, nor can it weight its tenderness on the scale of purchase. That which it has it gives, and craves for more to give and give, till the soul’s infinity be drained. Dear to thy heart are these heavy nights of watching; sweet to thy weary eyes is that sad sight of strength brought so low that it hangs upon thy weakness like a babe to its mother’s breast! For, Charmion, thou dost love this man who loves thee not, and now that he is helpless thou canst pour thy passion forth over the unanswering darkness of his soul, and cheat thyself with dreams of what yet might be.”
“I love him not, as thou hast proof, O Queen! How can I love one who would have slain thee, who art as my heart’s sister? It is for pity that I nurse him.”
She laughed a little as she answered, “Pity is love’s own twin, Charmion. Wondrous wayward are the paths of woman’s love, and thou hast shown thine strangely, that I know. But the more high the love, the deeper the gulf whereinto it can fall—ay, and thence soar again to heaven, once more to fall! Poor woman! thou art thy passion’s plaything: now tender as the morning sky, and now, when jealousy grips thy heart, more cruel than the sea. Well, thus are we made. Soon, after all this troubling, nothing will be left thee but tears, remorse, and—memory.”
And she went forth.
CHAPTER XIV
OF THE TENDER CARE OF CHARMION; OF THE HEALING OF HARMACHIS; OF THE SAILING OF THE FLEET OF CLEOPATRA FOR CILICIA; AND OF THE SPEECH OF BRENNUS TO HARMACHIS
Cleopatra went, and for a while I lay silent, gathering up my strength to speak. But Charmion came and stood over me, and I felt a great tear fall from her dark eyes upon my face, as the first heavy drop of rain falls from a thunder cloud.
“Thou goest,” she whispered; “thou goest fast whither I may not follow! O Harmachis, how gladly would I give my life for thine!”
Then at length I opened my eyes, and spoke as best I could:
“Restrain thy grief, dear friend,” I said, “I live yet; and, in truth, I feel as though new life gathered in my breast!”
She gave a little cry of joy, and I never saw aught more beautiful than the change that came upon her weeping face! It was as when the first lights of the day run up the pallor of that sad sky which veils the night from dawn. All rosy grew her lovely countenance; her dim eyes shone out like stars; and a smile of wonderment, more sweet than the sudden smile of the sea as its ripples wake to brightness beneath the kiss of the risen moon, broke through her rain of tears.
“Thou livest!” she cried, throwing herself on her knees beside my couch. “Thou livest—and I thought thee gone! Thou art come back to me! Oh! what say I? How foolish is a woman’s heart! ‘Tis this long watching! Nay; sleep and rest thee, Harmachis!—why dost thou talk? Not one more word, I command thee straitly! Where is the draught left by that long-bearded fool? Nay thou shalt have no draught! There, sleep, Harmachis; sleep!” and she crouched down at my side and laid her cool hand upon my brow, murmuring, “Sleep! sleep!”
And when I woke there she was still, but the lights of dawn were peeping through the casement. There she knelt, one hand upon my forehead, and her head, in all its disarray of curls, resting upon her outstretched arm.
“Charmion,” I whispered, “have I slept?”
Instantly she was wide awake, and, gazing on me with tender eyes, “Yea, thou hast slept, Harmachis.”
“How long, then, have I slept?”
“Nine hours.”
“And thou hast held thy place there, at my side, for nine long hours?”
“Yes, it is nothing; I also have slept—I feared to waken thee if I stirred.”
“Go, rest,” I said; “it shames me to think of this thing. Go rest thee, Charmion!”
“Vex not thyself,” she answered; “see, I will bid a slave watch thee, and to wake me if thou needest aught; I sleep there, in the outer chamber. Peace—I go!” and she strove to rise, but, so cramped was she, fell straightway on the floor.
I can scarcely tell the sense of shame that filled me when I saw her fall. Alas! I could not stir to help her.
“It is naught,” she said; “move not, I did but catch my foot. There!” and she rose, again to fall—“a pest upon my awkwardness! Why—I must be sleeping. ‘Tis well now. I’ll send the slave;” and she staggered thence like one overcome with wine.
And after that, I slept once more, for I was very weak. When I woke it was afternoon, and I craved for food, which Charmion brought me.
I ate. “Then I die not,” I said.
“Nay,” she answered, with a toss of her head, “thou wilt live. In truth, I did waste my pity on thee.”
“And thy pity saved my life,” I said wearily, for now I remembered.
“It is nothing,” she answered carelessly. “After all, thou art my cousin; also, I love nursing—it is a woman’s trade. Like enough I had done as much for any slave. Now, too, that the danger is past, I leave thee.”
“Thou hadst done better to let me die, Charmion,” I said after a while, “for life to me can now be only one long shame. Tell me, then, when sails Cleopatra for Cilicia?”
“She sails in twenty days, and with such pomp and glory as Egypt has never seen. Of a truth, I cannot guess where she has found the means to gather in this store of splendour, as a husbandman gathers his golden harvest.”
But I, knowing whence the wealth came, groaned in bitterness of spirit, and made no answer.
“Goest thou also, Charmion?” I asked presently.
“Ay, I and all the Court. Thou, too—thou goest.”
“I go? Nay, why is this?”
“Because thou art Cleopatra’s slave, and must march in gilded chains behind her chariot; because she fears to leave thee here in Khem; because it is her will, and there is an end.”
“Charmion, can I not escape?”
“Escape, thou poor sick man? Nay, how canst thou escape? Even now thou art most strictly guarded. And if thou didst escape, whither wouldst thou fly? There’s not an honest man in Egypt but would spit on thee in scorn!”
Once more I groaned in spirit, and, being so very weak, I felt the tears roll adown my cheek.
“Weep not!” she said hastily, and turning her face aside. “Be a man, and brave these troubles out. Thou hast sown, now must thou reap; but after harvest the waters rise and wash away the rotting roots, and then seed-time comes again. Perchance, yonder in Cilicia, a way may be found, when once more thou art strong, by which thou mayst fly—if in truth thou canst bear thy life apart from Cleopatra’s smile; then in some far land must thou dwell till these things are forgotten. And now my task is done, so fare thee well! At times I will come to visit thee and see that thou needest nothing.”
So she went, and I was nursed thenceforward, and that skilfully, by the physician and two women-slaves; and as my wound healed so my strength came back to me, slowly at first, then most swiftly. In four days from that time I left my couch, and in three more I could walk an hour in the palace gardens; another week and I could read and think, though I went no more to Court. And at length one afternoon Charmion came and bade me make ready, for the fleet would sail in two days, first for the coast of Syria, and thence to the gulf of Issus and Cilicia.
Thereon, with all formality, and in writing, I craved leave of Cleopatra that I might be left, urging that my health was so feeble that I could not travel. But a message was sent to me in answer that I must come.
And so, on the appointed day, I was carried in a litter down to the boat, and together with that very soldier who had cut me down, the Captain Brennus, and others of his troop (who, indeed, were sent to guard me), we rowed aboard a vessel where she lay at anchor with the rest of the great fleet. For Cleopatra was voyaging as though to war in much pomp, and escorted by a fleet of ships, among which her galley, built like a house and lined throughout with cedar and silken hangings, was the most beautiful and costly that the world has ever seen. But I went not on this vessel, and therefore it chanced that I did not see Cleopatra or Charmion till we landed at the mouth of the river Cydnus.
The signal being made, the fleet set sail; and, the wind being fair, we came to Joppa on the evening of the second day. Thence we sailed slowly with contrary winds up the coast of Syria, making Cæsarea, and Ptolemais, and Tyrus, and Berytus, and past Lebanon’s white brow crowned with his crest of cedars, on to Heraclea and across the gulf of Issus to the mouth of Cydnus. And ever as we journeyed, the strong breath of the sea brought back my health, till at length, save for a line of white upon my head where the sword had fallen, I was almost as I had been. And one night, as we drew near Cydnus, while Brennus and I sat alone together on the deck, his eye fell upon the white mark his sword had made, and he swore a great oath by his heathen Gods. “An thou hadst died, lad,” he said, “methinks I could never again have held up my head! Ah! that was a coward stroke, and I am shamed to think that it was I who struck it, and thou on the ground with thy back to me! Knowest thou that when thou didst lie between life and death, I came every day to ask tidings of thee? and I swore by Taranis that if thou didst die I’d turn my back upon that soft palace life and then away for the bonny North.”
