as of old, but, oh! how changed since that night when I saw Antony clasp her in his arms at Tarsus!  Her beauty still clothed her like a garment; the eyes were yet deep and unfathomable as the blue sea, the face still splendid in its great loveliness.  And yet all was changed.  Time, that could not touch her charms, had stamped upon her presence such a look of weary grief as may not be written.  Passion, beating ever in that fierce heart of hers, had written his record on her brow, and in her eyes shone the sad lights of sorrow.

I bowed low before this most royal woman, who once had been my love and destruction, and yet knew me not.

She looked up wearily, and spoke in her slow, well remembered voice: 

“So thou art come at length, Physician.  How callest thou thyself?—­Olympus?  ’Tis a name of promise, for surely now that the Gods of Egypt have deserted us, we do need aid from Olympus.  Well, thou hast a learned air, for learning does not with beauty.  Strange, too, there is that about thee which recalls what I know not.  Say, Olympus, have we met before?”

“Never, O Queen, have my eyes fallen on thee in the body,” I answered in a feigned voice.  “Never till this hour, when I come forth from my solitude to do thy bidding and cure thee of thy ills!”

“Strange! and even in the voice—­Pshaw! ’tis some memory that I cannot catch.  In the body, thou sayest? then, perchance, I knew thee in a dream?”

“Ay, O Queen; we have met in dreams.”

“Thou art a strange man, who talkest thus, but, if what I hear be true, one well learned; and, indeed, I mind me of thy counsel when thou didst bid me join my Lord Antony in Syria, and how things befell according to thy word.  Skilled must thou be in the casting of nativities and in the law of auguries, of which these Alexandrian fools have little knowledge.  Once I knew such another man, one Harmachis,” and she sighed:  “but he is long dead—­as I would I were also!—­and at times I sorrow for him.”

She paused, while I sank my head upon my breast and stood silent.

“Interpret me this, Olympus.  In the battle at that accursed Actium, just as the fight raged thickest and Victory began to smile upon us, a great terror seized my heart, and thick darkness seemed to fall before my eyes, while in my ears a voice, ay, the voice of that long dead Harmachis, cried ‘Fly! fly, or perish!’ and I fled.  But from my heart the terror leapt to the heart of Antony, and he followed after me, and thus was the battle lost.  Say, then, what God brought this evil thing about?”

“Nay, O Queen,” I answered, “it was no God—­for wherein hast thou angered the Gods of Egypt?  Hast thou robbed the temples of their Faith?  Hast thou betrayed the trust of Egypt?  Having done none of these things, how, then, can the Gods of Egypt be wroth with thee?  Fear not, it was nothing but some natural vapour of the mind that overcame thy gentle soul, made sick with the sight and sound of slaughter; and as for the noble Antony, where thou didst go needs must that he should follow.”