Cleopatra
Page 26
CHAPTER XII
OF THE COMING BACK OF HARMACHIS; OF THE GREETING OF CHARMION; AND OFTHE ANSWER OF CLEOPATRA TO QUINTUS DELLIUS, THE AMBASSADOR OF ANTONY THETRIUMVIR
Presently I lifted myself, and, laying the head of Egypt's Queen upon myknee, strove to call her back to life. How fair she seemed, even in herdisarray, her long hair streaming down her breast! how deadly fair sheseemed in the faint light--this woman the story of whose beauty andwhose sin shall outlive the solid mass of the mighty pyramid thattowered over us! The heaviness of her swoon had smoothed away thefalseness of her face, and nothing was left but the divine stampof Woman's richest loveliness, softened by shadows of the night anddignified by the cast of deathlike sleep. I gazed upon her and all myheart went out to her; it seemed that I did but love her more because ofthe depth of the treasons to which I had sunk to reach her, and becauseof the terrors we had outfaced together. Weary and spent with fears andthe pangs of guilt, my heart sought hers for rest, for now she alone wasleft to me. She had sworn to wed me also, and with the treasure wehad won we would make Egypt strong and free her from her foes, and allshould yet be well. Ah! could I have seen the picture that was to come,how, and in what place and circumstance, once again this very woman'shead should be laid upon my knee, pale with that cast of death! Ah!could I have seen!
I chafed her hand between my hands. I bent down and kissed her on thelips, and at my kiss she woke. She woke with a little sob of fear--ashiver ran along her delicate limbs, and she stared upon my face withwide eyes.
"Ah! it is thou!" she said. "I mind me--thou hast saved me from thathorror-haunted place!" And she threw her arms about my neck, drew me toher and kissed me. "Come, love," she said, "let us be going! I am soreathirst, and--ah! so very weary! The gems, too, chafe my breast! Neverwas wealth so hardly won! Come, let us be going from the shadow of thisghostly spot! See the faint lights glancing from the wings of Dawn. Howbeautiful they are, and how sweet to behold! Never, in those Halls ofEternal Night, did I think to look upon the blush of dawn again! Ah! Ican still see the face of that dead slave, with the Horror hanging tohis beardless chin! Bethink thee!--there he'll sit for ever--there--withthe Horror! Come; where may we find water? I would give an emerald for acup of water!"
"At the canal on the borders of the tilled land below the Temple ofHoremkhu--it is close by," I answered. "If any see us, we will say thatwe are pilgrims who have lost our way at night among the tombs. Veilthyself closely, therefore, Cleopatra; and beware lest thou dost showaught of those gems about thee."
So she veiled herself, and I lifted her on to the ass which was tetherednear at hand. We walked slowly through the plain till we came to theplace where the symbol of the God Horemkhu,[*] fashioned as a mightySphinx (whom the Greeks call Harmachis), and crowned with the royalcrown of Egypt, looks out in majesty across the land, his eyes everfixed upon the East. As we walked the first arrow of the rising sunquivered through the grey air, striking upon Horemkhu's lips of holycalm, and the Dawn kissed her greeting to the God of Dawn. Then thelight gathered and grew upon the gleaming sides of twenty pyramids, and,like a promise from Life to Death, rested on the portals of ten thousandtombs. It poured in a flood of gold across the desert sand--it piercedthe heavy sky of night, and fell in bright beams upon the green offields and the tufted crest of palms. Then from his horizon bed royal Rarose up in pomp and it was day.
[*] That is, "Horus on the horizon"; and signifies the power of Light and Good overcoming the power of Darkness and Evil incarnate in his enemy, Typhon.--Editor.
Passing the temple of granite and of alabaster that was built before thedays of Khufu, to the glory of the Majesty of Horemkhu, we descendedthe slope, and came to the banks of the canal. There we drank; andthat draught of muddy water was sweeter than all the choicest wine ofAlexandria. Also we washed the mummy dust and grime from our handsand brows and made us clean. As she bathed her neck, stooping over thewater, one of the great emeralds slipped from Cleopatra's breast andfell into the canal, and it was but by chance that at length I foundit in the mire. Then, once more, I lifted Cleopatra onto the beast, andslowly, for I was very weary, we marched back to the banks of Sihor,where our craft was. And having at length come thither, seeing no onesave some few peasants going out to labour on the lands, I turned theass loose in that same field where we had found him, and we boarded thecraft while the crew were yet sleeping. Then, waking them, we bade themmake all sail, saying that we had left the eunuch to sojourn a whilebehind us, as in truth we had. So we sailed, having first hidden awaythe gems and such of the ornaments of gold as we could bring to theboat.
We spent four days and more in coming to Alexandria, for the windwas for the most part against us; and they were happy days! At first,indeed, Cleopatra was somewhat silent and heavy at heart, for what shehad seen and felt in the womb of the pyramid weighed her down. But soonher Imperial spirit awoke and shook the burden from her breast, and shebecame herself again--now gay, now learned; now loving, and now cold;now queenly, and now altogether simple--ever changing as the winds ofheaven, and as the heaven, deep, beauteous, and unsearchable!
Night after night for those four perfect nights, the last happy hours Iever was to know, we sat hand in hand upon the deck and heard the waterslap the vessel's side, and watched the soft footfall of the moon as shetrod the depths of Nile. There we sat and talked of love, talked of ourmarriage and all that we would do. Also I drew up plans of war and ofdefence against the Roman, which now we had the means to carry out; andshe approved them, sweetly saying that what seemed good to me was goodto her. And so the time passed all too swiftly.
Oh those nights upon the Nile! their memory haunts me yet! Yet inmy dreams I see the moonbeams break and quiver, and hear Cleopatra'smurmured words of love mingle with the sound of murmuring waters. Deadare those dear nights, dead is the moon that lit them; the waters whichrocked us on their breast are lost in the wide salt sea, and where wekissed and clung there lips unborn shall kiss and cling! How beautifulwas their promise, doomed, like an unfruitful blossom, to wither, fall,and rot! and their fulfilment, ah, how drear! For all things end indarkness and in ashes, and those who sow in folly shall reap in sorrow.Ah! those nights upon the Nile!
And so at length once more we stood within the hateful walls of thatfair palace on the Lochias, and the dream was done.