AUTHOR'S NOTE

The history of the ruin of Antony and Cleopatra must have struck many
students of the records of their age as one of the most inexplicable
of tragic tales. What malign influence and secret hates were at work,
continually sapping their prosperity and blinding their judgment? Why
did Cleopatra fly at Actium, and why did Antony follow her, leaving his
fleet and army to destruction? An attempt is made in this romance to
suggest a possible answer to these and some other questions.

The reader is asked to bear in mind, however, that the story is told,
not from the modern point of view, but as from the broken heart and
with the lips of an Egyptian patriot of royal blood; no mere
beast-worshipper, but a priest instructed in the inmost mysteries, who
believed firmly in the personal existence of the gods of Khem, in the
possibility of communion with them, and in the certainty of immortal
life with its rewards and punishments; to whom also the bewildering and
often gross symbolism of the Osirian Faith was nothing but a veil woven
to obscure secrets of the Sanctuary. Whatever proportion of truth there
may have been in their spiritual claims and imaginings, if indeed there
was any, such men as the Prince Harmachis have been told of in the
annals of every great religion, and, as is shown by the testimony of
monumental and sacred inscriptions, they were not unknown among the
worshippers of the Egyptian Gods, and more especially of Isis.

Unfortunately it is scarcely possible to write a book of this nature and
period without introducing a certain amount of illustrative matter, for
by no other means can the long dead past be made to live again before
the reader's eyes with all its accessories of faded pomp and forgotten
mystery. To such students as seek a story only, and are not interested