of her child, which blossoms for every hired nurse, must be as waste as
the desert! Rather would I endure anything--everything--with patience
than be such a queen!"




CHAPTER VIII.

"What! No one to come to meet me?" asked the queen, as she reached the
foot of the last flight of porphyry steps that led into the ante-chamber
to the banqueting-hall, and, looking round, with an ominous glance, at
the chamberlains who had accompanied her, she clinched her small fist.
"I arrive and find no one here!"

The "No one" certainly was a figure of speech, since more than a hundred
body-guards-Macedonians in rich array of arms-and an equal number of
distinguished court-officials were standing on the marble flags of the
vast hall, which was surrounded by colonnades, while the star-spangled
night-sky was all its roof; and the court-attendants were all men of
rank, dignified by the titles of fathers, brothers, relatives, friends
and chief-friends of the king.

These all received the queen with a many-voiced "Hail!" but not one of
them seemed worthy of Cleopatra's notice. This crowd was less to her
than the air we breathe in order to live--a mere obnoxious vapor, a whirl
of dust which the traveller would gladly avoid, but which he must
nevertheless encounter in order to proceed on his way.

The queen had expected that the few guests, invited by her selection and