"Are you strong enough to bear to hear great news?"

"Speak," she said in a low voice, and her eyes were fixed on his lips
while she pressed her hand on her heart. Her anxiety to hear fettered
her to him, as with a tangible tie, and he, as if he must burst it by the
force of his utterance, said with awful solemnity, in his deepest tones
and emphasizing every syllable:

"Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica is dead."

At these words Cleopatra's pale cheeks were suddenly dyed with a crimson
glow, and clenching her little hands she struck them together, and
exclaimed with flashing eyes:

"I hoped so!"

Euergetes withdrew a step from his sister, and said: "You were right.
It is not only among the race of gods that the most fearful of all are
women!"

"What have you to say?" retorted Cleopatra. "And am I to believe that a
toothache has kept the Roman away from the banquet yesterday, and again
from coming to see me to-day? Am I to repeat, after you, that he died of
it? Now, speak out, for it rejoices my heart to hear it; where and how
did the insolent hypocrite meet his end?"

"A serpent stung him," replied Euergetes, turning from his sister. "It
was in the desert, not far from the Apis-tombs."

"He had an assignation in the Necropolis at midnight--it would seem to