So they had changed their views, and the King was coming in person to
receive their guest. The troops encamped on the flat shore on which
stood the Temple of the Casian Amon.

"The September sun shone brightly, and was reflected from the weapons.
From the high bank of the dry bed of the river, where we had pitched our
tent, we saw something scarlet move to and fro. It was the King's
mantle. The waves, stirred by the autumn breeze, rippled lightly, blue
as cornflowers, over the yellow sand of the dunes; but the King stood
still, shading his eyes with his hand as he gazed at the galley.
Meanwhile, Achillas, the commander of the troops, and Septimius, the
tribune, who belonged to the Roman garrison in Alexandria, and who, I
knew, had served under Pompey and owed him many favours, had entered a
boat and put off to the vessel, which could not come nearer the land on
account of the shallow water.

"The conference now began, and Achillas's offer of hospitality must have
been very warm and well calculated to inspire confidence, for a tall
lady--it was Cornelia, the wife of the Imperator--waved her hand to him
in token of gratitude."

Here the speaker paused, drew a long breath, and, pressing his hand to
his brow, continued "What follows--alas, that it was my fate to witness
the dreadful scene! How often a garbled account has been given, and yet
the whole was so terribly simple!

"Fortune makes her favourites confiding. Pompey was also. Though
more than fifty years old--he lacked two years of sixty--he sprang into
the boat quickly enough, with merely a little assistance from a freedman.
A sailor--he was a negro--shoved the skiff off from the side of the huge