a joyous festal song!--And you, Metrodor, lead the dancers! The first
beaker to the fairest, the best, the wisest, the most cherished, the most
fervently beloved of women!" As he spoke he waved his goblet aloft, the
flute-player, Xuthus, beckoned to the chorus, and the dancer Metrodor,
in the guise of a butterfly, led forth a bevy of beautiful girls, who,
in the cloud of ample robes of transparent coloured bombyx which floated
around them, executed the most graceful figures and now hovered like
mists, now flitted to and fro as if borne on wings, affording the most
charming variety to the delighted spectators.

The "Comrades of Death" had again become companions in pleasure; and when
Charmian, who did not lose sight of her mistress, noticed the sorrowful
quiver of her lips and glided out of the circle of guests, the faithful
Nubian had approached to inform her of Dion's arrival.

Then--but this she concealed from her friends--she hastened to her own
apartments to prepare to go out, and when Iras opened the door to enter
her rooms she went to speak to her about the night attendance upon the
Queen. But her niece had not perceived her; shaken by convulsive sobs,
she had pressed her face among the cushions of a couch, and there
suffered the fierce anguish which had stirred the inmost depths of her
being to rave itself out with the full vehemence of her passionate
nature. Charmian called her name and, weeping herself, ripened her arms
to her, and for the first time since her return from Actium her sister's
daughter again sank upon her breast, and they held each other in a close
embrace until Charmian's exclamation, "With her, for her unto death!"
was answered by Iras's "To the tomb!"

This was a word which, in many an hour of the silent night, had stirred
the soul of the woman who had been the youthful playmate of the Queen