neighboring mountains. I would rather have accompanied the Queen, seeing
it was so certain that important interviews and discussions would take
place, when they should be all returned once more to the city. I suppose
this was expressed in my countenance, for the Queen, as she took her seat
in the chariot, turned and said to me: 'We shall soon see you again in the
city. A few hours in the mountains will be all that Julia will require;
and sure I am that the wisdom of St. Thomas will more than repay you for
what you may lose in Palmyra. Our topics will relate but to worldly
aggrandizement--yours to more permanent interests.'

How great a pity that the love of glory has so fastened upon the heart of
this wonderful woman; else might she live, and reign, and die the object
of universal idolatry. But set as her heart is upon conquest and universal
empire throughout the East, and of such marvellous power to subdue every
intellect, even the strongest, to her will, I can see nothing before her
but a short and brilliant career, ending in ruin, absolute and complete.
Zenobia has not, or will not allow it to be seen that she has, any proper
conception of the power of Rome. She judges of Rome by the feeble
Valerian, and the unskilful Heraclianus, and by their standard measures
such men as Aurelian, and Probus, and Carus. She may indeed gain a single
battle, for her genius is vast, and her troops well disciplined and brave.
But the loss of a battle would be to her the loss of empire, while to Rome
it would be but as the sting of a summer insect. Yet this she does not or
will not see. To triumph over Aurelian is, I believe, the vision that
dazzles, deludes, and will destroy her.

No sooner had the Queen and her train departed, than, mounting our horses,
we took our way, Julia, Fausta, and myself, through winding valleys and
over rugged hills, toward the hermit's retreat. Reaching the base of what
seemed an almost inaccessible crag, we found it necessary to leave our