CHAPTER XXII.
Dion, too, witnessed the departure of the troops. Gorgias, whom he hadfound among the Ephebi, accompanied him and, like the Queen, they saw,in the cautious manner with which the army greeted the general, a badomen for the result of the battle. The architect had presented Dionto the youths as the ghost of a dead man, who, as soon as he was askedwhence he came or whither he was going, would be compelled to vanishin the form of a fly. He could venture to do this; he knew theEphebi--there was no traitor in their ranks.
Dion, the former head of the society, had been welcomed like a belovedbrother risen from the dead, and he had the gratification, after solong a time, of turning the scale as speaker in a debate. True, he hadencountered very little opposition, for the resolve to hold aloof fromthe battle against the Romans had been urged upon the Ephebi by theQueen herself through Antyllus, who, however, had already left themeeting when Dion joined it. It had seemed to Cleopatra a crime to claimthe blood of the noblest sons of the city for a cause which she herselfdeemed lost. She knew the parents of many, and feared that Octavianuswould inflict a terrible punishment upon them if, not being enrolled inthe army, they fell into his power with arms in their hands.
The stars were already setting when the Ephebi accompanied their friend,singing in chorus the Hymenaeus, which they had been unable to chant onhis wedding day. The melody of lutes accompanied the voices, and thisnocturnal music was the source of the rumour that the god Dionysus, towhom Mark Antony felt specially akin, and in whose form he had so oftenappeared to the people, had abandoned him amid songs and music.
The youths left Dion in front of the Temple of Isis. Gorgias aloneremained with him. The architect led his friend to the Queen's mausoleumnear the sanctuary, where men were toiling busily by torchlight. Alightscaffolding still surrounded it, but the lofty first story, containingthe real tomb, was completed, and Dion admired the art with which theexterior of the edifice suggested its purpose. Huge blocks of dark-greygranite formed the walls. The broad front-solemn, almost gloomy inaspect-rose, sloping slightly, above the massive lofty door, surmountedby a moulding bearing the winged disk of the sun. On either side wereniches containing statues of Antony and Cleopatra cast in dark bronze,and above the cornice were brazen figures of Love and Death, Fame andSilence, ennobling the Egyptian forms with exquisite works of Hellenicart.
The massive door, adorned with brass figures in relief, would haveresisted a battering-ram. On the side of the steps leading to it laySphinxes of dark-green diorite. Everything connected with thisbuilding, dedicated to death, was grave and massive, suggesting by itsindestructibility the idea of eternity.
The second story was not yet finished; masons and stone-cutters wereengaged in covering the strong walls with dark serpentine and blackmarble. The huge windlass stood ready to raise a masterpiece ofAlexandrian art. This was intended for the pediment, and representedVenus Victrix with helmet, shield, and lance, leading a band of wingedgods of love, little archers at whose head Eros himself was dischargingarrows, and victoriously fighting against the three-headed Cerberus,death, already bleeding from many wounds.
There was no time to see the interior of the building, for Pyrrhusexpected his guest to join him at the harbour at sunrise, and theeastern sky was already brightening with the approach of dawn.
As the friends reached the landing-place the brass dome of the Serapeum,which towered above everything, was glittering with dazzling splendour.
The pennons and masts of the fleet which was about to set sail from theharbour seemed steeped in a sea of golden light. Tremulous reflectionsof the brazen and gilded figures on the prows of the vessels weremirrored in the undulating surface of the sea, and the long shadows ofthe banks of oars united galley after galley on the surface of the waterlike the meshes of a net.
Here the friends parted, and Dion walked down the quay alone to meet thefreedman, who must have found it difficult to guide his boat out of thislabyrinth of vessels. The inspection of the mausoleum had detainedthe young father too long and, though disguised beyond recognition,he reproached himself for having recklessly incurred a danger whoseconsequences--he felt this to-day for the first time--would not injurehimself alone. The whole fleet was awaiting the signal for departure.The vessels which did not belong to it had been obliged to moor in frontof the Temple of Poseidon, and all were strictly forbidden to leave theanchorage.
Pyrrhus's fishing-boat was in the midst, and return to the SerpentIsland was impossible at present.
How vexatious! Barine was ignorant of his trip to the city, and tobe compelled to leave her alone while a naval battle was in progressdirectly before her eyes distressed him as much as it could not fail toalarm her.
In fact, the young mother had waited from early dawn with increasinganxiety for her husband. As the sun rose higher, and the strokes of theoars propelling two hundred galleys, the shrill whistle of the flutesmarking the time, the deep voices of the captains shouting orders, andthe blasts of the trumpets filling the air, were heard far and neararound the island, she became so overwhelmed with uneasiness that sheinsisted upon going to the shore, though hitherto she had not beenpermitted to take the air except under the awning stretched for thepurpose on the shady side of the house.
In vain the women urged her not to let her fears gain the mastery and tohave patience. But she would have resisted even force in order to lookfor him who, with her child, now comprised her world.
When, leaning on Helena's arm, she reached the shore, no boat was insight. The sea was covered with ships of war, floating fortresses,moving onward like dragons with a thousand legs whose feet were thecountless rowers arranged in three or five sets. Each of the largergalleys was surrounded by smaller ones, from most of which darteddazzling flashes of light, for they were crowded with armed men, andfrom the prows of the strong boarding vessels the sunbeams glitteredon the large shining metal points whose office was to pierce the woodensides of the foe. The gilded statues in the prows of the large galleysshone and sparkled in the broad radiance of the day-star, and flashesof light also came from the low hills on the shore. Here Mark Antony'ssoldiers were stationed, and the sunbeams reflected from the helmets,coats of mail, and lance-heads of the infantry, and the armour of thehorsemen quivered with dazzling brilliancy in the hot air of the firstday of an Egyptian August.
Amid this blazing, flashing, and sparkling in the morning air, sosteeped in warmth and radiance, the sounds of warlike preparations fromthe land and fleet constantly grew louder. Barine, exhausted, had justsunk into a chair which Dione, the fisherman's daughter, had placedin the shade of the highest rock on the northwestern shore of the flatisland, when a crashing blast of the tuba suddenly echoed from all thegalleys in the Egyptian fleet, and the whole array of vessels filed pastthe Pharos at the opening of the harbour into the open sea.
There the narrow ranks of the wooden giants separated and moved onwardin broader lines. This was done quietly and in the same faultless orderas a few days before, when a similar manoeuvre had been executed underthe eyes of Mark Antony.
The longing for combat seemed to urge them steadily forward.
The hostile fleet, lying motionless, awaited the attack. But theEgyptian assailants had advanced majestically only a few ships lengthstowards the Roman foe when another signal rent the air. The women whoseears caught the waves of sound said afterwards that it seemed like a cryof agony--it had given the signal for a deed of unequalled treachery.The slaves, criminals, and the basest of the mercenaries on the rowers'benches in the hold had doubtless long listened intently for it, and,when it finally came, the men on the upper benches raised their longoars and held them aloft, which stopped the work of those below,and every galley paused, pointing at the next with the wooden oarsoutstretched like fingers, as if seized with horror. The celerity andfaultless order with which the raising of the oars was executed andvessel after vessel brought to a stand would have been a credit to anhonourable captain, but the manoeuvre introduced one of the basestacts ever recorded in
history; and the women, who had witnessed manya naumachza and understood its meaning, exclaimed as if with a singlevoice: "Treachery! They are going over to the enemy!"
Mark Antony's fleet, created for him by Cleopatra, surrendered, down tothe last galley, to Caesar's heir, the victor of Actium; and the man towhom the sailors had vowed allegiance, who had drilled them, and onlyyesterday had urged them to offer a gallant resistance, saw from oneof the downs on the shore the strong weapons on which he had based thefairest hopes, not shattered, but delivered into the hands of the enemy!
The surrender of the fleet to the foe--he knew it--sealed hisdestruction; and the women on the shore of the Serpent Island, who wereso closely connected with those on whom this misfortune fell, suspectedthe same thing. The hearts of both were stirred, and their eyes grew dimwith tears of indignation and sorrow. They were Alexandrians, and didnot desire to be ruled by Rome. Cleopatra, daughter of the Macedonianhouse of the Ptolemies, had the sole right to govern the city ofher ancestors, founded by the great Macedonian. The sorrow they hadthemselves endured through her sank into insignificance beside thetremendous blow of Fate which in this hour reached the Queen.
The Roman and Egyptian fleet returned to the harbour as one vastsquadron under the same commander, and anchored in the roadstead of thecity, which was now its precious booty.
Barine had seen enough, and returned to the house with drooping head.Her heart was heavy, and her anxiety for the man she loved hourlyincreased.
It seemed as if the very day-star shrank from illuminating so infamousa deed with friendly light; for the dazzling, searching sun of the firstof August veiled its radiant face with a greyish-white mist, andthe desecrated sea wrinkled its brow, changed its pure azure robe toyellowish grey and blackish green, while the white foam hissed on thecrests of the angry waves.
As twilight began to approach, the anxiety of the deserted wife becameunendurable. Not only Helena's wise words of caution, but the sight ofher child, failed to exert their usual influence; and Barine had alreadysummoned the son of Pyrrhus to persuade him to take her in his boat tothe city, when Dione saw a boat approaching the Serpent Island from thedirection of the sea.
A short time after, Dion sprang on shore and kissed from his youngwife's lips the reproaches with which she greeted him.
He had heard of the treachery of the fleet while entering a hired boatwith the freedman in the harbour of Eunostus, Pyrrhus's having beendetained with the other craft before the Temple of Poseidon.
The experienced pilot had been obliged to steer the boat in a widercurve against the wind through the open sea, and was delayed a long timeby a number of the war vessels of the fleet.
Danger and separation were now passed, and they rejoiced in thehappiness of meeting, yet could not feel genuine joy. Their souls wereoppressed by anxiety concerning the fate of the Queen and their nativecity.
As night closed in the dogs barked violently, and they heard loud voiceson the shore. Dion, with a presentiment that misfortune was threateninghimself and his dear ones, obeyed the summons.
No star illumined the darkness. Only the wavering light of a lanternon the strand and another on the nearest island illumined the immediatevicinity, while southward the lights in the city shone as brightly asever.
Pyrrhus and his youngest son were just pushing a boat into the water torelease from the sands another which had run aground in a shallow nearthe neighbouring island.
Dion sprang in with them, and soon recognized in the hail the voice ofthe architect Gorgias.
The young father shouted a joyous greeting to his friend, but there wasno reply.
Soon after, Pyrrhus landed his belated guest on the shore. He hadescaped--as the fisherman explained--a great danger; for had he gone tothe other island, which swarmed with venomous serpents, he might easilyhave fallen a victim to the bite of one of the reptiles.
Gorgias grasped Dion's hand but, in reply to his gay invitation toaccompany him to the house at once, he begged him to listen to his storybefore joining the ladies.
Dion was startled. He knew his friend. When his deep voice had such atone of gloomy discouragement, and his head drooped so mournfully, someterrible event had befallen him.
His foreboding had been correct. The first tidings pierced his own souldeeply.
He was not surprised to learn that the Romans ruled Alexandria; but asmall band of the conquerors, who had been ordered to conduct themselvesas if they were in a friendly country, had forced their way into thearchitect's large house to occupy the quarters assigned to them. Thedeaf grandmother of Helena and Barine, who had but half comprehendedwhat threatened the citizens, terrified by the noisy entrance of thesoldiers, had had another attack of apoplexy, and closed her eyes indeath before Gorgias set out for the island.
But it was not only this sad event, which must grieve the hearts of thetwo sisters, that had brought the architect in a stranger's boat tothe Serpent Island at so late an hour. His soul was so agitated by thehorrible incidents of the day that he needed to seek consolation amongthose from whom he was sure to find sympathy.
Nor was it wholly the terrible things Fate had compelled him to witnesswhich induced him to venture out upon the sea so recklessly, but stillmore the desire to bring to the fugitives the happy news that they mightreturn with safety to their native city.
Deeply agitated--nay, confused and overpowered by all he had seen andexperienced--the architect, usually so clear and, with all his mentalvivacity, so circumspect, began his story. A remonstrance from Dioninduced him to collect his thoughts and describe events in the order inwhich they had befallen him.