But they came too late. The gods keep guard over those who resemble them. They had saved Cleopatra. Nothing could give her back to the hate of her enemies.
The first attendant to enter the room found her on her purple bed, which was upheld by the four sphinxes. All white, in the midst of flowers she seemed asleep. Her face had the serenity which comes from a duty fulfilled. With a reverent gesture, Charmian, staggering, with half closed eyes, was arranging her diadem.
"How fine that is!" railed Epaphroditus maliciously, furious that his watchfulness had been in vain.
"A superb pose, worthy of the daughter of many kings," the Athenian girl found strength to whisper. Then she fell near the Queen whom even to her last sigh she had adorned, served with a divine worship.
For Octavius it was a rude shock. He remained dazed, as though in dying Cleopatra had robbed his victory of its glory. What would Rome say? And Italy? The people, that pack of hounds who were devoured with impatience to avenge on the Egyptian all the humiliations she had inflicted on their country? He who to-morrow would be Cæsar Augustus had not forgotten his revenge. His captive had escaped him, but her children should suffer for her sins. Neither the prayers that she had addressed to him nor the pleading of these bleating lambs, whose only crime was in being born, could soften his infamous heart.
Antyllas was his first victim. Cæsarion's remarkable resemblance to his father, which seemed to make the divine Cæsar live again, should have preserved that innocent youth. On the contrary, it was another reason for getting rid of him.
"There is no room for two Cæsars in this world," declared Octavius, and gave orders that the young boy left in his care be put to death. As to the other children that Cleopatra had borne Antony, too young to be a serious menace, they were carried in the triumphal procession to take the place of their mother.
Only one of the requests of the dead woman found grace with the conqueror. He contented himself with her effigy and abandoned the body to the Alexandrians, who claimed it. With reverent care, arranged as though for her marriage, they placed, in the same porphyry sepulchre where Antony lay, the body of the woman whose passionate love had lost him an empire, but who in exchange had given him immortality.
THE END