"The best of all," he whispered, and his eyes filled.
Before others he knew that he must control himself, and, to prevent their example being followed, he invented a tale to explain the departure. According to this falsehood, all three of these men were debauchees, who, unable to remain longer away from their mistresses, had gone to rejoin them. Other cases of desertion occurred, however. It was like an epidemic in which the poison spreads quickly.
After a scene with Cleopatra, who accused him of abusing her to Antony, Fortunius resolved to quit the nest of hate and intrigue which the headquarters had become. A boat, his baggage, everything was in readiness the following night when, before setting foot on the quay, the Senator was seized and put to death. Other executions followed and terror was widespread through the camp.
Antony was a changed man. He had completely lost his old, genial manner. The least annoyance upset him. A storm at sea served to convince him that all the vessels which had preceded him in the Gulf of Ambracia had gone to the bottom. A prey to a kind of vertigo, he was suspicious of his most devoted friends. He even accused Caius Sossius, the man who had given endless proofs of his friendship, of having delivered into the enemy's hands a detachment of troops in the passes of Epirus.
Like all his contemporaries, Antony had great faith in presentiments. They made an indelible impression on his mind. He saw the will of the gods revealed in them. He never failed to put on his right boot first; he kept silence in the dark; he always left a gathering if a mouse were heard; he never undertook anything without consulting the soothsayers, and only decided when they pronounced the comforting words: "Go, the blood of the victims speaks in your behalf." During the last summer that he spent at Athens, that summer of the year 31, when men's minds were seething like liquids in a vat, his statue, put up by the populace in his honour, had been overthrown in a thunderstorm. His terror was such that, while awaiting the doctors, his faithful Eros had to rub him vigorously with a strong ointment of warm oil and ammonia to revive him.
In the last days of the month of August his deep depression increased. As the inevitable day drew near, in place of the exhilaration, which formerly on the eve of battle had made him like a flashing god, he was sad, exhausted. It seemed as though all his muscular force had been suddenly taken away. For hours he sat motionless, as though the slightest movement would overwhelm him.
One morning, however, he came out of his torpor and went on board the Antoniad to review the fleet which lay in the Bay of Actium. It was there that Octavius, with his two hundred and fifty triremes with their curved prows, his hundred rapid despatch-boats, awaited him. Antony's fleet was much the larger. Well armed and equipped with formidable engines, it should have inspired him with confidence. He was cheered when his lieutenant, Alexas, called his attention to the good luck presaged by the swallows' nest in the rigging. His face lighted up; he jested.
"Before another moon the tiny galleys of Octavius will have fled before our ships, scattered like a pack of hounds."
At last his soldiers recognized their old leader. They gave him an ovation. But the next day other swallows flew in, killed the first and destroyed their young ones. And no sign brought such evil fortune as that!
Cleopatra, a true Greek, had the characteristic Grecian philosophy and did not share her lover's superstitions. To be convinced that she had taken all proper measures to insure success seemed more important to her than considering the blood of the victims! She had also that confidence in destiny which is natural to all beautiful women, who imagine that the gods, like men, will obey their wishes. Consequently she made her plans carefully, sure that they would succeed.