Cleopatra prepared the body for burial with her own hands, dug the grave alone, and with her women laid the body to rest, and she alone gave the funeral address.
Cæsar was gentle, gracious, kind. Assurances came that he would do neither the city nor the Queen the slightest harm.
Cleopatra demanded Egypt for her children, and for herself she wished only the privilege of living with her grief in obscurity. Cæsar would make no promises for her children, but as for herself she should still be Queen—they were of one age—why should not Cæsar and Cleopatra still rule, just as, indeed, a Cæsar had ruled before!
But this woman had loved the Great Cæsar, and now her heart was in the grave with Mark Antony—she scorned the soft, insinuating promises.
She clothed herself in her most costly robes, wearing the pearls and gems that Antony had given her, and upon her head was the diadem that proclaimed her Queen. A courier from Cæsar's camp knocked at the door of the mausoleum, but he knocked in vain.
Finally a ladder was procured, and he climbed to the window through which the body of Antony had been lifted.
In the lower room he saw the Queen seated in her golden chair of state, robed and serene, dead. At her feet lay Iras, lifeless. The faithful Charmion stood as if in waiting at the back of her mistress' chair, giving a final touch to the diadem that sat upon the coils of her lustrous hair.
The messenger from Cæsar stood in the door aghast—orders had been given that Cleopatra should not be harmed, neither should she be allowed to harm herself.
Now she had escaped!
"Charmion!" called the man in stern rebuke. "How was this done?"