"Farewell, Chares, my lover!" she was saying to herself. "Upon thy funeral pyre my heart, too, is turning to ashes!"
"Thais," Ptolemy whispered, moved by her emotion without knowing its cause, "do not forget that I love thee!"
"I do not forget," she replied, "nor have I forgotten another promise that I made; for I think the Gods have sent thee to me. To-morrow I will be thy wife; and when this war has reached its end, thou shalt reign in Alexandria over Egypt with me at thy side."
"Thais!" Ptolemy exclaimed, clasping her at last in his arms.
So Thais, the Athenian dancing girl, kept her pledge; but through the length and breadth of the land ran the news that the home of the Great Kings had been laid in ashes, and men knew that, though Darius still lived, his power indeed was gone forever.
CHAPTER LI
AMID FRAGMENTS OF EMPIRE
Clearchus and Artemisia were walking in the garden of their home in Alexandria. Between the trunks of the trees, at a distance, they could see the roofs and towers of the populous city, and across the blue water, which began where the slopes of verdure ended, they could watch the white sails of ships bringing trade from all parts of the world. Ten years had passed since the palaces of Persepolis had crumbled into ashes. Alexander had been dead three years, and his body lay in the royal tomb at the mouth of the Nile, whither Ptolemy had brought it from Babylon, when the empire was divided among the Macedonian generals and he came to rule over Egypt in place of the rapacious Cleomenes.
Artemisia's figure had lost some of its girlish grace, but her blue eyes retained their clearness and her cheeks the delicate flush of her youth. Clearchus, too, was heavier than he had been when he fought among the Companions under Alexander, whom men were beginning to call "the Great."