After a voyage in which one pleasant day succeeded another, Cornelia awoke one morning to hear the creak of blocks and tackle as the sailors were lowering sail. The full banks of oars were plashing in the waves, and on deck many feet were rushing to and fro, while officers shouted their orders. Coming out of her cabin, the young lady saw that the end of her seafaring was close at hand. Even to one fresh from the azure atmosphere of the Campanian Bay, the sky was marvellously clear. The water was of a soft green tint, that shaded off here and there into dark cerulean. The wind was blowing in cool puffs out of the north. A long, slow swell made the stately triremes rock gracefully. Before them, in clear view, rose the tall tower of the Pharos,—the lighthouse of Alexandria,—and beyond it, on the low-lying mainland, rose in splendid relief against the cloudless sky the glittering piles and fanes of the city of the Ptolemies. It was a magnificent picture,—a "picture" because the colours everywhere were as bright as though laid on freshly by a painter's brush. The stonework of the buildings, painted to gaudy hues, brought out all the details of column, cornice, and pediment. Here Demetrius pointed out the Royal Palace, here the Theatre; here, farther inland, the Museum, where was the great University; in the distance the whole looked like a painting in miniature. Only there was more movement in this picture: a splendid yacht, with the gold and ivory glittering on its prow and poop, was shooting out from the royal dockyards in front of the palace; a ponderous corn-ship was spreading her dirty sails to try to beat out against the adverse breeze, and venture on a voyage to Rome, at a season when the Italian traffic was usually suspended. The harbour and quays were one forest of masts. Boats and small craft were gliding everywhere. Behind the pirate's triremes several large merchantmen were bearing into the harbour under a full press of sail.
"And this, your ladyship," said Demetrius, smiling, "is Egypt. Does the first sight please you?"
"Does it not!" exclaimed Cornelia, drinking in the matchless spectacle. "But you, kind sir, do you not run personal peril by putting into this haven for my sake?"
Demetrius laughed.
"It speaks ill for the law-abiding qualities of my countrymen, lady," said he, "that I have nothing now to fear. I have too many great friends both in the court and in the city to fear arrest or annoyance. Here I may not stay long, for if it were to be noised in Rome that a pirate were harboured habitually at Alexandria, a demand for my arrest would come to the king quickly enough, and he must needs comply. But for a few days, especially while all Rome is in chaos, I am safe; and, come what may, I would be first warned if any one intended to lay hands on me."
Indeed, Demetrius's boast as to his own importance in Alexandria was soon verified. The customs officials were all obsequiousness when they went through the form of levying on the cargo of the ship. The master of the port was soon in Demetrius's own cabin over a crater of excellent wine, and no sooner had the vessels touched the quay than their crews were fraternizing with the hosts of stevedores and flower-girls who swarmed to meet the new arrivals.
A few days later Cornelia and Fabia found themselves received as members of the household of no less a person than Cleomenes, a distant kinsman of Demetrius and Agias, and himself one of the great merchant princes of the Egyptian capital. The Roman ladies found a certain amount of shyness to overcome on their own part and on that of their hosts. Cleomenes himself was a widower, and his ample house was presided over by two dark-skinned, dark-eyed daughters, Berenice and Monime—girls who blended with the handsome Greek features of their father the soft, sensuous charm of his dead Egyptian wife. Bashful indeed had been these maidens in contact with the strangers who came bearing with them the haughty pride of all-conquering Rome. But after a day or two, when Cornelia had cast off the hauteur begotten of diffidence, and Fabia had opened the depths of her pure womanly character, the barriers were thrown down rapidly enough; and Cornelia and Fabia gained, not merely an access to a new world of life and ideas, but two friends that they could regard almost as sisters.
It was a new thing for these Roman ladies to meet a foreigner on terms approaching equality. A non-Roman had been for them a servant, an intelligent underling, nothing more; even Agias and Demetrius they had regarded as friends, very close and agreeable, but whom it was a distinct condescension not to treat with ostentatious superiority. But to sustain this feeling long with Berenice and Monime was impossible. The young Egyptians were every whit as cultured, as intelligent, as themselves, every whit as accustomed to deference from others, and implicitly assumed the right to demand it. The result was that Cornelia found herself thinking less and less about being a Roman, and more and more regarded her gracious hosts as persons in every way equal to herself.
And less and less of a Roman, Cornelia, the Hellene-hater, became. Greek was the only tongue now that sounded in her ear, unless she talked privately with Fabia or was beguiled into trying to learn a little Egyptian—a language Berenice and Monime spoke fluently. The clothes she wore were no longer stola and palla, but chiton and himation. The whole atmosphere about her was foreign, down to the cries on the streets. And Italy was very far away, and the last memories thereof none the most pleasant.