Dion, too, witnessed the departure of the troops. Gorgias, whom he had
found among the Ephebi, accompanied him and, like the Queen, they saw,
in the cautious manner with which the army greeted the general, a bad
omen for the result of the battle. The architect had presented Dion to
the youths as the ghost of a dead man, who, as soon as he was asked
whence he came or whither he was going, would be compelled to vanish in
the form of a fly. He could venture to do this; he knew the
Ephebi--there was no traitor in their ranks.
Dion, the former head of the society, had been welcomed like a beloved
brother risen from the dead, and he had the gratification, after so long
a time, of turning the scale as speaker in a debate. True, he had
encountered very little opposition, for the resolve to hold aloof from
the battle against the Romans had been urged upon the Ephebi by the
Queen herself through Antyllus, who, however, had already left the
meeting when Dion joined it. It had seemed to Cleopatra a crime to claim
the blood of the noblest sons of the city for a cause which she herself
deemed lost. She knew the parents of many, and feared that Octavianus
would inflict a terrible punishment upon them if, not being enrolled in
the army, they fell into his power with arms in their hands.
The stars were already setting when the Ephebi accompanied their friend,
singing in chorus the Hymenæus, which they had been unable to chant on
his wedding day. The melody of lutes accompanied the voices, and this
nocturnal music was the source of the rumour that the god Dionysus, to
whom Mark Antony felt specially akin, and in whose form he had so often
appeared to the people, had abandoned him amid songs and music.
The youths left Dion in front of the Temple of Isis. Gorgias alone
remained with him. The architect led his friend to the Queen's mausoleum
near the sanctuary, where men were toiling busily by torchlight. Alight
scaffolding still surrounded it, but the lofty first story, containing
the real tomb, was completed, and Dion admired the art with which the
exterior of the edifice suggested its purpose. Huge blocks of dark-grey
granite formed the walls. The broad front--solemn, almost gloomy in
aspect--rose, sloping slightly, above the massive lofty door, surmounted
by a moulding bearing the winged disk of the sun. On either side were
niches containing statues of Antony and Cleopatra cast in dark bronze,
and above the cornice were brazen figures of Love and Death, Fame and
Silence, ennobling the Egyptian forms with exquisite works of Hellenic
art.
The massive door, adorned with brass figures in relief, would have
resisted a battering-ram. On the side of the steps leading to it lay
Sphinxes of dark-green diorite. Everything connected with this building,
dedicated to death, was grave and massive, suggesting by its
indestructibility the idea of eternity.
The second story was not yet finished; masons and stone-cutters were
engaged in covering the strong walls with dark serpentine and black
marble. The huge windlass stood ready to raise a masterpiece of
Alexandrian art. This was intended for the pediment, and represented
Venus Victrix with helmet, shield, and lance, leading a band of winged
gods of love, little archers at whose head Eros himself was discharging
arrows, and victoriously fighting against the three-headed Cerberus,
death, already bleeding from many wounds.
There was no time to see the interior of the building, for Pyrrhus
expected his guest to join him at the harbour at sunrise, and the
eastern sky was already brightening with the approach of dawn.
As the friends reached the landing-place the brass dome of the Serapeum,
which towered above everything, was glittering with dazzling splendour.
The pennons and masts of the fleet which was about to set sail from the
harbour seemed steeped in a sea of golden light. Tremulous reflections
of the brazen and gilded figures on the prows of the vessels were
mirrored in the undulating surface of the sea, and the long shadows of
the banks of oars united galley after galley on the surface of the water
like the meshes of a net.
Here the friends parted, and Dion walked down the quay alone to meet the
freedman, who must have found it difficult to guide his boat out of this
labyrinth of vessels. The inspection of the mausoleum had detained the
young father too long and, though disguised beyond recognition, he
reproached himself for having recklessly incurred a danger whose
consequences--he felt this to-day for the first time--would not injure
himself alone. The whole fleet was awaiting the signal for departure.
The vessels which did not belong to it had been obliged to moor in front
of the Temple of Poseidon, and all were strictly forbidden to leave the
anchorage.
Pyrrhus's fishing-boat was in the midst, and return to the Serpent
Island was impossible at present.
How vexatious! Barine was ignorant of his trip to the city, and to be
compelled to leave her alone while a naval battle was in progress
directly before her eyes distressed him as much as it could not fail to
alarm her.
In fact, the young mother had waited from early dawn with increasing
anxiety for her husband. As the sun rose higher, and the strokes of the
oars propelling two hundred galleys, the shrill whistle of the flutes
marking the time, the deep voices of the captains shouting orders, and
the blasts of the trumpets filling the air, were heard far and near
around the island, she became so overwhelmed with uneasiness that she
insisted upon going to the shore, though hitherto she had not been
permitted to take the air except under the awning stretched for the
purpose on the shady side of the house.
In vain the women urged her not to let her fears gain the mastery and to
have patience. But she would have resisted even force in order to look
for him who, with her child, now comprised her world.
When, leaning on Helena's arm, she reached the shore, no boat was in
sight. The sea was covered with ships of war, floating fortresses,
moving onward like dragons with a thousand legs whose feet were the
countless rowers arranged in three or five sets. Each of the larger
galleys was surrounded by smaller ones, from most of which darted
dazzling flashes of light, for they were crowded with armed men, and
from the prows of the strong boarding vessels the sunbeams glittered on
the large shining metal points whose office was to pierce the wooden
sides of the foe. The gilded statues in the prows of the large galleys
shone and sparkled in the broad radiance of the day-star, and flashes of
light also came from the low hills on the shore. Here Mark Antony's
soldiers were stationed, and the sunbeams reflected from the helmets,
coats of mail, and lance-heads of the infantry, and the armour of the
horsemen quivered with dazzling brilliancy in the hot air of the first
day of an Egyptian August.
Amid this blazing, flashing, and sparkling in the morning air, so
steeped in warmth and radiance, the sounds of warlike preparations from
the land and fleet constantly grew louder. Barine, exhausted, had just
sunk into a chair which Dione, the fisherman's daughter, had placed in
the shade of the highest rock on the northwestern shore of the flat
island, when a crashing blast of the tuba suddenly echoed from all the
galleys in the Egyptian fleet, and the whole array of vessels filed past
the Pharos at the opening of the harbour into the open sea.
There the narrow ranks of the wooden giants separated and moved onward
in broader lines. This was done quietly and in the same faultless order
as a few days before, when a similar manœuvre had been executed under
the eyes of Mark Antony.
The longing for combat seemed to urge them steadily forward.
The hostile fleet, lying motionless, awaited the attack. But the
Egyptian assailants had advanced majestically only a few ships lengths
towards the Roman foe when another signal rent the air. The women whose
ears caught the waves of sound said afterwards that it seemed like a cry
of agony--it had given the signal for a deed of unequalled treachery.
The slaves, criminals, and the basest of the mercenaries on the rowers'
benches in the hold had doubtless long listened intently for it, and,
when it finally came, the men on the upper benches raised their long
oars and held them aloft, which stopped the work of those below, and
every galley paused, pointing at the next with the wooden oars
outstretched like fingers, as if seized with horror. The celerity and
faultless order with which the raising of the oars was executed and
vessel after vessel brought to a stand would have been a credit to an
honourable captain, but the manœuvre introduced one of the basest acts
ever recorded in history; and the women, who had witnessed many a
_naumachia_ and understood its meaning, exclaimed as if with a single
voice: "Treachery! They are going over to the enemy!"
Mark Antony's fleet, created for him by Cleopatra, surrendered, down to
the last galley, to Cæsar's heir, the victor of Actium; and the man to
whom the sailors had vowed allegiance, who had drilled them, and only
yesterday had urged them to offer a gallant resistance, saw from one of
the downs on the shore the strong weapons on which he had based the
fairest hopes, not shattered, but delivered into the hands of the enemy!
The surrender of the fleet to the foe--he knew it--sealed his
destruction; and the women on the shore of the Serpent Island, who were
so closely connected with those on whom this misfortune fell, suspected
the same thing. The hearts of both were stirred, and their eyes grew dim
with tears of indignation and sorrow. They were Alexandrians, and did
not desire to be ruled by Rome.
Cleopatra, daughter of the Macedonian house of the Ptolemies, had the
sole right to govern the city of her ancestors, founded by the great
Macedonian. The sorrow they had themselves endured through her sank into
insignificance beside the tremendous blow of Fate which in this hour
reached the Queen.
The Roman and Egyptian fleet returned to the harbour as one vast
squadron under the same commander, and anchored in the roadstead of the
city, which was now its precious booty.
Barine had seen enough, and returned to the house with drooping head.
Her heart was heavy, and her anxiety for the man she loved hourly
increased.
It seemed as if the very day-star shrank from illuminating so infamous a
deed with friendly light; for the dazzling, searching sun of the first
of August veiled its radiant face with a greyish-white mist, and the
desecrated sea wrinkled its brow, changed its pure azure robe to
yellowish grey and blackish green, while the white foam hissed on the
crests of the angry waves.
As twilight began to approach, the anxiety of the deserted wife became
unendurable. Not only Helena's wise words of caution, but the sight of
her child, failed to exert their usual influence; and Barine had already
summoned the son of Pyrrhus to persuade him to take her in his boat to
the city, when Dione saw a boat approaching the Serpent Island from the
direction of the sea.
A short time after, Dion sprang on shore and kissed from his young
wife's lips the reproaches with which she greeted him.
He had heard of the treachery of the fleet while entering a hired boat
with the freedman in the harbour of Eunostus, Pyrrhus's having been
detained with the other craft before the Temple of Poseidon.
The experienced pilot had been obliged to steer the boat in a wider
curve against the wind through the open sea, and was delayed a long time
by a number of the war vessels of the fleet.
Danger and separation were now passed, and they rejoiced in the
happiness of meeting, yet could not feel genuine joy. Their souls were
oppressed by anxiety concerning the fate of the Queen and their native
city.
As night closed in the dogs barked violently, and they heard loud voices
on the shore. Dion, with a presentiment that misfortune was threatening
himself and his dear ones, obeyed the summons.
No star illumined the darkness. Only the wavering light of a lantern on
the strand and another on the nearest island illumined the immediate
vicinity, while southward the lights in the city shone as brightly as
ever.
Pyrrhus and his youngest son were just pushing a boat into the water to
release from the sands another which had run aground in a shallow near
the neighbouring island.
Dion sprang in with them, and soon recognized in the hail the voice of
the architect Gorgias.
The young father shouted a joyous greeting to his friend, but there was
no reply.
Soon after, Pyrrhus landed his belated guest on the shore. He had
escaped--as the fisherman explained--a great danger; for had he gone to
the other island, which swarmed with venomous serpents, he might easily
have fallen a victim to the bite of one of the reptiles.
Gorgias grasped Dion's hand but, in reply to his gay invitation to
accompany him to the house at once, he begged him to listen to his story
before joining the ladies.
Dion was startled. He knew his friend. When his deep voice had such a
tone of gloomy discouragement, and his head drooped so mournfully, some
terrible event had befallen him.
His foreboding had been correct. The first tidings pierced his own soul
deeply.
He was not surprised to learn that the Romans ruled Alexandria; but a
small band of the conquerors, who had been ordered to conduct themselves
as if they were in a friendly country, had forced their way into the
architect's large house to occupy the quarters assigned to them. The
deaf grandmother of Helena and Barine, who had but half comprehended
what threatened the citizens, terrified by the noisy entrance of the
soldiers, had had another attack of apoplexy, and closed her eyes in
death before Gorgias set out for the island.
But it was not only this sad event, which must grieve the hearts of the
two sisters, that had brought the architect in a stranger's boat to the
Serpent Island at so late an hour. His soul was so agitated by the
horrible incidents of the day that he needed to seek consolation among
those from whom he was sure to find sympathy.
Nor was it wholly the terrible things Fate had compelled him to witness
which induced him to venture out upon the sea so recklessly, but still
more the desire to bring to the fugitives the happy news that they might
return with safety to their native city.
Deeply agitated--nay, confused and overpowered by all he had seen and
experienced--the architect, usually so clear and, with all his mental
vivacity, so circumspect, began his story. A remonstrance from Dion
induced him to collect his thoughts and describe events in the order in
which they had befallen him.