It is of no avail to store up force which cannot be used."
"Ah, thou art impatient, Harmachis," he answered; "it is ever the way
of foolish youth. Thou wouldst taste of the battle; thou dost tire of
watching the breakers fall upon the beach, thou wouldst plunge into
them and venture the desperate hazard of the war. And so thou wouldst be
going, Harmachis? The bird would fly the nest as, when they are grown,
the swallows fly from the eaves of the Temple. Well, it shall be as
thou desirest; the hour is at hand. I have taught thee all that I have
learned, and methinks that the pupil has outrun his master," and he
paused and wiped his bright black eyes, for he was very sad at the
thought of my departure.
"And whither shall I go, my uncle?" I asked rejoicing; "back to Abouthis
to be initiated into the mysteries of the Gods?"
"Ay, back to Abouthis, and from Abouthis to Alexandria, and from
Alexandria to the Throne of thy fathers, Harmachis! Listen, now; things
are thus: Thou knowest how Cleopatra, the Queen, fled into Syria when
that false eunuch Pothinus set the will of her father Auletes at naught
and raised her brother Ptolemy to the sole lordship of Egypt. Thou
knowest also how she came back, like a Queen indeed, with a great army
in her train, and lay at Pelusium, and how at this juncture the mighty
Caesar, that great man, that greatest of all men, sailed with a weak
company hither to Alexandria from Pharsalia's bloody field in hot
pursuit of Pompey.
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