I
was so weak that I scarce could lift my hand, and life seemed but to
flutter in my breast as flutters a dying dove. I could not turn my head;
I could not stir; yet in my heart there was a sense of rest and of dark
trouble done. The light from the lamp hurt my eyes: I shut them, and,
as I shut them, heard the sweep of a woman's robes upon the stair, and a
swift, light step that I knew well. It was that of Cleopatra!
She entered and drew near. I felt her come! Every pulse of my poor frame
beat an answer to her footfall, and all my mighty love and hate rose
from the darkness of my death-like sleep, and rent me in their struggle!
She leaned over me; her ambrosial breath played upon my face: I could
hear the beating of her heart! Lower she leaned, till at last her lips
touched me softly on the brow.
"Poor man!" I heard her murmur. "Poor, weak, dying Man! Fate hath been
hard to thee! Thou wert too good to be the sport of such a one as I--the
pawn that I must move in my play of policy! Ah, Harmachis! thou shouldst
have ruled the game! Those plotting priests could give thee learning;
but they could not give thee knowledge of mankind, nor fence thee
against the march of Nature's law. And thou didst love me with all thy
heart--ah! well I know it! Manlike, thou didst love the eyes that, as
a pirate's lights, beckoned thee to shipwrecked ruin, and didst hang
doting on the lips which lied thy heart away and called thee 'slave'!
Well; the game was fair, for thou wouldst have slain me; and yet I
grieve.
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