Cleopatra

It was about seven o'clock. On the crowded docks of Alexandria the sailors were unloading the last bales of merchandise. Swiftly, like belated birds, the fishing boats dropped anchor at the old wharves in Eunostus harbour. It was almost dark when the last vessel slipped in stealthily. A man stepped down, broad-shouldered, covered from head to foot with a dark cloak, his traveller's cap pulled down to his ears. With the utmost care he helped a woman to land, a woman so young, so light-footed, that she seemed almost a child.

But, though barely seventeen years of age, would any one have called Cleopatra a child? The wife for two years of the brother, whom the dynastic law had compelled her to marry on the death of her father; cast off by her perfidious consort, sent into exile and, coming back to-night under the care of Apollodorus, she had undoubtedly a store of experience extraordinary for her age. One wonders how her impressions would have compared with those of the average girl, for Cleopatra had grown up in a shamelessly corrupt court and was the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, that remarkable dilettante king who had met the uproar of revolution and foreign invasion with the persistent playing of his flute.

Descendant of a race cultivated to the last degree, proficient herself in literature and art, with a thorough education, this young girl's outlook on life was one of unusual breadth. At the time when other girls, just released from the women's quarters, still revered virtue and dreamed of pleasure, she had already the inclination to beguile and to rule. With liberal views, she looked things squarely in the face; she fully recognized the value of men, and whether in serving or in pleasing them, had a spirit of rare understanding, keen and comprehensive.

Even in the depths of the Thebaid—whither she had been exiled by the king on the advice of the agitator Photinus—when she heard that Cæsar had arrived in Alexandria, she knew, by that curious intuition of super-sensitive minds, that unexpected good fortune was in store for her. But how could she reach this great man? By what means could she secure from his omnipotence that aid which would transform her from a prisoner to a queen?

It was the Greek savant, Apollodorus, her professor of rhetoric, and warmly attached to her, who opened the negotiations. As Cæsar from the very first interview had shown his interest in behalf of the persecuted young girl rather than in Ptolemy and his crafty minister, Cleopatra had no misgivings. Although she was closely watched and ignorant of the roads, which were infested by gangs of robbers and murderers, she managed to escape with only two slaves for escort, and took passage down the Nile to Canopus, where Apollodorus awaited her. Trusting in his faithful devotion, she was confident of gaining her end.