Cleopatra by H. Rider Haggard (best classic books of all time .txt) 📖

OF THE WORDS AND JEALOUSY OF CHARMION; OF THE LAUGHTER OF HARMACHIS; OF THE MAKING READY FOR THE DEED OF BLOOD; AND OF THE

I stood still, plunged in thought. Then by hazard as it were I took up the wreath of roses and looked on it. How long I stood so I know not, but when next I lifted up my eyes they fell upon the form of Charmion, whom, indeed, I had altogether forgotten. And though at the moment I thought but little of it, I noted vaguely that she was flushed as though with anger, and beat her foot upon the floor.

“Oh, it is thou, Charmion!” I said. “What ails thee? Art thou cramped with standing so long in thy hiding-place? Why didst not thou slip hence when Cleopatra led me to the balcony?”

“Where is my kerchief?” she asked, shooting an angry glance at me. “I let fall my broidered kerchief.”

“Thy kerchief!—why, didst thou not see? Cleopatra twitted me about it, and I flung it from the balcony.”

“Yes, I saw,” answered the girl, “I saw but too well. Thou didst fling away my kerchief, but the wreath of roses—that thou wouldst not fling away. It was ‘a Queen’s gift,’ forsooth, and therefore the royal Harmachis, the Priest of Isis, the chosen of the Gods, the crowned Pharaoh wed to the weal of Khem, cherished it and saved it. But my kerchief, stung by the laughter of that light Queen, he cast away!”

“What meanest thou?” I asked, astonished at her bitter tone. “I cannot read thy riddles.”

“What mean I?” she answered, tossing up her head and showing the white curves of her throat. “Nay, I mean naught, or all; take it as thou wilt. Wouldst know what I mean, Harmachis, my cousin and my Lord?” she went on in a hard, low voice. “Then I will tell thee—thou art in danger of the great offence. This Cleopatra has cast her fatal wiles about thee, and thou goest near to loving her, Harmachis—to loving her whom to-morrow thou must slay! Ay, stand and stare at that wreath in thy hand—the wreath thou couldst not send to join my kerchief— sure Cleopatra wore it but to-night! The perfume of the hair of C�sar’s mistress—C�sar’s and others’—yet mingles with the odour of its roses! Now, prithee, Harmachis, how far didst thou carry the matter on yonder balcony? for in that hole where I lay hid I could not hear or see. ‘Tis a sweet spot for lovers, is it not?—ay, and a sweet hour, too? Venus surely rules the stars to-night?”

All of this she said so quietly and in so soft and modest a way, though her words were not modest, and yet so bitterly, that every syllable cut me to the heart, and angered me till I could find no speech.

“Of a truth thou hast a wise economy,” she went on, seeing her advantage: “to-night thou dost kiss the lips that to-morrow thou shalt still for ever! It is frugal dealing with the occasion of the moment; ay, worthy and honourable dealing!”

Then at last I broke forth. “Girl,” I cried, “how darest thou speak thus to me? Mindest thou who and what I am that thou loosest thy peevish gibes upon me?”

“I mind what it behoves thee to be,” she answered quick. “What thou art, that I mind not now. Surely thou knowest alone—thou and Cleopatra!”

“What meanest thou?” I said. “Am I to blame if the Queen–-”

“The Queen! What have we here? Pharaoh owns a Queen!”

“If Cleopatra wills to come hither of a night and talk–-”

“Of stars, Harmachis—surely of stars and roses, and naught beside!”

After that I know not what I said; for, troubled as I was, the girl’s bitter tongue and quiet way drove me wellnigh to madness. But this I know: I spoke so fiercely that she cowered before me as she had cowered before my uncle Sepa when he rated her because of her Grecian garb. And as she wept then, so she wept now, only more passionately and with great sobs.

At length I ceased, half-shamed but still angry and smarting sorely. For even while she wept she could find a tongue to answer with—and a woman’s shafts are sharp.

“Thou shouldst not speak to me thus!” she sobbed; “it is cruel—it is unmanly! But I forget thou art but a priest, not a man—except, mayhap, for Cleopatra!”

“What right hast thou?” I said. “What canst thou mean?”

“What right have I?” she asked, looking up, her dark eyes all aflood with tears that ran down her sweet face like the dew of morning down a lily’s heart. “What right have I? O Harmachis! art thou blind? Didst thou not know by what right I speak thus to thee? Then I must tell thee. Well, it is the fashion in Alexandria! By that first and holy right of woman—by the right of the great love I bear thee, and which, it seems, thou hast no eyes to see—by the right of my glory and my shame. Oh, be not wroth with me, Harmachis, nor set me down as light, because the truth at last has burst from me; for I am not so. I am what thou wilt make me. I am the wax within the moulder’s hands, and as thou dost fashion me so I shall be. There breathes within me now a breath of glory, blowing across the waters of my soul, that can waft me to ends more noble than ever I have dreamed afore, if thou wilt be my pilot and my guide. But if I lose thee, then I lose all that holds me from my worse self—and let shipwreck come! Thou knowest me not, Harmachis! thou canst not see how big a spirit struggles in this frail form of mine! To thee I am a girl, clever, wayward, shallow. But I am more! Show me thy loftiest thought and I will match it, the deepest puzzle of thy mind and I will make it clear. Of one blood we are, and love can ravel up our little difference and make us grow one indeed. One end we have, one land we love, one vow binds us both. Take me to thy heart, Harmachis, set me by thee on the Double Throne, and I swear that I will lift thee higher than ever man has climbed. Reject me, and beware lest I pull thee down! And now, putting aside the cold delicacy of custom, stung to it by what I saw of the arts of that lovely living falsehood, Cleopatra, which for pastime she practises on thy folly, I have spoken out my heart, and answer thou!” And she clasped her hands and, drawing one pace nearer, gazed, all white and trembling, on my face.

For a moment I stood struck dumb, for the magic of her voice and the power of her speech, despite myself, stirred me like the rush of music. Had I loved the woman, doubtless she might have fired me with her flame; but I loved her not, and I could not play at passion. And so thought came, and with thought that laughing mood, which is ever apt to fashion upon nerves strained to the point of breaking. In a flash, as it were, I bethought me of the way in which she had that very night forced the wreath of roses on my head, I thought of the kerchief and how I had flung it forth. I thought of Charmion in the little chamber watching what she held to be the arts of Cleopatra, and of her bitter speeches. Lastly, I thought of what my uncle Sepa would say of her could he see her now, and of the strange and tangled skein in which I was inmeshed. And I laughed aloud—the fool’s laughter that was my knell of ruin!

She turned whiter yet—white as the dead—and a look grew upon her face that checked my foolish mirth. “Thou findest, then, Harmachis,” she said in a low, choked voice, and dropping the level of her eyes, “thou findest cause of merriment in what I have said?”

“Nay,” I answered; “nay, Charmion; forgive me if I laughed. It was rather a laugh of despair; for what am I to say to thee? Thou hast spoken high words of all thou mightest be: is it left for me to tell thee what thou art?”

She shrank, and I paused.

“Speak,” she said.

“Thou knowest—none so well!—who I am and what my mission is: thou knowest—none so well!—that I am sworn to Isis, and may, by law Divine, have naught to do with thee.”

“Ay,” she broke in, in her low voice, and with her eyes still fixed upon the ground—“ay, and I know that thy vows are broken in spirit, if not in