Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-10-31

upon my hair, never thought of it other wise than as man thinks of the beauty of a statue. What had to do with such de- lights? who was sworn to Isis and dedi-
 cated to the cause of Egypt. O, ye Gods,
 bear me witness that am innocent of this thing, which was the source of all my woe and the woe of Kheml
 How strange is this love of woman, that
 1t is so small in it's beginning and in it's end so great! See, at the first it is even as the little spring of water yelling from mountains heart. And at the last what is it! It is a mighty river that floweth ar gosies of joy and makes wide lands to
 smile. Or, perchance it is a torrent to wash in a flood of ruin across the fields of Hope, bursting in the barriers of design, and
 bring to tumbled nothingness the tenement of mans purity and tho temples of his faith. For when the Invisible conceived the order of the universe, He set within it's plan thls seed of woman's love that by it's most unequal growth is doomed to bring
 about equality of law. For now it lifts the low to heights untold, and now it brings the
 noble to the level of the dust. And thus, while woman, that great surprise of Nature,
 is, Good and Evil can never grow apart. For still she stands, and, blind with love, | shoots the shuttle of our fate, and pours | sweet water into the cup of bitterness, and poisons the wholesome breath of life with the doom of her desire. Turn this way and turn that, she is at hand to meet thee. Her
 weakness is thy strength, her might is thy
 undoing Of her thou art, to her thou goest. She is thy slave, yet holds thee captive; at her touch honor withers, locks open, and barriers fall. She is infinite as ocean, she is variable as heaven, and her name is the Unforeseen. Man, strive not to escape from woman and the love of woman; for, fly where thou wilt, she is yet thy fate, and whate'er thou buildest thou buildest it for her!
 And thus it came to pass that I, Harma- chis, who had put such matters far from
 me, was yet doomed to fall by the thlng I held of no account. For sec, this Char
 mion; she loves newly, knew not. Of her own thought she learned to love me- and of her love came what shall be told. ButI, knowing naught, treated her even e sister, walking as it were hand in hand with her toward our common end
 And so the time passed on till, Ut length, all things were made ready.
 It was the night before the night when | the blow should fall, and there were revel- ings in the palace. That very day had seen Sepa, and with him the captains of band of five hundred men, who should burst into l the palace at midnight on the morrow, when had slain Cleopatra the Queen, and put the Roman and the Gallc legionaries | to the sword. That very day had I s,lb. | orned the Captain Paulus, who, since drew | him through the gates, was my wills slave. Half by fear and half by promises of great l reward had prevailed upon him, for his was the watch, at the signal on the morrow | night to unbar that small gate which faces | to the east.
 All was made ready-the flower of Free dom that had been five and twenty years l in growth was on the point of bloom. In every city, from Abu unto Athue, armed companies were gathered. and from their | walls spies looked out, awaiting the con- l ing of the messenger who should bring l tidipgs that Cleopatra was no more, and | that Harmachis, the Egyptian, had seized the throne. All was prepared, triumph | hung to my hand as a ripe fruit to the hand of the plucker. Yet, as I sat at the royal feast my heart was heavy, and shadow of coming woe lay cold within my mlnd. sat there in a place of honor, nigh to the l majesty of Cleopatra, and looked down the l lines of guests, bright with gems and gar | landed with flowers, marking those whom had doomed to die. There before me by | Cleopatra's self, in all her beauty, which | thrilled the beholder as he is thrilled by the | rushing of the midnight gale, or by the | sight of stormy waters. 1 gazed on her as l she touched her lips with wine and toyed
 with the chaplet of roses on her brow, be- thinking me of the dagger beneath my robe that had sworn to bury ir her breast Again, and yet again, I gazed and strove | to hate her, strove to rejoice that she must | die-and could not. There, too, behind her-watching me now, as ever, with her deep-fringed eycs-was the lovely Lady 1 Charmion. Who, to look at her innocent l face, would believe that she was the setter of that snare wherein should miserably perish the Queen who loved herl Who would dream that locked in her girish l breast was the secret of so much death2 I gazed, and grew sick at heart because I
 must anoint my throne with blood, and by
 evil sweep away the evil of the land. At l that hour I wished, indeed, that I was | naught but acme humble husbandman, who | in it's season sows and in it's season l gamers the golden grain Alas the seed l that had been doomed to sow was the red | seed of Death, and now I must reap the fruit of the harvest!
 "Why Harmachis, what ails thee?" said Cleopatra, smiling her slow smile. "Has
 tn. golden ske:n of stars got tangled, my
 astronomer9 or dost thou plan some new l feat of magicl Say what is it, that thou I dost so poorly grace our feast Nay, now, did I not know, having made inquiry
 thereon, that things so low as we poor women are far beneath thy gaze, why, I
 should swear that Eros had found thee out, Harmachis!'
 l ''Nay, that I am spared, O Queen,n I
 answered. ''The servant of the star marks
 not the smaller light of woman's eyes, and
 therein he is happy"
 Cleopatra leaned herself toward me, look
 ing on me long and steadily in such fashion
 that despite my will the blood futtered at
 my heart.
 Boast not, thou proud Egyptian" she
 said in a low voice which none but and Charmion could hear, ''lest perchance thou | dost tempt me to match my magic against
 thine. What woman can forgive that man
 should push us by as things of no account7
 'Tis an insult to our sex that Natures self
 abhors," and she leaned back and laughed
 most unsteady, But glancing up, saw
 Charmion, her teeth upon her lip and an
 angry frown upon her brow.
 Pardon, Royal Egypt" answered,
 coldly, but with such wit as could sum-
 mon, "before the Queen of Heaven even
 stars grow paler' This I said of the
 moon, which is the sign of the Holy