The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-07-25

 the mastery. Love, burning passion, ever fresh and inexhaustible, she expressed in that wondrous dance. As swift as bee she stopped to graze the forehead of the youth with a kiss and then, retreatins with loosened hair and arms wide flung, like a Baechante, she swayed to the rhythm of the music from unseen hands of performers. It was one. of C1eopatra's nights.
 Then she seated herself again by the side of the godlke youth of the land of Kemi The night advanced; the last of the Black Hours was about to take flight. A faint beam of morning fell into the hall as moonbeam might fall into furnace. Then the upper arcades became flushed with a rosy light shot through pale azure tints. Day was breaking
 An Ethiopian of giant frame, black as ebony, naked save for cincture of scar let around his loins, and with counte- nance of the most repulsive and sinister aspect, appeared before the throne and, kneeling, offered to Melamoun a cup of horn in which boiled up hissing a poison so strong that it would have burst any (. vase asunder. The tumuit of the feasing died; the lights faded from the candelabra; the bronze arms with their flaming torches returned into the walls from which they had sprung; the eyes of the sphinxes ceased to glow, the bull headed idols to breathe fire and the bronze elephants to spout flame from their up- lifted trunks. No longer did the fires pal pitate from the braziers or the flicker ing lights outline the edges of the massy architecture. All artificial light ceased suddenly-at once-and over the cornice of the vast banquet hall rolled down flood of warm Egyptian sunshine.
 In that new light the revelers looked ghastly, worn. haggard and old, while the solemn sphinxes and the bull-headed idols ranged above them, now cold and stony and remorseless as fate, seemed like demons breeding over the pit But the wondrous beauty of Cleopatra caught no change or decay from the changed light. Royal and splendid in the morn- ing sun as she had been in the artificial conaagration that had lit the banquet she still seemed the very embodiment of eternal youth and everlasting beauty the worlds desire. Melamoun lifted his head from the shoulder of the queen and glanced at the kneeling slave before him whose hideous face portrayed all that was repulsive and abhorrent. direful and threatening. The youth realized that the end had come. Slowly he arose from his seat upon the throne. and, turning his glance upon Cleopatra, cast his whole soul into one long and rapturous look as he took the fatal cup from the hands of the black, ferocious minister of death. He raised the cup to his lips with lis eyes still fixed upon those radiant and queenly orbs whose glances he sought as his light into the Stygian horrors.
 A look of pity, of remorse, of love swept into the face of Cleopatra She reached out her hand to stay him and to her lips arose the words, Live to love me still" But before the words could be uttered or the fair arm of the queen had reached halfway to the raised arm of Meiamoun there came the loud triumph ant blare of Roman trumpets and clad in full armor which dazzled in the morn- ing sun and mounted upon superb war horse, a Roman herald rode into the hall proclairning the approach of the Great Triumvir.
 The look of love and pity upon the face of the Queen vanished as suddenly as it had appeared; one of Cleopatra's nights was ended-that was all-and she was again the royal daughter of the PtoIe- mys, the "trampler of nations.' the Queen of the world shadowy with wings" You see" said she to the youth. the time has come when happy dreams take flight; 1t Is dawn" sunbeam played upon her forhead as if seeking to replace the diadem she had unfastened when she danced. Meiamoun drained the cup and fell dead at her feet as if struck by thunderbolt.
 flourish of trumpets, and, mailed and plumed, a victorious god of war, Marc Antony entered the hall. By Hercules, my fair Queen,' said he, T made what speed l might, but see am too late; the supper is over. But what means this corpse at your feet?" Nothing, most noble Anthony; 1t was but a poison was trying upon a slave, testing 1t with the idea of using it upon myself should Au- gustus take me prisoner. Will my sweet lord not take a seat beside me and watch those Greek buttons danceT'
 Next Sundays one-page classic will be Pelham, or the Adventures of a Gentle man." by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton.