Moreover, as he neared the quay, as he was gradually enabled to distinguish the things and persons on the quay, there was a sudden brightening of the features, an eagerness of expression, an anxious excitement almost to nervousness of manner, displaying itself clearly in the quivering of the under lip, and the unconscious play of his fingers on the sword-hilt, the dark spots of blood upon which denoted how deeply its blade must have been ensanguined. The vessel worked up to the wharf. Strong cables were extended from her head and stern to the massive rings of brass which studded the noble piers. On the instant, a bridge was extended from the galley to the neighboring pier; but, ere the quivering planks were steadied, with an active bound the triumvir had thrown himself over the high bulwarks and stood in the centre of the eager throng that crowded round to witness the arrival of a galley from the fleet. “Ho! by the mother of the gods!” cried an aged man, whose toga proved him a citizen of Rome, as clearly as did the scars on his bold and bronzed visage prove him a soldier, “’Tis Antony himself—victorious, too, by Jupiter! else had we not beheld him here. Shout, comrades, shout—_Io triumphe! Salve Imperator!_” “Peace ho! Be silent!” shouted a stern, martial-looking figure on the prow. “Peace, brawlers! This day is to be marked as black as Acheron—victory! by Pollux, a rare victory!” Silently, and unheeding the raised voices and loud queries of the populace, the noble Roman threaded the crowd. Strange—it was passing strange, that no word from Cleopatra—no sable-visaged messenger, no bright damsel of her court, should have met him on his return. “By the faith of Jove!” he muttered, “but that bitter knave, Horace, was not so much in the wrong either;” and he hummed in reckless gayety the well known stanza of the lyric bard— “At vulgus infidum et meretrix retso Perjura cedit; diffurgiunt cadis Cum face siccatis amici Ferre jugum pariter dolosi.” “Fie on thee, Antony! hast thou, the veteran of a thousand fields of Mars and Venus, hast thou been cheated by the honeyed words? the last stake was a heavy one, by Hercules! That crown, for which great Julius fell, was worth a higher price than a glance of the brightest eye that ever beamed with a woman’s tenderness. Fie on’t! ’twas boy’s play—boy’s play! but to-morrow—be the gods propitious—Soh! ’tis the palace gate at last, and swart Melancthon at the portals. What ho, Melancthon! Bestir thee, varlet! Say to Cleopatra, Marcus Antonius sends her greeting; and never will he rest till he be where she tarries, be that where it may!” “Now may the gods avert!” muttered the trembling slave. “What mutterest thou then? Begone, and speed my bidding, else will I make thee messenger to Hades! Where is the fair Egyptian?” “She is _not_, Antony,” faltered the trembling Ethiopian, avoiding with the wonted superstition of the day, the usage of words deemed ominous.