His helmet, embossed with golden sculptures, rested on the ground at the foot of the low bed, its lofty crest of snow-white horse-hair dancing in the light air which found its way into the chamber, and casting its wavering shadows upon the features of the dead; the elaborately ornamented corslet, which still rested on the massive chest, was stained in several places with broad plashes of gore; but if blood had stained the face or the bare neck, it had been washed off with a care which had removed every sign of violence, every symptom of death. Perfumes had been liberally sprinkled upon the crisp, auburn locks, censers were steaming with the smoke of musk and ambergris, and garlands of the freshest flowers were cast like fragrant fetters over the cold limbs of the sleeper. But what were all these to a single tear drop from the mourner who sat beside his bed, gazing with a cold, unmeaning gaze on the features of him whom she had loved so mightily—betrayed so madly! Her hair, the uncurled raven hair of Ethiopia, fell to her very feet in strange profusion, not in the undulating flow of ringlets free from restraint, but in straight, shadowy masses, such as we have sometimes seen, and known not whether to praise or censure, in some sacred painting of the Italian school. Her lineaments of the Coptic cast, chiseled in their flowing lines of majesty and softness, were such as men are constrained to admire despite their judgment; but her form, her limbs, her swan-like neck, her swelling bust, the rounded outlines, the wavy motion, were of a loveliness which, while they baffled every attempt at description, explained at once and justified the passionate adoration of Julius, the frantic devotion of the wild triumvir. It was Cleopatra who sat there, mourning in desolate despair over him whom alone she had _loved_. Him, strange it is to say, she had loved for himself, for himself alone. No delusion of vanity, no pride of boasting a second ruler of the universe her slave, had mingled with her deep, indomitable passion. The conqueror had been merged in the man, the man in the lover. In peace or war, in triumph or defeat, absent or at her side, in the flush of health or in the frail humility of sickness, he had been ever the chosen idol of her heart; and never perhaps had she loved him more entirely, or more fervently, than at the very moment of that desertion of his cause, in the hour of his utmost need, which had terminated in the downfall of his honor and her happiness. Dark, indeed, and incomprehensible are the mysteries of a woman’s heart, impenetrable her motives, unfathomable the sources of her hatred or affection; often most tender in the heart when coldest in the semblance; most passionate when most unmoved, most faithful when most insincere.