The soldier was brought in to the Queen where she lay in a private chamber of her Palace. Two faithful women attended upon their mistress; an enamelled casket lying on a table near by was half buried under scented blossoms. Cleopatra fanned herself languidly; a luminous green scarab burned on her forehead between the wings of golden hair; the gauzy film which enwrapped her deepened to a tender flush over hips and bosom. Yet in her eyes some shadow of a mortal fear belied the sensuous abandonment of her attitude. “The contest of our loves, Decurion,” she said. “Art thou prepared to wage it?” He looked at her steadfastly, and answered, “Yes, Queen.” “To free thy master,” she said, “from this curse? Wilt thou teach me how to die?” “Aye, gladly,” he said. She pointed to the casket. “It lies therein--the means. Open and handle it. It is said its sting benumbs--puts Death asleep. So thou diest sweetly, I am thy slave and grave-fellow.” Without a moment’s hesitation, he strode to the casket, and unfastened and raised the lid. Within, upon a mat of green leaves, lay coiled a thick emblazoned worm, all bronzed and gold--a poisonous horned viper. He grasped and held it aloft; received the stabbing tooth, once, twice, in his arm; flung the reptile back into its box and closed the lid. After long waiting, he was down upon his knees, pallid but triumphant. “Sufferest thou?” she demanded. “But too much bliss,” he answered faintly. “I swoon from it.” He crawled towards her, but sank on the way and died, forcing a smile to his agonised lips. Then, when it was over, she rose in great emotion, and looked down upon the body. “I have conquered all others,” she said. “Thou conquerest me. Greater than mine is thy love.” She turned to her trembling women. “Keep the worm safe.” And then she kneeled and, bending, kissed the dead man’s lips. “Take me for thy slave, Dentatus,” she whispered, “in the shadows to come. Not Antony, not another, but thou alone.” The Galilean A solitary goatherd sat crouched on a slope above the Sea of Galilee. It was approaching morning, and he had lit a little fire on the rocks in order to roast his breakfast of fish. It was still dark, though the embroidered velvet canopy overhead was beginning to reveal a grape-like bloom along its eastern verge. Seven miles across, on the opposite shore, the lamps of Tiberias, minute and liquid, dripped threads of gold into the motionless lake; to the north the snows of Mount Hermon lay like a pillow to the quiet hills; everywhere was the swoon and stillness which characterise that last deep hour of slumber when sleep itself sleeps.