When Caesar heard that his enemy was dead, he put on mourning for the man who had been his comrade and colleague, and sent messages of condolence to Cleopatra. He set apart a day for the funeral and ordered that the day should be sacred, and Cleopatra should not be disturbed in any way. Cleopatra prepared the body for burial with her own hands, dug the grave alone, and with her women laid the body to rest, and she alone gave the funeral address. Caesar was gentle, gracious, kind. Assurances came that he would do neither the city nor the Queen the slightest harm. Cleopatra demanded Egypt for her children, and for herself she wished only the privilege of living with her grief in obscurity. Caesar would make no promises for her children, but as for herself she should still be Queen--they were of one age--why should not Caesar and Cleopatra still rule, just as, indeed, a Caesar had ruled before! But this woman had loved the Great Caesar, and now her heart was in the grave with Mark Antony--she scorned the soft, insinuating promises. She clothed herself in her most costly robes, wearing the pearls and gems that Antony had given her, and upon her head was the diadem that proclaimed her Queen. A courier from Caesar's camp knocked at the door of the mausoleum, but he knocked in vain. Finally a ladder was procured, and he climbed to the window through which the body of Antony had been lifted. In the lower room he saw the Queen seated in her golden chair of state, robed and serene, dead. At her feet lay Iras, lifeless. The faithful Charmion stood as if in waiting at the back of her mistress' chair, giving a final touch to the diadem that sat upon the coils of her lustrous hair. The messenger from Caesar stood in the door aghast--orders had been given that Cleopatra should not be harmed, neither should she be allowed to harm herself. Now she had escaped! "Charmion!" called the man in stern rebuke. "How was this done?" "Done, sir," said Charmion, "as became a daughter of the King of Egypt." As the woman spoke the words she reeled, caught at the chair, fell, and was dead. Some said these women had taken a deadly poison invented by Cleopatra and held against this day; others, still, told of how a countryman had brought a basket of figs, by appointment, covered over with green leaves, and in the basket was hidden an asp, that deadliest of serpents. Cleopatra had placed the asp in her bosom, and the other women had followed her example. Caesar, still wearing mourning for Mark Antony, went into retirement and for three days refused all visitors. But first he ordered that the body of Cleopatra, clothed as she had died, in her royal robes, should be placed in the grave beside the body of Mark Antony. And it was so done. SAVONAROLA