Sardou's Cleopatra — page 207: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

192 | SARDOU'S CLEOPATRA. CHAPTER XV. AFTER-ACTIUM, The battle had ended in defeat, the defeat in rout. Both Antony and Octavius had powerful fleets at sea and great armies on land, but Antony was strongest in land troops. In the deliberations that followed the lighting of the war-beacon, Ven- tidius and all the other officers sought, by all arguments in their power, to induce the general not to trust himself to the sea. But Cleopatra, who was present at the council, opposed them, and the infatuated Antony turned a deaf ear to his com- panions’ words and declared that the queen should have her way. “Besides,” she said, “if you fight by land I can- not be there to see; but at sea, from the Antoniad, I can witness your triumph.” “T implore you, queen,” said Ventidius, “not to think of that. To have you there would be fatal.” > -comicbooks (ele)