Sardou's Cleopatra — page 243: what you’re looking at

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

228 SARDOU’S CLEOPATRA. - enemy. How she hated this Roman who had dared more than once to oppose her, and whose influence over Antony she knew and feared! ‘Let him speak,” she said, uprearing her head haughtily. “I will answer his accusations.” Honest Ventidius was in no whit deterred from his purpose. He realized that the struggle was an unequal one, that the prize was already firmly held in Cleopatra’s grasp, that their general was now irrevocably lost to his soldiers, but, neverthe- less, he determined to fight to the last gasp. “Ay! you may well say accusations,” he re- torted. “You have betrayed Antony! You have signed a treaty to deliver him into the hands of Cesar. Ceesar himself boasts of the fact.” Antony started. For the moment he had for- gotten what had been told him the night before. But the queen smiled disdainfully. “T know Cesar and his character too well to sion a treaty with him,” she said. “It is false!” “Words! Words!” said Ventidius. ‘“Remem- ber Actium, Antony, remember Actium.” “There, I brave your malice. Antony knows now why I fled. "“I‘was fear for him. Ah! my dear lord, would that I had been a man not to have known that fear, for then these Romans, (E(e) comicbooks