Sardou's Cleopatra — page 95: what you’re looking at

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

80 SARDOU'S CLEOPATRA. | Then, with much persuasive and subtle elo- quence, Diomedes disclosed what he wished the © slave to do, promising him in return to bring him - in disguise into the presence of the queen herself, where he could drink to the full the intoxication of her. beauty. At first Pharon demurred. ‘The vii asked seemed in itself but little, but what lay behind it he did not know. He had been slightly ac- - quainted with the Egyptian, at the time that he was a boatman of the Nile. He knew but little of him, but he felt an instinctive distrust of him. The unquenchable thirst which had taken posses- sion of him to gaze upon the face of her who was at once his joy and his ruin proved too strong for him, however; little by little he allowed himself to be persuaded, and ended by agreeing to do what ~ Diomedes asked of him. = comicbooks (E(@)