midnight
All was prepared , triumph hung in my hand as a ripe fruit to the hand of the plucker . Yet as I sat at the royal feast my heart was heavy , and a shadow of coming woe lay cold within my mind . I sat there in a place of honour , near the majesty of Cleopatra , and looked down the lines of guests , bright with gems and garlanded with flowers , marking those whom I had doomed to die . There before me lay Cleopatra in all her beauty , which thrilled the beholder as he is thrilled by the rushing of the midnight gale , or by the sight of stormy waters . I gazed on her as she touched her lips with wine and toyed with the chaplet of roses on her brow , thinking of the dagger beneath my robe that I had sworn to bury in her breast . Again , and yet again , I gazed and strove to hate her , strove to rejoice that she must die -- and could not . There , too , behind her -- watching me now , as ever , with her deep-fringed eyes -- was the lovely Lady Charmion .