CAESAR. What has frightened you into this? What have you done? (_A trumpet sounds on the beach below._) Aha! That sounds like the answer.
CLEOPATRA (_sinking back trembling on the bench and covering her face with her hands_). I have not betrayed you, Caesar: I swear it.
CAESAR. I know that. I have not trusted you. (_He turns from her, and is about to go out when Apollodorus and Britannus drag in Lucius Septimius to him. Rufio follows. Caesar shudders._) Again, Pompey's murderer!
RUFIO. The town has gone mad, I think. They are for tearing the palace down and driving us into the sea straight away. We laid hold of this renegade in clearing them out of the courtyard.
CAESAR. Release him. (_They let go his arms._) What has offended the citizens, Lucius Septimius?
LUCIUS. What did you expect, Caesar? Pothinus was a favorite of theirs.
CAESAR. What has happened to Pothinus? I set him free, here, not half an hour ago. Did they not pass him out?
LUCIUS. Ay, through the gallery arch sixty feet above ground, with three inches of steel in his ribs. He is as dead as Pompey. We are quits now, as to killing--you and I.
CAESAR. (_shocked_). Assassinated!--our prisoner, our guest! (_He turns reproachfully on Rufio_) Rufio----
RUFIO (_emphatically--anticipating the question_). Whoever did it was a wise man and a friend of yours (_Cleopatra is qreatly emboldened_); but none of _us_ had a hand in it. So it is no use to frown at me. (_Caesar turns and looks at Cleopatra._)
CLEOPATRA (_violently--rising_). He was slain by order of the Queen of Egypt. I am not Julius Caesar the dreamer, who allows every slave to insult him. Rufio has said I did well: now the others shall judge me too. (_She turns to the others._) This Pothinus sought to make me conspire with him to betray Caesar to Achillas and Ptolemy. I refused; and he cursed me and came privily to Caesar to accuse me of his own treachery. I caught him in the act; and he insulted me--_me_, the Queen! to my face. Caesar would not avenge me: he spoke him fair and set him free. Was I right to avenge myself? Speak, Lucius.
LUCIUS. I do not gainsay it. But you will get little thanks from Caesar for it.
CLEOPATRA. Speak, Apollodorus. Was I wrong?
APOLLODORUS. I have only one word of blame, most beautiful. You should have called upon me, your knight; and in fair duel I should have slain the slanderer.