“Listen, Agias,” he said, still hoarsely.  “Only yesterday I ran upon you by chance in the crowd.  We have many things to tell one another, chiefly I to tell you.  Why do I hate Lucius Domitius?  Why should you hate him?  Who made you a slave and me an outlaw?  Your father died bankrupt; you know it was said that Philias, his partner, ruined him.  That was truth, but not the whole truth.  Philias was under deep obligations to a certain Roman then in the East, who knew of several crimes Philias had committed, crimes that would bring him to the cross if discovered.  Do you understand?”

“Hardly,” said Agias, still bewildered.  “I was very young then.”

“I will go on.  It was shortly before Pompeius returned to Rome from the East.  Your father had charge of the banking firm in Alexandria, Philias of the branch at Antioch.  I was a clerk in the Antioch banking-house.  I knew that Philias was misusing his partner’s name and credit.  The Roman whom I have mentioned knew it too, and had a supple Greek confidant who shared his spoils and gave the touches to his schemes.  He had good cause to know:  he was levying blackmail on Philias.  At last a crisis came; the defalcation could be concealed no longer.  Philias was duly punished; he was less guilty than he seemed.  But the Roman—­who had forced from him the money—­he was high on the staff of the proconsul—­let his confederate and tool suffer for his own fault.  He kept his peace.  I would not have kept mine; I would not have let the real ruiner of my uncle escape.  But the Roman had me seized, with the aid of his Greek ally; he charged me with treasonable correspondence with the Parthians.  He, through his influence with the proconsul, had me bound to the oar as a galley slave for life.  I would have been executed but for another Roman, of the governor’s suite, who was my friend.  He pleaded for my life; he believed me innocent.  He saved my life—­on what terms!  But that is not all he did.  He bribed my guards; I escaped and turned outlaw.  I joined the last remnants of the Cilician pirates, the few free mariners who have survived Pompeius’s raid.  And here I am in Rome with one of my ships, disguised as a trader, riding at the river wharf.”

“And the name of the Roman who ruined you and my father?” said Agias.

“Was Lucius Domitius.  The friend who saved me was Sextus Drusus, son of Marcus Drusus, the reformer.  And if I do not recompense them both as they deserve, I am not Demetrius the pirate, captain of seven ships!”

“You will never recompense Sextus Drusus,” remarked Agias, quietly.  “He has been dead, slain in Gaul, these five years.”

“Such is the will of the gods,” said Demetrius, looking down.

“But he has left a son.”

“Ah!  What sort of a man?”

“The noblest of all noble Romans.  He is the Quintus Drusus who saved my life, as last night I told you.”

“Mithras be praised!  The name is so common among these Latins that I did not imagine any connection when you mentioned it.  What can I do to serve him?”