Very different from the good-humoured, careless, half-boyish student youth who had driven down the Praeneste road two years before, was the soldierly figure that Cornelia pressed to her heart.  The campaigning life had left its mark upon Drusus.  Half of a little finger the stroke of a Spanish sword had cleft away at Ilerda; across his forehead was the broad scar left by the fight at Pharsalus, from a blow that he had never felt in the heat of the battle.  During the forced marchings and voyages no razor had touched his cheeks, and he was thickly bearded.  But what cared Cornelia?  Had not her ideal, her idol, gone forth into the great world and stood its storm and stress, and fought in its battles, and won due glory?  Was he not alive, and safe, and in health of mind and body after ten thousand had fallen around him?  Were not the clouds sped away, the lightnings ceased?  And she?  She was happy.

So Drusus told her of all that had befallen him since the day he escaped out of Lucius Ahenobarbus’s hands at Baiae.  And Cornelia told of her imprisonment at the villa, and how Demetrius had saved her, and how it came to pass that she was here at the Egyptian court.  In turn Drusus related how Caesar had pursued Pompeius into Asia, and then, hearing that the Magnus had fled to Egypt, placed two legions on shipboard and sailed straight for Alexandria.

“And when he landed,” continued the young officer, “the magistrates of the city came to Caesar, and gave him first Pompeius’s seal-ring of a lion holding a sword in his paw, and then another black-faced and black-hearted Egyptian, without noticing the distress the Imperator was in, came up and uncovered something he had wrapped in a mantle.  I was beside the general when the bundle was unwrapped.  I am sickened when I speak of it.  It was the head of Pompeius Magnus.  The fools thought to give Caesar a great delight.”

“And what did the Imperator do or say?” asked Cornelia.

“He shrank back from the horror as though the Egyptian had been a murderer, as indeed all of his race are.  Caesar said nothing.  Yet all saw how great was his grief and anger.  Soon or late he will requite the men who slew thus foully the husband of his daughter Julia.”

“You must take me away from them,” said Cornelia, shuddering; “I am afraid every hour.”

“And I, till you are safe among our troops at Alexandria,” replied Drusus.  “I doubt if they would have let me see you, but for Agias.  He met us on the road from Alexandria and told me about you.  I had received a special despatch from Caesar to bear with all haste to the king.  So across the Delta I started, hardly waiting for the troops to disembark, for there was need for speed.  Agias I took back with me, and my first demand when I came here was to see the king and deliver my letter, which was easily done an hour ago; and my next to see you.  Whereat that nasty sheep Pothinus declared that you had been sent some days before up the river on a trip to the Memphis palace to see the pyramids.  But Agias was close at hand, and I gave the eunuch the lie without difficulty.  The rascal blandly said, ’that he had not seen you of late; had only spoken by hearsay about you, and he might have been misinformed;’ and so—­What do I look like?”