“Hem!” laughed Caesar.  “Didn’t I make good the threat?”

“You did with all save this man, who got away,” was his unflinching answer.  “Although in mercy you strangled all your captors before you had them put on the crosses.”

“Hei!” quoth the Imperator.  “I should have spared them to give me criticism of those verses now.”

“Kyrios,” rejoined Demetrius, “the man who survived assures me that the verses at least were wretched, though your excellency was a very good wrestler.”

“Euge! Bravo!” cried Caesar, and all the company joined in.  “I must take a few of your men back to Rome, for we need critics for our rough Latin versifiers.”

Drusus, as soon as the laugh passed away, arose, and addressed his chief:—­

“Imperator,” he said, “Agias this morning dragged from off the mole with him into the water one of the most dangerous men in the councils of our enemies.  I mean, as you know, Pratinas the Greek.  He is now in the palace prison, but every one is aware that, so long as he so much as lives, we are hardly safe.  What shall be done?”

Caesar frowned.

“This is hardly a basilica for a trial,” he replied, “but ’inter arma silent leges.’  Tell the centurions on guard to bring him here.  I imagine we must grant him the form of an examination.”

Drusus went out to give the necessary orders.

“You did not see Agias’s prisoner?” asked Cornelia of Demetrius, who was now an old friend.

“I did not,” answered the pirate prince, pouring down the contents of a prodigious beaker at a single draught.  “A very desperate man, I imagine.  But it is hard for me to blame any one so long as he fights openly.  Still,” he added, with a laugh, “I mustn’t express such sentiments, now that his excellency has given me this.”  And he tossed over to Cornelia a little roll, tiny but precious, for it was a general pardon, in the name of the Republic, for all past offences, by land or sea, against the peace. “Babai!” continued Demetrius, lolling back his great length on the couch, “who would have imagined that I, just returning from a mere voyage to Delos to get rid of some slaves, should save the lives of my cousin, my benefactor’s son, and Caesar himself, and become once more an honest man.  Gods! gods! avert the misfortunes that come from too much good fortune!”

“Was Agias badly wounded?” asked Cornelia, with some concern.

“Oh,” replied his cousin, “he will do well.  If his precious captive had thrust his dagger a bit deeper, we might have a sorry time explaining it all to that pretty little girl—­Artemisia he calls her—­whom he dotes upon.  By the bye,” continued Demetrius, as entirely at his ease in the company as though he had been one of the world’s high-born and mighty, “can your ladyship tell me where Artemisia is just now?  She was a very attractive child.”

“Assuredly,” said Cornelia.  “She is here in the palace, very anxious, I doubt not, about Agias.  Come, I will send for her.  You shall tell her all about his escape.”