Demetrius appeared pleased, and Cornelia whispered to a serving-lad, who immediately went out.

The tramp of heavy feet sounded on the mosaics outside the banqueting room; the tapestry over the doorway was thrust aside, and in the dim lamplight—­for it had long been dark—­two rigid soldiers in armour could be seen, standing at attention.  Drusus stepped past them, and saluted.

“The prisoner is here, Imperator,” he said.

“Bring him in,” replied Caesar, laying down his wine-cup.

The curtain swayed again, and the rest of a decuria of troops entered.  In their centre was a figure whose manacles were clinking ominously.  In the uncertain light it was only possible to see that the prisoner was bent and shivering with fright.  The general shrugged his shoulders in disgust.

“This is the sort of creature, Drusus,” quoth he, derisively, “that is so dangerous that we must despatch him at once? Phui! Let him stand forth.  I suppose he can still speak?”

Pratinas made a pitiable picture.  The scuffle and wetting had done little benefit to his clothes; his armour the pirates had long since appropriated; his hair, rather long through affectation, hung in disorder around his neck.  He had shaved off his “philosopher’s” beard, and his smooth cheeks showed ugly scratches.  He was as pale as white linen, and quaking like a blade of grass in the wind, the very antithesis of the splendid Ares of the fight on the mole.

“Your name is Pratinas?” began Caesar, with the snappish energy of a man who discharges a disagreeable formality.

“Yes, despotes,” began the other, meekly; but as he did so he raised his head, and the rays of one of the great candelabra fell full on his face.  In a twinkling a shout, or rather a scream, had broken from Demetrius.  The pirate had leaped from his couch, and, with straining frame and dilated eyes, sprang between the prisoner and his judge.

“Menon!” The word smote on the captive like the missile of a catapult.  He reeled back, almost to falling; his eyes closed involuntarily.  His face had been pale before, now it was swollen, as with the sight of a horror.

“Demetrius!” and at this counter exclamation, the cornered man burst into a howl of animal fear.  And well he might, for Demetrius had sprung upon him as a tiger upon an antelope.  One of the guards indiscreetly interposed, and a stroke of the pirate’s fist sent the soldier sprawling.  Demetrius caught his victim around the body, and crushed the wretched man in beneath his grasp.  The pseudo-Pratinas did not cry out twice.  He had no breath.  Demetrius tore him off of his feet and shook him in mid-air.

“Daphne!  Daphne!” thundered the awful pirate; “speak—­or by the infernal gods—­”

“Put him down!” shouted Caesar and Drusus.  They were almost appealing to an unchained lion roaring over his prey, Drusus caught one of Demetrius’s arms, and with all his strength tore it from its grasp.