, 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?"

"Immediately, nothing. He is with Caesar, and, as you see, the enemies
of the Imperator are not likely, at present, to work his friends much
mischief. Yet it is singular that his chief enemy and yours are so
near akin. Lucius Ahenobarbus, son of Domitius, is thirsting for
Drusus's blood."

"If I had my sword!" muttered Demetrius, clapping his hand to his
thigh. "It is not too late to run after the fugitives!"

"Come, come," remonstrated Agias, feeling that his newly found cousin
was indeed a fearful and wonderful man after twelve years of lawless
and godless freebooter's life. "At my lodgings we will talk it all
over; and there will be time enough to scheme the undoing of Domitius
and all his family."

And with these words he led the sanguinary sea-king away.

* * * * *

Agias indeed found in Demetrius a perfect mine of bloody romance and
adventure. It had been the banking clerk's misfortune, not his fault,
that every man's hand had been against him and his against every man.
Demetrius had been declared an outlaw to Roman authority; and Roman
authority at that time stretched over very nearly every quarter of the
civilized world. Demetrius had been to India, to intercept the Red Sea
traders. He had been beyond the Pillars of Hercules and set foot on
those then half-mythical islands of the Canaries. He had plundered a
hundred merchantmen; he had fought a score of Roman government
galleys; he had been principal or accessory to the taking of ten
thousand liv