yellow amber beads. "And my feet are
bare," she added to herself, diverted from her panic by her womanly
embarrassment. She advanced toward the door, but had not long to wait.
Down below the invaders had burst loose in wild pillage, then up into
the sleeping room came flying a man--Phaon, his teeth chattering, his
face ghastly with fright.

"Domina! domina!" and he knelt and seized Cornelia's robe. "Save, _A!_
save! We are undone! Pirates! They will kill us all! _Mu! mu!_ don't
let them murder me!"

A moment longer and Cornelia, in her rising contempt, would have
spurned him with her foot. There were more feet on the stairway.
Glaring torches were tossing over gold inlaid armour. A man of unusual
height and physique strode at the head of the oncomers, clutching and
dragging by the wrist a quivering slave-boy.

"Your mistress, boy! where is she? Point quickly, if you would not
die!" cried the invader, whom we shall at once recognize as Demetrius.

Cornelia advanced to the doorway, and stood in her maidenly dignity,
confronting the pirates, who fell back a step, as though before an
apparition.

"I am the Lady Cornelia, mistress of the villa," she said slowly,
speaking in tones of high command. "On what errand do you come thus
unseasonably, and with violence?"

Whereat, out from the little group of armed men sprang one clad in
costly, jewel-set armour, like the rest, but shorter than the others,
and with fair hair flowing down from his helmet on to his shoulders.

"Domina, do you not know me? Do not be afraid."

"Agias!" cried Cornelia, in turn giving back a step.

"Assuredly," quoth the young Hellene, nothing dismayed; "and with your
leave, this great man is Demetrius, my cousin, whose trade, perchance,
is a little irregular, but who has come hither not so much to plunder
as to save you from the clutches of his arch-enemy's son, Lucius
Ahenobarbus."

Cornelia staggered, and caught the curtain in the doorway to keep from
falling.

"Has Master Drusus sent him to me?" she asked, very pale around the
lips.

"Master Drusus is at Corfinium. No one knows what will be the issue of
the war, for Pompeius is making off. It is I who counselled my cousin
to come to Baiae."

"Then what will you do with me? How may I dare to trust you? Deliver
myself into the hands of pirates! Ah! Agias, I did not think that
_you_ would turn to such a trade!"

The youth flushed visibly, even under the ruddy torchlight.

"Oh, lady,"