em to be
reconciled with the queen, and seal her restoration by a splendid
court banquet.

The palace servants made ready for the feast. The rich and noble of
Alexandria were invited. The stores of gold and silver vessels
treasured in the vaults of the Lagidae were brought forth. The arches
and columns of the palace were festooned with flowers. The best pipers
and harpers of the great city were summoned to delight with their
music. Precious wine of Tanis was ready to flow like water.

Drusus saw the preparations with a glad heart. Cornelia would be
present in all her radiancy; and who there would be more radiant than
she?

Chapter XXIV

Battling for Life

And then it was,--with the chariots bearing the guests almost driving
in at the gates of the palace,--that Cerrinius, Caesar's barber, came
before his master with an alarming tale. The worthy man declared that
he had lighted on nothing less than a plot to murder the Romans, one
and all, by admitting Achillas's soldiery to the palace enclosure,
while all the banqueters were helpless with drugged wine. Pratinas,
who had been supposed to be at Pelusium, Cerrinius had caught in
retired conference with Pothinus, planning the arrangement of the
feast. Achillas's mercenary army was advancing by stealthy marches to
enter the city in the course of the evening. The mob had been aroused
by agitators, until it was in a mood to rise en masse against the
Romans, and join in destroying them. Such, in short, was the barber's
story.

There was no time to delay. Caesar was a stranger in a strange and
probably hostile land, and to fail to take warning were suicide. He
sent for Pothinus, and demanded the whereabouts of Achillas's army.
The regent stammered that it was at Pelusium. Caesar followed up the
charge by inquiring about Pratinas. Pothinus swore that he was at
Pelusium also. But Caesar cut his network of lies short, by commanding
that a malefactor should be forced to swallow a beaker of the wine
prepared for the banquet. In a few moments the man was in a helpless
stupor.

The case was proved and Caesar became all action. A squad of
legionaries haled Pothinus away to an execution not long delayed.
Other legionaries disarmed and replaced the detachment of the royal
guard that controlled the palace gates and walls. And barely had these
steps been taken, when a courier thundered into the palace, hardly
escaped through the raging mob that was gaining control of the c