urite
officers, and asked for an account of his life. A strange enough story
it was Demetrius had to tell, though Cornelia had heard it before; of
two voyages to wealthy Taprobane,[186] one as far as the Golden
Chersonesos,[187] almost to the Silk Land, Serica, of voyages out
beyond the Pillars of Hercules into the Sea of Darkness,--everywhere
that keel of ship had ploughed within the memory of man.

[186] Ceylon.

[187] Malay Peninsula.

"And the men that drove you to freebooting?" asked Caesar, when the
company had ceased applauding this recital, which the sailor set forth
with a spontaneous elegance that made it charming.

"I have said that they were Lucius Domitius, whom the gods have
rewarded, and a certain Greek."

"The Greek's name was--"

"Kyrios," said Demetrius, his fine features contracting with pain and
disgust, "I do not willingly mention his name. He has done me so great
a wrong, that I only breathe his name with a curse. Must you know who
it was that took my child, my Daphne,--though proof I have not against
him, but only the warnings of an angry heart?"

"But he was--" pressed Caesar.

"Menon." And as he spoke he hissed the words between his teeth. "He is
one knave among ten thousand. Why burden your excellency with
remembering him?"

So the conversation went on, and Caesar told how he had been taken
prisoner, when a young man, by pirates near Rhodes, and how he had
been kept captive by them on a little isle while his ransom was
coming.

"Ah!" interrupted Demetrius, "I have heard the whole tale from one of
my men who was there. You, kyrios, behaved like a prince. You bade
your captors take fifty talents instead of twenty, as they asked, and
wrote verses and declaimed to your guards all the time you were
awaiting the money, and joined in all their sports; howbeit, you kept
telling them that you would crucify them all for the matter."

"_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
tak