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
no