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Leave all to me. If you learn anything new, send word to the house of Lentulus Crus, and ask to see me. And now I must forsake this pleasant wine untasted, and hurry away. My mistress will bless you, and perhaps there will be some reward." And leaving the bewildered Pisander to wipe the wine from his dress, Agias had darted out of the tavern, and was lost in the hurly-burly of the cattle-market.
"Not until the Senate has set aside the veto of the tribunes," he replied quietly. "But the danger will then be imminent!" "A good soldier does not leave his post, my excellent Agias," said the Roman, "until duty orders him away. Our duty is in the Senate until we can by our presence and voice do no more. When that task is over, we go to Cæsar as fast as horse may bear us; but not until then."
The friends, however, did not check their pace until, safe beyond chance of overtaking, they reined in at an hospitable tavern in the old Etruscan town of Veii. Here Drusus took leave of Agias. "You are quite too unimportant an enemy," said he to the young Greek, "to be worth arrest by the consuls, if indeed they know what part you have had in our escape.
"What a stroke of fortune!" raved the philosopher. "How we will be revenged on that rascal, Pratinas! O Destiny, thy decrees are just!" Again Agias expostulated, and at last brought out of Pisander a tolerably coherent account of the conversation which he had heard between Valeria and Pratinas. Then, indeed, the merry slave-boy was troubled.
Pisander had continued to read Plato to his mistress, and to groan silently at her frivolity; albeit, he did not groan so hopelessly as before, because he had good money in his pouch and knew where to procure more when he needed it. So Agias enjoyed himself. He was a youth; a Pagan youth; and in his short life he had seen many a scene of wickedness and shame.
Light after light blazed up in the building; women rushed panic-struck to the doorway to burst forth into the night; and at the open portal Agias saw a gigantic figure with upraised long sword, a Titan, malevolent, destroying, terrible, at the sight whereof the women shrank back, screaming yet the more. "Dumnorix!" shouted Agias; but before he spoke Demetrius had leaped forward.
"You are no Ichomachus, Xenophon's perfect wife-educator," the ex-pirate had said to his importunate cousin; "wait a few years." And Agias was fain to be content, with this hope before him. There were other partings than his; but at last the adieus were over, and all save Cæsar went back upon the quay. The Imperator alone tarried on the poop of the vessel for an instant.
But Agias, whose eyes had been straining out into the western harbour, cried, "Help! A galley is coming!" "Imperator," said Drusus, "you must wait for this galley." The foe were almost on them. "Are you mad?" was the exclamation of the general. "I can hold them off until it is safe to swim," and Drusus had covered himself behind a coping in the masonry. Cæsar measured the distance with his eye.
The friends had worn their short swords under their cloaks, but counting Agias they were only six, and the lictors were twelve, to say nothing of the soldiers, of whom there were thirty or more.
The moment she caught sight of the rather manly form of Agias, the door started to close with a slam, but the latter thrust out his foot, blocked the door, and forced an entrance. "Eleleu!" cried Agias, pushing into a small but neatly furnished room. "What have we here? Do the muses sing in Subura? Has Sappho brought hither her college of poetesses from Lesbos?"
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