Stones and billets of wood began to whistle past their ears,--the missiles of the on-rushing multitude.

At last the wharves! Out in the darkness stood the huge bulk of a Spanish lumberman; but there was no refuge there.
The grain wharves and the oil wharves were passed; the sniff of the mackerel fisher, the faint odour from the great Alexandrian merchantman loaded with the spices of India, were come and gone.

A stone struck Agias in the shoulder, he felt numb in one arm, to drag his feet was a burden; the flight with the Caesarians to the Janiculum had not been like to this,--death at the naked sword had been at least in store then, and now to be plucked in pieces by a mob! Another stone brushed forward his hair and dashed, not against Demetrius ahead, but against his burden.

There was--Agias could hear--a low moan; but at the same instant the fleeing pirate uttered a whistle so loud, so piercing, that the foremost pursuers came to a momentary stand, in half-defined fright, In an instant there came an answering whistle from the wharf just ahead.

In a twinkling half a dozen torches had flashed out all over a small vessel, now barely visible in the night, at one of the mooring rings.