"And my feet are bare," she added to herself, diverted from her panic by her womanly embarrassment.

She advanced toward the door, but had not long to wait.
Down below the invaders had burst loose in wild pillage, then up into the sleeping room came flying a man--Phaon, his teeth chattering, his face ghastly with fright.
"Domina! domina!" and he knelt and seized Cornelia's robe.

"Save, _A!_ save! We are undone! Pirates! They will kill us all! _Mu! mu!_ don't let them murder me!" A moment longer and Cornelia, in her rising contempt, would have spurned him with her foot.

There were more feet on the stairway.
Glaring torches were tossing over gold inlaid armour.

A man of unusual height and physique strode at the head of the oncomers, clutching and dragging by the wrist a quivering slave-boy.
"Your mistress, boy! where is she?
Point quickly, if you would not die!" cried the invader, whom we shall at once recognize as Demetrius.
Cornelia advanced to the doorway, and stood in her maidenly dignity, confronting the pirates, who fell back a step, as though before an apparition.
"I am the Lady Cornelia, mistress of the villa," she said slowly, speaking in tones of high command.