“No slave you! No callus here! No gyve marks on the wrists! You’ve never worked among the galley slaves—my little runaway! Thighs too thin and shoulders too slim for these foreign swine we bring to Rome in droves. Where do you come from, young one?”
“From the mountains of Lebanon, my Lord Julius,” answered the downcast face.
The Idumean gave a start. “How know you the Romans call me Julius?” he sharply asked. “I’m an Idumean of Herod the Great’s Guard.”
“Because you were commander on the Alexandrian corn ship that carried all the Jewish prisoners wrecked at Malta,” answered a trembling voice in the falsetto between youth and man.
“You were not among the prisoners, young one—nor sailors either! I recall them—to a man. I’ll test your truth. Mind your tongue! Describe the ship, the passengers, the prisoners.”
“I took ship at Fair Havens, Crete. I came down from Phrygia. You remember the Prophet, who was a prisoner from Cæsarea, wanted you to tarry there for the winter?”
“By Jupiter, I do; and now I wish I had, for I’d be back in Idumea, leading our General Vespasian’s cohorts if I hadn’t wrecked that accursed corn ship, and not be cooling my heels here, waiting the trial of these Jewish fanatics—what next? Describe what next—the ship?”
“The ship had a golden goose at the stern. It was full of Egyptian corn to the rowers’ benches. She was deep as she was broad, and long as from here to the Three Taverns—”
“Go on! You guess well and may lie better—all corn ships are the same—”
“She had flaming pennants and huge iron anchors and two monstrous oars as paddles that you used as rudders, and the pilot at the helm was a bald-headed old man—”