A Struggle For Rome Volume Ii Part 59

This well-known sound gave the Prefect a shock.

"It is evident," he said to himself, "that they are in good earnest."

Again a thundering stroke,

Gregorius, the Byzantine, looked at him inquiringly.

"This must not continue any longer," cried Cethegus angrily; and he tore a bow and quiver from an archer who stood near him, and hurried to the battlements over the gate.

"Here, archers and slingers! Follow me!" he cried. "Bring heavy stones.

Where is the next balista? Where the scorpions? That penthouse must come down!"

But under it stood Gothic archers, who eagerly looked through the apertures at the pinnacles of the battlements.

"It is useless, Haduswinth," grumbled young Gunthamund; "for the third time I have aimed in vain. Not one of them will venture even his nose above the battlements."

"Patience!" answered the old man; "only keep thy bow ready bent. Some curious body will be sure to show himself. Lay a bow ready for me too, and have patience."

"Patience! That is easier for thee with thy seventy years, than for me with my twenty," grumbled Gunthamund.

Meanwhile Cethegus reached the wall over the gate, and cast a look across the plain.

There he saw the King standing motionless in the distance with his centre, upon the right bank of the Tiber.

This sight disturbed him.

"What does he intend? Has he learned that the commander-in-chief ought not to fight? Come, Gajus," he cried to a young archer, who had boldly followed him, "your young eyes are sharp. Look over the battlements.

What is the King doing there?"

And he bent over the bulwarks. Gajus followed his example, and both looked out eagerly.

"Now, Gunthamund!" cried Haduswinth below.

Two strings tw.a.n.ged, and the two Romans started back.

Gajus fell, shot in the forehead; and an arrow fell rattling from the Prefect's helmet.

Cethegus pa.s.sed his hand across his brow.

"You live, my general!" cried Piso, springing towards him.

"Yes, friend. It was well aimed, but the G.o.ds need me yet. Only the skin is scratched," said Cethegus, and set his helmet straight.

CHAPTER XI.

Just then Syphax appeared upon the wall.

His master had strictly forbidden him to take part in the fight. He could not spare him.

"Woe--woe!" cried Syphax, so loudly, that it struck Cethegus--who knew the Moor's usual self-control--strangely.

"What has happened?"

"A great misfortune! Constantinus is severely wounded. He led a sortie from the Salarian Gate, and at once stumbled upon the Gothic ranks. A stone from a sling hit him on the brow. With difficulty his people saved him, and bore him back within the walls. There I received the fainting man--he named you, the Prefect, as his successor. Here is his general's staff."

"That is not possible!" shouted Bessas, who had followed at Syphax's heels. He had come in person to demand reinforcements from the Prefect, and arrived just in time to hear this news. "That is not possible," he repeated, "or Constantinus was raving when he said it."

"If he had appointed you he might have been so," said Cethegus quietly, taking the staff, and thanking the cunning slave with a rapid motion of his hand.

With a furious look Bessas left the ramparts and hurried away.

"Follow him, and watch him carefully, Syphax," whispered the Prefect.

An Isaurian mercenary hastily approached.

"Reinforcements, Prefect, for the Porta Portuensis! Duke Guntharis has stormed the wall!"

He was followed by Cabao, the leader of the Moorish mounted archers, who cried:

"Constantinus is dead! You must represent him."

"I represent Belisarius," said Cethegus proudly. "Take five hundred Armenians from the Appian Gate, and send them to the Porta Portuensis."

"Help--help for the Appian Gate! All the men on the ramparts are shot dead!" cried a Persian horseman, galloping up. "The farthest outwork is nearly lost; it may yet be saved, but with difficulty. It would be impossible to retake it!"

Cethegus called his young jurisconsult, Salvius Julia.n.u.s, now his war-tribune.

"Up, my jurist! '_Beati possidentes!_' Take a hundred legionaries and keep the outwork at all costs until further a.s.sistance arrive." And again he looked over the breastwork.

Under his feet the fight raged; the battering-rams thundered. But he was more troubled by the mysterious inaction which the King preserved in the background than by the turmoil close at hand.

"Of what can he be thinking?"

Just then a fearful crash and a loud shout of joy from the barbarians sounded from below. Cethegus had no need to ask what it was; in a moment he had reached the gate.

"The gate is broken!" cried his people.

"I know it. _We_ now must be the bolts of Rome!"

And pressing his s.h.i.+eld more firmly to his side, he went up to the right wing of the gate, in which yawned a broad fissure. And again the battering-ram struck the shattered planks near the crevice.

"Another such stroke and the gate will fall!" said Gregorius, the Byzantine.

"Quite right; therefore we must not let it be repeated. Here--to me--Gregorius and Lucius! Form, milites! Spears lowered! Torches and firebrands! Make ready to sally. When I raise my sword, open the gate, and cast ram and penthouse and all into the trench."

"You are very daring, my general!" cried Lucius Licinius, taking his stand close to Cethegus with delight.