A Struggle For Rome Volume Ii Part 67

She had expected the speedy destruction or humiliation of the King. The long delay wearied her, and, at the same time, the immense suffering of her people had begun to shake her resolution. Lastly, the sad change in the manner of the usually strong and healthy King, the resigned but profound grief which he evidently felt, touched her heart.

Although she accused him, with all the injustice of pain and the bitter pride of insulted love, of having rejected her heart and yet forced her to give him her hand; although she believed that she hated him with all the pa.s.sion of her nature, and did indeed in some sort hate him, yet this hatred was only love reversed.

And now, when she saw him humbled by the terrible misfortunes of the Gothic army and the failure of all his plans--to which failure she had so greatly contributed by her own treason--so humbled, that his mind had begun to be affected by sickly melancholy, and he tormented himself with reproaches; the sight powerfully affected her impulsive nature, strangely compounded as it was of the contradictory elements of tenderness and harshness.

In the first moment of angry grief, she would have seen his blood flow with delight. But to see him slowly devoured by self-reproach and gnawing pain that she could not endure.

This softer feeling on her part had, besides, been greatly brought about by her having noticed, since their arrival in Ravenna, a change in the King's behaviour towards herself.

She thought that she observed in him traces of remorse for having so forcibly encroached upon her life, and she involuntarily softened her harsh and blunt manner to him during their rare interviews, which always took place in the presence of witnesses.

Witichis considered the change as a sign that a step had been taken towards reconciliation, and silently acknowledged and rewarded it, on his part, by a more friendly manner.

All this was sufficient to induce Mataswintha, with her emotional nature, to repulse the overtures of the Prefect, even when they sometimes reached her by means of the clever Moor.

Now the Prefect had already learned from Syphax during the march to Ravenna, that which was known later by other means, namely, that the Goths expected a.s.sistance from the Franks.

He had therefore forthwith renewed his old and intimate relations with the aristocrats and great men who ruled in the name of the mock Kings of the Merovingians in the courts of Mettis (Metz), Aurelianum (Orleans) and Suessianum (Soissons), in order to induce the Franks--whose perfidy, even then become a proverb, gave good hope that his efforts would be successful--to renounce the Gothic alliance.

And when the affair had been properly introduced by these friends, he himself wrote to King Theudebald, who held his court in Mettis, impressively warning him of the risk he would run if he supported such a ruined cause as that of the Goths had undeniably become since their ill-success in the siege of Rome.

This letter had been accompanied by rich gifts to his old friend, the Major Domus of the weak-minded King, and the Prefect impatiently waited, day by day, for the reply; the more impatiently because the altered demeanour of Mataswintha had cut off all the hopes he had entertained of effecting a more speedy conquest of the Goths.

The answer came--at the same time with an imperial letter from Byzantium--on a day which was equally pregnant with the fate of the heroes both in and out of Ravenna.

CHAPTER XVI.

Hildebad, impatient at the long pause of idleness, had, one day at dawn, made a sudden sally upon the Byzantines from the Porta Faventina, which was under his special command. He had at first won great advantages, had burnt a portion of the enemies' implements of siege, and had spread terror all around.

He would, without doubt, have done still more mischief had not Belisarius, hurrying up, displayed at once all his heroism and generals.h.i.+p.

Without helmet or armour, just as he had hurried from his tent, he had first checked his own flying outposts, and had then thrown himself upon the Gothic pursuers, and by the utmost personal exertion had brought the fight to a standstill.

Afterwards he had man[oe]uvred his two flanks so cleverly, that Hildebad's retreat was greatly endangered, and the Goths were obliged to retreat speedily into the city.

Cethegus, who lay encamped before the Porta Honorius with his Isaurians, had found, on hastening to the a.s.sistance of Belisarius, that the fight was already over. He could not, therefore, avoid paying a visit to the commander-in-chief in his tent, in order to express his admiration of the heroes conduct, both as a general and a soldier; praise which was greedily listened to by Antonina.

"Really, Belisarius," concluded the Prefect, "Emperor Justinian can never requite your valour sufficiently."

"There you speak truly," answered Belisarius haughtily; "he can only requite me by his friends.h.i.+p. The mere honour of bearing his marshal's staff would never have induced me to do that which I have already done, and shall yet accomplish. I do it only because I really love him.

With all his failings, he is a great man. If he could but learn one thing--to trust me! But patience--he will learn it in time."

Just then Procopius entered, bringing a letter for Belisarius, which had been delivered by an imperial messenger.

With a countenance beaming with delight, Belisarius, forgetting his fatigue, sprang from his cus.h.i.+ons, kissed the letter, and with his dagger cut the purple cord which tied it. He unfolded the paper with the words:

"From my Emperor himself! Ah, now he will send me the gold and the rest of the body-guard!"

And he began to read.

Antonina, Procopius, and Cethegus observed him attentively. His features grew darker and darker; his broad chest began to heave; both the hands with which he held the letter trembled.

Antonina anxiously approached him, but before she could question him, Belisarius uttered a low cry of rage, cast the letter on the ground, and rushed madly out of the tent. His wife followed him.

"Antonina alone dare now approach him," said Procopius, as he picked up the letter. "Let us see; no doubt it is another piece of imperial grat.i.tude." And he glanced over the letter. "The commencement is, as usual, mere phrases. Ah, now comes something better: 'Notwithstanding, we cannot deny that we expected, according to your own former boasts, a more speedy termination to the war against these barbarians; and we believe that, with greater exertion, this would not have been impossible. For this reason we cannot comply with your repeatedly-expressed wish to have the remaining five thousand body-guards sent from Persia, and the four thousand centenari of gold which lie in your palace at Byzantium. Certainly, both, as you rather superfluously remark in your letter, are your own property; and your offer to carry this war to a conclusion, paying the expenses out of your own purse, because of the existing exhaustion of the imperial exchequer, is worthy of all praise. As, however, all your property, as you more justly add in the aforesaid letter, is at the service of your Emperor, and as your Emperor considers the desired employment of your treasure and body-guard in Italy superfluous, we have decided to appropriate it otherwise, and have already sent troops and treasure to your colleague, Na.r.s.es, to be used in the Persian wars.' Ha! this is unheard of!" cried Procopius, interrupting himself.

Cethegus smiled. "It is a tyrant's thanks for the services of a slave!"

"And the end seems to be just as pleasant," continued Procopius. "'An increase of your power in Italy seems to us the less desirable, because we are daily warned against your boundless ambition. You are reported to have said lately, while sitting at wine, that the sceptre originated in the general's staff, and the general's staff in the stick. Dangerous thoughts and unseemly words! You see that we are faithfully informed of your ambitious dreams. This time we will warn without punis.h.i.+ng; but we have no desire to furnish you with more wood for your general's staff; and we would remind you that the tree, which most proudly tosses its summit, is nearest to the imperial lightning.' It is shameful!" cried Procopius.

"No, it is worse; it is silly!" said Cethegus. "It is whipping fidelity into rebellion."

"You are right!" cried Belisarius, who had caught these words as he again rushed into the tent. "Oh, he deserves that I should desert him, the base, ungrateful, wicked tyrant!"

"Be silent, for G.o.d's sake! You will ruin yourself!" cried Antonina, who had entered with her husband, and now tried to take his hand.

"No, I will not be silent!" cried the angry man, as he paced to and fro close to the open door of the tent, before which Bessas, Acacius, Demetrius, and many other leaders stood listening in astonishment. "All the world shall hear me! He is an ungrateful, malicious tyrant! He deserves that I should overthrow him! that I should confirm the suspicions of his false soul!"

Cethegus cast a look at those who stood outside; they had evidently heard all. Glancing at Antonina, he now went to the door and closed it carefully. Antonina thanked him by a look. She again drew near her husband, but he had thrown himself upon the ground before his couch, striking his clenched fist upon his brow and stammering:

"O Justinian! have I deserved this from you? It is too much, too much!"

And the strong man burst into tears.

At this Cethegus contemptuously turned away.

"Farewell," he said in a low voice to Procopius, "It disgusts me to see men blubber!"

CHAPTER XVII.

Lost in thought, the Prefect left the tent, and went round the camp to the rather distant outwork, where he had entrenched himself and his Isaurians before the Gate of Honorius.

It was situated on the south side of the city, near the harbour wall of Cla.s.sis, and the way led partly along the sea-sh.o.r.e.

Although the lonely wanderer was at this moment preoccupied by the great thought which had become the pulse of his life, although he was oppressed by anxiety as to how Belisarius--that man of impulse--would act, and worried with impatience for the arrival of the answer from the Franks, his attention was yet involuntarily attracted by the singular appearance of the landscape, the sky, and the sea.

It was October; but the season had seemed for weeks to have altered its laws. For almost two months it had never rained. Not a cloud, not a stripe of mist had been seen in this usually so humid part of the country. But now, quite suddenly--it was towards sunset--Cethegus remarked in the east, above the sea horizon, a single, dense, and coal-black cloud.

The setting sun, although free from mist, shed no rays.

Not a breath of air rippled the leaden surface of the sea; not the smallest wavelet played upon the strand.

Not an olive-leaf moved in all the wide plain; not even the easily-shaken reeds in the marshy ditches trembled.

No cry of an animal, no flight of a bird could be heard or perceived; and a strange choking smell, as if of sulphur, seemed to lie oppressively over land and sea, and to check respiration. The mules and horses in the camp kicked uneasily against the posts to which they were tied. A few camels and dromedaries, which Belisarius had brought with him from Africa, buried their heads in the sand.