A Struggle For Rome Volume Ii Part 61

"Lower your spears! Follow me! Charge!"

And the Isaurians now obeyed him. Another moment, and a fight would have commenced in the city itself.

But just then, from the west, in the direction of the Aurelian Gate, was heard a terrible, all-overpowering cry.

"Woe! woe! all is lost! The Goths are upon us! The city is taken!"

Cethegus turned pale, and looked behind him.

Kallistratos galloped up, blood flowing from his face and neck.

"Cethegus," he cried, "all is over! The barbarians are in Rome! The wall is forced!"

"Where?" asked the Prefect, in a hollow voice.

"At the Mausoleum!"

"Oh, my general!" cried Lucius, "I warned you!"

"That is Witichis!" said Cethegus, closing his eyes as if in pain.

"How do you know it?" asked Kallistratos, astonished.

"Enough! I do know it."

It was a fearful moment for the Prefect. He was obliged to confess to himself that, recklessly following his plan for the ruin of Belisarius, he had for a short period neglected Rome.

He ground his teeth.

"Cethegus has exposed the Mausoleum! Cethegus has ruined Rome!" cried Bessas, at the head of the body-guard.

"And Cethegus will save Rome!" cried the Prefect, raising himself in his saddle. "Follow me, Isaurians and legionaries!"

"And Belisarius?" whispered Syphax.

"He may enter. First Rome; then the rest! Follow me!"

And Cethegus galloped off the same way that he had come.

Only a few mounted men could keep up with him; his foot-soldiers and Isaurians followed at a run.

CHAPTER XII.

At the same time a pause ensued before the Tiburtinian Gate.

A messenger had recalled the Gothic hors.e.m.e.n from the useless fight.

They were to send all the men they could dispose of as fast as possible round the city to the Aurelian Gate, through which their comrades had just entered the city; there the greatest available force was necessary.

The hors.e.m.e.n, turning to the left, galloped towards the gate which had now become the centre of the struggle; but their own foot-soldiers, storming the five gates which lay between--the Porta Clausa, the Nomentanian, Salarian, Pincian, and Flaminian Gates--blocked their progress so long, that they arrived too late for the result of the attack upon the Mausoleum.

We recollect the position of this favourite resort of the Prefect.

Opposite the Vatican Hill, at about a stone's throw from the Aurelian Gate, with which it was connected by side walls, and protected everywhere, except on the south, where ran the river, by new fortifications, towered the "Moles Hadriani," an immense round tower of the firmest masonry.

A sort of court surrounded the princ.i.p.al building. On the south, before the first and outer wall of defence, flowed the Tiber. The ramparts of this outer wall, and the court and battlements of the inner wall, were usually occupied by the Isaurians, whom, in an evil hour, the Prefect had withdrawn in order to carry out his plot against Belisarius.

On the parapet of the inner wall stood the numerous statues of marble and bronze, which had been raised to the number of three hundred by the gift of Kallistratos.

The King of the Goths had chosen for himself a position far back in the middle of the wide semicircle which his army had drawn around the city to the west. He had stationed himself upon the "field of Nero," on the right bank of the Tiber, between the Pancratian (old Aurelian) and the (new) Aurelian Gates, a post usually occupied by Earl Markja, of Mediolanum.

Witichis founded his plan upon the fact that the general storming of all the gates would necessarily disperse the forces of the besieged; and as soon as some part of the ramparts should be more than usually exposed by the withdrawal of its defenders, he intended to make use of the circ.u.mstance, and attack at that point.

With this view, he had quietly remained immovable far behind the storming columns.

He had given orders to his leaders to call him at once should a gap in the line of defence be observed.

He had waited long--very long.

He had had to bear many a word of impatience from his troops, who were forced to remain idle while their comrades were advancing on all sides.

Long, long they waited for a messenger to call them into action.

At last the King himself was the first to notice that the well-known flags and the thickly-crowded spears of the Isaurians had disappeared from the outer wall of the Mausoleum.

He observed the place attentively. The Isaurians could not have been relieved, for the gaps were not filled up.

Then he sprang from his saddle, gave his horse a stroke with the flat of his hand, and cried, "Home, Boreas!"

The clever animal galloped straight back to the camp.

"Now forward, my Goths! forward, Earl Markja!" cried the King. "Over the river there! Leave the wall-breakers behind: take only shields and storming-ladders, and the axes. Forward!"

And at a run he reached the steep bank at the southern bend of the river, and descended the hill.

"No bridge. King, and no ford!" asked a Goth behind him.

"No, friend Iffamer; we must swim!"

And the King sprang into the dirty yellow water, which splashed, hissing, high above his helmet.

In a few moments he had reached the opposite bank, the foremost of his people with him.

Soon they stood close before the lofty outer wall of the Mausoleum, and the warriors looked up inquiringly and anxiously.

"Bring the ladders!" cried Witichis. "Do you not see? There are no defenders! Are you afraid of mere stones?"

The ladders were quickly raised, and the outer wall scaled. The few soldiers who had remained to defend this wall were overcome, the ladders drawn up and let down on the inner side.