The Scarlet Banner Part 3

"I don't mean it. As I stood there while he questioned you so ungraciously, I could have--But reviling him is useless. Something must be done. I remained at home this time for a good reason: it was hard enough for me to let you go forth to victory alone! But I secretly kept a sharp watch on this fox in the purple, and have discovered his tricks. Send away this pair of wedded lovers, I think they have much to say to each other alone; the child Ammata, too; and listen to my report, my suspicion, my accusation: not only against the King, but others also."

Gibamund threw his arm tenderly around his slender wife, and the boy ran out of the hall in front of them.

CHAPTER V

Gelimer sat down on the couch; Zazo stood before him, leaning on his long sword, and began,--

"Soon after you went to the field, Pudentius came from Tripolis to Carthage."

"Again?"

"Yes, he is often at the palace and talks for hours, alone with the King. Or with Euages and Hoamer, the King's nephews, our beloved cousins. The latter, arrogant blockhead, can't keep silent after wine.

In a drunken revel he told the secret."

"But surely not to you?"

"No! To red-haired Thrasaric."

"The savage!"

"I don't commend his morals," cried the other, laughing. "Yet he has grown much more sedate since he is honestly trying to win the dainty Eugenia. But he never lies. And he would die for the Vandal nation; especially for you, whom he calls his tutor. You begin education with blows. In the grove of Venus--"

"The Holy Virgin, you mean," Gelimer corrected.

"If you prefer?--yes! But it does the Virgin little honor, so long as the old customs remain. So, at a banquet in the sh.e.l.l grotto of that grove, Thrasaric was praising you, and said you would restore the warlike fame of the Vandals as soon as you were king, when Hoamer shouted angrily: 'Never! That will never be! Constantinople has forbidden it. Gelimer is the Emperor's foe. When my uncle dies, _I_ shall be king; or the Emperor will appoint Pudentius Regent of the kingdom. So it has been discussed and settled among us.'"

"That was said in a fit of drunkenness."

"Under the influence of wine--and in wine is truth, the Romans say.

Just at that moment Pudentius came into the grotto. 'Aha!' called the drunken man, 'your last letter from the Emperor was worth its weight in gold. Just wait till I am King, I will reward you: you shall be the Emperor's exarch in Tripolis.'

"Pudentius was greatly startled and winked at him to keep silence, but he went on: 'No, no! that's your well-earned reward.' All this was told me by Thrasaric in the first outbreak of his wrath after he had rushed away from the banquet. But wait: there is more to come! This Pudentius--do you believe him our friend?"

"Oh, no," sighed Gelimer. "His grandparents and parents were cruelly slain by our kings because they remained true to their religion. How should the son and grandson love us?"

Zazo went close up to his brother, laid his hand heavily on his shoulder, and said slowly: "And _Verus_? Is _he_ to love us? Have you forgotten how his whole family--?"

Gelimer shook his head mournfully: "Forget _that_? I?" He shuddered and closed his eyes. Then, rousing himself by a violent effort from the burden of his gloomy thoughts, he went on: "Still your firmly rooted delusion! Always this distrust of the most faithful among all who love me!"

"Oh, brother! But I will not upbraid you; your clear mind is blinded, blinded by this priest! It seems as if there were some miracle at work--"

"It _is_ a miracle," interrupted Gelimer, deeply moved, raising his eyes devoutly.

"But what say you to the fact that this Pudentius, whom you, too, do not trust, is admitted to the city secretly at night--by whom? By Verus, your bosom friend!"

"That is not true."

"I have seen it. I will swear it to the priest's face. Oh, if only he were here now!"

"He is not far away. He told me--he was the first one of you all to greet me at the parade--that he longed to see me, he must speak to me at once. I appointed this place; as soon as the King dismissed me I would be here. Do you see? He is already coming down the colonnade."

CHAPTER VI

The tall, haggard priest who now came slowly into the hall was several years older than Gelimer. A wide, dark-brown upper garment fell in mantle-like folds from his broad shoulders: his figure, and still more his unusually striking face, produced an impression of the most tenacious will. The features, it is true, were too sharply cut to be handsome; but no one who saw them ever forgot them. Strongly marked thick black brows shaded penetrating black eyes, which, evidently by design, were always cast down; the eagle nose, the firmly closed thin lips, the sunken cheeks, the pallid complexion, whose dull l.u.s.tre resembled light yellow marble, combined to give the countenance remarkable character. Lips, cheeks, and chin were smoothly shaven, and so, too, was the black hair, more thickly mingled with gray than seemed quite suited to his age,--little more than forty years. Each of his rare gestures was so slow, so measured, that it revealed the rigid self-control practised for decades, by which this impenetrable man ruled himself--and others. His voice sounded expressionless, as if from deep sadness or profound weariness, but one felt that it was repressed; it was a rare thing to meet his eyes, but they often flashed with a sudden fire, and then intense pa.s.sion glowed in their depths. Nothing that pa.s.sed in this man's soul was recognizable in his features; only the thin lips, firmly as he closed them, sometimes betrayed by a slight, involuntary quiver that this rigid, corpse-like face was not a death-mask.

Gelimer had started up the instant he saw the priest, and now, hurrying toward him, clasped the motionless figure, which stood with arms hanging loosely before him, ardently to his heart.

"Verus, my Verus!" he cried, "my guardian angel! And you!--_you_!--they are trying to make me distrust. Really, brother, the stars would sooner change from G.o.d's eternal order in the heavens than this man fail in his fidelity to me." He kissed him on the cheek. Verus remained perfectly unmoved. Zazo watched the pair wrathfully.

"He has more love, more feeling," he muttered, stroking his thick beard, "for that Roman, that alien, than for--Speak, priest, can you deny that last Sunday, after midnight, Pudentius--ah, your lips quiver--Pudentius of Tripolis was secretly admitted by you through the little door in the eastern gate and received in your house, beside your basilica? Speak!"

Gelimer's eyes rested lovingly on his friend, and, smiling faintly, he shook his head. Verus was silent.

"Speak," Zazo repeated. "Deny it if you dare. You did not suspect that I was watching in the tower after I had relieved the guard. I had long suspected the gate-keeper; he was once a slave of Pudentius. You bought and freed him. Do you see, brother? He is silent! I will arrest him at once. We will search for secret letters his house, his chest, the altars, the sarcophagi of his church, nay, even his clothes."

Now Verus's black eyes suddenly blazed upon the bold soldier, then after a swift side-glance at Gelimer were again bent calmly on the floor.

"Or do you deny it?"

"No," fell almost inaudibly from the scarcely parted lips.

"Do you hear that, brother?"

Gelimer hastily advanced a step nearer to Verus.

"It was to tell you this that I requested an immediate interview," said the latter, quietly, turning his back on Zazo.

"That's what I call presence of mind!" cried Zazo, laughing loudly.

"But how will you prove it?"

"I have brought the proof that Pudentius is a traitor," Verus went on, turning to Gelimer, without paying the slightest attention to his accuser. "Here it is."

He slowly threw back his cloak, pa.s.sed his hand through the folds of his under garment, and after a short search drew from his breast a small, crumpled strip of papyrus, which he handed to Gelimer, who hurriedly unfolded it, and read,--

"In spite of your warning, we shall persist. Belisarius is perhaps already on the way. Give this to the King."

Both Vandals were startled.

"That letter?" asked Gelimer.

"Was written by Pudentius."

"To whom?"

"To me."