The Scarlet Banner Part 41

Now she sprang up, and asking two of the men to help her--she would not release the dear head from her clasping hands--carried the dead Prince to the top of the mountain. In a little grove of pines, just outside the city, a small wooden hut had been built which had formerly contained stores of every kind. Now it was half empty except for a large pile of the wood used for fires. In this hut she spent the night and the dark morning alone with the dead. When it grew light she sought the King, whom she found in the basilica on the spot where formerly--the remains of some steps showed it--the altar had stood.

Here Gelimer had placed in a crack between two stones a wooden cross, roughly made of boughs laid across each other. He lay p.r.o.ne on his face before it, clasping the cross with both arms.

"Brother-in-law Gelimer," she said in a curt, harsh tone, "is it true?

Do you mean to surrender?"

He made no reply.

She shook him by the shoulder.

"King of the Vandals, do you mean to give yourself up as a captive?"

she cried more loudly. "They will lead you through the streets of Constantinople as a spectacle! Will you shame your people--your _dead_ people--still more?"

"Vanity," he answered dully. "Vanity speaks from your lips! All that you are thinking is sinful, vain, arrogant."

"Why do you do this so suddenly? You have held out for months."

"Verus!" groaned the King. "G.o.d has abandoned me; my guardian spirit has betrayed me. I am condemned on earth, and in the world beyond the grave. I can do nothing else!"

"Yes. Here, Gelimer, here is your sharp sword."

Stooping, she tore it from the sheath which lay with the sword-belt at the foot of the steps.

"'The dead are free' is a good motto."

But Gelimer shook his head.

"Vanity. Pride of heart. Pagan sin. I am a Christian. I will not kill myself. I will bear my cross--as Christ bore His--until I sink beneath it."

Hilda flung the sword clanking at his feet and turned from him without a word.

"Where are you going? What do you mean to do?"

"Do you suppose I loved less truly and deeply and fervently than that delicate Greek child? I come, my hero and my husband."

She walked across to a building now turned into a stable, the former curia of Medenus, where, a short time before, many horses had stamped.

Only Styx, the stallion, now stood in it. Hilda grasped his mane, and the wise, faithful animal followed like a lamb. The Princess went with the horse to the hut. It hung back a moment before following her into the narrow inclosure, which was dimly lighted by a pine torch in an iron ring by the door.

"Come in," Hilda said coaxingly, drawing the horse gently after her.

"It will be better for you too. You will perish miserably. Your beauty and your strength have gone. And after serving love in that brave ride through the battle, the enemy shall not seize you and torment you with base labor. What says the ancient song:

"Heaped high for the hero Log on log laid they: Slain, his swift steed Shared the warrior's death.

And, gladly, his wife, Nay, alas! his widow.

Burden of life's weary Days sad and desolate Would she, the faithful, Bear on no farther."

She led the stallion to the side of the lofty pile of wood, where she had laid the beautiful corpse, drew Gibamund's sword from its sheath, and, searching with her hand for the throbbing of the heart, thrust the blade into it with one powerful blow. Styx fell lifeless. Hilda threw down the blood-stained weapon.

"Oh, my love!" she cried. "Oh, my husband, my life! Why did I never tell you how I loved you? Alas! because I did not know myself--until now! Hear it, oh, hear it, Gibamund, I loved you very dearly. I thank you. Friend Teja! Oh, my all, I follow you."

And now she drew from her girdle the keen black dagger. Severing with one cut the long floating banner from its staff, she spread it over the corpse like a pall. It was so wide that it covered the whole s.p.a.ce beside the body. Then, with the blazing torch, she lighted the lowest wood, bent over the dead Prince, again kissed the pale lips fervently, and seizing the dark weapon, which flashed brightly in the light of the flames, buried it in her brave, proud heart.

She fell forward on her face over her beloved husband, and the fire, crackling and burning, seized first the scarlet banner which enfolded the young pair.

The morning breeze blew strongly through the half-open door and the c.h.i.n.ks between the logs--and the bright flames soon blazed high above the roof.

CHAPTER XXI

PROCOPIUS TO CETHEGUS:

It is over! Thank G.o.d, or whoever else may be ent.i.tled to our grat.i.tude. Three months, full of utter weariness, we remained encamped before the mountain of defiance. It is March; the nights are still cool, but at noonday the sun already burns with scorching heat. An attempted flight was baffled by treachery; Verus, Gelimer's chancellor and closest friend, deserves the credit of this base deed. Obeying the priest's directions we sought the Soloes concealed on the southern slope who were to accompany the fugitives to the sea, but found only the prints of numerous hoofs. We blocked the outlet. Then the King voluntarily, without any farther trouble, offered to surrender. Fara was greatly delighted; he would have granted any condition that enabled him to deliver the King a captive to Belisarius, who was even more impatient for the end of the war than we. At the entrance of the ravine, which we had never been able to penetrate, I received the little band of Vandals--about twenty were left. The Moors, too, came down; at Gelimer's earnest entreaty, Fara immediately set them at liberty. These Vandals--what images of misery, famine, privation, sickness, suffering! I do not understand how they could still hold out, still offer resistance. They could scarcely carry their arms, and willingly allowed us to take them.

But when I saw and talked with Gelimer--crushed though he is now--I realized that this man's mind and will could control, rule, support others as long as he desired. I have never seen any human being like him,--a monk, an enthusiast, and yet a royal hero.

I entreated Fara to let me shelter him in my tent. While we could scarcely restrain the others from immoderately greedy indulgence in meats and other foods of which they had long been deprived, he voluntarily continued the fast so long forced upon him. Fara with difficulty induced him to drink some wine; the Herulian probably feared that his prisoner would die on the way, before he could deliver him to Belisarius. For a long time he refused; but when I suggested that he was probably seeking death in this way, he at once drank the wine and ate some bread.

Long and fully, for nearly half the night, he talked with me, full of gentle submission, concerning his destiny. It is touching, impressive, to hear him attribute everything to the providence of G.o.d. But I cannot always follow his train of thought. For instance, I remarked that, after holding out so long, the baffled attempt to escape had probably caused the sudden resolution to surrender. He smiled sadly and replied: "Oh, no. Had our flight been frustrated by any other reason, I would have held out unto death. But Verus, Verus!" He was silent, then he added: "You will not understand it. But now I know that G.o.d has abandoned me, if He was ever with me. Now I know this, too, was sin, was hollow vanity, that I loved my people so ardently that from pride in the Asding blood, in our ancient warlike fame, I would not yield, would not surrender. We must love G.o.d alone, and live only for Heaven!"

Just at that moment Fara broke into the tent somewhat rudely.

"You have, not kept your promise. King!" he cried wrathfully. "You agreed to deliver up all the weapons and field flags, but the most important prize,--Belisarius specially urged me to look to it, for he saw it rescued from the battle, and I myself noticed it in a woman's hand a short time ago, when we made the attack,--King Genseric's great banner, is missing. Our people, I myself, guided by Vandals, have searched everywhere on the mountain; we found nothing except, among the ashes of a burned hut, with some bones, these gold nails,--the Vandals say they belonged to the pole of the banner. Did you burn it?"

"Oh, no, my Lord, I should not have grudged you and Belisarius the bauble; a woman did it Hilda. She killed herself. O G.o.d, I beseech Thee for her: forgive her!" And this is not hypocrisy. I hardly understand it. Yet these strange events force upon me thoughts which usually I would willingly avoid. Whoever has once meddled with philosophy--I shun it, but carry it ever in my brain--will never again escape the questioning concerning the Why?

Lucky accidents have always happened in the destinies of men; but whether any enterprise has ever been attended with such good fortune as ours is doubtful. Belisarius himself marvels. Five thousand hors.e.m.e.n,--for our foot-soldiers scarcely entered the battle,--strangers who, after they were put on sh.o.r.e, had no refuge, no citadel, possessed no spot of ground in all Africa except the soil on which they stood, did not know where they were to lay their heads,--five thousand hors.e.m.e.n, in two short conflicts, against ten times their number, destroyed the kingdom of the terrible Genseric, took his grandson prisoner, seized his royal citadel and royal treasures! It is incomprehensible. If I had not witnessed it myself, I would not have believed it. After all, is there a G.o.d dwelling in the clouds who wonderfully guides the destinies of men?

Belisarius's generalship, and our brave, battle-trained army did much; something, though not a large share, was accomplished, as now appears, by Verus's long-planned treachery, carried out to the end. Without our knowledge, he has corresponded all this time with the Emperor, and especially with the Empress. The most was due to the degeneracy of the people, except the royal House, which lost three men in the struggle.

The incomprehensible, contradictory nature of this King also contributed to the destruction. Yet all these things would not have produced the result so speedily, but for the unexampled good fortune which has attended us from the beginning.

And this luck--is it blind? Is it the work of G.o.d, Who desired to punish the Vandals for the sins of their forefathers and for their own? It may be so. And not without reverence do I bow to such a rule.

But--and here again the mocking doubt which never entirely deserts me, again rises in my mind--then we must say that G.o.d is not fastidious in His choice of tools, for this Gelimer and his brothers are hardly surpa.s.sed in virtue by Theodora, Justinian, Belisarius himself; perhaps, O Cethegus, not even by the friend who has written you these lines.

CHAPTER XXII

The day after Gelimer's surrender Fara's camp was broken up and the train of victors and captives began the march to Carthage. Couriers were despatched in advance to Belisarius.

At the head rode Fara, Procopius, and the other leaders on horses and camels; in the centre were led the captive Vandals, bound, for the sake of precaution, hand and foot with chains which permitted walking and even riding, but not running, and surrounded by foot-soldiers; the Hun cavalry formed the rear. So, resting at night in tents, they slowly traversed in fourteen days the road over which, in their swift pursuit, they had gone in eight.

Verus usually rode alone; he avoided the Vandals, and the Byzantines shunned _him_.

On the second day after the departure from Mount Pappua,--Fara and Procopius were far in advance,--at a turn in the road, the priest checked his horse and waited. The prisoners approached. Many a fettered hand was raised against him, many a curse was called down on his head; he neither saw nor heard. At last, holding in his manacled right hand a staff that extended into a cross, Gelimer tottered forward on foot.

Verus urged his horse through the ranks of the guards, and now rode close beside him; the prisoner looked up.

"You, Verus!"

He shuddered.