The Scarlet Banner Part 6

"Oh, yes. And during your absence there was open rebellion; blood flowed on that account in the streets of Carthage. But the worst thing is, that these effeminate n.o.bles and the richer citizens _can_ no longer fight on foot. They say--and unfortunately it is true--that they can no longer bear the weight of the heavy helmets, breastplates, shields, and spears, no longer hurl the lances which I had brought out again from Genseric's a.r.s.enal."

"They are of course required to arm themselves," said Zazo. "So why--"

"Because most have sold the ancient weapons or exchanged them for jewels, wine, dainties, or female slaves; or else for arms that are mere ornaments and toys. I allow no one to enter the army with this rubbish; and before they are properly equipped, the victory and the Empire might be lost. But it is true: they can no longer carry Genseric's armor. They would fall in a short time. They are swearing because we are now in the very hottest months."

"Are we to tell the enemy that the Vandals fight only in the winter?"

cried Zazo, laughing.

"Therefore to fill the ranks of our foot soldiers I have already obtained many thousand Moorish mercenaries," the King replied. "Of course these sons of the desert, variable, impetuous, changeful, like the sands of their home, are a poor subst.i.tute for German strength. But I have gained twenty chiefs with about ten thousand men."

"Is Cabaon, the graybeard of countless years, among them?" asked Gibamund.

"No, he delays his answer."

"It is a pity. He is the most powerful of them all! And his prophetic renown extends far beyond his tribe," observed Zazo.

"Well, we shall have better a.s.sistants than the Moorish robbers," said Gibamund, consolingly. "The brave Visigoths in Spain."

"Have you yet received an answer from their king?"

"Yes and no! King Theudis is shrewd and cautious. I urged upon him earnestly (I wrote the letter myself; I did not leave it to Verus) that Constantinople was not threatening us Vandals solely; that the imperial troops could easily cross the narrow straits from Ceuta, if we were once vanquished. I offered him an alliance. He answered evasively: he must first be sure of what we could accomplish in the war."

"What does he mean by that?" cried Zazo, angrily. "I suppose he wants to wait till the end of the conflict. Whether we conquer or are vanquished, we shall no longer need him!"

"I wrote again, still more urgently. His answer will soon come."

"But the Ostrogoths?" asked Gibamund, eagerly. "What do they reply?"

"Nothing at all."

"That is bad," said Gibamund.

"I wrote to the Regent: I stated that I was innocent of Hilderic's shameful deed. I warned her against Justinian, who was threatening her no less than us; I reminded her of the close kinship of our nations--"

"You have not yet stooped to entreaties?" asked Zazo, indignantly.

"By no means. I besought nothing. I merely requested, as our just right, that the Ostrogoths at least would not aid our foes. As yet I have had no answer. But worse than the lack of allies, the most perilous thing is the utter, foolish undervaluation of the enemy among our own people," added the King.

"Yes! They say, Why should we weary ourselves with drilling and arming?

The little Greeks won't dare to attack us! And if they really do come, the grandsons of Genseric will destroy the grandsons of Basiliscus just as Genseric destroyed him."

"But we are no longer Genseric's Vandals!" Gelimer lamented. "Genseric brought with him an army of heroes, brave, trained by twenty years of warfare with other Germans and with the Romans in the mountains of Spain, simple, plain in tastes, rigid in morals. He closed the houses of Roman pleasure in Carthage; he compelled all women of light fame to marry or enter convents."

"But how that suited the husbands and the other nuns is not told,"

replied Zazo, laughing.

"And now, to-day, our youths are as corrupt as the most profligate Romans. To the cruelty of the fathers"--the King sighed deeply--"is added the dissipation, the intemperance, the effeminate indolence of the sons. How can such a nation endure? It must succ.u.mb."

"But we Asdings," said Gibamund, drawing himself up to his full height, while his eyes sparkled and a n.o.ble look transfigured his whole face, "we are unsullied by such stains."

"What sins have we--you and we two committed," Zazo added, "that we must perish?"

Again the King sighed heavily, his brow clouded, he lowered his eyes.

"We? Do we not bear the curse which--But hush! Not a word of that! It is the last straw of my hope that I, the King, at least wear this crown without guilt. Were I obliged to accuse myself of that, woe betide me!

Oh--whose is this cold hand? You, Verus? You startled me."

"He steals in noiselessly, like a serpent," Zazo muttered in his beard.

The priest--he had retained, even as chancellor, the ecclesiastical robe--had entered un.o.bserved; how long before, no one knew. His eyes were fixed intently upon Gelimer, as he slowly withdrew the hand he had laid upon his friend's bare arm.

"Yes, my sovereign, keep this anxiety of conscience. Guard your soul from guilt. I know your nature; it would crush you."

"You shall not make my brother still more gloomy," cried Zazo, indignantly.

"Gelimer and guilt!" exclaimed Gibamund, throwing his arm around the King's neck.

"He is only too conscientious, too much given to pondering," Zazo went on. "Really, Gelimer, you, too, are no longer like Genseric's Vandals.

You are infected also; not by Roman vices, but by Roman or Greek or Christian brooding over subtle questions. To put it more courteously: gnosticism, theosophy, or mysticism? I know nothing about it, cannot even think of it. How glad I am that our father did not send me to be educated by the priests and philosophers! He soon discovered that Zazo's hard skull was fit only for the helmet, not to carry a reed behind the ear. But you! I always felt as though I were going into a dungeon when I visited you in your gloomy, high-walled monastery, in the solitude of the desert. Many, many years you dreamed away there among the books--lost."

"Not lost!" replied Gibamund. "He found time to become the chief hero of his people. On him rests the hope of the Vandals."

"On the whole House of the Asdings! We are not degenerates," answered the King. "But can a single family--even though it is the reigning one--stay the sinking of a whole nation? Uplift one that has fallen so low?"

"Hardly," said Verus, shaking his head. "For who can say of himself that he is free from sin? And," he added slowly, suddenly raising his eyes and fixing them full upon Gelimer, "the sins of the fathers--"

"Stay," exclaimed the King, groaning aloud, as if in anguish. "Not that thought now--when I must act, create, accomplish. It will paralyze me."

He pressed his hand over his eyes and brow.

"Even at the present time," the priest continued, "sin is dominant everywhere among the people. It cries aloud to Heaven for vengeance.

Just now I was obliged, to comfort a dying man--"

"Even as Chancellor of the Kingdom, he does not forget the duties of the priest," said Gelimer, turning to his brothers.

"To go near the southern gate. Again, from that grove devoted to every vice, there fell upon my ear the uproar, the infernal jubilee of evil revel. Those shameless songs--"

"What?" cried the King, wrathfully, striking the marble table with his clinched fist. "Do they dare? Did I not order, before my departure for Hippo, that all these games and festivals should cease? Did I not fix yesterday as the final limit, after which the grove must be cleared and all its houses closed? I sent three hundred lancers to see that my commands were obeyed. What are they doing?"

"Those who are no longer dancing and drinking are asleep, weary of carousing, full of wine, which they drank, like all who were there. I saw a little group snoring under the archway of the gate."

"I will give them a terrible awakening," cried the King. "Must sin actually devour us?"

"That grove is beyond cure," said Zazo.

"What the sword cannot do, the flames will," exclaimed the King, threateningly. "I will sweep through them like the wrath of G.o.d! Up, follow me, my brothers!" He rushed out of the room.

"Order the hundreds of hors.e.m.e.n to mount, Gibamund," said Zazo, as they crossed the threshold,--"the household troop, under faithful Markomer.

For the Vandals no longer obey the King's word unless at the same time they see the glitter of the King's sword."