Volume I Part 42 (1/2)

”Oh, Theodora!” cried Antonina quickly, ”do not forget my request.”

”No,” answered Theodora, suddenly standing still, ”certainly not! And that you may be quite sure, I will give the order into your own hands.

My wax-tablets and the stylus!”

Galatea brought them in haste.

Theodora wrote, and whispered to her friend:

”The Prefect of the harbour is one of my old friends. He blindly obeys me. Read what I write.”

”To Aristarchus the Prefect, Theodora the Empress.

”When Severinus, the son of Boethius, is about to go on board the s.h.i.+p of Belisarius, keep him back, if necessary, by force; and send him to my rooms. He is appointed my chamberlain.”

”Is that right, dear sister?” she whispered.

”A thousand thanks!” said Antonina, with beaming eyes.

”But,” said the Empress suddenly, putting her hand to her neck, ”have we forgotten the princ.i.p.al thing? My amulet! the Mercury. Please, Antonina; there it hangs.”

Antonina turned hastily to fetch the little golden Mercury, which hung, by a silk cord, on the bed of the Empress.

Meanwhile Theodora quickly crossed out the word ”Severinus,” and wrote instead ”Anicius.” She closed the tablets, tied them, and fastened the string with her seal.

”Here is the amulet,” said Antonina, returning.

”And here is the order,” said the Empress, smiling. ”You can give it to Aristarchus yourself at the moment of departure. Now,” she cried, ”let us go. To the church!”

CHAPTER XIX.

In Neapolis, that Italian city over which the tempest then gathering at Byzantium was soon to burst in its first violence, no presentiment of the coming danger was felt.

On the charming declivities of Posilippo, or on the sh.o.r.e to the south-east of the city, there wandered, day by day, two handsome youths, exchanging confidences with all the enthusiasm of youthful friends.h.i.+p. They were the ”Dioscuri,” Julius and Totila.

Oh, happy time! when the uncorrupted soul, breathing the fresh morning air of life, as yet untired and undeceived, and drunk with the ecstasy of ambitious dreams, is urged to impart to an equally young, equally rich and equally enthusiastic nature its overflowing sentiments!

The n.o.blest resolves are strengthened, and imagination wings its way to the very gates of heaven, in the happy certainty that he who listens will understand.

When the wreath upon our brows is faded, and the harvest of our life is ripe, we may smile at these dreams of youth and youthful friends.h.i.+p; but it is no smile of mockery; it is tinged with the melancholy with which we think of the sweet, exhilarating airs of spring, while inhaling the breath of decay in autumn.

The young Goth and the young Roman had met at the age most favourable to the formation of the bond of friends.h.i.+p. Totila's sunny soul had preserved all the dewy bloom of youth; with smiling eyes he looked forth into the smiling future. He loved his fellow-creatures, and won all hearts by his amiability and the joyous frankness of his disposition. He believed in the complete victory of good over evil.

Where meanness and wickedness met him in his path, he trod them into the dust with the holy anger of an archangel; from the depths of his gentle nature the latent heroic strength broke forth, and he did not rest until the hated elements were destroyed. But the disturbance was forgotten as soon as overcome, and life and the world again appeared to him as harmonious as his own soul. He walked through the crowded streets of Neapolis with a song upon his lips, the idol of the girls, the pride of his brothers in arms.

With such a nature Totila was the favourite of all who knew him, receiving and imparting happiness. Even his quiet friend imbibed somewhat of the charm of his temperament.

Julius Monta.n.u.s, of a sensitive and thoughtful disposition, of an almost feminine nature, had been early left an orphan, and, awed by the immense superiority of his guardian Cethegus, had grown up shy, lonely and studious. More oppressed than elevated by the cheerless science of his time, he was apt; to look upon life as earnest and almost sad. He was inclined to subject all things to the severe test of superhuman perfection, and his natural self-distrust might easily have darkened into melancholy.

At a happy moment Totila's friends.h.i.+p shone into the inmost depths of his heart, and penetrated it with such a sunny warmth that his n.o.ble nature was thereby enabled to rise with elasticity from a severe shock which it received by means of this very friends.h.i.+p.

Let us hear what he himself wrote about this circ.u.mstance to the Prefect.