Volume Ii Part 2 (1/2)

”Dismount!” he ordered, ”every man of you!”

But the Huns did not like to part with their horses.

”What, sir? Dismount?” asked one of the nearest.

Johannes struck him in the face. The man did not move.

”Dismount!” thundered Johannes again. ”Would you go into that mouse-hole on horseback!” and he flung himself out of the saddle. ”Six climb the trees and shoot from above. Six lie down and creep forward on each side of this road, shooting as they lie. Ten shoot standing; breast high. Ten guard the horses. You others follow me with the spear as soon as the strings tw.a.n.g. Forwards!”

He handed his torch to one of the men and took a lance.

While the Huns were carrying out his orders, Johannes again examined the pa.s.s as well as he could.

”Yield!” he cried.

”Come on!” shouted the Goths.

Johannes gave a sign and twenty arrows whistled at once.

A cry, and the foremost Goth on the right fell. He had been struck in the forehead by one of the men on the trees. Valerius, under shelter of his s.h.i.+eld, sprang into his place. He came just at the right moment to repulse the furious attack of Johannes, who ran at the gap with his lance in rest. Valerius received the thrust on his s.h.i.+eld, and struck at the Byzantine, who stumbled and fell, close to the entrance. The Huns behind him fell back.

The Goth who stood at Valerius's side could not resist the temptation to render the leader harmless. He sprang a step forward out of the pa.s.s with up-lifted spear. But this was just what Johannes wanted. Up he started with lightning swiftness, thrust the surprised Goth over the low wall of the road on the right of the pa.s.s, and the next moment he stood on the exposed side of Valerius--who was defending himself against the renewed attack of the Huns--and stabbed him with all his might in the groin with his long Persian knife.

Valerius fell; but the three Goths who stood behind him succeeded in pus.h.i.+ng Johannes--who had already pressed forward into the middle of the pa.s.s--back and out with the beaks of their s.h.i.+elds.

Johannes retired to his men, in order to command a new salvo of arrows.

Two of the Goths silently placed themselves in the entrance of the pa.s.s; the third held the bleeding Valerius in his arms.

Just then the guard at the rear of the pa.s.s rushed in: ”The s.h.i.+p, sir!

the s.h.i.+p! They have landed! they take us in the rear! Fly! we will carry you--a hiding-place in the rocks----”

”No,” said Valerius, raising himself, ”I will die here; rest my sword against the wall and----”

But a loud flourish of Gothic horns was heard in the rear. Torches shone, and a troop of thirty Goths hurried into the pa.s.s, Totila at their head. His first glance fell upon Valerius.

”Too late! too late!” he cried in deep grief. ”Revenge! Follow me!

Forwards!” And he rushed furiously through the pa.s.s, followed by his spear-bearing foot-soldiers.

Fearful was the shock of meeting upon the narrow road between sea and rocks. The torches were extinguished in the skirmish; and the dawning day gave but a faint grey light.

The Huns, although superior in numbers to their bold adversaries, were completely taken by surprise. They thought that a whole army of Goths was on the march. They hastened to join their horses and fly. But the Goths reached the place where the animals stood at the same moment as their owners, and, in confused heaps, men and horses were driven off the road into the sea. In vain Johannes himself struck at his flying people; their rush threw him to the ground; he sprang up immediately and attacked the nearest Goth. But he had fallen into bad hands. It was Totila; he recognised him.

”Cursed Flax-head!” he cried, ”so you are not drowned?”

”No, as you see!” cried Totila, and struck a blow at the other's helm, which cleft it through and entered slightly into his skull, so that he staggered and fell.

With this all resistance was at an end. The nearest of the hors.e.m.e.n just managed to lift Johannes into a saddle, and galloped off with him.