Volume Ii Part 59 (2/2)
”Woe--woe!” cried Syphax, so loudly, that it struck Cethegus--who knew the Moor's usual self-control--strangely.
”What has happened?”
”A great misfortune! Constantinus is severely wounded. He led a sortie from the Salarian Gate, and at once stumbled upon the Gothic ranks. A stone from a sling hit him on the brow. With difficulty his people saved him, and bore him back within the walls. There I received the fainting man--he named you, the Prefect, as his successor. Here is his general's staff.”
”That is not possible!” shouted Bessas, who had followed at Syphax's heels. He had come in person to demand reinforcements from the Prefect, and arrived just in time to hear this news. ”That is not possible,” he repeated, ”or Constantinus was raving when he said it.”
”If he had appointed you he might have been so,” said Cethegus quietly, taking the staff, and thanking the cunning slave with a rapid motion of his hand.
With a furious look Bessas left the ramparts and hurried away.
”Follow him, and watch him carefully, Syphax,” whispered the Prefect.
An Isaurian mercenary hastily approached.
”Reinforcements, Prefect, for the Porta Portuensis! Duke Guntharis has stormed the wall!”
He was followed by Cabao, the leader of the Moorish mounted archers, who cried:
”Constantinus is dead! You must represent him.”
”I represent Belisarius,” said Cethegus proudly. ”Take five hundred Armenians from the Appian Gate, and send them to the Porta Portuensis.”
”Help--help for the Appian Gate! All the men on the ramparts are shot dead!” cried a Persian horseman, galloping up. ”The farthest outwork is nearly lost; it may yet be saved, but with difficulty. It would be impossible to retake it!”
Cethegus called his young jurisconsult, Salvius Julia.n.u.s, now his war-tribune.
”Up, my jurist! '_Beati possidentes!_' Take a hundred legionaries and keep the outwork at all costs until further a.s.sistance arrive.” And again he looked over the breastwork.
Under his feet the fight raged; the battering-rams thundered. But he was more troubled by the mysterious inaction which the King preserved in the background than by the turmoil close at hand.
”Of what can he be thinking?”
Just then a fearful crash and a loud shout of joy from the barbarians sounded from below. Cethegus had no need to ask what it was; in a moment he had reached the gate.
”The gate is broken!” cried his people.
”I know it. _We_ now must be the bolts of Rome!”
And pressing his s.h.i.+eld more firmly to his side, he went up to the right wing of the gate, in which yawned a broad fissure. And again the battering-ram struck the shattered planks near the crevice.
”Another such stroke and the gate will fall!” said Gregorius, the Byzantine.
”Quite right; therefore we must not let it be repeated. Here--to me--Gregorius and Lucius! Form, milites! Spears lowered! Torches and firebrands! Make ready to sally. When I raise my sword, open the gate, and cast ram and penthouse and all into the trench.”
”You are very daring, my general!” cried Lucius Licinius, taking his stand close to Cethegus with delight.
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