Volume Ii Part 67 (1/2)

She had expected the speedy destruction or humiliation of the King. The long delay wearied her, and, at the same time, the immense suffering of her people had begun to shake her resolution. Lastly, the sad change in the manner of the usually strong and healthy King, the resigned but profound grief which he evidently felt, touched her heart.

Although she accused him, with all the injustice of pain and the bitter pride of insulted love, of having rejected her heart and yet forced her to give him her hand; although she believed that she hated him with all the pa.s.sion of her nature, and did indeed in some sort hate him, yet this hatred was only love reversed.

And now, when she saw him humbled by the terrible misfortunes of the Gothic army and the failure of all his plans--to which failure she had so greatly contributed by her own treason--so humbled, that his mind had begun to be affected by sickly melancholy, and he tormented himself with reproaches; the sight powerfully affected her impulsive nature, strangely compounded as it was of the contradictory elements of tenderness and harshness.

In the first moment of angry grief, she would have seen his blood flow with delight. But to see him slowly devoured by self-reproach and gnawing pain that she could not endure.

This softer feeling on her part had, besides, been greatly brought about by her having noticed, since their arrival in Ravenna, a change in the King's behaviour towards herself.

She thought that she observed in him traces of remorse for having so forcibly encroached upon her life, and she involuntarily softened her harsh and blunt manner to him during their rare interviews, which always took place in the presence of witnesses.

Witichis considered the change as a sign that a step had been taken towards reconciliation, and silently acknowledged and rewarded it, on his part, by a more friendly manner.

All this was sufficient to induce Mataswintha, with her emotional nature, to repulse the overtures of the Prefect, even when they sometimes reached her by means of the clever Moor.

Now the Prefect had already learned from Syphax during the march to Ravenna, that which was known later by other means, namely, that the Goths expected a.s.sistance from the Franks.

He had therefore forthwith renewed his old and intimate relations with the aristocrats and great men who ruled in the name of the mock Kings of the Merovingians in the courts of Mettis (Metz), Aurelianum (Orleans) and Suessianum (Soissons), in order to induce the Franks--whose perfidy, even then become a proverb, gave good hope that his efforts would be successful--to renounce the Gothic alliance.

And when the affair had been properly introduced by these friends, he himself wrote to King Theudebald, who held his court in Mettis, impressively warning him of the risk he would run if he supported such a ruined cause as that of the Goths had undeniably become since their ill-success in the siege of Rome.

This letter had been accompanied by rich gifts to his old friend, the Major Domus of the weak-minded King, and the Prefect impatiently waited, day by day, for the reply; the more impatiently because the altered demeanour of Mataswintha had cut off all the hopes he had entertained of effecting a more speedy conquest of the Goths.

The answer came--at the same time with an imperial letter from Byzantium--on a day which was equally pregnant with the fate of the heroes both in and out of Ravenna.

CHAPTER XVI.

Hildebad, impatient at the long pause of idleness, had, one day at dawn, made a sudden sally upon the Byzantines from the Porta Faventina, which was under his special command. He had at first won great advantages, had burnt a portion of the enemies' implements of siege, and had spread terror all around.

He would, without doubt, have done still more mischief had not Belisarius, hurrying up, displayed at once all his heroism and generals.h.i.+p.

Without helmet or armour, just as he had hurried from his tent, he had first checked his own flying outposts, and had then thrown himself upon the Gothic pursuers, and by the utmost personal exertion had brought the fight to a standstill.

Afterwards he had man[oe]uvred his two flanks so cleverly, that Hildebad's retreat was greatly endangered, and the Goths were obliged to retreat speedily into the city.

Cethegus, who lay encamped before the Porta Honorius with his Isaurians, had found, on hastening to the a.s.sistance of Belisarius, that the fight was already over. He could not, therefore, avoid paying a visit to the commander-in-chief in his tent, in order to express his admiration of the heroes conduct, both as a general and a soldier; praise which was greedily listened to by Antonina.

”Really, Belisarius,” concluded the Prefect, ”Emperor Justinian can never requite your valour sufficiently.”

”There you speak truly,” answered Belisarius haughtily; ”he can only requite me by his friends.h.i.+p. The mere honour of bearing his marshal's staff would never have induced me to do that which I have already done, and shall yet accomplish. I do it only because I really love him.

With all his failings, he is a great man. If he could but learn one thing--to trust me! But patience--he will learn it in time.”

Just then Procopius entered, bringing a letter for Belisarius, which had been delivered by an imperial messenger.

With a countenance beaming with delight, Belisarius, forgetting his fatigue, sprang from his cus.h.i.+ons, kissed the letter, and with his dagger cut the purple cord which tied it. He unfolded the paper with the words:

”From my Emperor himself! Ah, now he will send me the gold and the rest of the body-guard!”