Volume Iii Part 54 (1/2)
The usual good luck of the Prefect did not desert him. The weather changed again. On the morning of the day after his last conversation with Na.r.s.es, the sun rose splendidly over the blue and sparkling bay, and hundreds of small fis.h.i.+ng-boats set out to take advantage of the favourable weather.
Syphax, yielding his place at the threshold of his master's tent to the four Isaurians, who alone had remained behind their comrades, had disappeared at the first approach of dawn.
When Cethegus had taken his morning bath in an adjoining tent, and was returning to his breakfast, he heard Syphax making a great noise as he approached through the lines of tents.
”No!” he was shouting; ”this fish is for the Prefect. I have paid for it in hard cash. The great Na.r.s.es will not wish to eat other people's fis.h.!.+”
And with these words he tore himself loose from Alboin, and from several Longobardians, as well as from a slave belonging to Na.r.s.es, who were trying to detain him.
Cethegus stopped. He recognised the slave. It was the cook of the generally sick and always temperate general, whose art was scarcely practised except for his master's guests.
”Sir,” the well-educated Greek said to the Prefect, in his native language, ”do not blame me for this unseemly turmoil. What does a sea-mullet matter to me! But these long-bearded barbarians forced me to take possession, at any cost, of this fish-basket, which your slave was bringing from the boats.”
A glance which Cethegus exchanged with Syphax sufficed. The Longobardian had not understood what had been said. Cethegus gave Syphax a blow on the cheek, and cried in Latin:
”Good-for-nothing, insolent slave! will you never learn manners? Shall not the sick general have the best there is?”
And he roughly s.n.a.t.c.hed the basket from the Moor and gave it to the slave.
”Here is the basket. I hope Na.r.s.es will enjoy the fish.”
The slave, who thought he had refused the gift distinctly enough, took the basket with a shake of his head.
”What can it all mean?” he asked in Latin as he went away.
”It means,” answered Alboin, who followed him, ”that the best fish is _not_ hidden in the basket, but somewhere else.”
As soon as Syphax entered the tent, he eagerly felt in his waterproof belt of crocodile-skin for a roll of papyrus, which he handed to the Prefect.
”You bleed, Syphax!”
”Only slightly. The Longobardians pretended, when they saw me swimming in the water, to take me for a dolphin, and shot their arrows at me.”
”Nurse yourself--a solidus for every drop of your blood!--the letter is worth blood and gold, as it seems. Nurse yourself! and bid the Isaurians let no one enter.”
And now, alone in his tent, the Prefect began to read.
His features grew darker and darker. Ever deeper became the wrinkle in the centre of his mighty forehead; ever more harshly and firmly compressed his lips.
”To Cornelius Cethegus Caesarius, the Ex-prefect and ex-friend, Procopius of Caesarea, for the last time. This is the most sorrowful business for which I have ever used either my former or my present pen-hand. And I would gladly give this my left hand, as I gave my right for Belisarius, if I need not write this letter. The revocation and renunciation of our friends.h.i.+p of thirty years! In this unheroic time I believed in two heroes; the hero of the sword, Belisarius; and the hero of the intellect, Cethegus. In future I must hate, and almost despise, the latter.”
The reader threw the letter on the couch upon which he lay. Then he took it up again with a frown and read on:
”Nothing more was wanting but that Belisarius should prove to be the traitor that you would have represented him to be. But his innocence is as clearly proved as your black falsehood. I had often felt uneasy at the crookedness of your ways, into which you had partly led me also; but I believed in the grandeur and unselfishness of your design: the liberation of Italy! Now, however, I see that the mainspring of your actions was measureless, unlimited, merciless ambition! A design which necessitates such means as you have used is desecrated in my eyes for ever. You tried to ruin Belisarius, that brave and simple-minded man, by means of his own repentant wife, and to sacrifice him to Theodora and to your own ambition. That was devilish; and I turn away from you for ever.”
Cethegus closed his eyes.
”I ought not to wonder at it,” he said to himself. ”He too has his idol: Belisarius! Whoever touches that idol is as hateful to the wise Procopius as he who sees in the Cross merely a piece of wood is to the Christian. Therefore I ought not to wonder at it--but it pains me! Such is the power of a thirty years' habit. During all those years a warmer feeling came over my heart at the sound of the name, Procopius! How weak does custom make us! The Goth deprived me of Julius--Belisarius deprives me of Procopius! Who will deprive me of Cethegus, my oldest and last friend? No one. Neither Na.r.s.es nor Fate. Away with you, Procopius, out of the circle of my life! Almost too lachrymose, certainly too long, is the funeral speech which I have held over you.
What else does the dead man say?”