Part 41 (1/2)

Now she sprang up, and asking two of the men to help her--she would not release the dear head from her clasping hands--carried the dead Prince to the top of the mountain. In a little grove of pines, just outside the city, a small wooden hut had been built which had formerly contained stores of every kind. Now it was half empty except for a large pile of the wood used for fires. In this hut she spent the night and the dark morning alone with the dead. When it grew light she sought the King, whom she found in the basilica on the spot where formerly--the remains of some steps showed it--the altar had stood.

Here Gelimer had placed in a crack between two stones a wooden cross, roughly made of boughs laid across each other. He lay p.r.o.ne on his face before it, clasping the cross with both arms.

”Brother-in-law Gelimer,” she said in a curt, harsh tone, ”is it true?

Do you mean to surrender?”

He made no reply.

She shook him by the shoulder.

”King of the Vandals, do you mean to give yourself up as a captive?”

she cried more loudly. ”They will lead you through the streets of Constantinople as a spectacle! Will you shame your people--your _dead_ people--still more?”

”Vanity,” he answered dully. ”Vanity speaks from your lips! All that you are thinking is sinful, vain, arrogant.”

”Why do you do this so suddenly? You have held out for months.”

”Verus!” groaned the King. ”G.o.d has abandoned me; my guardian spirit has betrayed me. I am condemned on earth, and in the world beyond the grave. I can do nothing else!”

”Yes. Here, Gelimer, here is your sharp sword.”

Stooping, she tore it from the sheath which lay with the sword-belt at the foot of the steps.

”'The dead are free' is a good motto.”

But Gelimer shook his head.

”Vanity. Pride of heart. Pagan sin. I am a Christian. I will not kill myself. I will bear my cross--as Christ bore His--until I sink beneath it.”

Hilda flung the sword clanking at his feet and turned from him without a word.

”Where are you going? What do you mean to do?”

”Do you suppose I loved less truly and deeply and fervently than that delicate Greek child? I come, my hero and my husband.”

She walked across to a building now turned into a stable, the former curia of Medenus, where, a short time before, many horses had stamped.

Only Styx, the stallion, now stood in it. Hilda grasped his mane, and the wise, faithful animal followed like a lamb. The Princess went with the horse to the hut. It hung back a moment before following her into the narrow inclosure, which was dimly lighted by a pine torch in an iron ring by the door.

”Come in,” Hilda said coaxingly, drawing the horse gently after her.

”It will be better for you too. You will perish miserably. Your beauty and your strength have gone. And after serving love in that brave ride through the battle, the enemy shall not seize you and torment you with base labor. What says the ancient song:

”Heaped high for the hero Log on log laid they: Slain, his swift steed Shared the warrior's death.

And, gladly, his wife, Nay, alas! his widow.

Burden of life's weary Days sad and desolate Would she, the faithful, Bear on no farther.”

She led the stallion to the side of the lofty pile of wood, where she had laid the beautiful corpse, drew Gibamund's sword from its sheath, and, searching with her hand for the throbbing of the heart, thrust the blade into it with one powerful blow. Styx fell lifeless. Hilda threw down the blood-stained weapon.