Procopius to Cethegus:
We are actually still alive, and we are spending the night in Decimum, but we have had a narrow escape from passing it with the sharks at the bottom of the sea; never before, Belisarius says, was annihilation so near him. This mysterious King brought us into the greatest peril by his admirable plan of attack. And when it had already succeeded, he alone, the King himself, cast away his own victory, and saved us from certain destruction. I will tell you briefly the course of recent events, partly from our own experiences, partly from what we have learned through the citizens of Decimum and the Vandal prisoners.
The King, undiscovered by us, had accompanied our march from the time of our landing. The place where he suddenly attacked us had been wisely chosen long before. Belisarius says that not even his great rival, Narses, could have made a better plan of battle. As soon as we left our last camp outside of Decimum, we lost, as I wrote in my former letter, the protection of our fleet. If a superior force assailed us here from the west, it would hurl us, not--as along the whole previous march--upon our sheltering galleys, but directly into the sea from the road running along the steep hills close to the coast. Just before Decimum this road narrows greatly; for lofty mountains tower at the southwest along the narrow highway. Over the loose sand, heaped on the mountains by the desert winds, neither man nor horse can pass without sinking a foot deep. Here, attacked from all three sides at the same moment, we were to be driven eastward into the sea at our right.
A brother of the King, Gibamund, was to rush with two thousand men from the west upon our left flank; a Vandal noble with a still stronger force was to attack us from Decimum in the front; the King, with the main body, was to fall upon us in the rear from the South.
Belisarius had carefully planned the order of our march through this dangerous portion of the way. He sent Fara with his brave Herulians and three hundred picked men of the bodyguard two and a half Roman miles in advance. They were to pass through the Narrow Way first alone, and instantly report any danger back to the main body led by Belisarius. On our left flank the Hun horsemen and five thousand of the excellent Thracian infantry under Althias were thrown out to guard us from any peril threatening in that quarter and report it to Belisarius, to prevent a surprise of the main body during the march.
Then, to our great good fortune, it happened that the attack from the north, from Decimum, came far too early. Prisoners say that a younger brother of the King, scarcely beyond boyhood, taking part in the battle against Gelimer's orders, dashed out of Decimum with a few horsemen upon our ranks as soon as he saw us. The noble wished to save him at any cost, so he also attacked with the small force at his disposal,--four hours too soon,--only sending messengers back to Carthage to hasten the march of his main body. The youth and the noble made the most desperate resistance to the superior force. Twelve of Belisarius's bravest bodyguard, battle-tried men of former wars, were slain. At last both fell, and now, deprived of their leader, the Vandals turned their horses, and, in a mad flight, ran down and overthrew those who were advancing from Carthage to their support,--true, in little bands of thirty and forty men. Fara with his swift Herulians dashed after them in savage pursuit to the very gates of Carthage, cutting down all whom he overtook. The Vandals, who had fought bravely so long as they saw the Asdings and the nobles in their van, now threw down their weapons and allowed themselves to be slaughtered. We found many thousand dead bodies on the road and in the fields to the left.
After this first onset of the Vandals had resulted in defeat, Gibamund, knowing nothing of it, attacked with his troops the greatly superior force of the Huns and Thracians. This happened at the Salt Field,--a treeless, shrubless waste on the edge of the desert five thousand paces west of Decimum. With no aid from Carthage and Decimum, he was completely routed; nearly all his men were slain; their leader was seen to fall, whether dead or living, no one knows.
Meanwhile, entirely ignorant of what had happened, we were marching with the main body along the road to Decimum. As Belisarius found an excellent camping-ground about four thousand paces from this place, he halted. That the enemy must be in the neighborhood he suspected; the disappearance of the two Huns during the night had perplexed him. He established a well-fortified camp, and said to the troops, "The enemy must be close at hand. If he attacks us here, where we lack the support of the fleet, our escape will lie solely in victory. Should we be defeated, there is no stronghold, no fortified city, to receive us; the sea, roaring below, will swallow us. The intrenched camp is our only protection, the camp and the long-tested swords in our hands. Fight bravely! Life, as well as fame, is at stake."
He now ordered the infantry to remain in camp with the luggage as the last reserve, and led the whole force of cavalry out toward Decimum. He would not risk everything at once, but intended first to discover the strength and plans of the Barbarians by skirmishing. Sending the auxiliary cavalry in the van, he followed with the other squadrons and his mounted bodyguard. When the advance body reached Decimum, it found the Byzantines and Vandals who had fallen there. A few of the citizens who had hidden in the houses told our troops what had happened; most of them had fled to Carthage on learning that their village had been chosen for the battleground.
A wonderfully beautiful woman,--she looks like the Sphinx at Memphis,--the owner of the largest villa in Decimum, voluntarily received our men. It was she who told us of the noble's death. He fell before her eyes, just in front of her house.
The leaders now consulted, undecided whether to advance, halt, or return to Belisarius. At last the whole body of cavalry rode about two thousand paces west of Decimum, where they could obtain from the high sand-hills a wider view in every direction. There they saw rising in the south-southwest--that is, in the rear and on the left flank of Belisarius--a huge cloud of dust, from which sometimes flashed the arms and banners of an immense body of horsemen. They instantly sent a message to Belisarius that he must hasten; the enemy was at hand.
Meanwhile the Barbarians, led by Gelimer, approached. They were marching along a road between Belisarius's main body in the east and the Huns and Thracians, our left wing, who had defeated Gibamund and pursued him far to the west. But the high hills along the road obstructed Gelimer's view, so that he could not see Gibamund's battlefield. Byzantines and Vandals, as soon as they saw each other, struggled to be first to reach and occupy the summit of the highest hill in the chain which dominated the whole region. The Barbarians gained the top, and from it King Gelimer rushed down with such power upon our men, the auxiliary cavalry, that they were seized with panic, and fled in wild confusion eastward, toward Decimum.
About nine hundred paces west of the village the fugitives met their strong support, a body of eight hundred mounted shield-bearers, led by Velox, Belisarius's bodyguard. The General and all of us who had tremblingly witnessed the flight of the cavalry consoled ourselves with the hope that Velox would check their flight and march back with them to the enemy. But--oh, shame and horror--the weight of the Vandal onslaught was so tremendous that the fugitives and the shield-bearers did not even wait for it; the whole body, mingled together, swept back in disorder to Belisarius.
The General said that at this moment he gave us all up for lost: "Gelimer," he said at the banquet that night, "had the victory in his hands. Why he voluntarily let it escape is incomprehensible. Had he followed the fugitives, he would have pursued me and my whole army into the sea, so great was the alarm of our troops and so tremendous the force of the Vandal assault. Then the camp and the infantry would both have been destroyed. Or if he had even gone from Decimum back to Carthage, he could have destroyed without resistance Fara and his men, for expecting no attack from the rear, they were scattered singly or in couples along the streets and in the fields, pillaging the slain. And once in possession of Carthage he could easily have taken our ships, anchored near the city,--without crews,--and thus cut off from us every hope of victory or retreat."
But King Gelimer did neither. A sudden paralysis attacked the power which had just overthrown everything in its way.
Prisoners told us that, as he dashed down the hillside, spurring his cream-colored charger far in advance of all his men, he saw in the narrow pass at the southern entrance of Decimum the corpse of his young brother lying first of all the bodies in the road. With a loud cry of anguish, he sprung from his horse, threw himself upon the lifeless boy, and thus checked the advance of his troops. Their foremost horses, held back with difficulty by the riders that they might not trample on the King and the lad, reared, plunged, and kicked, throwing those behind into confusion, and stopped the whole chase. The King raised in his arms the mangled and bloody body (for our horsemen had dashed over it); then breaking again into cries of agony, he placed it on his charger and ordered it to be buried by the roadside with royal honors. The whole did not probably occupy fifteen minutes, but that quarter of an hour wrested from the Barbarians the victory they had already won.
Meanwhile Belisarius rushed to meet our fugitives, thundered at them in his resonant leonine voice his omnipotent "Halt," showed them, lifting his helmet, his face flaming with a wrath which his warriors dreaded more than the spears of all the Barbarians, brought the deeply shamed men to a stand, arranged them, amid terrible reproaches, in the best order possible in the haste, and, after learning all he could concerning the position and strength of the Vandals, led them to the attack upon Gelimer and his army.
The Vandals did not withstand it. The sudden, mysterious check of their advance had bewildered, perplexed, discouraged them; besides, their best strength had been exhausted in the furious ride. The sun of Africa, burning fiercely down, had wearied us also, but at the first onset we broke through their ranks. They turned and fled. The King, who tried to check them, was swept away by the rush, not to Carthage, not even southwest to Byzacena, whence they had come, but towards the northwest along the road leading to Numidia, to the plain of Bulla.
Whether they took that course by the King's command or without it and against it, we do not yet know.
We wrought great slaughter among the fugitives; the chase did not end until nightfall. When, as the darkness closed in, the torches and watchfires were lighted, Fara and the Herulians came from the north, Althias with the Huns and Thracians from the west, and we all spent the night in Decimum celebrating three victories in a single day: over the nobleman, over Prince Gibamund, and over the King.
The flying Vandals, leaving Carthage far on the right, had struck into the road which at Decimum turns toward the northwest, leading to Numidia.
In this direction also the numerous women and children, who had left Carthage many days before with the army, had gone from the camp on the morning of the day before, under safe escort, to the little village of Castra Vetera, half a day's march from the battlefield. Here, about two hours before midnight, they met the fugitives from Decimum; the pursuit had ceased with the closing in of darkness. The main body of troops lay around the hamlet in the open air; the few tents brought by the women from the other camp, and the huts in the village, were used to shelter the many wounded and the principal leaders of the army. In one of these tents, stretched on coverlets and pillows, was Gibamund; Hilda knelt beside him, putting a fresh bandage on his foot. As soon as she had finished, she turned to Gundomar, who was sitting on the other side of the narrow space with his head propped on his hand. Blood was trickling through his yellow locks. The Princess carefully examined the wound, "It is not mortal," she said. "Is the pain severe?"
"Only slight," replied the Gunding, clenching his teeth. "Where is the King?"
"In the little chapel with Verus. He is praying."
The words fell harshly from her lips.
"And my brother?" asked Gundomar. "How is his shoulder?"
"I cut the arrow-head out. He is doing well; he is in command of the guards. But the King, too, is wounded."
"What?" asked both the men, in startled tones. "He said nothing of it."
"He is ashamed--for his people. No foe; flying Vandals whom he stopped and tried to turn hacked his arm with their daggers."
"Dogs," cried Gundomar, grinding his teeth; but Gibamund sighed.
"Gundobad, who witnessed it, told me; I examined the arm; there is no danger."
"And Eugenia?" he asked after a pause.
"She is lying in the next house as if stupefied. When she heard of her husband's death, she cried: 'To him! Into his grave! Sigrun--' (I once told her the legend of Helgi) and tried to rush madly away. But she sank fainting in my arms. Even after she had recovered her senses, she lay on the couch as if utterly crushed. 'To him! Sigrun--into his grave!--I am coming, Thrasaric!' was all that she would answer to my questions. She tried to rise to obtain more news, but could not, and I sternly forbade her to attempt it again. I will tell her cautiously all that it is well for her to know--no more. But speak, Gundomar, if you can; I know all the rest--except how Ammata, how Thrasaric--"
"Presently," said the Gunding. "Another drink of water. And your wound, Gibamund?"
"It is nothing," replied the Prince, bitterly; "I did not reach the enemy at all. I sent messenger after messenger to Thrasaric, as I did not receive the promised report that he was leaving Decimum. Not one returned; all fell into the hands of the foe. No message came from Thrasaric. The time appointed by the King when I was to make the attack had arrived; in obedience to the order I set forth, though perfectly aware of the superior strength of the enemy, and though the main body of the troops under Thrasaric had not come. When we were within an arrow-shot, the horsemen, the Huns, dashed to the right and left, and we saw behind them the Thracian infantry, seven ranks deep, who received us with a hail of arrows. They aimed at the horses; mine, the foremost, and all in the front rank instantly fell. Your brave brother in the second rank, himself wounded by a shaft, lifted me with great difficulty on his own charger--I could not stand--and rescued me. The Huns now bore down upon us from both flanks; the Thracians pressed forward from the front with levelled spears. Not a hundred of my two thousand men are still alive." He groaned in anguish.
"But tell me how came Ammata,--against Gelimer's command, in spite of Thrasaric's guard--?" asked Hilda.
"It happened in this way," said the Gunding, pressing his hand to the aching wound in his head. "We had put the boy, unarmed, in the little Catholic basilica at Decimum, with the hostages from Carthage, among them young Publius Pudentius."
"Hilderic and Euages too?"
"No. Verus had them taken to the second camp near Bulla. Bleda, the captured Hun, had been tied with a rope outside to the bronze rings of the church doors; he lay on the upper step. On the square, in front of the little church, were about twenty of our horsemen. Many, by Thrasaric's command,--he rode repeatedly across the square, gazing watchfully in every direction,--had dismounted. Thrusting their spears into the sand beside their horses, they lay flat on the low roofs of the surrounding houses looking toward the southwest to see the advancing foe. I sat on horseback by the open window of the basilica. From the corner one can see straight to the entrance of the main road from Decimum, where Astarte's--formerly Modigisel's--villa stands. So I heard every word that was spoken in the basilica. Two boyish voices were disputing vehemently.
"'What?' cried one. 'Is this the loudly vaunted heroism of the Vandals? You are placed here, Ammata, in the asylum of the church of the much-tortured Catholics? Do you seek shelter here?' 'The order of the King,' replied Ammata, choking with rage. 'Ah,' sneered the other; it was Pudentius--I now recognized the tones--'I would not be commanded to do that by king or emperor. I am chained hand and foot, or I would have been outside long ago, fighting with the Romans.' 'The order of the King, I tell you.' 'Order of cowardice. Ha, ifIwere a member of the royal house for whose throne men were fighting, nothing would keep me in a church, while--Hark! that is the tuba. It is proclaiming a Roman victory.'
"I heard no more; the Roman trumpets were blaring outside of Decimum."
Just at that moment the folds of the tent were pushed softly apart. A pale face, two large dark eyes, gazed in, unseen by any one.
"At the same instant," continued the Gunding, "a figure sprang from the very high window of the basilica,--I don't yet understand how the boy climbed up to it,--ran past me, swung himself on the horse of one of our troopers, tore the spear from the ground beside it, and with the exulting shout, 'Vandals! Vandals!' dashed down the street to meet the Byzantines.
"'Ammata! Ammata! Halt!' Thrasaric called after him. But he was already far away. 'Follow him! Gundomar! Follow him! Save the boy!' cried Thrasaric, rushing past me.
"I followed; our men--a slender little band--did the same. 'Too soon! Much too soon!' I exclaimed, as I overtook Thrasaric.
"'The King commanded me to protect the lad!'
"It was impossible to stop him; I followed. We had already reached the narrow southern entrance of Decimum. On the right was Astarte's villa, on the left the high stone wall of a granary. Ammata, without helmet, breastplate, or shield, with only the spear in his hand, was facing a whole troop of mounted lancers, who stared in amazement at the mad boy.
"'Back, Ammata! Fly, I will cover the entrance here,' shouted Thrasaric.
"'I will not fly! I am a grandson of Genseric,' was the lad's answer.
"'Then we will die here together. Here is my shield.'
"It was high time. Already the lances of the Byzantines were hurtling at us. Our three horses fell. We all sprang up unhurt. A spear struck the shield which Thrasaric had forced upon the boy, penetrating the hammer on it. A dozen of our men had now reached us. Six sprang from their horses, levelling their lances. We were enough to block the narrow entrance. The Byzantines dashed upon us; only three horses could come abreast. We three killed two horses and one man. Our foes were obliged to remove the dead animals, our three and the fourth, to gain space. While doing this Ammata sprang forward and struck down another Byzantine. As he leaped back an arrow grazed his neck; the blood burst forth; the boy laughed. Again the foes dashed forward. Again two fell. But Ammata was obliged to drop the hammer shield, there were now so many spears sticking in it, and Thrasaric received a lance-thrust in his shieldless left arm. Behind the Byzantines we now heard German horns; the sound was like the blast announcing the approach of our Vandal horsemen. 'Gibamund, or the King!' our men shouted. 'We are saved.'
"But we were lost. They were Herulians in the Emperor's pay. Their leader, a tall figure with eagle wings on his helmet, instantly assumed command of all the forces. He ordered several men to dismount and climb the wall of the granary at his right; others trotted toward the left, to ride around the villa, and at the same time they overwhelmed us with a shower of spears. The boar's helm flew from my head, two lances had struck it at the same moment; a third now hit my skull and stretched me on the ground. At that moment, when our eyes were all fixed upon the enemy in front, a man on foot forced his way through our horsemen from the basilica behind. I heard a hoarse cry: 'Wait, boy!' and saw the flash of a sword. Ammata fell forward on his knees.
"It was Bleda, the captive Hun. The torn rope still dragged from his ankle. He had wrenched himself free and seized a weapon; before he could draw the sword from the boy's back Thrasaric's spear pierced him through and through. But the noble had forgotten the foes in front, and no longer struck the flying lances aside. Two spears pierced him at once; he received a deep wound in the thigh and staggered against the wall of the villa.
"A narrow door close beside him opened, and on the threshold stood Astarte. 'Come, my beloved, I will save you,' she said, seizing his arm. 'A secret passage from my cellar--'
"But Thrasaric silently shook her off and threw himself before the kneeling boy. For now Herulians and Byzantines, on foot and on horseback, were pressing forward in dense throngs. The door closed.
"I tried to rise, but could not; so, unable to aid, helpless myself, but covered by a dead horse behind which I had fallen, I saw the end. I will make the story brief. So long as he could move an arm, the faithful giant protected the boy with sword and spear; finally, when the spear-head was hacked off, the sword broken, he sheltered the boy with his own body. I saw how he spread the huge bearskin over him as a shield, and clasped both arms around the child's breast.
"'Surrender, brave warrior,' cried the leader of the Herulians. But Thrasaric--hark! What was that?"
"A groan? Yonder! Does your foot ache, my Gibamund?"
"I made no sound. It was probably a night-bird--outside--before the tent."
"But Thrasaric shook his huge head and hurled his sword-hilt into the face of the nearest Byzantine, who fell, shrieking. Then so many lances flew at the same instant that Ammata sank lifeless on the ground. Thrasaric did not fall, but stood bending forward, his arms hanging loosely. The Herulian leader went close to him. 'In truth,' he said, 'never have I seen anything like this. The man is dead; but he cannot fall, so many spears, with handles resting on the ground, are fixed in his breast.' He gently drew out several; the strong noble slid down beside Ammata.
"Our men had fled as soon as they saw us both fall. Past me--I lay as though lifeless swept the foe in pursuit. Not until after a long time, when everything was still, did I succeed in raising myself a little. So I was found beside Ammata by the King, to whom I told the fate of both. The rest--how he lost the moment of victory, nay, threw away the victory already won, you know."
"We know it," said Hilda, in a hollow tone.
"And where is Ammata--where is Thrasaric buried?" questioned Gibamund.
"Close beside Decimum, in two mounds. The land belongs to a colonist. According to the custom of our ancestors, our men placed three spears upright upon each hillock. The King's horsemen then carried me back, and placed me on a charger, which bore me through this pitiable flight. Shame on this Vandal people! They let their princes and nobles fight and bleed--alone! The masses have accomplished nothing but a speedy flight."
The intense darkness of the night was already yielding in the eastern sky to a faint gray glimmer of twilight, but the stars were still shining in the heavens, when a slender little figure glided noiselessly, but very swiftly, through the streets of the camp.
The shaggy dogs watching their masters' tents growled, but did not bark; they were afraid of the creature slipping by so softly. A Vandal, mounting guard at a street-corner, superstitiously made the sign of the cross and avoided the wraith floating past. But the white form approached him.
"Where is Decimum? I mean, in which direction?" it asked in low, hurried tones.
"In the east, yonder." He pointed with his spear.
"How far is it?"
"How far? Very distant. We rode as fast as the horses could run; for fear pursued us,--I really do not know of what,--and we did not draw rein till we reached here. We dashed along six or eight hours before we arrived."
"No matter."
The hurrying figure soon reached the exit of the camp. The guards stationed there let her pass unmolested. One called after her:
"Where are you going? Not that way! The enemy is there."
"Don't stay long!" a Moor shouted after her; "the evil wind is rising."
But she was already gone. Directly behind the camp she turned from the path marked by many footprints, also by weapons lost or thrown away,--if that name could be given to this track through the desert. Running several hundred paces south of the line extending from west to east, she plunged into the wilderness, crossing, meanwhile, several high, dome-like sand-hills. These mounds are piled up by the changing winds blowing through the desert in every direction, but most frequently from the south to north; and the narrow sand ravines beside them often, for the distance of a quarter of a league, obstruct the view of the person passing through them over the nearest sand-wave.
Not until she believed herself too far from the road to be seen, did she again turn in her original direction, eastward, or what she thought was east. Meantime, it is true, the fiery, glowing rising sun had extinguished the light of the stars and marked the east; but soon thereafter the crimson disk vanished behind vaporous clouds, the exhalations of the desert. She ran on and on and on. She was now entirely within the domain of the desert. There was no longer any distinguishing object,--no tree, no bush, nothing but sky above and sand below. True, there were sometimes sand valleys, sometimes sand heights, but these, too, were perfectly uniform. On, on she ran. "Only to reach his grave!" she thought. "Only his grave. Always straight on!" It was so still, so strangely still.
Once only she fancied that she saw, far, far away on her left, corresponding with the "path," hurrying cloud-shadows; perhaps they were ostriches or antelopes. No, she thought she heard human voices calling, but very, very distant. Yet it sounded like "Eugenia!"
Startled, she stooped down close to the sand-hill at her left; it would prevent her being seen from that direction. Even if the valley in which she was now cowering could be overlooked from a hillock, the back of the mound would protect her. "Eugenia!" Now the name seemed to come again more distinctly; the tones were like Hilda's voice. The low, distant sound died tremulously away, sorrowful, hopeless. All was still again. She started up, and ran on breathlessly.
But the fugitive now grew uneasy, because she had lost her direction. What if she was not keeping a perfectly straight course? Then she thought of looking back. The print of every one of her light footsteps was firmly impressed upon the sand. The line was perfectly straight; she rejoiced over her wisdom. Then she often glanced behind--at almost every hundred steps--to test. Only forward, forward! She was growing anxious. Drops of perspiration had long been falling from her forehead and her bare arms. It was growing hot, very hot, and so strangely sultry--the sky so leaden gray. A light, whistling wind sprang up, blowing from south to north.
Eugenia glanced back again. Oh, horror! She saw no sign of her footsteps. The whole expanse lay behind her as smooth as though she were just starting on her way. As if dazed by astonishment, she stamped on the sand; directly after, before her eyes, the impression was filled up, completely effaced by the finest sand, which was driven by the light breeze.
Startled, she pressed her hand upon her beating heart--and grasped sand; a fine but thick layer had incrusted her garments, her hair, her face. Through her bewildered thoughts darted the remembrance of having heard how human beings, animals, whole caravans, had been covered by such sand-storms, how, heaped by the wind, the sand often rose like huge waves, burying all life beneath it. She fancied that on her right, on the south, a hill of sand was towering; it seemed moving swiftly onward, and threatened to bar her way. So she must run yet faster to escape it. Her path was still open. Just at that moment, from the south, a gust of wind suddenly blew with great force. Snatching the braided hat from her head, it whirled it swiftly northward. In an instant it was almost out of sight. To overtake it was impossible. Besides, she must go toward the east. Forward!
The wind grew stronger and stronger. The sun, rising higher, darted scorching rays upon her unprotected head; her dark-brown hair fluttered wildly around. Incrusted with salt, it struck her eyes or lashed her cheeks and stung her keenly. She could scarcely keep her eyes open; the fine sand forced its way through their long lashes. On. The sand entered her shoes; the band across the instep of the left one broke. She lifted her foot; the wind tore off the shoe and whirled it away. It was certainly no misfortune, yet she wept--wept over her helplessness. She sank to her knees; the malicious sand rose slowly higher and higher. A shrill, harsh, disagreeable cry fell on her ear,--the first sound in the tremendous silence for many hours; a dark figure, flying from north to south, flitted for a moment along the horizon. It was an ostrich, fleeing in mortal terror before the simoom. With head and long white neck far outstretched, aiding the swift movement of its long legs by flapping its curved dark wings like sails, it glided on like an arrow. Already it was out of sight.
"That bird is hurrying with such might to save its life. Shall my strength fail when I am hastening to the man I love? 'For shame, little one!' he would say." Smiling through her tears, she ran forward. So an hour passed--many hours.
Often she thought that she must have lost the right direction, or she would have reached the battlefield long ago. The wind had risen to a tempest. Her heart beat with suffocating strength. Giddiness seized her; she tottered; she must rest. Now, here, no Vandal could overtake her to keep her by force from her sacred goal.
Just at that moment something white appeared above the sand close beside her. It was the first break for hours in the monotonous yellow surface. The object was no stone. Seizing it, Eugenia dragged it from the sand. Oh, despair and horror! She shrieked aloud in desperation, in terror, in the sense of cheerless, hopeless helplessness. It was her own shoe, which she had lost hours before. She had been wandering in a circle. Or had the wind borne it far away from the place where she lost it? Yet, no! The shoe, which she now flung down, weeping, was swiftly covered with sand, instead of being carried away by the wind. After exhausting the last remnant of her strength, she was in the same spot.
To die--now--to give up all effort--to rest--to sleep--now sweet was the temptation to the wearied limbs.
But, no! To him! What were the words? "And itconstrainedthe faithful one and drew her to the grave of the dead hero." To him!
Eugenia raised herself with great difficulty, she was already so weak. And when she had barely gained her feet, the storm blew her down once more. Again she rose, trying to see if some human being, some house, if not the path, was visible. Just then she perceived before her in the north a sand-hill, higher than any of the others. It was probably more than a hundred feet. If she could succeed in climbing it, she would be able from the top to get a wide view. With inexpressible difficulty, sinking knee-deep at nearly every step in the looser sand, until her foot reached the older, firmer soil, she pressed upward, often falling back several paces when she stumbled. While she did so the strangest, most alarming thing happened,--at every slip the whole sand-hill creaked, trembled, and began to slide down in every direction. At first Eugenia stopped in terror; she thought the whole mountain would sink with her. But she conquered her fear, and at last climbed upward on her knees, for she could no longer stand; she thrust her hands into the sand and dragged herself up. The wind--no, it was now a hurricane--assisted her; it blew from south to north. At last--the climb seemed to her longer than the whole previous way--at last she reached the top. Opening her eyes, which she had kept half closed, she saw--oh, bliss! she saw deliverance. Before her, at a long distance, it is true, yet plainly visible, glittered a steel-blue line. It was the sea! And at the side, eastward, she fancied she saw houses, trees. Surely that was Decimum; and a little farther inland rose a dark hill-- the end of the desert. She imagined,--yet surely it was impossible to see so far,--she believed or dreamed that, on the summit of the hill, she beheld three slender black lines relieved against the clear horizon. Surely those were the three spears on the grave. "Beloved One! My hero!" she cried, "I am coming."
With outstretched arms she tried to hurry down the sand-hill on the northeastern: side, but, at the first step, she sank in to the knee,--deeper still, to the waist. She could still see the blue sky above her. Once more, with her last strength, she flung both arms high above her head, thrusting her hands into the sand to the wrists to drag herself up; once more the large beautiful antelope eyes gazed beseechingly--ah, so despairingly--up to the silent sky; another wild, desperate pull--a hollow sound as of a heavy fall. The whole sand-mountain, shaken by her struggles and swept by the hurricane from the south, fell over her northward, burying her nearly a hundred feet deep, stifling her in a moment. Above her lofty grave the desert storm raved exultingly.
* * * * *
For decades the beautiful corpse lay undisturbed, unprofaned, until that ever-changing architect, the wind, gradually removed the sand-hill and, one stormy night, at last blew it away entirely.
Just at that time a pious hermit, one of the desert monks who begged his scanty fare in Decimum and carried it to his sand cave, passed along. Often and often he had come that way; the hurricane had bared the skeleton only the day before. The old man stood before it, thoughtful. The little dazzlingly white bones were so dainty, so delicate, as if fashioned by an artist's hand; the garments, like the flesh, had long been completely consumed by the trickling moisture; but the lofty sand ridge had faithfully kept its beautiful secret, not a bone was missing. For a human generation the dry sand of the desert, though garments and flesh had gone to decay, had preserved uninjured the outlines of the figure as it had been pressed into the sand under the heavy weight. One could see that the buried girl had tried to protect eyes and mouth with her right hand; the left lay in a graceful attitude across her breast; her face was turned toward the ground.
"Who were you, dainty child, that found a solitary death here?" said the holy man, deeply touched. "For there is no trace of a companion near. A child, or a girl just entering maidenhood? But, at any rate, a Christian--no Moor; here on her neck, fastened by a silver chain, is a gold cross. And beside it a strange ornament,--a bronze half-circle with characters inscribed on it, not Latin, Greek, nor Hebrew. No matter. The girl's bones shall not remain scattered in the desert. The Christian shall sleep in consecrated ground. The peasants must help me to bury her here or in the neighborhood."
He went to Decimum. The traces of the Vandal battle had long since vanished. The village children who had then fled were now grown men, the owners of the houses and fields. The peasant to whom the hermit related his touching discovery listened attentively. But when the latter spoke of the bronze half-circle with the singular characters, he interrupted him, exclaiming:
"Strange! In the hill-tomb, the great stone vault outside of our village,--I own the hill, and vines grow on the southern slope,--there lies, according to trustworthy tradition, a Vandal boy-prince who fell here, and beside him a mighty warrior, a terrible giant, who is said to have remained faithfully by his side. The priests say he was a monster, a god of thunder, one of the old pagan gods of the Barbarians, with whose fall fortune deserted them. Well, the giant has hanging on his arm a half-circle exactly like the one you describe. Perhaps the two belonged together? Who knows? We cannot dig a grave in the desert; even if we try, the wind will blow it away. Come, I'll harness the horses to my wagon; we will go out to the dead woman and lay her beside the giant; his grave has already been consecrated by the priests."
This was done. But when they had placed the delicate form beside the mighty one, and the monk had muttered a prayer, he asked: "Tell me, friend,--I saw with joyful surprise that you had left all the ornaments upon the dead; and that you should receive nothing for your trouble with the poor girl's skeleton is not exactly--"
"Peasant custom, do you mean? You are right, holy father. But you see. King Gelimer, who once reigned here, enjoined upon my father after the battle to take faithful care of the graves; he was to keep them as if they were a sanctuary until Gelimer should return and carry the bodies to Carthage. King Gelimer never returned to Decimum. But my father, on his deathbed, committed the care of this tomb to me; and so shall I, before I die, to the curly-headed boy who helped us to carry the little skeleton. For King Gelimer was kind to every one,--to us Romans, too,--and had done my father many a favor in the days of the Vandals. Already many say he was no man, but a demon,--a wicked one, according to some, a good one, most declare. But, man or demon, good he certainly was; for my father has often praised him."
So little Eugenia at last reached her hero's side.
Procopius to Cethegus:
I am writing this--really and truly, though it is not yet three months since we left Constantinople--in Carthage, at the capitol, in the royal palace of the Asdings, in the hall of Genseric the Terrible. I often doubt the fact myself--but it is so! On the day after the battle at Decimum the infantry, coming from the camp, joined us, and the whole army marched to Carthage, which we reached in the evening. We chose a place to encamp outside of the city, though no one opposed our entrance. Nay, the Carthaginians had opened all their gates and lighted torches and lanterns everywhere in the streets and squares. All night long the bonfires shone from the city into our camp, while the few Vandals who had not fled sought shelter in the Catholic churches.
But Belisarius most strictly prohibited entering the city during the night. He feared an ambush, a stratagem of war. He could not believe that Genseric's capital had actually fallen into his hands with so little trouble.
On the following day, borne by a favoring breeze, our ships rounded the promontory. As soon as the Carthaginians recognized our flag, they broke the iron chains of their outer harbor, Mandracium, and beckoned to our sailors to enter. But the commanders, mindful of Belisarius's warning, anchored in the harbor of Stagnum, five thousand paces from the city, waiting further orders. Yet that the worthy citizens of Carthage might make the acquaintance of their liberators on the very first day, a ship's captain, Kalonymos, with several sailors, entered Mandracium, against the orders of Belisarius and the Quæstor, and plundered all the merchants--Carthaginians as well as strangers--who had their homes and storehouses on the harbor. He took all their money, many of their goods, and even the beautiful candlesticks and lanterns which they had brought out in honor of our arrival.
We had hoped--Belisarius gave orders for a diligent search--to liberate the captive King Hilderic and his nephew. But this, it appears, was not accomplished. In the royal citadel, high up on the hill crowned by the capitol, is the gloomy dungeon where the usurper held the Asdings prisoners, as he barred all his foes here. The executioner supplied the place of a jailer to his predecessors. He also held captive many merchants of our empire, fearing (and my Hegelochus showed with what good reason; the General sent him to-day with rich gifts to Syracuse) that, if allowed to sail thither, they might bring us all sorts of valuable information. When the jailer, a Roman, heard of our victory at Decimum, and saw our galleys rounding the promontory, he released all these captives. He wanted to set the King and Euages free also, but their dungeon was empty. No one knows what has become of them.
At noon Belisarius ordered the ships' crews to land, all the troops to clean their weapons and armor, to present the best appearance, and now the whole army marched in full battle-array--for we still feared an ambush of the Vandals--through the "Grove of the Empress Theodora" (so I hear the grateful Carthaginians have rebaptized it); then through the southern Byzacenian gate, and finally through the lower city. Belisarius and the principal leaders, with some picked troops, went up to the capitol, and our General formally took his seat upon Genseric's gold and purple throne. Belisarius ordered the noonday meal to be served in the dining-hall where Gelimer entertained the Vandal nobles. It is called "Delphica," because its principal ornament is a beautiful tripod. Here the General feasted the leaders of his army. A banquet had been prepared in it the day before for Gelimer, but we now ate the dishes made to celebrate his victory; spiced by this thought, their flavor was excellent. And Gelimer's servants brought in the platters, filled the drinking vessels with fragrant wine, waited upon us in every way. This is another instance of the goddess Tyche's pleasure in playing with the changing destinies of mortals. You, O Cethegus, I am well aware, have a different opinion of the final causes of events; you see the fixed action of a law in the deeds of human beings, as well as in storms and sunshine. This may be magnificent, heroic, but it is terrible. I have a narrow mind, and am precisely the opposite of a hero; I cannot endure it. I waver skeptically to and fro. Sometimes I see only the whimsical ruling of a blind chance, which delights in alternately lifting up and casting down; sometimes I think an inscrutable God directs everything to mysterious ends. I have renounced all philosophizing, and enjoy the motley current of events, not without scorn and derision for the follies of other people, but no less for those of Procopius.
And yet I do not wish to break off entirely all relations with the Christian's God. We do not know whether, after all, the Son of Man may not yet return in the clouds of heaven. In that case, I would far rather be with the sheep than with the goats.
The people, the liberated Romans, the Catholics, in their delight over their rescue, see signs and wonders everywhere. They regard our Huns as angels of the Lord. They will yet learn to know these angels, especially if they have pretty wives or daughters, or even only full money-chests. The comical part of it is that (except Belisarius's body-guard), our soldiers, with all due respect to the Emperor, are principally a miserable lot of rascals from all the provinces of the empire, and all the Barbarian peoples in the neighborhood; they are always as ready to steal, pillage, and murder as they are to fight. Yet we ourselves, in consequence of the amazing good fortune which has accompanied us throughout this whole enterprise, are beginning to consider ourselves the chosen favorites of the Lord, His sacred instrument--thieves and cut-throats though we are! So the entire army, pagans as well as Christians, believe that that spring gushed out for us in the desert only by a miracle of God. So both the army and the Carthaginians believe in a lantern miracle in the following singular incident.
The Carthaginians' principal saint is Saint Cyprian, who has more than a dozen basilicas and chapels, in which all his festivals, "the great Cypriani," are magnificently celebrated. But the Vandals took nearly all the churches from the Catholics, and dedicated them to the Arian worship. This was the case with the great basilica of Saint Cyprian down by the harbor, from which they drove the Catholic priests. The loss of this cathedral caused them special sorrow, and they said that Saint Cyprian had repeatedly appeared to devout souls in a dream, comforted them, and announced that he would some day avenge the wrong committed by the Vandals. This seems to me ratherunsaintly in the great saint; we poor sinners on earth are daily exhorted to forgive our enemies, and the wrathful saint ought to let his vengeful feelings cool, and thus remain the holy Cyprian. The pious Catholics, thus pleasantly strengthened and justified in their thirst for revenge by their patron saint, had long waited, in mingled curiosity and anxiety, for the blow Saint Cyprian was to deal the heretics. On this day it became evident. The festival of the great Cyprian was just at hand; it fell on the day following the battle of Decimum. On the evening before, the Arian priests themselves had decorated the entire church magnificently, and especially arranged thousands of little lamps, in order to have a brilliant illumination at night to celebrate the victory; for they did not doubt the success of their own army. By the written order of the Archdeacon Verus,--he had accompanied the King to the field,--all the church vessels and church treasures of every description were brought out of the hidden thesauri and placed upon the seven altars of the basilica. Never would these unsuspected riches have been found in the secret vaults of the church, had not Verus given these directions and sent the keys.
But we, not the Vandals, won the battle of Decimum. At this news the Arian priests fled headlong from the city. The Catholics poured into the basilica, discovered the secret treasures of the heretics, and lighted their lamps to celebrate the victory of the champions of the true faith. "This is the vengeance of Saint Cyprian!" "This is the miracle of the lamps!" Through the city they went, roaring these words and cuffing and pounding every doubter until he believed and shouted with them: "Yes, this is Saint Cyprian's vengeance and the miracle of the lamps!"
Now I have not the least objection to an occasional miracle. On the contrary, I am glad when something often happens that the all-explaining philosophers who have so long tormented me cannot understand. But then it must be a genuine, thorough-going miracle. If a miracle cannot present itself as something entirely beyond the limits of reason, it would better not attempt to be a miracle at all; it isn't worth while. And this miracle appears to me far too natural. Belisarius reproved my incredulous derision. But I replied that Saint Cyprian seems to me the patron saint of the lamplighters; I don't belong to that society.
* * * * *
Fara, the Herulian, captured the fairest booty at Decimum. True, he received from the noble a sharp lance-thrust in the arm through his brazen shield. But the shield had done its duty; the point did not penetrate too deeply into the flesh. And when he entered the nearest villa,--he was just breaking in,--the door opened, and a wonderfully beautiful woman, with superb jewels and scarlet flowers in her black hair, came to meet him. Except the flowers and gems, she was not burdened with too much clothing.
The vision held out a wreath of laurel and pomegranate blossoms.
"Whom did you expect?" asked the Herulian, in amazement.
"The victor," replied the beautiful woman.
A somewhat oracular reply! This Sphinx--she looks, I have already told you, exactly like one--would undoubtedly have given her wreath and herself just as willingly to the victorious Vandals. After all, what does the Carthaginian care for either Vandals or Byzantines? She is the prize of the stronger, the conqueror--perhaps to his destruction. But I think the Sphinx has now found her Œdipus. If one of this strange pair of lovers must perish, it will hardly be my friend Fara. He took me to her; he has some regard for me, because I can read and write. He had evidently praised me. In vain. She scanned me from head to foot, and from foot to head, it did not consume much time; I am not very tall,--then, with a contemptuous curl of her full red lips, she moved far away from me. I will not assert that I am handsome, while Fara, next to Belisarius, is certainly the stateliest of all our six and thirty thousand men. But I was indignant that my mortal part at once so repelled her that she did not even desire to know the immortal side. I am angered against her, I wish her no evil; but it would neither greatly surprise, nor deeply grieve me, if she should come to a bad end.