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 Julianus, now his
war-tribune.

"Up, my jurist! '_Beati possidentes!_' Take a hundred legionaries and
keep the outwork at all costs until further assistance 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 shield 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 ar