--"

"Become a slave of Justinian," the King angrily interrupted.

"Pshaw, those little Greeks! They will not dare to attack us."

"Let them come! We will drive them pell-mell into the sea."

"Ah, if the kingdom were in peril--the Gundings know that honor calls
them to the head of the wedge in every Vandal battle."

"But no war is threatening."

"No one is trying to quarrel with us."

"Only it pleases the Asdings to make it a pretext for ordering the
noblest of the Vandals hither and thither like Moorish mercenaries or
ready slaves."

"But we will no longer--We--"

Modigisel could not finish; the loud blast of a horn and the noise
of galloping horses drowned his voice; a white figure on a dark
charger was dashing forward at the head of several mounted men. Two
torch-bearers were on the right and left, but could barely keep up with
her; long golden locks were fluttering in the wind, and a large white
mantle enveloped both horse and rider.

"That is Hilda," cried Gibamund.

"Yes, Hilda and war!" exclaimed the Princess, exultingly, instantly
checking her snorting steed. Her eyes were blazing, and in her right
hand she waved a parchment, crying: "War! King of the Vandals. And I--I
was permitted to be the first to announce to you the fateful word
which, like the brazen voices of the battle horns, summons you, all you
Asdings, to victory and honor."

"She is glorious," said Thrasaric to Eugenia.

The bride nodded.

"A cloak," he went on. "She--Hilda--must not see me in this absurd,
disgraceful guise. Lend me your cloak, friend Markomer."

Stripping off the panther-skin, and throwing down the thyrsus, he flung
the brown cloak of the leader of the horsemen over his bare shoulders.

"How do you, a woman, come with such a message?" asked Gelimer, taking
the parchment from her hand.

Hilda now sprang from the saddle into her husband's open arms. "Verus
sends me. The swift-sailing ships which he expected have just run into
the harbor. He intended to bring you this letter--the first one he
received--himself. But several other important ones were immediately
delivered,--some from the King of the Visigoths,--which he was obliged
to translate in part from cipher. So he ordered that I should be waked.
'To wake Hilda means to wake battle,' my ancestor Hildebrand taught
me," she added, laughing, with sparkling eyes.

"And in truth she came dashing among us like the leader of the
Valkyries," said Thrasaric, rather to