I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.'

"I almost died of terror. Once more I controlled myself. From the
street below rose the blast of the Vandal horns; glittering in
brilliant armor, our horsemen were going out to battle with the Moors.
That was my joy, my pride. Twice already I myself had mingled in the
victorious conflict. My heart, my courage, my joy in life, revived. I
said to myself: 'Even though all pleasure is forever dead to me, my
people, the Vandal kingdom, the hero's duty to live, to fight, to die
for his country, summon me. Is this, too, nothing? Is sin, too, an idle
nothing?' Again, in another place, I questioned the word of God. I
closed the roll, opened it again, and my dagger's point touched the
words: All is vanity!

"Then I sank down in despair. So people and country and heroism, which
our ancestors had fostered and praised as at once the highest duty and
the greatest pleasure,--this, too, is vanity, is sin before the eyes of
the Lord."

"It is a cruel chance," said Gibamund, wrathfully.

"And it is folly to believe it," cried Hilda. "O Gelimer, thou hero,
grandson of Genseric, does not every pulsation of your heart give the
lie to this gloomy delusion." She sprang up, throwing back her flowing
hair and fixing a fiery glance upon him.

"Sometimes, doubtless, fair leader of the Valkyrie," replied Gelimer,
smiling. "And especially since--since God saved me by a miracle. And
fear not, granddaughter of Hildebrand, you will have no cause to be
ashamed of your brother-in-law, the Vandal King, when the tuba of
Belisarius summons us to battle." He raised his noble head, clenching
his fist.

"Oh, joy to us, my husband," cried Hilda, "that is still the inmost
care of his being--the hero!" And she eagerly pressed her husband's
hand.

"Who knows the inmost care of his own being?" Gelimer went on. "At that
time--and for years after--all joy in the pomp and glitter of arms was
over for me. I was so ill! At that second oracle the convulsions
returned; and later they came very frequently, so that my father was
compelled to yield to my earnest desire, for I was not yet fit for
military service. I was permitted to enter a monastery of the monks of
our religion as a pupil, and to remain there in the solitude of the
desert. I spent many years within those walls, and during that time I
burned all the war songs which I ha