erus, and at the same time the decision,
rescue, deliverance, through Verus. Yes, as Jesus Christ is my Redeemer
in Heaven, this priest became my savior, my redeemer on earth."

"Do not blaspheme," warned Gibamund. "I, unfortunately, am not so
devout a Christian as you; but the Saviour is only like unto, not equal
with, God--"

"You have learned your Arian creed by heart, my dear one," cried Hilda,
laughing. "But old Hildebrand said he was neither like nor equal to the
gods of our ancestors."

"No, for they are demons," said Gelimer, wrathfully, making the sign of
the cross.

"Yet I should not like to compare the gloomy Verus with Christ,"
replied Gibamund.

"I had felt toward him as you, as Zazo, as almost all did; he did not
attract, he rather repelled me. That he--he alone of all his kindred,
whose death for their faith he had witnessed, should have adopted the
religion of their executioners! Was it from fear, or really from
conviction? I distrusted him! It displeased me, too, that King
Hilderic, the friend of the Byzantines, whose plots against my own
succession to the throne I already suspected, so greatly favored him.
How greatly I wronged Verus there he has now proved; he--he alone saved
me and the Vandal kingdom. Thus he has done visibly what God's sign
announced to me in the most terrible moment of my life. Now listen to
what only our Zazo yet knows; I told him, as an answer to his warning.
Hear, marvel, and recognize the signs and wonders of God."

CHAPTER XXII

It was three years ago. We had again marched against the Moors, this
time to the southwest to meet the tribes which pitch their tents at the
foot of the Auras Mountains. We passed through the Proconsularis, then
Numidia, and from Tipasa forced the foe out of the level country up the
steep mountains, where, amid inaccessible rocks, they sought refuge. We
encamped on the plain, keeping them surrounded until hunger should
force them to yield. Days, weeks elapsed. The time grew too long for
me, and often, riding along the mountain chain, I sought some spot
where lower cliffs might render it possible to scale or storm them.

"On one of these lonely rides (I needed no companion, for the enemy did
not venture down into the valley) I had gone a long, long distance from
our camp. Riding in a wide circuit around a projecting cliff, I lost
the right direction in the vast, monotonous desert. I had never
examined this sid