on, that anxiety for you would not leave me for a single
instant during the battle, and I need all my thoughts for the foe."

"Then let me fight by your side; protect me yourself!"

"I dare not. I dare not think of you. I must think of Belisarius."

"Indeed, I pity him from my inmost soul," cried Hilda, in passionate
excitement. "I am a woman, and it is hard enough for me not to go with
you: but a boy of fifteen!"

Eugenia timidly pulled her back by the robe, stroking and kissing her
hand; but Hilda, smoothing the boy's golden locks, went on: "It is a
duty, it is a patriotic duty, that every man who can--especially a son
of the royal house--should fight for his people. This lad can fight; he
has proved it. So do not refuse him to his people. My ancestor taught
me that only he who is to fall will fall."

"Sinful paganism!" exclaimed the King, wrathfully.

"Well, then, let me address you as a Christian. Is this your trust in
God, Gelimer? Who in the two armies is as guiltless as this child? O
King, I am less devout than you, but I have confidence enough in the
God of Heaven to believe that he will protect this boy in our just
cause. Ay, should this purest, fairest scion of the Asding race fall,
it would be like a judgment of God, proclaiming that we are indeed
corrupt in His eyes!"

"Hold!" cried the King, in anguish. "Do not probe the deepest wounds of
my breast. If he _should_ fall now? If a judgment of God, as you called
it, should so terribly overtake us? Doubtless he is free from guilt as
far as human beings can be. But have you forgotten the terrible words
of menace--about the iniquity of the fathers? If I experienced _that_,
I should see in it the curse of vengeance fulfilled, and I believe I
should despair."

He began to pace swiftly up and down.

Then Gibamund whispered to his wife, who shook her proud head silently
but wrathfully, "Let him go. Such anxiety in the brain of the
commander-in-chief will do more harm than the spears of twenty boys can
render service."

"But arrows fly far," cried Ammata, defiantly. "If, like a miserable
coward, I remain behind your backs, I can fall here in the camp if the
foes conquer. I certainly will not be taken captive," he added
fiercely, seizing his dagger, and throwing back his head till his fair
locks floated over his light-blue armor. "Better put me in a church at
once--but a Catholic one; that would be a safe sanctuary, devout King."

"Yes, I _will_ lock you u