e peasants. "Equalizing justice," Aristoteles calls it. This
wonderful Vandal hero must surely have studied philosophy, as well as
the art of throwing spears.

Belisarius has sent an urgent warning to Constantinople concerning the
long-delayed pay of the Huns. They are growing troublesome. It is now
six months since we left the city; December has come. Desert storms
sweep over Carthage to the leaden-hued sea, which long since lost its
beautiful blue. The Huns are threatening to leave the service. They
excuse their pillaging on the ground that the citizens of Carthage and
the peasants will trust neither them nor the Emperor (in which they are
not wrong). We cannot pay with money lying in Constantinople, they say.
To-day a ship arrived from there, but did not bring a single solidus in
money. There were, however, thirty tax-collectors, and a command to
send the first taxes from the conquered province.

* * * * *

If King Gelimer hangs, we hang too. But we hang Romans, not Vandals.
The resentment against us is no longer confined to the peasants. It is
seething in Carthage, under our own eyes. The common people, the
tradesmen and the smaller merchants especially, who did not feel the
oppression of the Barbarians as heavily as the wealthy Senators, are
growing rebellious. A conspiracy has been discovered. Gelimer's army is
not far from the western, the Numidian gate. His horsemen range at
night as far as the walls of the suburb of Aklas. The Vandals were to
be admitted under cover of the darkness through the gaps still
remaining in the walls of the lower city. Belisarius ordered two
Carthaginian citizens convicted of this agreement, Laurus and Victor,
to be hanged on the hill outside of the Numidian gate. Belisarius likes
hills for his gallows. Then the General's administration of justice can
be seen for a long distance swaying in the wind. But Belisarius does
not dare to leave the city with the army while the Carthaginians are in
such a mood. At least the walls must first be repaired. The citizens
are now compelled to work on them at night too; it is making them very
discontented.

* * * * *

No Zazo! and the Huns are on the brink of open mutiny. They declare
that they will not fight in the next battle; that they have had no pay
yet, and that they have been lured here across the sea, contrary to the
agreement for military service. They are afraid that