to the desert."

"For God's sake--"

"The traitors!"

"Not traitors. They sent the money back to the King. Cabaon, their
prophet and chief, warned them, forbade them to take part in this
battle. All obeyed. Only a few hundred men from the Pappua Mountains--"

"They are bound by the ties of hospitality to Gelimer, to the whole
Asding race."

"--accompanied us, led by Sersaon, their chief."

"This destroys the King's whole plan for to-morrow's battle."

"Well," said Zazo, quietly, "to make amends he has unexpectedly
received my troops. Not quite five thousand, but--"

"But you are their leader," cried Gibamund.

"He met on the Numidian road, first, the messengers I had sent in
advance, then me and my little army. What a sorrowful hour! How I had
rejoiced over my victory! But now Gelimer's tears flowed fast as he lay
on my breast, and I myself--Oh, Ammata! Yet, no, we must remain firm,
calm, and manly, ay, hard; for this King is far too soft-hearted."

"Yet he has recovered himself since the battle of Decimum," said
Gibamund. "At that time he was utterly crushed."

"Yes," cried Hilda, resentfully, "more than a man should permit himself
to be."

"I loved Ammata scarcely less than he," replied Zazo, and his lips
quivered. "But to let certain victory escape him merely to mourn for,
to bury the boy--"

"You would not have done so, my Zazo," said a gentle voice.

Gelimer had entered. He uttered the words very quietly; the others
turned, startled.

"Your censure is just," he added. "But I saw in this dispensation--he
was the first Vandal who fell in the war--a judgment of God. If the
most innocent of us all must die, God's punishment for the iniquity of
the fathers rests upon us all."

Zazo shook his head angrily and set his buffalo helmet on the table so
heavily that it rattled. "Brother, brother! This gloomy, brooding
delusion may destroy you and your whole people. I am not learned enough
to argue with you. But I, too, am a Christian, a devout one,--no pagan
like beautiful Hilda yonder, and I tell you--No, let me finish. How
that terrible verse concerning God's vengeance is to be interpreted I
do not know. It troubles me very little. But this I do know: if our
kingdom fall, it will fall not on account of the sins of our ancestors,
but of our own. The iniquity of the fathers--of course it, too, will be
avenged. Vices and disease are also hereditary. Enfeebled themselves,
they have begotten a feeble generati