choose you," he said, "because I
trust you above all others where swift, tireless action is needed. If
you overtake the Vandal before he finds refuge, the war will be over
tomorrow; if you permit him to escape, you will give us long-continued
severe toil. Choose your own men, but do not take time to breathe by
night or day until you seize the tyrant, dead or alive."

Althias blushed like a flattered girl. He took besides his Thracians
several of the bodyguard and about a hundred Herulians under Fara. He
asked me also to accompany him, less, probably, for the sake of my
sword than my counsel. I willingly consented.

And now a flying chase, such as I had never imagined possible, began in
the rear of the Vandals. Five days and five nights, almost without a
pause, we pursued the fugitives; their hoofmarks and footprints in the
sand of the desert were unmistakable. We gained on them more and
more, so that on the fifth night we were sure of overtaking and
stopping them the next day before they reached the protection of the
mountain--Pappua, it is called.

But the capricious goddess did not wish to have Gelimer fall into the
hands of Althias. Uliari, one of the Alemanni bodyguards of Belisarius,
is a brave, strong man, but reckless, fond of drink like all Germans,
and, like nearly all his countrymen, a passionate lover of the chase.
He had been repeatedly punished because, while on the march, he pursued
every animal that appeared. On the morning of the sixth day, just at
sunrise, as we were remounting our horses after a short rest, Uliari
saw a big vulture perched on a prickly bush about the height of a man,
which rose alone from the desert plain. To seize his bow, snatch an
arrow from the quiver, aim, and shoot was the work of a single instant.
The cord twanged, the bird flew away, a cry rose. Althias, who had
again dashed forward in advance of us all, fell from his horse, wounded
in the back of the head under his helmet. Uliari, usually an unerring
marksman, had not yet slept off his potations of the night before.
Horrified by his deed, he set spurs to his horse and fled to the
nearest village to seek sanctuary in its chapel.

But we were all trying to help the dying Althias, though he commanded
us by signs to leave him to his fate and continue the pursuit. We could
not bring ourselves to do it. Nay, when Fara and I, after our friend
had died in our arms, wished to go on; his Thracians demanded with
threats that the bod