dent
delight, laid his mailed right hand heavily on the shoulder of Verus,
whose face blanched,--"'for you are exiled for life to Martyropolis on
the Tigris, upon the frontier of Persia, as far as possible from
Carthage. The Empress's confessor, whom she desires to have transferred
from Constantinople to Carthage, will manage the affairs of the
bishopric as your Vicarius, with the consent of the Holy Father in
Rome. There are penal mines in Martyropolis. During six hours in the
day you will care for the souls of the convicts. That you may be better
able to do this, by thoroughly understanding their state of feeling,
you will, during the other six hours, share their labor.' Away with
him!"

Verus tried to answer, but already the tuba blared loudly again, and,
before it sounded for the third time, six Thracians had hurried the
priest far away from the square, and disappeared in the street leading
to the harbor.

"Now summon Gelimer, the King of the Vandals," said the General,
loudly.

And from the gateway into the square came Gelimer, his hands fettered
with a chain of gold. One of the numerous pointed crowns found in the
royal treasure had been pressed upon his long tangled locks, and over
his ragged old purple mantle and penitent's girdle was flung a
magnificent new cloak of the same royal stuff. He had submitted to
everything unresistingly, motionless and silent, only at first he had
objected to the crown; then he said gently, "Be it so--my crown of
thorns." In the same unresisting, unmoved silence he now, like a
walking corpse, crossed with slow, slow steps the space,--possibly
three hundred feet,--which separated him from Belisarius. While, at the
mention of his name, a loud whisper, mingled with occasional
exclamations, had run through the ranks, all the many thousands were
silent now that they saw him: scorn, triumph, curiosity,
vindictiveness, pity no longer found any expression; they were silenced
by the majesty of this spectacle, the majesty of utter misery.

The captive King crossed the square entirely alone. No other prisoner,
not even a guard or warrior accompanied him. He kept his eyes,
shaded by long lashes, fixed upon the ground; they were sunk deep in
their sockets; his pale cheeks, too, were deeply sunken; the thin
fingers of his right hand were clenched around a small wooden cross.
Blood--visible when the mantle slipped back in walking--was trickling
from his girdle, down his naked limbs, in slow