ple," added the King.

"Yes! They say, Why should we weary ourselves with drilling and arming?
The little Greeks won't dare to attack us! And if they really do come,
the grandsons of Genseric will destroy the grandsons of Basiliscus just
as Genseric destroyed him."

"But we are no longer Genseric's Vandals!" Gelimer lamented. "Genseric
brought with him an army of heroes, brave, trained by twenty years of
warfare with other Germans and with the Romans in the mountains of
Spain, simple, plain in tastes, rigid in morals. He closed the houses
of Roman pleasure in Carthage; he compelled all women of light fame to
marry or enter convents."

"But how that suited the husbands and the other nuns is not told,"
replied Zazo, laughing.

"And now, to-day, our youths are as corrupt as the most profligate
Romans. To the cruelty of the fathers"--the King sighed deeply--"is
added the dissipation, the intemperance, the effeminate indolence of
the sons. How can such a nation endure? It must succumb."

"But we Asdings," said Gibamund, drawing himself up to his full height,
while his eyes sparkled and a noble look transfigured his whole face,
"we are unsullied by such stains."

"What sins have we--you and we two committed," Zazo added, "that we
must perish?"

Again the King sighed heavily, his brow clouded, he lowered his eyes.

"We? Do we not bear the curse which--But hush! Not a word of that! It
is the last straw of my hope that I, the King, at least wear this crown
without guilt. Were I obliged to accuse myself of that, woe betide me!
Oh--whose is this cold hand? You, Verus? You startled me."

"He steals in noiselessly, like a serpent," Zazo muttered in his beard.

The priest--he had retained, even as chancellor, the ecclesiastical
robe--had entered unobserved; how long before, no one knew. His eyes
were fixed intently upon Gelimer, as he slowly withdrew the hand he had
laid upon his friend's bare arm.

"Yes, my sovereign, keep this anxiety of conscience. Guard your soul
from guilt. I know your nature; it would crush you."

"You shall not make my brother still more gloomy," cried Zazo,
indignantly.

"Gelimer and guilt!" exclaimed Gibamund, throwing his arm around the
King's neck.

"He is only too conscientious, too much given to pondering," Zazo went
on. "Really, Gelimer, you, too, are no longer like Genseric's Vandals.
You are infected also; not by Roman vices, but by Roman or Greek or
Christian brooding over subtle qu