he credulous, Basiliscus consented
to the fatal truce; and his imprudent security seemed to proclaim, that
he already considered himself as the conqueror of Africa. During this
short interval, the wind became favorable to the designs of Genseric.
He manned his largest ships of war with the bravest of the Moors
and Vandals; and they towed after them many large barks, filled with
combustible materials. In the obscurity of the night, these destructive
vessels were impelled against the unguarded and unsuspecting fleet of
the Romans, who were awakened by the sense of their instant danger.
Their close and crowded order assisted the progress of the fire, which
was communicated with rapid and irresistible violence; and the noise
of the wind, the crackling of the flames, the dissonant cries of the
soldiers and mariners, who could neither command nor obey, increased
the horror of the nocturnal tumult. Whilst they labored to extricate
themselves from the fire-ships, and to save at least a part of the navy,
the galleys of Genseric assaulted them with temperate and disciplined
valor; and many of the Romans, who escaped the fury of the flames, were
destroyed or taken by the victorious Vandals. Among the events of that
disastrous night, the heroic, or rather desperate, courage of John,
one of the principal officers of Basiliscus, has rescued his name from
oblivion. When the ship, which he had bravely defended, was almost
consumed, he threw himself in his armor into the sea, disdainfully
rejected the esteem and pity of Genso, the son of Genseric, who pressed
him to accept honorable quarter, and sunk under the waves; exclaiming,
with his last breath, that he would never fall alive into the hands
of those impious dogs. Actuated by a far different spirit, Basiliscus,
whose station was the most remote from danger, disgracefully fled in the
beginning of the engagement, returned to Constantinople with the loss of
more than half of his fleet and army, and sheltered his guilty head
in the sanctuary of St. Sophia, till his sister, by her tears and
entreaties, could obtain his pardon from the indignant emperor.
Heraclius effected his retreat through the desert; Marcellinus retired
to Sicily, where he was assassinated, perhaps at the instigation
of Ricimer, by one of his own captains; and the king of the Vandals
expressed his surprise and satisfaction, that the Romans themselves
should remove from the world his most formidable antagonists. After th