ends towards the exit.

Silverius would have whispered a word of sarcasm, but he was startled
at the glance which the Prefect cast upon him.

"Do not rejoice too soon, priest," it seemed to say; "you will repent
this hour!" And Silverius, the victor, was dumb.

CHAPTER IX.

The landing of the Byzantines had taken both Goths and Italians by
surprise; for the last move of Belisarius to the east had misled both
parties.

Of all our Gothic friends, Totila alone was in South Italy. He had, in
his office as commodore and Count of the Harbour of Neapolis, in vain
warned the Government of Ravenna of the impending danger, and begged
for the power and means of defending Sicily.

We shall see how he had been deprived of all possibility of preventing
the catastrophe which threatened to overwhelm his nation, and which was
to throw the first shadow upon the brilliant path of his own life, and
tear the web of good fortune which a happy fate had, until now, woven
about this favourite of the gods.

Valerius, who, though stern, had a noble and kindly nature, had soon
been won by Totila's irresistible amiability. We have seen how strongly
the prayers of his daughter, the memory of his wife's last words, and
Totila's frankness, had influenced the worthy man, even when he was
irritated at the discovery of the lovers' secret meetings.

Totila remained at the villa as a guest. Julius, with his winning
affection, was called upon to help the lovers, and to their united
influence the father gradually yielded.

But this was only possible because Totila assimilated to the Romans
more nearly in manners, education, and inclinations than any other
Goth: so that Valerius soon saw that he could not call a youth a
"barbarian" who knew and appreciated the language, wisdom, and beauty
of Hellenic and Roman literature better than most Italians, and
admired the culture of the ancient world no less than he loved his
fellow-countrymen.

And, in addition to all this, a common hatred of Byzantium united the
old Roman and the young German.

The Valerians had always belonged to the aristocratic Republican
opposition against the Caesars, and, since the time of Tiberius, many a
member of this family had sealed with his blood his fidelity to the
cause of Old Republicanism.

The family had never really acknowledged the removal of the Empire of
the World from the city on the Tiber to that on the Bosphorus. In the
Byzan