he foibles of your idol more than the merits of
other people. And so--to cut my story short--it was during the last
Persian war that, one day, I warned the lion-hearted general not to
ride through a dangerous wood with a scanty escort. Of course he did it
all the more, the dear fool; and of course Procopius, the wise fool,
rode with him. All happened just as I had expected. The whole wood was
suddenly filled with Persians. It seemed as if the wind had shaken the
withered leaves from the trees, and every leaf was an axe or a spear.
It was very like the ambush before the Tiburtinian Gate. Balan, the
faithful piebald, bore his master for the last time. Stuck full of
spears, he fell dead to the ground. I assisted the hero to mount my own
horse. But a Persian prince, who was almost as tall as his name was
long--the pleasant fellow was called Adrastaransalanes--aimed a blow at
the magister militum which, in my hurry, I received upon my right
arm--for my shield was occupied in protecting Belisarius against a
Saracen. The blow was well meant; if it had reached my hero's helmless
head, it would have cracked it like a nutshell. As it was, it only cut
off my fore-arm as if it had never been part of my body."

"Of course Belisarius escaped, and of course Procopius was taken
prisoner," said the guest, shaking his head.

"Quite right, you commander of perspicacity, as my friend
Adrastaransalanes would call you. But the same man with his long body,
scimitar, and name--you will not insist upon my repeating it--was so
moved by my 'elephantine magnanimity,' as he expressed himself, that he
very soon set me free without ransom. He only begged for a ring which
had been on the finger of my former right hand: as a remembrance, he
said. Since then it is all over with my campaigns," added Procopius
more gravely. "But in this loss of my pen-hand I see a punishment. I
have written with it many a useless or not perfectly sincere word.
However, if a like punishment overtook all the writers of Byzantium,
there would soon be not a two-handed man left who could write. Writing
is now a much slower and more difficult process with me. But that is
good, for then, at every word one considers whether it is worth the
trouble of inscribing or whether one is justified in doing so."

"I have read with true enjoyment," said the guest, "your 'Vandal Wars,'
your 'Persian Wars,' and, as far as it goes, the 'Gothic War.' When
recovering from my hurt, it was my