rial master. Justinian is his folly, as Belisarius
is mine. But now for your story."

CHAPTER VI.

Cethegus took a deep draught from the cup which stood before him, which
was made of chased gold and shaped like a tower.

He was considerably changed since that last night in Rome. The wrinkles
on his temples were more sharply defined; his lip more firmly closed;
his under-lip protruded still farther than before; and the ironical
smile, which used to make him look younger and handsomer, very rarely
played round the corners of his mouth. His eyes were generally half
shut; only sometimes did he raise the lids to dart a glance, which,
always dreaded by those upon whom it fell, now appeared more cruel and
piercing than ever.

He seemed to have become, not older, but harsher, more inexorable, and
more merciless.

"You know," he began, "all that happened until the fall of Rome. In one
night I lost the city, the Capitol, my house, and my Caesar! The crash
of the fall of that image pained me more than the arrows of the Goths,
or even of the Romans. As I was about to punish the destroyer of my
Caesar, my senses forsook me. I fell at the foot of the statue of
Jupiter. I was restored to my senses by the cool breeze that blows over
the Tiber, and which once before, twenty years ago, had restored a
wounded man."

He paused.

"Of that another time, perhaps--perhaps never," he said, hastily
cutting short a question from his host. "This time Lucius Licinius--his
brother died for Rome and for me--and the faithful Moor, who had
escaped the Black Earl as if by miracle, saved my life. Cast out of the
front entrance by Teja--who, in his eagerness to murder the master, had
no time to murder the slave--Syphax hurried to the back-door. There he
met Lucius Licinius, who had only just then reached my house by a
side-street. Together they followed the trace of my blood to the hall
of the Jupiter. There they found me senseless, and had just time to
lower me from the window, like a piece of baggage, into the court.
Syphax jumped down and received me from the hands of the tribune, who
then quickly followed, and they hurried with me to the river.

"There very few people were to be seen, for all the Goths and friendly
Romans had followed the King to the Capitol to help to extinguish the
flames. Totila had expressly ordered--I hope to his destruction!--that
all non-combatants should be spared and left unmolest