But King Teja ordered that the bodies should be thrown by night over
the lava cliffs; so that, horribly mutilated, they seemed a warning to
all who should attempt to follow their example. Seeing this, Narses
begged to be allowed to send unarmed men to fetch away the bodies, a
favour which King Teja immediately granted.

Since retiring into this ravine, the Goths had not lost a single man in
fight; for only the foremost man in the pass was exposed to the enemy,
and, supported by the comrades who stood behind him, this guardian had
never yet been killed.

One night, after sunset--it was now the month of September, and all
traces of the battle at Taginae were already obliterated; the flowers
planted by Cassiodorus and the nuns of the cloister round the
sarcophagi of King Totila, his bride, and his friend, had put forth new
shoots--King Teja, who had just been relieved from his post by Wisand,
approached his lava hall, his spear upon his shoulder. Before the
curtain which closed the entrance to his rocky chamber, Adalgoth
received Teja with a sad smile, and, kneeling, offered to him a golden
goblet.

"Let me still fulfil my office of cup-bearer," he said; "who knows how
long it may last?"

"Not much longer!" said Teja gravely, as he seated himself. "We will
remain here, outside the curtain. Look! how magnificently the bay and
the coast of Surrentum shine in the glowing light left by the setting
sun--the blue sea is changed to crimson blood! Truly, the Southland
could afford no more beauteous frame with which to enclose the
last battle of the Goths. Well, may the picture be worthy of its
setting! The end is coming. How wonderfully everything that I
foreboded--dreamed, and sang--has been fulfilled!"

And the King supported his head upon both his hands. Only when the
silver tones of a harp was heard, did he again look up. Adalgoth had,
unseen, fetched the King's small harp from behind the curtain.

"Thou shalt hear," he said, "how I have completed thy song of the
Ravine; or I might have said, how it has completed itself. Dost thou
remember that night in the wilderness of ivy, marble, and laurel in
Rome? It was not a battle already fought, a battle of ancient days, of
which thou didst sing. No! in a spirit of prophecy, thou hast sung our
last heroic battle here." And he played and sang:

"Where arise the cliffs of lava,
On Vesuvius' glowing side,
Tones of deepest woe and wailing,