and
impenetrable looks! Last night I again questioned my snake oracle. I
divided the skin of my idol into two pieces, and laid them upon live
coals. The piece which I called 'Narses' outlasted by far the piece
which I called 'Cethegus.' Shall I not make the attempt? You know that
a scratch with this dagger, and he is lost! What would it matter if
they impaled Syphax, the son of Hiempsal? I cannot do it by stealth,
for the Longobardian prince sleeps in the tent of Narses, in a bed
stretched across the entrance, and seven of his 'little wolves' lie
upon the threshold. The Herulians stand outside the curtain. According
to your hint, I have watched Narses' tent at night ever since we left
Helvillum. Even a gnat can scarcely escape the vigilance of the
Herulians and Longobardians when it flies into the tent. But openly, by
day, one spring into his litter--a scratch of the skin--and he is a
dead man in a quarter of an hour!"

"And before that time has elapsed, not only is Syphax, the son of
Hiempsal, a corpse, but also Cethegus. No. But listen; I have
discovered where the commander is accustomed to hold his secret
conversations with Basiliskos and Alboin. Not in his tent--a camp has a
thousand ears--but in the bath. The physicians have ordered Narses a
morning bath in the bay at Stabiae, and he has had a bath-house built
out into the sea, which can only be reached in a boat. When Alboin and
Basiliskos accompany him thither, they are only as wise as--well, as
Basiliskos and Alboin. But when they return, they are full of the
wisdom of Narses; they know what letters have come from Byzantium, and
many other things. Round about the bath-house there is much seaweed.
Syphax, for how long a time can you dive?"

"As long," answered the slave, not without pride, "as the clumsy and
suspicious crocodile in our streams takes to observe the gazelle which
has been thrown into the reeds as a bait, and to make up his mind to
swim to it--then a knife from below in his belly! This small-eyed
Narses has something of the crocodile--we will see if I cannot outdo
him by patient diving."

"Excellent! my panther on shore, my diving duck in the water!"

"I would leap into fire for your sake, then you would call me your
'salamander.'"

"Well, you must manage to listen to the conversation of this sick man
when he goes to bathe."

"The office will very well suit another game which I have on hand. For
many days a fisherman, who throws his net eve