his bath-house, Cethegus fully
intended to wait.

CHAPTER XI.

The usual good luck of the Prefect did not desert him. The weather
changed again. On the morning of the day after his last conversation
with Narses, the sun rose splendidly over the blue and sparkling bay,
and hundreds of small fishing-boats set out to take advantage of the
favourable weather.

Syphax, yielding his place at the threshold of his master's tent to the
four Isaurians, who alone had remained behind their comrades, had
disappeared at the first approach of dawn.

When Cethegus had taken his morning bath in an adjoining tent, and was
returning to his breakfast, he heard Syphax making a great noise as he
approached through the lines of tents.

"No!" he was shouting; "this fish is for the Prefect. I have paid for
it in hard cash. The great Narses will not wish to eat other people's
fish!"

And with these words he tore himself loose from Alboin, and from
several Longobardians, as well as from a slave belonging to Narses, who
were trying to detain him.

Cethegus stopped. He recognised the slave. It was the cook of the
generally sick and always temperate general, whose art was scarcely
practised except for his master's guests.

"Sir," the well-educated Greek said to the Prefect, in his native
language, "do not blame me for this unseemly turmoil. What does a
sea-mullet matter to me! But these long-bearded barbarians forced me to
take possession, at any cost, of this fish-basket, which your slave was
bringing from the boats."

A glance which Cethegus exchanged with Syphax sufficed. The
Longobardian had not understood what had been said. Cethegus gave
Syphax a blow on the cheek, and cried in Latin:

"Good-for-nothing, insolent slave! will you never learn manners? Shall
not the sick general have the best there is?"

And he roughly snatched the basket from the Moor and gave it to the
slave.

"Here is the basket. I hope Narses will enjoy the fish."

The slave, who thought he had refused the gift distinctly enough, took
the basket with a shake of his head.

"What can it all mean?" he asked in Latin as he went away.

"It means," answered Alboin, who followed him, "that the best fish is
_not_ hidden in the basket, but somewhere else."

As soon as Syphax entered the tent, he eagerly felt in his waterproof
belt of crocodile-skin for a roll of papyrus, which he handed to the
Prefect.

"You bleed, Syphax!"