his head to the Emperor at Byzantium. Do you not hear the tuba?
The fight has commenced!"

CHAPTER XIV.

When King Teja saw the whole of Narses' forces advancing towards the
mouth of the pass, he said to his heroes:

"It seems that instead of the stars, the mid-day sun is to shine upon
the last battle of the Goths! That is the only change in our plan."

He then placed a number of warriors in front of the hollow in the lava,
showed them the royal treasure and the corpse of Theodoric, raised upon
a purple throne, and ordered them to pay attention while the fight for
the pass was raging, and, on receiving a sign from Adalgoth--to whom
and Wachis he had confided the last defence of the pass--at once to
throw the throne and the coffers into the crater. The unarmed people
pressed together round the lava cave--not a tear was seen, not a sigh
was heard.

Teja arranged his men into hundreds, and these hundreds into families,
so that father and sons, brothers and cousins, fought at each other's
side; an order of battle the terrible obstinacy of which the Romans had
often experienced since the days of the Cimbrians and Teutons, of
Ariovist and Armin. The natural construction of the last battlefield of
the Goths necessitated of itself the old order of battle inherited from
Odin--the wedge.

The deep and close columns of the Byzantines now stood in orderly ranks
from the shore of the sea to within a spear's throw from the mouth of
the pass: a magnificent but fearful spectacle. The sun shone brightly
upon their weapons, while the Goths still stood in the deep shadow of
the rocks. Far away over the spears and standards of the enemy, the
Goths beheld the lovely blue sea, the surface of which flashed with a
silvery light.

King Teja stood near Adalgoth, who carried the banner of Theodoric, at
the mouth of the pass. All the poet was roused in the Hero-King.

"Look!" he said to his favourite, "what more lovely place could a man
have to die in? It cannot be more beautiful in the heaven of the
Christian, nor in Master Hildebrand's Asgard or Breidablick. Up,
Adalgoth! Let us die here, worthy of our nation and of this beauteous
death-place."

He threw back the purple mantle which he wore over his black steel
armour, took the little harp upon his left arm, and sang in a low,
restrained voice:

"From farthest North till Rome--Byzant--
The Goths to battle call!