n Vitiges was
camped about the City. There survived one daughter, Aurelia. Her the
father had not seen for years; her he longed to see and to pardon ere
he died. For Aurelia, widowed of her first husband in early youth, had
used her liberty to love and wed a flaxen-haired barbarian, a lord of
the Goths; and, worse still, had renounced the Catholic faith for the
religion of the Gothic people, that heresy of Arianism condemned and
abhorred by Rome. In Consequence she became an outcast from her kith
and kin. Her husband commanded in the city of Cumae, hard by Neapolis.
When this stronghold fell before the advance of Belisarius, the Goth
escaped, soon after to die in battle; Aurelia, a captive of the
Conquerors, remained at Cumae, and still was living there, though no
longer under restraint. Because of its strength, this ancient city
became the retreat of many ladies who fled from Rome before the
hardships and perils of the siege; from them the proud and unhappy
woman, ever held apart, yet she refused to quit the town when she would
have been permitted to do so. From his terrace above the Surrentine
shore, Maximus gazed across the broad gulf to the hills that concealed
Cumae, yearning for the last of his children. When at length he wrote
her a letter, a letter of sad kindness, inviting rather than beseeching
her to visit him, Aurelia made no reply. Wounded, he sunk again into
silence, until his heart could no longer bear its secret burden, and he
spoke--not to Petronilla, from whose austere orthodoxy little sympathy
was to be expected--but to his nephew Basil, whose generous mettle
willingly lent itself to such a service as was proposed. On his
delicate mission, the young man set forth without delay. To Cumae,
whether by sea or land, was but a short journey: starting at daybreak,
Basil might have given ample time to his embassy, and have been back
again early on the morrow. But the second day passed, and he did not
return. Though harassed by the delay, Maximus tried to deem it of good
omen, and nursed his hope through another sleepless night.

Soon after sunrise, he was carried forth to his place of observation, a
portico in semicircle, the marble honey-toned by time, which afforded
shelter from the eastern rays and commanded a view of vast extent.
Below him lay the little town, built on the cliffs above its
landing-place; the hillsides on either hand were clad with vineyards,
splendid in the purple of autumn, and with oliv