CHAPTER III.
Narses, that great general, had acutely guessed in what direction King Teja had turned aside from the Flaminian Way. He had first gone north towards the coast of the Ionian Gulf, and thence, with singular knowledge of the roads, had led his fugitive people and army by a circuitous route past Hadria, Aternum, and Ortona, to Samnium. That Rome was lost, he had learned beyond Nuceria Camellaria from some Goths who had fled from that city.
The King, whose impatient and unsparing disposition ever looked forward to the end, not unwillingly found himself obliged to get rid of his prisoners.
In number about as strong as their conquerors, the captives had made the office of guarding them so difficult, that Teja threatened to punish with death any attempt at escape.
Notwithstanding, when the army marched northwards, a number of these prisoners made an attempt to free themselves by force. Very many were killed in the struggle that ensued, and the King ordered that all the rest, together with Orestes and the whole of the officers, should be thrown into the Aternus with their hands bound; where they died miserably by drowning.
When Adalgoth begged Teja to revoke his cruel sentence, the latter replied:
"Did they not fall upon our defenceless women and children in their peaceful homes, and slay them? This is no longer a war between warriors; it is nation murdering nation. Let us do our part."
From Samnium the King, leaving his unarmed people to follow slowly under scanty escort--for they were threatened by no pursuit--hurried forward with his best troops to Campania. His arrival in those parts was so unexpected, that he not only surprised Duke Guntharis and Earl Grippa, whose small army had melted still more in consequence of frequent battles with superior forces, but, shortly after, the enemy also, who now had thought themselves sure of victory.
He had found Duke Guntharis and Earl Grippa occupying a secure position between Neapolis and Beneventum. He learned that the Romani were threatening Cumæ from Capua.
"They shall not reach that city before me," he cried; "I have to complete there an important work."
And, his army being now reinforced by the garrison of his own county town of Tarentum, under the command of brave Ragnaris, he surprised the superior force of the Byzantines, which was about to march upon Cumæ, and defeated them with great loss. He himself slew the Archon Armatus with his battle-axe, and at his side young Adalgoth ran Dorotheos through with his spear. The Byzantines were routed, and fled northwards to Terracina.
It was the last ray of sunshine cast by the God of Victory upon the blue banner of the Goths.
The next day King Teja entered Cumæ. Totila, upon his last fatal march from Rome, had decided, at the instance of Teja, and contrary to his custom, to take with him hostages from that city. No one knew what had become of them.
On the evening of his entry into Cumæ, King Teja ordered the walled-up garden of the Castle of Cumæ to be broken open. There were hidden the hostages from Rome: patricians and senators--among them Maximus, Cyprianus, Opilio, Rusticus, and Fidelius, the most distinguished men of the Senate--in all they numbered three hundred. All were members of the old league against the Goths.
Teja ordered the Goths who had lately escaped from Rome to tell these hostages how the Romans, persuaded by envoys sent by Narses, had one night risen in revolt, had murdered all the Goths upon whom they could lay hands, even the women and children, and had driven the rest into the Moles Hadriani.
The King fastened such a terrible look upon the trembling hostages, as they listened to this news, that two of them could not endure to wait till the end, but then and there killed themselves by dashing their heads against the stony walls which surrounded them.
When the Goths from Rome had sworn to the truth of their story, the King silently turned away and left the garden. An hour after, the heads of the three hundred hostages stared ghastly down from the summit of the walls.
"It was not alone to fulfil this terrible judgment that I came here," Teja said to Adalgoth: "I have also to reveal a sacred secret."
And he invited him and the other leaders of the troops to a solemn and joyless midnight banquet. When the sad feast was over, the King made a sign to old Hildebrand, who nodded, and took a dimly burning torch from the iron ring into which it was stuck on the centre column of the vaulted hall, saying:
"Follow me, children of these latter days, and take your shields with you."
It was the third hour of the July night; the stars glittered in the sky. Out of the hall, silently following the King and the aged master-at-arms, there stepped Guntharis and Adalgoth, Aligern, Grippa, Ragnaris, and Wisand the standard-bearer. Wachis, the King's shield-bearer, closed the procession, carrying a second torch.
Opposite the castle garden rose an ancient round tower, named the Tower of Theodoric, because that great King had restored it. Old Hildebrand was the first to enter this tower with his torch, but instead of leaving the ground-floor, which contained only the empty tower-room, the old man halted, knelt down, and carefully measured fifteen spans of his large hand from the door, which he had closed behind them, to the centre of the room. The whole floor seemed to be composed of three colossal slabs of granite. When Hildebrand had measured the fifteen spans, he held his thumb upon the spot at which he had arrived, and struck his battle-axe against the floor; it sounded hollow. Boring the point of his axe into a scarcely-visible crack in the stone, he signed to his companions to stand aside on his left; when they had done so, he pushed a portion of the slab to the right. A chasm, as deep as the tower was high above them, revealed itself to the astonished eyes of those present.
The opening was only large enough to admit one man at a time. It led to a narrow flight of more than two hundred steps, hewn in the living rock.
Silently, at a sign from Hildebrand, the men descended. When they arrived at the bottom, they found that the circular space was divided in the middle by a stone wall. The semicircle into which they had entered was empty.
And now King Teja measured ten spans on the wall to the centre, and pressing his hand upon a stone, a small door opened inwards. Hildebrand entered with his torch, and kindled two others which were fixed upon the wall.
The observers started back dazzled, and covered their eyes with their hands. When they again looked up, they recognised--at once guessing the secret--the whole rich treasure of Dietrich of Berne.
There lay, partly heaped up symmetrically, partly thrown in disorder one upon another, weapons, vessels, and ornaments of all kinds. Strong Etruscan steel-caps of ancient times, brought by the commerce of the Goths as far as the Baltic, or to the Pruth and Dniester, and now brought back to the south by the migration of the nations, probably near to the very spot where they had been fashioned. Near these lay flat wooden head-pieces, over which was stretched the skin of the seal, or the jaws of the ice-bear; pointed Celtic helmets; high-crested helms from Rome or Byzantium; neck-rings of bronze and iron, of silver and gold. Shields--from the clumsy wooden shield, as tall as a man, which was set up like a wall to hide the archer, to the small round and ornamented horseman's shield of the Parthians, studded with pearls and precious stones. Ancient ring-mail of crushing weight, and light-padded clothing of purple-coloured linen, besides scimitars, swords and daggers, of stone, bronze, and steel. Axes and clubs of all kinds--from those rudely made from the bones of the mammoth and tied to the antler of a stag with bast, to the Frankish franciska, and the small perforated and gilded axe with which the Roman circus-riders used to split an apple while at full gallop. Spears, lances, and darts of all sorts--from the roughly carved tusk of the narwal, to the ebony shaft, inlaid with gold, of the Asdingian Vandal Kings in Carthage, and the massive golden arrows of these princes, with steel points a foot long, and the shafts decorated with the purple feathers of the flamingo. War-mantles--made of the fur of the black fox, the skin of the Numidian lion, and the costliest purple of Sidon. Shoes--from the long shovel-shaped snowshoes of the Skrito Fins, to the golden sandals of Byzantium. Doublets of Frisian wool, and tunics of Chinese silk. Innumerable vessels and table utensils--tall vases, flat salvers, cups, and round-bellied urns, of amber, of gold, of silver, of tortoise-shell. Arm-rings and shoulder-clasps, necklaces of pearls and of crystal beads, and innumerable other utensils for meat and drink, for clothing and decoration, for sport and war.
"This secret cave," said Teja, "known only to us, the blood brethren--the master-at-arms caused it to be hewn in the rock when he was Earl of Cumæ, forty years ago--was the vault in which was hidden the treasure of the Goths. This is the reason why Belisarius found so little, when he ransacked the treasure-house at Ravenna. The most costly pieces of booty, the gifts, the collection of Amelung trophies in war and peace, which existed long before Theodoric, in the time of Winithar, Ermanarich, Athal, Ostrogotho, Isarna, Amala, and Gaut--all these have we concealed here. We left nothing in Ravenna but the minted gold, and such things as seemed richer in intrinsic value than in honour. For months our enemies have walked above these treasures; but the faithful abyss kept the secret. But now we will carry all away with us. Take the treasures on your shields, and hand them from one to another up the steps. We will take it to the last battle-field upon which an Ostrogothic army will ever fight. No, do not be anxious, young Adalgoth; even when I have fallen, and all is lost, the enemy shall not bear away the sacred treasure to Byzantium. For wonderful is the last battle-field which I have chosen; it shall conceal and swallow up the last of the Goths, their treasure and their fame!"
"Yes, and their greatest treasure and noblest renown," said old Hildebrand; "not merely gold and silver and precious stones. Look here, my Goths!"
And he held his torch towards a curtain which shut off a portion of the treasure-cave, and pushed the curtain to one side. As he did so, all present fell upon their knees. For they recognised the great dead, who sat, erect and clothed in purple, upon a golden throne, the spear still grasped in his right hand.
It was the great Theodoric.
The art which had been introduced to the Romans by the Egyptians--the art of embalming the dead--had preserved the body of the hero-King with terrible perfection.
All present were struck dumb with emotion.
"Many years ago," at last Hildebrand began, "Teja and I mistrusted the good fortune of the Goths. And I, who, before the breaking out of the war, had the command of the guard-of-honour at the Mausoleum of Ravenna, in which Amalaswintha had interred her dead father--I liked the building but little, and still less the incense-scented priests who so often prayed there for the soul of my good and great King--I thought that if ever all trace of my nation were rooted out of this southern land, no Italian or Greekling should mock at the remains of our beloved hero. No! even as the first great conqueror of the Roman fortress, Alaric the Visigoth, found his unknown and never to be dishonoured tomb in the sacred bed of the stream, so also should my great King be delivered from the curiosity of posterity. And, with Teja's help, I took the noble corpse away by night, from its marble house, and from the vicinity of the whining priests, and we brought it hither, as part of the royal treasure. Here it was safe. And if, after the lapse of centuries, some accident should betray its resting-place, who could then recognise the King with the eagle-eye? And so the sarcophagus at Ravenna is empty, and the monks sing and pray in vain. Here, near his treasures and his trophies, in hero splendour, erect upon his throne, he rests; it is more pleasing to his soul, which looks down from Walhalla, than to see his mortal remains stretched out, weighed down by heavy stones, and surrounded with clouds of incense."
"But now," concluded Teja, "the hour has come for him once more to rise from the abyss. When you have raised the treasure, we will carefully lift up this beloved form. Early to-morrow we will march out of this city. The approach of Narses and the Prefect has already been announced. We will go, with royal corpse and royal treasure, to the last battle-field of the Goths, whither I have already sent the women and children. The battle-field--long ago I saw it in the visions of my sleepless nights--the battle-field whereon we and our nation will gloriously perish; the battlefield which, even when the last spear is broken, can save and hide all who do not fear to die in its glowing bosom; the battle-field which Teja has chosen for you and for himself!"
"I guess thy meaning," whispered Adalgoth; "this last battle-field is----"
"Mons Vesuvius!" said Teja. "To work!"