"So everything has succeeded better than I could wish," he said to himself with great complacency, as he set his papers in order before leaving Ravenna, "and this time, my proud friend Cethegus, cunning has proved truly excellent. The little rhetorician from Thessalonica, with his small and stealthy steps, has advanced farther than you with your proud strides. Of one thing I must be careful: that Theodahad and Gothelindis do not escape to Byzantium; it would be too dangerous. Perhaps the question of the astute Empress was intended as a warning. This royal couple must be put out of our way."
Having completed his arrangements, Petros sent for the friend with whom he lodged, and took leave of him. At the same time he delivered to him a dark-coloured narrow vase, such as those which were used for the preservation of documents; he sealed the cover with his ring, which was finely engraved with a scorpion, and wrote a name upon the wax-tablet appended to it.
"Seek this man," he said to his host, "at the next assembly of the Goths at Regeta, and give him the vase; the contents are his. Farewell. You shall soon see me again in Ravenna."
He left the house with his slaves, and was soon on board the ambassador's ship; filled with proud expectations, he was borne away by the Nemesis.
As his ship, many weeks after, neared the harbour of Byzantium--he had, at the Empress's wish, announced his speedy arrival at Lampsacus, by means of an imperial swift-sailer which was just leaving--Petros looked at the handsome country houses on the shore, which shone whitely from out of the evergreen shade of the surrounding gardens.
"Here you will live in future, amongst the senators of the Empire," he thought with great contentment.
Before they ran into the harbour, the Thetis, the splendid pleasure-boat of the Empress, flew towards them, and, as soon as she recognised the galley of the ambassador, hoisted the purple standard, as a sign to lay to.
Very soon a messenger from the Empress came on board the galley. It was Alexandros, the former ambassador to the court of Ravenna. He showed to the captain of the galley a writing from the Emperor, at which the captain appeared to be much startled; then he turned to Petros.
"In the name of the Emperor Justinian! You are condemned for life, convicted of long-practised forgery and embezzlement of the taxes, to the metal-works in the mines of Cherson, with the Ultra-Ziagirian Huns. You have delivered the daughter of Theodoric into the hands of her enemies. The Emperor thought you excused when he read your letter; but the Empress, inconsolable for the death of her royal sister, revealed your former guilt to the Emperor, and a letter from the Prefect of Rome proved that you had secretly planned the murder of the Princess with Gothelindis. Your fortune is confiscated, and the Empress wishes you to recollect--" here he whispered into the ear of Petros, who was completely stunned and broken by this terrible blow--"that you yourself, in your letter, advised her to get rid of all the sharers of her secrets."
With this, Alexandros returned to the Thetis, but the Nemesis turned her stern to Byzantium, and bore the criminal away for ever from all civilised community with mankind.