He handed his torch to one of the men and took a lance.
While the Huns were carrying out his orders, Johannes again examined the pass as well as he could.
"Yield!" he cried.
"Come on!" shouted the Goths.
Johannes gave a sign and twenty arrows whistled at once.
A cry, and the foremost Goth on the right fell. He had been struck in the forehead by one of the men on the trees. Valerius, under shelter of his shield, sprang into his place. He came just at the right moment to repulse the furious attack of Johannes, who ran at the gap with his lance in rest. Valerius received the thrust on his shield, and struck at the Byzantine, who stumbled and fell, close to the entrance. The Huns behind him fell back.
The Goth who stood at Valerius's side could not resist the temptation to render the leader harmless. He sprang a step forward out of the pass with up-lifted spear. But this was just what Johannes wanted. Up he started with lightning swiftness, thrust the surprised Goth over the low wall of the road on the right of the pass, and the next moment he stood on the exposed side of Valerius--who was defending himself against the renewed attack of the Huns--and stabbed him with all his might in the groin with his long Persian knife.
Valerius fell; but the three Goths who stood behind him succeeded in pushing Johannes--who had already pressed forward into the middle of the pass--back and out with the beaks of their shields.
Johannes retired to his men, in order to command a new salvo of arrows. Two of the Goths silently placed themselves in the entrance of the pass; the third held the bleeding Valerius in his arms.
Just then the guard at the rear of the pass rushed in: "The ship, sir! the ship! They have landed! they take us in the rear! Fly! we will carry you--a hiding-place in the rocks----"