"The devil it must! but it will not! I have still more to tell. The citizens begin to get unruly. Belisarius daily shoots a hundred blunt arrows into the city, to which is tied the inscription: 'Rebel for freedom!' They have more effect than a thousand pointed darts. Already, here and there, stones are cast from the roofs upon my poor fellows. If this goes on--we cannot, with a thousand men, keep off forty thousand Greeks outside and thirty thousand Neapolitans inside. Therefore I think--" and his eyes looked very gloomy.
"What thinkest thou?"
"We will burn down a portion of the city--at least the suburbs----"
"So that the inhabitants may like us all the better? No, Uliaris, they shall not have cause to call us 'barbarians.' I know of better means--they are starving; yesterday I brought in four shiploads of oil, com, and wine; this I will divide amongst them."
"Oil and corn if thou wilt! But not the wine! That I claim for my Goths. They have drunk cistern-water long enough, the nasty stuff!"
"Good, thirsty hero, you shall have the wine for yourselves."
"Well? and still no news from Ravenna, or from Rome?"
"None! Yesterday I sent off my fifth messenger."
"May God destroy our King! Listen, Totila, I don't believe we shall ever get alive out of these worm-eaten walls."
"Nor I either," said Totila quietly, and offered his guest a cup of wine.