At this spectacle the trembling senators were overwhelmed with terror and astonishment.
"Yes, wise fathers," cried the Emperor, turning to the assembly, "this time you were too clever to be men. It is indeed an honour to be called Constantine's successor, but it is no honour to be your master! Our enemies, I fear, are right; Constantine only planted here the dead mummy of Rome, but the soul of Rome had already fled. Alas for the Empire! Were it free or a republic, it would now have sunk in shame for ever. It must have a master, who, when, like a lazy horse, it threatens to sink into the quagmire, pulls it up by the rein; a strong master with bridle, whip, and spurs!"
At this moment a little crooked man, leaning on a crutch, forced his way into the hall, and limped up to the steps of the throne.
"Emperor of the Romani," he began, when he rose from his obeisance, "a report reached me on my bed of pain of all that the barbarians had dared, and of what was going on here. I gathered all my strength and dragged myself here with difficulty, for, by one word from you, I must learn whether I have been a fool from the beginning in holding you to be a great ruler in spite of many weaknesses; whether I shall throw your marshal's staff into the deepest well, or still carry it with pride! Speak only one word: war or peace?"
"War! war!" cried Justinian, and his countenance beamed.
"Victory! Justinian!" cried the general. "Oh, let me kiss your hand, great Emperor!" and he limped up the steps of the throne.
"But how is this, patrician, you have all at once become a man!" mocked the Empress. "You were always against the war with the Goths. Have you suddenly become endowed with a sense of honour?"
"Honour!" cried Narses, "after that gay soap-bubble Belisarius, that great child, may run! Not honour but the Empire is at stake. As long as danger threatened from the east, I advised the Persian war. Nothing was to be feared from the Goths. But now your piety, O Empress, and Belisarius's hero-sword, have stirred up the hornets' nest so long, that at last the whole swarm flies dangerously into our faces. Now the danger threatens from that side, and I advise a Gothic war. The Goths are nearer to Byzantium than Chosroes to the eastern frontier. He who, like this Totila, can raise a kingdom from an abyss, can much more easily hurl another kingdom into an abyss. This young King is a worker of miracles, and must be stopped in time."
"For this once," said Justinian, "I have the rare pleasure of finding my Empress and Narses of one mind."
He was on the point of dismissing the assembly, when the Empress caught his arm.