Let his young head be crowned.
"Hear, all ye people, far and near,
Hear, Byzant', to thy dole:
The Gothic King, young Totila,
Thrones on the Capitol."
A burst of applause rewarded his song, during which a Roman youth and a Gothic maiden, kneeling before Totila and Valeria, offered each a crown of roses, laurels, olive-leaves and oak-leaves.
"Our songs are also not quite without sweetness, Valeria," said Totila with a smile, "and not without strength and truth. I owe my life to this youthful minstrel." And he laid his hand upon Adalgoth's head. "He struck thy countryman Piso, his colleague in the art of song, most roughly upon his clever scanning fingers--as a punishment for having written many a verse to my Valeria and raised the deadly steel against me with one and the same hand!"
"There is one thing that I would rather have heard, my Adalgoth," Teja said to the boy in a low voice, "than your song of praise."
"What is that, my Earl of harp and sword?"
"The death-cry of the Prefect, whom thou hast only sent to hell in thy verse."