She laughed.
"You? Force me?"
"Yes, I force you! (She still loves the man she has ruined!) The second condition is this: that the prisoner fill up this empty space with a name--the name of the castle in which the treasure of the Goths is concealed--and sign the declaration. He refuses to do this with a stubbornness which begins to anger me. Seven times I, the conqueror, have been to him. He would never yet speak to me. And the first time I went I received a look for which alone he deserves to lose his haughty head."
"He will never consent!"
"That remains to be seen. The continual dropping of water wears away a stone at last. But I can wait no longer. Early to-day I received word that that mad Hildebad, in a furious sally, has beaten Bessas so thoroughly, that the latter can scarcely continue the siege. Everywhere the Goths rebel. I must go and make an end of it, and extinguish these last sparks with the water of deception, which is better than blood. To this end I must have the King's declaration, and the secret of the castle. Therefore I tell you that if, before to-morrow, you do not consent to accompany the Prince to Byzantium, and have not procured for me the signature of the prisoner, witnessed as such by yourself, I will--I swear by the Styx--kill----"
Horrified at the awful expression of Cethegus's face, Mataswintha started from her seat and grasped his arm.
"You will not kill him!"
"Yes; or rather, I will first torture him, then blind him, and afterwards kill him!"
"No! no!" screamed Mataswintha.
"I am resolved. The executioners are ready. And you, you shall tell him this. He will believe that I am in earnest when he sees your despair. You will perhaps be able to soften him; the sight of me only hardens him. Perhaps he thinks that he is still in the hands of Belisarius, that tender-hearted hero. You will tell him in whose power he really is. Here are the documents--here the keys which open his prison. You shall choose the hour yourself."