Narses insensible--Liberius perplexed--the victory they had thought certain, endangered--these circumstances weighed more with the Prefect than the doubtful expectation of dealing the death-stroke to the half-dead King.
In haste Cethegus galloped back to Taginæ the way that he had come. When he reached the town he found Liberius, who cried:
"Too late! I have already settled and agreed to everything. A truce! The rest of the Goths march off!"
"What?" thundered Cethegus--he would gladly have poured all the blood of the Goths upon the grave of his darling as a sacrifice. "They march? A truce? Where is Narses?"
"He lies insensible in his litter; he has been taken with severe convulsions. The fright, the surprise--it prostrated him, and no wonder."
"What surprise? Speak, man!"
And Liberius briefly related how they had forced their way into Taginæ with fearful loss of blood, "for the Goths stood like a wall"--had been obliged to storm house by house, even room by room--"we were obliged to hack to pieces by inches one of their leaders, who ran Anzalas through as he leaped into the first breach, before we could force our way into the town over his body."
"Who was he?" asked Cethegus earnestly. "I hope Earl Teja?"
"No; Earl Thorismuth. When we had finished our bloody work, and Narses was about to let himself be carried into the town, he met in the gate a messenger from our left wing--which no more exists! It was Zeuxippos, wounded, and accompanied by Gothic heralds."
"Who has----?"