His spear had struck the King's right breast. Not dead, but mortally wounded, he was carried into the pass by Hildebrand and Adalgoth. And they had need to make haste. For when, at last, they saw the King of the Goths fall--he had fought without a pause for eight hours, and evening was coming on--all the Italians, Persians, and Thracians, and fresh columns of attack which had now come up, rushed towards the pass, which was now again defended by Adalgoth with his shield; Hildebrand and Wachis supporting him.
Syphax took the body of Cethegus in his arms and carried it to one side. Weeping aloud he held the noble head of his master upon his knees, the features of which appeared almost superhuman in the majesty of death. Before him raged the battle. Just then the Moor remarked that Anicius, followed by a troop of Byzantines--Scævola and Albinus among them--was approaching him, and pointing to the body of Cethegus with an air of command.
"Halt!" cried Syphax, springing up as they drew near; "what do you want?"
"The head of the Prefect, to take to the Emperor," answered Anicius; "obey, slave!"
But Syphax uttered a yell--his spear rushed through the air, and Anicius fell. And before the others, who at once busied themselves with the dying man, could come near him, Syphax had taken his beloved burden upon his back, and began to climb up a steep precipice of lava near the pass, which Goths and Byzantines had, till then, held to be impassable. More and more rapidly the slave advanced. His goal was a little column of smoke which rose just at the other side of the cliff. For there yawned one of the small crater chasms of Vesuvius. For one moment Syphax stopped upon the edge of the black rocks; once again he raised the corpse of Cethegus erect in his strong arms, as if to show the noble form to the setting sun. And suddenly master and slave had disappeared.
The fiery mountain had received the faithful Syphax and the dead Cethegus, his greatness and his guilt, onto its glowing bosom. The hero was snatched away from the small spite of his enemies.
Scævola and Albinus, who had witnessed the occurrence, hastened to Narses, and demanded that the corpse should be sought for on the sides of the crater. But Narses said:
"I do not grudge the mighty hero his mighty grave. He has deserved it. I fight with the living, and not with the dead."
But almost at the same moment, the tumultuous battle round the pass, which Adalgoth, not unworthy of his royal master, heroically defended against the attacks of the enemy, ceased. For while, standing behind Adalgoth, Hildebrand and Wachis suddenly cried, "Look! look at the sea! The dragon ships! The northern heroes! Harald! Harald!"--the solemn tones of the tuba were heard from below, sounding the signal for a cessation of hostilities--for a truce. Very gladly the fatigued and harassed warriors lowered their weapons.
But King Teja, who lay upon his shield--Hildebrand had forbidden every one to draw out the spear of Cethegus from the wound--"for his life would flow out with his blood"--asked in a faint voice: