Gold-panoplied race
Of mighty Genseric,
To ye hath descended
The Sea-Kings' power.'"
"And the fatal harvest of his sins!" said Gelimer, bowing his head gloomily. He was silent for a time, then he began again,--
"Instead of the Vandal verse, I now composed Latin penitential hymns. My brothers thought that the tortures of the condemned groaned, the flames of hell darted through these trochees. Doubtless there were flames--those which I had seen consume living human beings. There was no mortification, no asceticism, which I did not practise to excess. I raged against my flesh; I hated myself, my sinful soul, my body, which dragged with it the curse of mortal sin. I fasted, I scourged myself, I wore the nail-studded belt till it pierced deep wounds. I secretly invented fresh tortures, when the abbot forbade the undue infliction of the old ones. At the same time I devoured all the books in the monastery and the libraries of Carthage. I persuaded my father to let me go to Alexandria, to Athens, to Constantinople, to hear the teachers there. I had become more learned, not wiser, when I returned from those schools to the monastery in the desert. At last my father summoned me from this monastery to his deathbed; he committed to me, as a sacred legacy, the care of my youngest brother, the child Ammata. I could not selfishly hasten from my father's grave to the desert, as I desired; the care of the child was a human, healthy duty which restored me to the world. I lived for the darling boy."
"No father could watch over him more tenderly," cried Gibamund.
"At that time I was urged to marry. The King, the whole nation wished it. The lady belonged to the royal race of the Visigoths, and came to visit Carthage. A beautiful, noble, brilliant Princess, she charmed my heart and ray eyes. I ruled both, and said, No."
"To live solely for Ammata?" asked Hilda.
"Not that alone. The thought entered my mind," his brow clouded again, "the curse which the old woman had called down upon my head should not, according to those terrible words of Scripture, be transmitted by me from generation to generation. I should tremble to see in my children's faces the features of their accursed father. So I remained unwedded."