CHAPTER II
Triumph, O Cethegus! Belisarius's former good fortune is fluttering over the pennons at our mast-heads: the gods themselves are blinding the Vandals; they are depriving them of their reason, consequently they must desire their destruction. Hermes is breaking the path for us, removing danger and obstacles from our way.
The Vandal fleet, the bugbear of our valiant warriors, is floating harmless away from Carthage toward the north; while we, with all sails set--the east wind is filling them merrily--are flying from Sicily over the blue flood westward to Carthage. We cut the rippling waves as if on a festal excursion. No foe, no spy, far or near, to oppose us or give warning of our approach to the threatened Vandals, on whom we shall fall like a meteor crashing from a clear sky.
That all this has come to the General's knowledge, and that he can make instant use of it, is due to Procopius, or--to speak more honestly--to blind chance, the capricious goddess Tyche. It seems to me, though I am no philosopher, that she rather than Nemesis guides the destinies of nations.
I wrote last that I was running about the streets of Syracuse, somewhat helplessly, not without being laughed at by the mockers, asking all the people whether no Vandals had been seen. One--this time it was a Gothic count named Totila, as handsome as he was insolent--had just answered, laughing and shrugging his shoulders: "Seek your enemies yourselves. I would far rather go with the Vandals to find and sink you." I was thinking how correctly this young Barbarian had perceived the advantage of his people and the folly of his Regent, when, vexed with the Goths, with myself, and most of all with Belisarius, I turned a street corner and almost ran against some one coming from the opposite direction. It was Hegelochus, my schoolmate from Cæsarea, who, I knew, had settled as a merchant, a speculator in grain, somewhere in Sicily, but I was ignorant in which city.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, after the first exchange of greetings.
"I?--I am only looking for a trifle," I answered rather irritably, for I already heard in imagination his jeering laugh. "I am searching everywhere for a hundred and fifty to two hundred Vandal war-ships. Do you happen to know where they are?"
"Certainly I do," he replied, without laughing. "They are lying in the harbor of Caralis in Sardinia."
"Omniscient grain-dealer," I cried, rigid with amazement, "where did you learn that?"
"In Carthage, which I left only three days ago," he said quietly.