"My King," replied Thrasaric, "hitherto I have done nothing. Give me to-day an opportunity."
"You must find it. I rely upon you. Above all, that you will not impetuously attack too soon and spoil my whole plan. And this rebellious boy," he added tenderly, "I commend to your care. Keep him out of the battle; bring him to me safe and unhurt after the victory, on which I confidently rely. I also commit to your charge all the prisoners, among them the hostages from Carthage; for, in case of retreat, you will be at its goal--you will learn it at once, the first man; therefore the captives will be most securely guarded with you. I intrust to you Ammata, the apple of my eye, because, well--because you are my brave, faithful Thrasaric." He laid both hands on the giant's broad shoulders.
"My King," replied the Vandal, looking him steadfastly in the eyes, "you will see the Prince again, living and unhurt, or you will never see Thrasaric more."
Eugenia shuddered.
"I thank you. Now to my tent. Vandal generals, to hear the plan of battle!"
CHAPTER VI
Procopius to Cethegus:
We are actually still alive, and we are spending the night in Decimum, but we have had a narrow escape from passing it with the sharks at the bottom of the sea; never before, Belisarius says, was annihilation so near him. This mysterious King brought us into the greatest peril by his admirable plan of attack. And when it had already succeeded, he alone, the King himself, cast away his own victory, and saved us from certain destruction. I will tell you briefly the course of recent events, partly from our own experiences, partly from what we have learned through the citizens of Decimum and the Vandal prisoners.
The King, undiscovered by us, had accompanied our march from the time of our landing. The place where he suddenly attacked us had been wisely chosen long before. Belisarius says that not even his great rival, Narses, could have made a better plan of battle. As soon as we left our last camp outside of Decimum, we lost, as I wrote in my former letter, the protection of our fleet. If a superior force assailed us here from the west, it would hurl us, not--as along the whole previous march--upon our sheltering galleys, but directly into the sea from the road running along the steep hills close to the coast. Just before Decimum this road narrows greatly; for lofty mountains tower at the southwest along the narrow highway. Over the loose sand, heaped on the mountains by the desert winds, neither man nor horse can pass without sinking a foot deep. Here, attacked from all three sides at the same moment, we were to be driven eastward into the sea at our right.
A brother of the King, Gibamund, was to rush with two thousand men from the west upon our left flank; a Vandal noble with a still stronger force was to attack us from Decimum in the front; the King, with the main body, was to fall upon us in the rear from the South.