"This destroys the King's whole plan for to-morrow's battle."
"Well," said Zazo, quietly, "to make amends he has unexpectedly received my troops. Not quite five thousand, but--"
"But you are their leader," cried Gibamund.
"He met on the Numidian road, first, the messengers I had sent in advance, then me and my little army. What a sorrowful hour! How I had rejoiced over my victory! But now Gelimer's tears flowed fast as he lay on my breast, and I myself--Oh, Ammata! Yet, no, we must remain firm, calm, and manly, ay, hard; for this King is far too soft-hearted."
"Yet he has recovered himself since the battle of Decimum," said Gibamund. "At that time he was utterly crushed."
"Yes," cried Hilda, resentfully, "more than a man should permit himself to be."
"I loved Ammata scarcely less than he," replied Zazo, and his lips quivered. "But to let certain victory escape him merely to mourn for, to bury the boy--"
"You would not have done so, my Zazo," said a gentle voice.
Gelimer had entered. He uttered the words very quietly; the others turned, startled.
"Your censure is just," he added. "But I saw in this dispensation--he was the first Vandal who fell in the war--a judgment of God. If the most innocent of us all must die, God's punishment for the iniquity of the fathers rests upon us all."