Fara gave orders that no more should be received.
"The more mouths and stomachs Gelimer has, the smaller his stock of food will be," he said.
But now, as they will no longer be accepted as comrades in arms, the Moors sell themselves for slaves for a bit of bread. Fara also prohibited this sorrowful trading. He said to his men:
"Let them starve up there; you will get them all as captives of war so much the sooner."
Yet it does the Vandals (it is said that there are not more than forty of them) all honor that they still hold out while the Moors succumb. It is the strongest contrast conceivable; for everything we heard in Constantinople concerning the luxury and effeminacy of the Vandals was surpassed by what we saw in their palaces, villas, and houses, and by what the Carthaginians have told us. Two or three baths daily, their tables supplied with the dainties of all lands and seas, all their dishes of gold, nothing but Median garments, spectacles, games in the Circus, the chase,--but with the least possible exertion,--dancers, mimes, musicians, outdoor pleasures in beautifully kept groves of the finest fruit-trees, daily revels, daily drinking bouts, and the most unbridled enjoyment of every description. As the Vandals led the most luxurious, the Moors led the most simple lives of all peoples. Winter and summer, they are half clad in a short gray garment, and live in the same low felt hut or leather tents, where one can scarcely breathe; neither the snow of the high mountains nor the scorching heat of the desert affects them; they sleep on the bare ground, only the richest spread a camel-skin under them; they have neither bread, wine, nor any of the better foods. Like the animals, they chew unground, even unroasted barley, spelt, and corn.
Yet now the Vandals endure starvation without yielding, while the Moors succumb.
It is incomprehensible! Sons of the same nation from whom, in two short battles, we wrested Africa. To our wondering question how this can be, all the deserters make one reply: "The holy King." He constrains them by his eyes, his voice, by magic. But Fara says his magic cannot hold out long against hunger and thirst. And since, as these strong Moors, emaciated to skeletons, say that the King and his followers do not utter a word of complaint while enduring these sufferings, Fara thought, from genuine kindness of heart, that he would try to end this misery. He dictated to me the following epistle: "Forgive me, O King of the Vandals, if this letter seems to you somewhat foolish. My head was always more fit to bear sword-strokes than to compose sentences. And since you and my head met a short time ago, thinking has been still more difficult than usual. I write, or rather I have these words written, plainly, according to the Barbarian fashion. Dear Gelimer, why do you plunge yourself and all your followers into the deepest abyss of misery? Merely to avoid serving the Emperor? For this word, 'liberty,' is probably your delusion. Do you not see that, for the sake of this liberty, you are becoming under obligations of gratitude and service to miserable Moors, that you are dependent upon these savages? Is it not better to serve the great Emperor at Constantinople, than to rule over a little band of starving people on Pappua? Is it disgraceful to serve the same lord as Belisarius? Cast aside this folly, admirable Gelimer! Think, I myself am a German, a member of a noble Herulian family. My ancestors wore the badge of royalty of our people in the old home on the shore of the dashing sea, near the islands of the Danes--and yet I serve the Emperor, and am proud of it. My sword and the swift daring of my Herulians decided the victory on the day of Belisarius's greatest battle. I am a general, and have remained a hero, even in the Emperor's service. The same fate will await you. Belisarius will secure you on his word of honor life, liberty, estates in Asia Minor, the rank of a patrician, and a leadership in the army directly under him. Dear Gelimer, noble King, I mean kindly by you. Defiance is beautiful, but folly is--foolish. Make an end of it!"
* * * * *
The messenger has returned. He saw the King himself. He says the sight of him was almost enough to startle one to death. He looks like a ghost or the King of Shades; gloomy eyes burn from a spectral face. Yet when the unyielding hero read the well-meant consolation of his kind-hearted fellow-countryman, he wept. The very man who struck down the unconquerable Fara and endures superhuman privations wept like a boy or a woman. Here is the Vandal's answer:--
"I thank you for your counsel. I cannot follow it. You have given up your people; therefore you are drifting on the sea of the world like a blade of straw. I was, I am King of the Vandals. I will not serve the unjust foe of my people. God, so I believe, commands me and the remnant of the Vandals to hold out even now. He can save me if He so wills. I can write no more. The misery surrounding me benumbs my thoughts. Good Fara, send me a loaf of bread; a delicate boy, the son of a dead noble, is lying very ill, in the fever caused by starvation. He begs, he pleads, he shrieks for bread--it tears one's heart-strings! For a long time not one of us has tasted bread.