"He is only too conscientious, too much given to pondering," Zazo went on. "Really, Gelimer, you, too, are no longer like Genseric's Vandals. You are infected also; not by Roman vices, but by Roman or Greek or Christian brooding over subtle questions. To put it more courteously: gnosticism, theosophy, or mysticism? I know nothing about it, cannot even think of it. How glad I am that our father did not send me to be educated by the priests and philosophers! He soon discovered that Zazo's hard skull was fit only for the helmet, not to carry a reed behind the ear. But you! I always felt as though I were going into a dungeon when I visited you in your gloomy, high-walled monastery, in the solitude of the desert. Many, many years you dreamed away there among the books--lost."
"Not lost!" replied Gibamund. "He found time to become the chief hero of his people. On him rests the hope of the Vandals."
"On the whole House of the Asdings! We are not degenerates," answered the King. "But can a single family--even though it is the reigning one--stay the sinking of a whole nation? Uplift one that has fallen so low?"
"Hardly," said Verus, shaking his head. "For who can say of himself that he is free from sin? And," he added slowly, suddenly raising his eyes and fixing them full upon Gelimer, "the sins of the fathers--"
"Stay," exclaimed the King, groaning aloud, as if in anguish. "Not that thought now--when I must act, create, accomplish. It will paralyze me." He pressed his hand over his eyes and brow.
"Even at the present time," the priest continued, "sin is dominant everywhere among the people. It cries aloud to Heaven for vengeance. Just now I was obliged, to comfort a dying man--"
"Even as Chancellor of the Kingdom, he does not forget the duties of the priest," said Gelimer, turning to his brothers.
"To go near the southern gate. Again, from that grove devoted to every vice, there fell upon my ear the uproar, the infernal jubilee of evil revel. Those shameless songs--"
"What?" cried the King, wrathfully, striking the marble table with his clinched fist. "Do they dare? Did I not order, before my departure for Hippo, that all these games and festivals should cease? Did I not fix yesterday as the final limit, after which the grove must be cleared and all its houses closed? I sent three hundred lancers to see that my commands were obeyed. What are they doing?"
"Those who are no longer dancing and drinking are asleep, weary of carousing, full of wine, which they drank, like all who were there. I saw a little group snoring under the archway of the gate."