CHAPTER XXII
The day after Gelimer's surrender Fara's camp was broken up and thetrain of victors and captives began the march to Carthage. Courierswere despatched in advance to Belisarius.
At the head rode Fara, Procopius, and the other leaders on horses andcamels; in the centre were led the captive Vandals, bound, for the sakeof precaution, hand and foot with chains which permitted walking andeven riding, but not running, and surrounded by foot-soldiers; the Huncavalry formed the rear. So, resting at night in tents, they slowlytraversed in fourteen days the road over which, in their swift pursuit,they had gone in eight.
Verus usually rode alone; he avoided the Vandals, and the Byzantinesshunned _him_.
On the second day after the departure from Mount Pappua,--Fara andProcopius were far in advance,--at a turn in the road, the priestchecked his horse and waited. The prisoners approached. Many a fetteredhand was raised against him, many a curse was called down on his head;he neither saw nor heard. At last, holding in his manacled right hand astaff that extended into a cross, Gelimer tottered forward on foot.Verus urged his horse through the ranks of the guards, and now rodeclose beside him; the prisoner looked up.
"You, Verus!"
He shuddered.
"Yes, I, Verus. I waited for you here--you and this hour,--this hourwhich at last has come, slowly, lingeringly; this hour for which I havewished, longed, labored by prayer, by counsel and action, for whichalone I have lived, suffered, struggled during years and tens ofyears."
"And why, O Verus, why? What injury have I done you?"
Verus uttered a shrill laugh, and reined in his horse, stoppingsuddenly.
Gelimer started. He had rarely seen this man smile, never had he heardhim laugh aloud.
"Why? Ha! ha! You can still ask? Why? Because--But to answer thisquestion I should have to repeat the whole story of our--the Romans',the Catholics'--sufferings from the first step which Genseric took uponthis soil. Why? Because I am the avenger, the requiter of the hundredyears of crime called 'the Vandal kingdom in Africa.' Hear it, yesaints in Heaven! This man--he was present when all my kindred werehorribly murdered, and he asks why I have hated and, so far as I hadpower, destroyed him and his people?"
"I know--"
"You know nothing! For you can ask me: _Why_? You know, you mean, of mydying mother's curse. But this you do not know--for you had fallensenseless,--that when she hurled the curse at you I wrenched myselffree from my ropes, from my martyr's stake, sprang to her into themidst of the flames, clasped her in my arms, and wished to die withher. But she thrust me back out of the fire, crying: 'Live, live andavenge me--and all your kindred--and fulfil the curse upon that Vandaland all his people!' Again I pressed forward, clasped the dying woman'shand, and swore it. Your warriors tore me away from her; I saw her fallback into the flames, and my senses failed.
"But when I recovered consciousness, I was no longer a boy--Iwas the avenger! I saw, heard, and felt nothing but that lastclasp of my mother's hand, her glance, and my vow. And I abjured myreligion--apparently. And you, miserable Barbarians, made stupid byarrogance, you believed that I had done this from cowardice, from fearof torture and the flames! Oh, how often in former years I have feltyour silent, scarcely-concealed contempt, you foolish simpleton, andborne it with mortal hatred, with a fury which burned my heart.Arrogant brood of vain fools! Cowardice, fear, to you the most infamousof insults, you attributed to me without hesitation. Blind fools! As ifI did not suffer more, ten times more than death in the flames, duringall these years, while ruling myself, enduring without a word ofexplanation the scorn of the Carthaginians, the Catholics, for myapostasy; stifling every emotion of hate and wrath and hope in myheart, that you might not perceive them, wearing an outward semblanceof stone, while my whole soul was seething with fury, to serve you, toconduct your blasphemous service of God as your priest, bearing yourinsufferable boasting! For you Germans, without boasting aloud (yourloud braggart is easily endured, we despise him), are silent boasters.You walk over the earth as if you must constantly crush something; youthrow back your heads as if you were greeting and nodding to yourancestors in heaven: 'Yes, yes, the world belongs to us!' And that youdo not know and feel it, while you are insulting us mortally by suchconduct, because it is a matter of course--is the most unbearable thingabout it. Oh, how I hate you!" He struck with his whip at the figurewalking by his side, who received the blow, but did not seem to feelit. "You Barbarians, who, a few generations ago, were cattle-thieves onthe frontier of our empire, whom we slaughtered, enslaved, threwto the beasts by hundreds of thousands,--naked, starving beggarswho gratefully picked up the crumbs flung to them by Romangenerosity,--hence with you all, all, you wolves, you bulls, you bears,whom only bestial strength and God's permission--as a punishment forour sins--allowed to break into the Roman Empire! Hence with you!" Heagain raised his whip to strike, but seeing a Herulian warrior's eyefixed threateningly upon him, he lowered his arm in embarrassment.
Gelimer remained silent, except for frequent sighs.
"And your conscience?" he now said very gently. "Has it never rebukedyou? I since escaping the lion--I have trusted you entirely, I laid myheart in your hands, you became my confessor; did you feel no shamethen?"
A scarlet flush dyed the priest's pallid face for an instant, but itpassed like a flash of lightning. The next moment he answered:
"Yes! So foolish was my heart--often. Especially at first. But," hewent on wrathfully, "I always conquered this weakness by saying tomyself whenever I felt it, and your insulting arrogance made me feel itdaily (oh, that Zazo! I hated him most of all): They deem you so basethat, in the presence of the dead bodies of all your kindred, youabjured your faith! These insolent, incredibly stupid Barbarians--butit is arrogance, even more than stupidity--believe that you, you, theson of these parents, could really be devoted to them, could forgetyour martyrs, to serve them and their brutal, imperious splendor. Theythink that you can be so inconceivably base! Avenge yourself, punishthem for this unbearable presumption! Oh, hate, too, is a joy, thehatred of nation for nation! And so long as a drop of blood flows inthe veins of other nations, you Germans must be hated, unto death,until you are trampled under foot."
He dealt a heavy blow with his clenched fist upon the uncovered head ofthe tottering King. Gelimer did not look up, did not even start.
"What threat are you muttering in your beard?" asked Verus, bendingtoward him.
"I was only praying, 'As we forgive our debtors.' But perhaps that,too, is vanity, sin. Perhaps--you are not my debtor. Perhaps you arereally," again he shuddered, "my angel, whom God sends, not to protectme, as I supposed in my vanity, but in punishment."
"I was not your _good_ angel," laughed the other.
"But--if I may ask--?"
"Ask on! I want to enjoy this hour to the utmost."
"If you hated me so bitterly, desired to avenge your mother on me,why did you carry on this game for so many long years? Often andoften,--when I lay helpless in the lion's power, you might have killedme, so why--?"
"A stupid question! Have you not understood even yet? Fool! True, Ihated you, but even more--your nation. To kill you had its charm. And Istruggled sorely with my hate at that time, in order not to kill youinstead of the lion."
"I saw that."
"But I perceived: here, in this man, lives the soul of the Vandalpeople. To raise him to the throne, and then rule him, is to rule hispeople. If I should kill him now, I should drive Hilderic to a secrettreaty with Constantinople. Zazo, Gibamund, others, will resist longand bravely. But if this man, who, above all, could save his people,should become king, and then, as king, be in my power, his countrymenwill be most surely lost. If it should become necessary to kill him, anopportunity can probably always be found. Far better than to murder himis through him to rule--and ruin--the Vandal nation!"
Then Gelimer groaned aloud and, staggering, involuntarily caught at thehorse's neck for support. Verus thrust his hand aside; he stumbled
andfell on the sand, but instantly rose and pursued his way.
"Did the priest strike you. King?" cried the Herulian, threateningly.
"No, my friend."
But Verus went on:
"Hilderic must be removed from the throne, for he would not implicitlyobey my will. He demanded all sorts of indulgences for the Vandals, andJustinianus was ready to grant them. But I desired not only to makeGelimer and his Vandals subjects of the Emperor,--I wanted to destroythem. Your rough brother discovered my intercourse with Pudentius; if Ihad been searched at that time, if Pudentius's letter had been found,all would have been lost. Instead, I gave it to him; I betrayed hishiding-place, but I knew he was already outside the walls, mounted onmy best racer.
"The King and you both entered the trap of my warnings. I rejoiced atyour readiness to believe in Hilderic's guilt, because you--desired it;because with secret, though repressed eagerness, you longed for thecrown. Even though you dethroned Hilderic in good faith, how alert, howardent you were to secure the throne! I aided, I saw you strike downpoor Hoamer, who was perfectly right when he denied Hilderic's purposeof murder. You called the duel a judgment of God, you believed youthereby served Heaven's justice, and you served only your own lust forpower and, through it, _me_! Your passion--stimulated by Satan, notGod--gave you the impulse, the swift strength of arm, to which Hoamerinstantly succumbed. It was a devil's judgment, a victory of hell, nota decree of God. Now I became your chancellor; that is, your destroyer.I quarrelled openly with the Emperor; I negotiated secretly with theEmpress. I sent your fleet to Sardinia, after learning the day beforethat Belisarius had set sail with his army. After the battle ofDecimum, I advised you to shut yourself with your troops in Carthage.The game would then have been over six months earlier, but this onemove failed,--you would not accept my counsel. I was obliged to guardagainst Hilderic's vindicating himself, so I took out of the chestbefore I let Hilderic search it, the warning letter, which I haddictated. But I could permit no scion of Genseric's race to live:Justinian would have received your two captives with honors after thevictory of Belisarius! I had them killed by my freedman and secured hisescape. But you--I had long reserved it for the hour of your greatestsupremacy, in case of the most extreme peril of our plans--you Icrushed at the right moment by the revelation that you had dethronedHilderic without cause and then murdered him. But my mother's curse andmy oath would not be fulfilled until you walked in chains asJustinian's captive.
"Therefore, to prevent your escape, I shared all the suffering, all theprivations, of these last three months. Letters from King Theudis,directly after the battle of Decimum, had offered you rescue throughthe coast tribes by the galleys of the Visigoths. You never saw thoseletters; I suppressed them. Not until deliverance really beckoned, whenyou already stretched your hand toward it, did I strip off the mask todestroy you utterly. Now I shall see you kiss Justinian's feet in thehippodrome at Constantinople; this is the final consummation of mymother's curse, my oath, and my people's vengeance."
He ceased, his face glowing, his eyes flashing down at the prisoner.
Gelimer stooped and kissed the shoe in Verus's stirrup.
"I thank you. So you are God's rod which struck and felled me. I thankGod and you for every blow, as I thanked God and you when I believedyou to be my guardian spirit. And if, meanwhile, you have committed anysin against me, against my people,--I know not how to express it,--mayGod forgive you, as I do."