CHAPTER XVII.
The next morning, before cockcrow, a veiled woman rode out of the camp.A man in a brown war-mantle walked beside her, holding her horse'sbridle, and ever and again looking into her veiled face.
At an arrow's length behind them rode a servant, with a bundle at hisback, where hung a heavy club.
They went on their way for some time in silence.
At last they reached a woody eminence; behind them lay the broad plainwhere stood the Gothic camp and the city of Ravenna; before them, tothe north-west, the road which led to the Via AEmilia.
The woman checked her horse.
"The sun is just rising. I have sworn that it shall find thee free.Farewell, my Witichis!"
"Hurry not so away from me," he said, pressing her hand.
"I must keep my word if my heart breaks! It must be!"
"Thou goest more easily than I remain!"
She smiled painfully.
"I leave my life behind me; thou hast yet a life before thee."
"And what a life!"
"The life of a King for his people, as thine oath demands."
"Fatal oath!"
"It was right to swear it; it is a duty to keep it. And thou wilt thinkof me in the gilded halls of Rome, as I of thee in my hut, deep in theravine. Thou wilt not forget thy wife, nor the ten years of our faithand love, nor our sweet boy."
"Oh, my wife, my wife!" cried the tortured man, pressing his faceagainst the saddle-bow, and putting both arms around her.
She bent over him and laid her hand upon his head.
Meanwhile Wachis had overtaken them; he looked at the group for a shorttime, and then he could bear it no longer.
He pulled his master gently by the mantle.
"Master, listen; I can give you good advice. Do you not hear me?"
"What canst thou advise?"
"Come with us! Up, away! Mount my horse and ride away with MistressRauthgundis. I will follow afterwards. Leave those who torture you tillthe bright drops stand in your eyes; leave them, and all the rubbish ofcrown and kingdom. It has brought you no happiness. They do not meanwell by you. Who would part man and wife for a dead crown? Up and away,I say! And I know a rocky nest where no one can find you but an eagleor a chamois."
"Shall thy master run away from his kingdom, like a bad slave from themill?"
"Farewell, Witichis. Here, take the locket with the blue ribbon; theringlet of our boy is in it, and one," she whispered, kissing him onthe forehead, and hanging the locket round his neck, "one ofRauthgundis'. Farewell, thou, my heart's life!"
He raised himself to look into her eyes.
She suddenly struck her horse--"Forward, Wallada!"--and galloped away.Wachis followed.
Witichis stood motionless, and looked after her.
She stopped before the road turned into the wood--once more she wavedher hand, and the next minute had disappeared.
Witichis listened to the tramp of the horses as if in a dream. When thesound ceased he turned.
But he could not leave the place.
He stepped out of the road. At the other side of the ditch lay a largemossy block of stone. There the King of the Goths seated himself,rested his arms upon his knees, and buried his face in his hands. Hepressed them hard against his eyes, to shut out the whole world fromhis grief.
Tears trickled through his fingers. He did not notice them.
Horsemen galloped past. He scarcely heard them.
So he sat motionless for hours; so motionless, that the birds of thewood hopped close to him.
The sun stood in the south.
At last--he heard some one call his name.
He looked up. Earl Teja stood before him.
"I knew well," said Teja, "that thou hadst not fled like a coward. Comeback with me, and save thy kingdom. When, this morning, thou wert notfound in thy tent, the report spread through the camp that, despairingof kingdom and happiness, thou hadst fled. It soon reached the city ofRavenna and Guntharis. The Ravennese threaten a sally, and that theywill go over to Belisarius. Arahad tempts the army to give him thecrown. Two, three opposing Kings arise. Everything will fall to piecesif thou comest not to save us!"
"I come!" cried Witichis. "Let them take care! The best heart in theworld has been broken for the sake of this crown; it is sacred, andthey shall not desecrate it. Come, Teja, back to the camp!"
BOOK IV.-_Continued._
WITICHIS.
"But the Goths chose Witichis for their king, a man, not indeed ofnoble birth, but of great fame as a warrior."--_Procopius: Wars of theGoths_, i. 11.
PART II.