were carrying out his orders, Johannes again examined
the pass as well as he could.

"Yield!" he cried.

"Come on!" shouted the Goths.

Johannes gave a sign and twenty arrows whistled at once.

A cry, and the foremost Goth on the right fell. He had been struck in
the forehead by one of the men on the trees. Valerius, under shelter of
his shield, sprang into his place. He came just at the right moment to
repulse the furious attack of Johannes, who ran at the gap with his
lance in rest. Valerius received the thrust on his shield, and struck
at the Byzantine, who stumbled and fell, close to the entrance. The
Huns behind him fell back.

The Goth who stood at Valerius's side could not resist the temptation
to render the leader harmless. He sprang a step forward out of the pass
with up-lifted spear. But this was just what Johannes wanted. Up he
started with lightning swiftness, thrust the surprised Goth over the
low wall of the road on the right of the pass, and the next moment he
stood on the exposed side of Valerius--who was defending himself
against the renewed attack of the Huns--and stabbed him with all his
might in the groin with his long Persian knife.

Valerius fell; but the three Goths who stood behind him succeeded in
pushing Johannes--who had already pressed forward into the middle of
the pass--back and out with the beaks of their shields.

Johannes retired to his men, in order to command a new salvo of arrows.
Two of the Goths silently placed themselves in the entrance of the
pass; the third held the bleeding Valerius in his arms.

Just then the guard at the rear of the pass rushed in: "The ship, sir!
the ship! They have landed! they take us in the rear! Fly! we will
carry you--a hiding-place in the rocks----"

"No," said Valerius, raising himself, "I will die here; rest my sword
against the wall and----"

But a loud flourish of Gothic horns was heard in the rear. Torches
shone, and a troop of thirty Goths hurried into the pass, Totila at
their head. His first glance fell upon Valerius.

"Too late! too late!" he cried in deep grief. "Revenge! Follow me!
Forwards!" And he rushed furiously through the pass, followed by his
spear-bearing foot-soldiers.

Fearful was the shock of meeting upon the narrow road between sea and
rocks. The torches were extinguished in the skirmish; and the dawning
day gave but a faint grey light.

The Huns, although superior in numbers to their bold adversaries, were
compl