compulsion
dangerous to his dignity. He submitted, and walked beside the German,
who did not withdraw his hand, towards the door in the back of the
tent, which was opened by a sentry.

The Bishop was obliged to pass close to Cethegus. He lowered his head
and did not look at him, but he heard a voice whisper:

"Silverius, this moment repays me for your victory in the Catacombs.
Now we are quits!"

CHAPTER XII.

As soon as the Bishop had left the tent, Belisarius rose eagerly from
his seat, hurried to the Prefect, and embraced him.

"Accept my thanks, Cethegus Caesarius! Your reward will not be wanting.
I will tell the Emperor that for him you have to-day saved Rome."

But Cethegus smiled.

"My acts reward themselves."

The intellectual struggle, the rapid alternation of anger, fear,
anxiety, and triumph had exhausted the hero Belisarius more than half a
day of battle. He longed for rest and refreshment, and dismissed his
generals, none of whom left the tent without speaking a word of
acknowledgment to the Prefect.

The latter saw that his superiority was felt by all, even by
Belisarius. It pleased him that, in one and the same hour, he had
ruined the scheming Bishop and humbled the proud Byzantines.

But he did not idly revel in the feeling of victory. He knew the danger
of sleeping upon laurels; laurel stupefies.

He decided to follow up his victory, to use at once the intellectual
superiority over the hero of Byzantium which he undoubtedly possessed
at this moment, and to strike his long-prepared and principal blow.

As, full of this thought, he was looking after the generals who were
just leaving the tent, he did not notice that two eyes were fixed upon
him with a peculiar expression.

They were the eyes of Antonina.

The incidents which she had just witnessed had produced a strangely
mixed impression on her mind. For the first time in her life she had
seen her idol, her husband, entangled in the nets of a priest without
the least power to extricate or help himself, and saved only by the
superior strength of this terrible Roman.

At first the shock to her pride in her husband had filled her with
dislike of the victor. But this feeling did not last, and
involuntarily, as the great superiority of Cethegus unfolded itself
before her, admiration took the place of vexation. She felt only one
thing: Belisarius had eclipsed the Church, and Cethegus had eclipsed
Belisarius