is followers, who came
up to him, and laying his hand upon his shoulder, asked:

"What now? The horses stand and wait. Whither?"

"Whither?" exclaimed Arahad, starting; "whither? There is only one way,
and that we will take. To the Byzantines and death!"

CHAPTER II.

In the peaceful light of late afternoon shone the chapel and convent
which Valerius had built in order to release his daughter from the
service of the Church. It was situated at the foot of the Apennines, to
the northeast of Perusia and Asisum, and to the south of Petra and
Eugubium, upon a rocky precipice above the little town of Taginae.

The cloister, built of the dark red stone of the neighbourhood,
enclosed in its quadrangle a quiet garden, green with shrubberies.

A cool arched passage ran round all its four sides, decorated in the
grave Byzantine style, with statues of the apostles, mosaics, and
frescoes on a golden background.

This ornamentation consisted in symbolic pictures from the sacred
writings, especially from the Revelations of St. John, the favourite
Gospel of that time.

Solemn stillness reigned over the place. Life seemed excluded from
within these high and strong walls.

Cypresses and arbor-vitae predominated in the groups of trees in the
garden, where the song of a bird was never heard. The strict conventual
order suffered no bird, lest the sweet song of the nightingale might
disturb the pious souls in their devotions.

It was Cassiodorus who, already inclined to a severe monastic rule when
minister of Theodoric, and full of Biblical learning, had sketched for
his friend Valerius the plan for the outer and inner government of this
convent--similar to the rules of the monastery which he himself had
founded at Squillacium--and had watched over its execution. His pious
but severe mind, so alienated from the flesh and the world, was
expressed in the smallest details.

The twenty widows and maidens who lived here as nuns passed their days
in prayer and psalm-singing, chastisement and penitence, and also in
works of Christian charity; for they visited the sick and the poor of
the neighbourhood, comforting and nursing body and soul.

It made a solemn, poetical, but very sad impression upon the beholder
when one of these pious nuns came walking through the dark avenue of
cypresses, clad in a flowing dark-grey garment, which trailed on the
ground, and a white close-fitting kalantika upon her head