hort
spears for thrusting and throwing.

"They must not have time to hurl their spears," cried Totila.

He then ordered his horsemen, at the moment of encountering the enemy,
to change their lances from their right hand to their left, letting
their bridles hang loosely from the wrist, and passing their lances
across the manes of their horses into the bridle hand. In this way they
would hit the enemy on their unprotected side.

"As soon as the encounter has taken place--they will not be able to
withstand it--throw your lances back into the arm-strap, draw your
swords, and kill whoever still stands."

He now placed his men in the shape of a wedge on the road and on each
side of it, outflanking the enemy's column. He himself led the thin
edge of the wedge. He determined to allow the enemy to ascend halfway
up the hill.

Both parties looked forward to the shock in breathless expectation.

Ambazuch, an experienced warrior, quietly marched forward.

"Let them come on," he said to his people, "until you feel their
horses' breath upon your faces. Then, and not before, hurl your lances.
Aim low, at the breasts of the horses, and immediately after draw your
swords. In this way I have always succeeded in overthrowing horsemen."

But it turned out otherwise.

For when Totila gave the order to charge, it seemed as if a thundering
avalanche were descending the hill upon the terrified enemy. The
shining, clattering, snorting, threatening mass rushed on like a
hurricane, and before the first row of the Armenians had found time
even to raise their spears, they lay upon the ground, pierced through
by the long lances. They had been swept away as if they had never stood
there.

All this had taken place in a moment of time; and when Ambazuch was
about to order his second line, in which he himself stood, to kneel and
shorten their spears, he found it already ridden over; the third rank
dispersed; and the fourth, under Bessas, able to offer but a faint
resistance to the terrible horsemen, who now began to draw their
swords.

He tried to rally his men; he flew back and called to his wavering
lines to stand and fight; but just then Totila's sword reached him; a
mighty stroke crushed in his helmet.

He fell on his knees, and held the hilt of his sword towards the Goth.

"Take a ransom!" he cried. "I am yours!"

Totila was about to stretch forth his hand to take the sword, when Teja
cried:

"Remember Petra!"

A weapon flashe