as as if a curse rested upon the head of the Gothic King, who so
sorely felt the weight of his crown.

As he could not ascribe the cause of his failure to any weakness or
oversight on his own part; as he did not doubt in the justice of the
Gothic cause, and as his simple piety could see nothing but the hand of
Heaven in all his misfortunes, he conceived the torturing thought that
God was punishing the Goths for some unforgiven sin committed by
himself, a conviction imparted to his conscience by the then dominating
doctrine of the Old Testament no less than by many features of the old
Germanic legends.

Day and night the King was tortured by this idea, which undermined his
strength and resolution. Now he tried to discover his secret guilt; now
he reflected how he could at least turn aside the curse from his
people.

He would long since have abdicated, but that such an act at such a
moment would have been considered cowardly both by himself and others.
So this escape from his misery--the quickest and best--was closed to
him.

His soul was bowed to the very earth. He often sat motionless for
hours, silent and staring at vacancy; at times shaking his head or
sighing deeply.

The daily recurring sight of this resigned suffering, this dumb and
hopeless bearing of an oppressive fate, was not, as we have said,
without effect on Mataswintha. She thought that lately the eyes of
Witichis rested upon her with an expression of sorrow and even of
beneficence.

And vague hope--which is so difficult to destroy in a living
heart--remorse and compassion, attracted her more powerfully than ever
to the suffering King.

They were now often thrown together by some common errand of mercy.

For some weeks the inhabitants of Ravenna had begun to suffer want,
while the besiegers ruled the sea from Ancona, and received plentiful
provisions from Calabria and Sicily.

None but rich citizens could afford to pay the high price asked for
corn.

The King's kind heart did not hesitate, when he had provided his
troops, to share the wealth of his magazines--which, as we have seen,
contained sufficient for the wants of all for more than double the time
required for the arrival of the Franks--amongst the poor of the city.
He also hoped for the arrival of many ships laden with corn, which the
Goths had collected in the northern districts of the Padus, and which
lay in that river, waiting for an opportunity to reach Ravenna.

In order to avoid