sword is conqueror in every battle.' It has been proved
in many generations of our house. I myself, while I was allowed to
serve, had defeated the Germans in twenty battles and fights, with this
sword." And the old man pressed the weapon tenderly to his breast.

"Pardon, if I correct thee," said the young man, smiling sadly; "not
with this sword, but with Isaurians, Moors, Illyrians, and, most of
all, with Germans, hast thou other Germans conquered. Rome, Latium,
Italy has no more men. There are no more Romans. Celtic blood flows in
my veins, Dacian in thine. And why canst thou no longer serve? Because
thou hast often conquered, the mistrustful Emperor has taken the
general's staff from thy hand, and in gratitude for thy services sent
thee here in honourable banishment."

"It was very--undeserved," said Severus, rising; "but no matter! I can
be of use to the Roman state here also."

"Too late!" sighed the other. "_Fuimus Troes!_ It is over with us. Asia
to the Parthians, Europe to the Germans, and to us--destruction. It
seems to me that each people, as each man, lives out its life. Twelve
centuries have gone by since Romulus was suckled by the she-wolf. We
must allow that she had good milk--the venerable beast--and the wolf's
blood in our veins has lasted long. But now it is diseased, and the
baptismal water has utterly ruined it. How can the government of the
world be maintained, when hardly any Roman marries, and the few
children that are born are not suckled by the mothers, while these
broad-hipped German women are filling the land with their numerous
progeny. They literally eat us up, these forest people; they dispossess
us from the earth more through their chaste fruitfulness than by their
deadly courage. Three hundred and forty thousand Goths did the Emperor
Claudius destroy; in four years after there stood four hundred thousand
in the field. They grow like the heads of the Hydra. And we have no
Hercules. I have had enough of it. I shall bring it to an end in the
next battle. One does not suffer long after a blow from a German
battle-axe."

Severus seized the hand of the young man who had spoken so bitterly. "I
honour thy sorrow, Cornelius, but thou shouldest act according to thy
own words: thy Thalamos stands empty; thou must again make Hymen sound
forth under the gray pillars."

"Ha!" laughed the young man fiercely, "that a second Emperor may entice
away from me a second spouse, as a bishop the first bride,