-is said to have appeared to him in the solitude of the desert.
Since that time he has been even more devout than before. See, his most
intimate friend is greeting him at the basilica."

"Yonder priest? He is an Arian; I know it by the oblong, narrow
tonsure."

"Yes," replied the Carthaginian, wrathfully, "it is Verus, the
archdeacon! Curses on the traitor!" He clinched his fists.

"Traitor! Why?"

"Well--renegade. He descends from an ancient Roman senatorial family
which has given the Church many a bishop. His great-uncle was Bishop
Laetus of Nepte, who died a martyr. But his father, his mother, and
seven brothers and sisters died under a former king amid the most cruel
tortures, rather than abjure their holy Catholic religion. This man,
too,--he was then a youth of twenty,--was tortured until he fell as if
dead. When he recovered consciousness, he abjured his faith and became
an Arian, a priest,--the wretch!--to buy his life. Soon--for Satan has
bestowed great intellectual gifts upon him--he rose from step to step,
became the favorite of the Asdings, of the court, suddenly even the
friend of the noble Gelimer, who had long kept him coldly and
contemptuously at a distance. And the court gave him this basilica, our
highest sanctuary, dedicated to the great Cyprian, which, like almost
all the churches in Carthage, the heretics have wrested from us."

"But look--what is the hero doing? He is kneeling on the upper step of
the church. Now he is taking off his helmet."

"He is scattering the dust of the marble stairs upon his head."

"What is he kissing? The priest's hand?"

"No, the case containing the ashes of the great saint. He is very
devout and very humble. Or shall I say he humiliates himself? He shuts
himself up for days with the monks to do penance by scourging."

"A strange hero of Barbarian blood!"

"The hero blood shows itself in the heat of battle. He is rising. Do
you see how his helmet--now he is putting it on again--is hacked by
fresh blows? One of the two black vulture wings on the crest is cut
through. The strangest thing is,--this warrior is also a bookworm, a
delver into mystic lore; he has attended the lectures of Athenian
philosophers. He is a theologian and--"

"A player on the lyre, too, apparently! See, a Vandal has handed him a
small one."

"That is a harp, as they call it."

"Hark, he is touching the strings! He is singing. I can't understand."

"It is the Vandal tongue."

"He ha