led up from the quay
to a small gateway enclosed between solid walls and surmounted by a
tower. This gateway opened into a large square resembling a courtyard,
inclosed on all sides by the buildings belonging to the palace; the
northern one, facing the sea, was occupied by the King's House, where
the ruler himself lived with his family. The cellars extended deep into
the rocks; they had often been used as dungeons, especially for state
criminals. On the eastern side of the King's House, separated from it
only by a narrow space, was the Princes' House, and opposite to this,
the arsenal; the southern side, sloping toward the city, was closed by
the fortress wall, its gateway and tower.

The handsomest room on the ground-floor of the Princes' House was a
splendidly decorated, pillared hall. In the centre, on a table of
citrus wood, stood a tall, richly gilded jug with handles, and several
goblets of different forms; the dark-red wine exhaled a strong
fragrance. A couch, covered with a zebra skin, was beside it, on which,
clinging together in the most tender embrace, sat "the handsomest of
the Vandals" and a no less beautiful young woman. The youth had laid
aside his helmet, adorned with the silvery wing-feathers of the white
heron; his long locks fell in waves upon his shoulders and mingled with
the light golden hair of his young wife, who was eagerly trying to
unclasp the heavy breast-plate; at last she let it fall clanking beside
the helmet and sword-belt upon the marble floor. Then, gazing lovingly
at his noble face, she stroked back, with both soft hands, the
clustering locks that curled around his temples, looking radiantly into
his merry, laughing eyes.

"Do I really have you with me once more? Do I hold you in my embrace?"
she said in a low, tender tone, putting both arms on his shoulders and
clasping her hands on his neck.

"Oh, my sweet one!" cried the warrior, snatching her to his heart and
covering eyes, cheeks, and pouting lips with ardent kisses. "Oh, Hilda,
my joy, my wife! How I longed for you--night and day--always!"

"It is almost forty days," she sighed.

"Quite forty. Ah, how long they seemed to me!"

"Oh, it was far easier for you! To be ever on the move with your
brother, your comrades, to ride swiftly and fight gayly in the land of
the foe. While I--I was forced to sit here in the women's rooms; to sit
and weave and wait inactive! Oh, if I could only have been there too!
To dash onward by your