"Hail, Gelimer, victorious hero!" cried the young wife, joyously. "Take
what I have had ready for you ever since your return home was announced
to-day." Seizing a thick laurel wreath lying on the table before her,
she eagerly raised it. A slight but expressive wave of the hand stopped
her.

"Wreaths are not suited for the sinner's head," said the new-comer in a
low tone, "but ashes, ashes!"

Hilda, hurt and sorrowful, laid down the garland.

"Sinner?" cried her husband, indignantly. "Why, yes; so are we all--in
the eyes of the saints. But you less than others. Are we never to
rejoice?"

"Let those rejoice who can!"

"Oh, brother, you too can rejoice. When the hero spirit comes, when the
whirl of battle surrounds you, with loud shouts (I heard it myself and
my heart exulted in your delight), you dashed before us all into the
thickest throng of the Moorish riders. And you cried aloud from sheer
joy when you tore the banner from the hand of the fallen bearer; you
had ridden him down by the mere shock of your charger's rush."

"Ay, that was indeed beautiful!" cried Gelimer, suddenly lifting his
head, while a pair of large brown eyes flashed from under long dark
lashes. "Isn't the cream stallion superb? He overthrows everything. He
bears victory."

"Ay, when he bears Gelimer!" exclaimed a clear voice, and a
boy--scarcely beyond childhood, for the first down was appearing on his
delicate rosy cheeks--a boy strongly resembling Gibamund and Gelimer
glided across the threshold and rushed with outstretched arms toward
the hero.

"Oh, brother, how I love you! And how I envy you! But on the next
pursuit of the Moors you must take me with you, or I will go against
your will." And he threw both arms around his brother's towering
figure.

"Ammata, my darling, my heart's treasure," cried Gelimer, tenderly,
stroking the lad's long golden locks with a loving touch, "I have
brought you from the booty a little milk-white horse as swift as the
wind. I thought of you the instant it was led before me. And you, fair
sister-in-law, forgive me. I was unkind when I came in; I was foil of
heavy cares. For I came--"

"From the King," cried a deep voice from the corridor, and a man in
full armor rushed in, whose strong resemblance to the others marked him
as the fourth brother. Features of noble mould, a sharp but finely
modelled nose, broad brow, and yellow, fiery eyes set almost too deeply
beneath arched brows were peculiar to all