hwest
to obtain news. He and his men spent the night in a village. The
peasants swore that there was not a Vandal within two days' march. Our
heroes slept in the best house,--it belonged to the villicus,--in the
second story; of course they had first been a long time under the lower
story, that is, in the cellar. They posted no sentinels, certainly not;
they are the liberators of the peasants. The fact that they had just
drunk all the wine contained in all the amphorae in the village, killed
the people's cattle, embraced their wives, had nothing to do with the
matter. Peasants must expect such things.

Soon they were all snoring, Diogenes in the lead. Night fell. The
peasants quickly brought the Vandals,--from the immediate
neighborhood,--who surrounded the house. But Saint Cyprian is stronger
than the heaviest drunken sleep. He caused a sword to drop on a metal
shield below; it waked--this is a miracle in which I believe, for no
mortal could accomplish it--it waked one of the sleepers. Under cover
of the darkness most of the men succeeded in escaping; Diogenes came
back, too--with three wounds in his face and neck, minus the little
finger of his sword-hand, and without a single piece of useful
information.

* * * * *

The Goddess Tyche is blowing badly. The Vandal fleet has not yet run
into Carthage to its destruction.

* * * * *

The Tyrant seems to have roused his army from its stupor. Our outposts,
horsemen whom we send forth around the city, report: "Vast clouds of
dust are rising in the southwest, which can be caused only by an
approaching army."

* * * * *

No Zazo. Has he, in spite of the capture of that letter, received
warning and chosen another landing-place? The Vandals were undoubtedly
hidden in that cloud of dust. Our Herulians have captured a few
peasants; we have already perceived in this almost liberated Africa
that the peasants must be captured by their deliverers, if we wish to
get sight of them. They seek refuge with the Barbarians from liberty.
The prisoners say that the King himself is marching against us. He
ordered a Vandal noble who had stolen a colonist's wife to be hanged on
the high door of the colonist's house. And this nobleman's
shieldbearer, who had taken two of the colonist's geese, to be hanged
on the low stable door, beside his master. Strange, is it not? But it
pleases th