estions. To put it more courteously:
gnosticism, theosophy, or mysticism? I know nothing about it, cannot
even think of it. How glad I am that our father did not send me to be
educated by the priests and philosophers! He soon discovered that
Zazo's hard skull was fit only for the helmet, not to carry a reed
behind the ear. But you! I always felt as though I were going into a
dungeon when I visited you in your gloomy, high-walled monastery, in
the solitude of the desert. Many, many years you dreamed away there
among the books--lost."

"Not lost!" replied Gibamund. "He found time to become the chief hero
of his people. On him rests the hope of the Vandals."

"On the whole House of the Asdings! We are not degenerates," answered
the King. "But can a single family--even though it is the reigning
one--stay the sinking of a whole nation? Uplift one that has fallen so
low?"

"Hardly," said Verus, shaking his head. "For who can say of himself
that he is free from sin? And," he added slowly, suddenly raising his
eyes and fixing them full upon Gelimer, "the sins of the fathers--"

"Stay," exclaimed the King, groaning aloud, as if in anguish. "Not that
thought now--when I must act, create, accomplish. It will paralyze me."
He pressed his hand over his eyes and brow.

"Even at the present time," the priest continued, "sin is dominant
everywhere among the people. It cries aloud to Heaven for vengeance.
Just now I was obliged, to comfort a dying man--"

"Even as Chancellor of the Kingdom, he does not forget the duties of
the priest," said Gelimer, turning to his brothers.

"To go near the southern gate. Again, from that grove devoted to every
vice, there fell upon my ear the uproar, the infernal jubilee of evil
revel. Those shameless songs--"

"What?" cried the King, wrathfully, striking the marble table with his
clinched fist. "Do they dare? Did I not order, before my departure for
Hippo, that all these games and festivals should cease? Did I not fix
yesterday as the final limit, after which the grove must be cleared and
all its houses closed? I sent three hundred lancers to see that my
commands were obeyed. What are they doing?"

"Those who are no longer dancing and drinking are asleep, weary of
carousing, full of wine, which they drank, like all who were there. I
saw a little group snoring under the archway of the gate."

"I will give them a terrible awakening," cried the King. "Must sin
actually devour us?"

"That gr