the double wrong and besieged closely their town
Rotel. Loth that the intervening river should delay his capture of
the town, he divided the entire mass of the waters by making new and
different streams, thus changing what had been a channel of unknown
depth into passable fords; not ceasing till the speed of the eddy,
slackened by the division of its outlet, rolled its waves onward in
fainter current, and winding along its slender reaches, slowly thinned
and dwindled into a shallow. Thus he prevailed over the river; and the
town, which lacked natural defences, he overthrew, his soldiers breaking
in without resistance. This done, he took his army to the city of
Paltisca. Thinking no force could overcome it, he exchanged war for
guile. He went into a dark and unknown hiding-place, only a very few
being in the secret, and ordered a report of his death to be spread
abroad, so as to inspire the enemy with less fear; his obsequies being
also held, and a barrow raised, to give the tale credit. Even the
soldiers bewailed his supposed death with a mourning which was in the
secret of the trick. This rumour led Vespasins, the king of the city,
to show so faint and feeble a defence, as though the victory was already
his, that the enemy got a chance of breaking in, and slew him as he
sported at his ease.

Frode, when he had taken this town, aspired to the Empire of the East,
and attacked the city of Handwan. This king, warned by Hadding's having
once fired his town, accordingly cleared the tame birds out of all his
houses, to save himself from the peril of like punishment. But Frode
was not at a loss for new trickery. He exchanged garments with a
serving-maid, and feigned himself to be a maiden skilled in fighting;
and having thus laid aside the garb of man and imitated that of woman,
he went to the town, calling himself a deserter. Here he reconnoitred
everything narrowly, and on the next day sent out an attendant with
orders that the army should be up at the walls, promising that he would
see to it that the gates were opened. Thus the sentries were eluded and
the city despoiled while it was buried in sleep; so that it paid for its
heedlessness with destruction, and was more pitiable for its own sloth
than by reason of the valour of the foe. For in warfare nought is found
to be more ruinous than that a man, made foolhardy by ease, should
neglect and slacken his affairs and doze in arrogant self-confidence.

Handwan, seeing that th