which thou shalt atone----"

His voice was suffocated with rage.

"Bah!" cried Hildebad--for he was the tall Goth--pushing him aside.
"Make not such a to-do about it! My dear brother can easily part with a
little superfluous blood; and the others lost more than he could spare.
There, thou black devil!" he cried, turning to Cethegus, and holding a
broad-sword close before his eyes, "knowest thou that?"

"Pomponius's sword!" cried Cethegus, turning pale and staggering back a
step.

Amalaswintha and Cassiodorus asked in alarm,

"Pomponius?"

"Aha!" laughed Hildebad. "That is shocking, is it not? Nothing will
come of the water-party!"

"Where is Pomponius--my Navarchus?" asked Amalaswintha vehemently.

"With the sharks, Queen, in deep water."

"Ha! death and destruction!" exclaimed Cethegus, now carried away by
his anger. "How happened that?"

"Merrily enough! My brother Totila--thou surely knowest him?--lay in
the harbour of Ancona with two little ships. Thy friend Pomponius had
had for some days such an insolent expression of countenance, and had
let fall such bragging words, that it struck even my unsuspicious
brother. One morning Pomponius suddenly disappeared from the harbour
with his three triremes. Totila smelt a rat, spread all sail, pursued
him, overtook him off Pisaurum, stopped him, went on board with me and
a few others, and asked him whither he would be going."

"He had no right to do so. Pomponius will have given him no answer."

"He did so, for all that, most excellent Cethegus! When he saw that we
were only ten upon his ship, he laughed, and cried, 'Whither sail I? To
Ravenna, thou downy-beard, to save the Queen from your claws, and take
her to. Rome!' And he therewith made a sign to his crew. But we, too,
threw our shields before us, and--hurrah! how the swords flew from the
sheaths! It was hard work--ten to forty! But happily it did not last
long. Our comrades in the nearest ship heard the iron rattle, and were
quickly alongside with their boats, and climbed the bulwarks like cats.
Now we had the upper hand; but the Navarchus--to give the devil his
due!--would not yield; fought like to madman, and pierced my brother's
arm through his shield, so that the blood spouted. But then my brother
got into a rage too, and ran his spear through the other's body, so
that he fell like an ox. 'Greet the Prefect,' he said, as he lay dying,
'give him my sword, his gift, back again, and tell him that no one