to my son.'--'But,'" the King
now read from a second paper, "'soon after the Duke had written this, a
great landslip buried him, together with some of my relations. And I,
Iffa, have brought up the boy as my grandchild and Gotho's brother, for
the ban had not been taken off the family of Duke Alaric, and I did not
wish to expose the boy to the revenge of that devil, Cethegus. And that
it might not be possible for the boy to betray anything about his
dangerous parentage, I never told him of it. But when he was grown up,
and I heard that there reigned in the Roman citadel a mild and just
King, who had conquered the devilish Prefect as the God of Morning
conquers the Giant of the Night, I sent young Adalgoth away, and told
him that, according to his father's command, he must revenge the noble
chief and patron of our family upon Cethegus the traitor. But I did not
even then tell him that he was Alaric's son, for I feared the ban. So
long as his father's innocence was unproved, his father's name could
only injure him. And I sent him away in great haste, for I discovered
that the belief in his brotherly relation to my grandchild, Gotho, had
not prevented him from loving her in a very unbrotherly manner. I might
have told him that Gotho was not his sister. But far be it from me that
I should dishonestly try to unite the noble scion of my old master and
patron with my blood, the simple shepherd's child. No, if justice still
exists upon earth, he will soon take his place as Duke of Apulia, like
his father before him. And as I fear that I may die before he sends me
word of the Prefect's ruin, I have begged the long Hildegisel to write
all this down.' (And I, Hildegisel, have received for the writing
twenty pounds of the best cheese, and twelve jars of honey, which I
thankfully acknowledge, and all of which was good.) 'And with, these
writings, and with the blue stones and fine garments and golden solidi
from the inheritance of the Balthes, I send my child Gotho to King
Totila the Just, to whom she must reveal everything. He will take the
ban away from the innocent son of the guiltless duke. And when Adalgoth
knows that he is the heir of the Balthes, and that Gotho is not his
sister--then he may freely choose or shun the shepherdess; but this he
must know, that the race of the Iffingers was never a race of vassals,
but free from the very beginning, although under the protection of the
House of Balthe.

"'And now. King Totila, dec