the breaking out of the
war, had the command of the guard-of-honour at the Mausoleum of
Ravenna, in which Amalaswintha had interred her dead father--I liked
the building but little, and still less the incense-scented priests who
so often prayed there for the soul of my good and great King--I thought
that if ever all trace of my nation were rooted out of this southern
land, no Italian or Greekling should mock at the remains of our beloved
hero. No! even as the first great conqueror of the Roman fortress,
Alaric the Visigoth, found his unknown and never to be dishonoured tomb
in the sacred bed of the stream, so also should my great King be
delivered from the curiosity of posterity. And, with Teja's help, I
took the noble corpse away by night, from its marble house, and from
the vicinity of the whining priests, and we brought it hither, as part
of the royal treasure. Here it was safe. And if, after the lapse of
centuries, some accident should betray its resting-place, who could
then recognise the King with the eagle-eye? And so the sarcophagus at
Ravenna is empty, and the monks sing and pray in vain. Here, near his
treasures and his trophies, in hero splendour, erect upon his throne,
he rests; it is more pleasing to his soul, which looks down from
Walhalla, than to see his mortal remains stretched out, weighed down by
heavy stones, and surrounded with clouds of incense."

"But now," concluded Teja, "the hour has come for him once more to rise
from the abyss. When you have raised the treasure, we will carefully
lift up this beloved form. Early to-morrow we will march out of this
city. The approach of Narses and the Prefect has already been
announced. We will go, with royal corpse and royal treasure, to the
last battle-field of the Goths, whither I have already sent the women
and children. The battle-field--long ago I saw it in the visions of my
sleepless nights--the battle-field whereon we and our nation will
gloriously perish; the battlefield which, even when the last spear is
broken, can save and hide all who do not fear to die in its glowing
bosom; the battle-field which Teja has chosen for you and for himself!"

"I guess thy meaning," whispered Adalgoth; "this last battle-field
is----"

"Mons Vesuvius!" said Teja. "To work!"

CHAPTER IV.

As rapidly as his fearful, all-encompassing system would allow, Narses,
after the council which we have mentioned as taking place at Fossatu