Teja.
And?
Watcher.
A palm branch at the stern.
Teja.
Ye saw the palm branch?
Watcher.
As I see thee, Sire.
Teja.
Good, go on.
Watcher.
Then we perceived that the fishing-boats with which the Byzantians take
their food, closely surrounded the ships, and then----
Teja.
What then?
Watcher.
Verily, Sire, they steered quite peaceably toward the camp of the
enemy. There they unloaded. (_The men cover their heads. Silence_.)
Teja.
(_Who looks, smiling, from one to the other_.) It is good.... That is:
thou shalt say nothing there without.... From me they should learn it.
(_Exit Watcher_.)
_FIFTH SCENE_.
TEJA. THEODEMIR. EURIC. ATHANARIC _and the_ OTHERS. LORDS.
Teja.
Your counsel, ye men!
Theodemir.
Sire, we have none to give.
Teja.
And thou, Euric, with all thy wisdom?
Euric.
Sire, I have served the great Theoderic. And yet he would have had none
to give.
Teja.
Come then, I know.... It is easy and quick to be understood: Die!...
Why look ye at me with such mistrust?... Do ye not yet understand me?
Think ye I require ye to wrap yourselves in your mantles, like cowardly
Greeks, and beg your neighbours for a thrust in the back? Be calm:
I will protect you against shame, since I can no more lead you to
honour.--Our place here cannot be taken, so long as thirty of us have
power to wield our spears. But the hour shall come--and at no distant
time--when the last arm, crippled by hunger, can no more be
outstretched to beg quarter of the invading murderers.
Theodemir.
No Gothic man doeth that, King!
Teja.
For what thou art, thou canst give surety; for what thou shalt become,
thou givest no surety to me. So I counsel and command ye to prepare
yourselves for the last conflict. In the first gray of the morning, we
shall burst forth from the clefts, and array ourselves against the
Byzantian in open field.
All.
Sire, that is impossible.
Theodemir.
King, consider, we are one against a hundred.
Teja.
And thou, Euric?
Euric.
Sire, thou leadest us to destruction.
Teja.
Yea, verily. Said I anything else? Do ye believe me to be so untried in
things of war that I know not that? Why then halt ye? When Totilas led
us, we were more than a hundred thousand. Now we are but five. They all
knew how to die, and can we, a miserable remnant, have forgotten it?
All.
Nay, King, nay!
Euric.
Sire, grant us time to accustom ourselves to that horrible thing.
Teja.
Horrible? What seemeth horrible to ye? I speak not indeed to Romans who
reel from the mass to the lupanar, and from the lupanar to the mass.
Yet there is not one among ye whose breast is not covered with scars
like an old stone with moss. These twenty years ye have made sport of
death, and now it cometh in earnest, doth a Gothic man speak of
"horrible"? What will ye? Will ye lie and hunger? Will ye devour one
the other, like rats? Good. But I shall not do it with ye! Not I!
To-morrow, I take spear and shield, and go to gain on my own account
the bit of death for which I long and languish like a thief since ye
made me leader of your lost cause.--And thou at least, my old
companion, thou comest with me--eh?
Ildibad (_falling down before him_).