Meanwhile King Gelimer was moving forward with all his power to
preparations for the threatening conflict. He found much, very much, to
be done. The King, assuming the chief direction, and working wherever
he was needed, had given Zazo charge of the fleet and Gibamund that of
the army.
One sultry August evening he received their reports. The three brothers
had met in the great throne-room and armory of the palace, into which
Gelimer had now moved; the open windows afforded a magnificent view of
the harbors and the sea beyond them; the north wind brought a
refreshing breath from the salt tide.
This portion of the ancient citadel had been rebuilt by the Vandal
kings, changed to suit the necessities of life in a German palace. The
round column of the Greeks had been replaced, in imitation of the wood
used in the construction of the German halls, by huge square pillars of
brown and red marble, which Africa produced in the richest variety. The
ceiling was wainscoted with gayly painted or burned wood, and, on both
stone and timber, besides the house-mark of the Asdings,--an A
transfixed by an arrow,--many another rune, even many a short motto,
was inscribed in Gothic characters. Costly crimson silk hangings waved
at the open arched windows; the walls were set with slabs of polished
marble in the most varied contrast of often vivid colors, for the
Barbarian taste loved bright hues. The floor was composed of polished
mosaic, but it was rough and not well fitted. Genseric had simply
brought whole shiploads of the brightest hues he could drag from the
palaces of plundered Rome, with statues and bas-reliefs, which were put
together here with little choice.
Opposite to the side facing the sea, rose, at the summit of five steps,
a stately structure, the throne of Genseric. The steps were very broad;
they were intended to accommodate the King's enormous train, the
Palatines and Gardings, the leaders of the thousands and hundreds,
stationed according to their rank and the ruler's favor. In their rich
fantastic costumes and armor, a combination of German and Roman taste,
they often gathered closely around the sovereign and stood crowding
together; the scarlet silk Vandal banners fluttered above them, and a
golden dragon swung by a rope from the tent-like canopy of the lofty
purple throne. When from this throne, at whose feet, as a symbolical
tribute from conquered Moorish princes, lion and tiger skins lay piled
a foot high, the mighty sea-king arose, swinging around his head with
angry, threatening words the seven-lashed scourge (a gift from his
friend Attila), many an envoy of the Emperor forgot the arrogant speech
he had prepared.
The wonderful splendor of this hall fairly bewildered the eye; but its
richest ornament was the countless number of weapons of every variety,
and of every nation, principally German, Roman, and Moorish; but also
from all the other coasts and islands which the sea-king's corsair
ships could visit. They covered all the pillars and walls; nay, the
shields and breastplates were even spread over the entire ceiling.
A strange, dazzling light now poured over all this bronze, silver, and
gold, as the slanting rays of the setting sun streamed from the
northwest into the hall. A broad white marble table was completely
covered with parchment and papyrus rolls, containing lists of the
bodies of troops, by thousands and hundreds, drawings of ships, maps of
the Vandal kingdom, charts of the Bay of Gades and the Tyrrhenian Sea.
"You have accomplished more than the possible during the weeks I have
been in the west, trying to bring the Vandals thence to Carthage," said
the King, laying down a wax tablet on which he had been computing
figures. "True, we are far, far from possessing the numbers or the
strength of the ships which formerly bore 'the terror of the Vandals'
to every shore. But these hundred and fifty will be amply sufficient,
and more than sufficient, to defend our own coast and to prevent a
landing, if behind the fleet there stands a body of foot soldiers on
the shore."
"No, do not sigh, my Gibamund," cried Zazo. "Our brother knows it is no
fault of yours that the army is not--cannot accomplish what--"
"Oh," exclaimed Gibamund, wrathfully, "it is all in vain! No matter
what I do, they will not drill. They want to drink and bathe and
carouse and ride and see the games in the Circus, indulge in everything
that consumes a man's marrow in that accursed grove of Venus."
"But that abomination ended yesterday," said the King.
"Much you know about it, O Gelimer," said Zazo, shaking his head. "You
have accomplished miracles since you wore this heavy crown; but to
cleanse the grove of Venus--"
"Not cleanse; close!" replied the King, sternly. "It has been closed
since yesterday."
"I must complain, accuse many," Gibamund went on, "especially the
nobles. They refuse to fight on foot, to take part in the drill of the
foot soldiers. You know how much we need them. They appeal to the
privileges bestowed by weak Sovereigns; they say they are no longer
obliged to enter the ranks of the foot soldiers! Hilderic permitted
every Vandal to buy freedom from it, if he would hire in his place two
Moorish or other mercenaries."
"I have abolished these privileges."
"Oh, yes. And during your absence there was open rebellion; blood
flowed on that account in the streets of Carthage. But the worst thing
is, that these effeminate nobles and the richer citizens _can_ no
longer fight on foot. They say--and unfortunately it is true--that they
can no longer bear the weight of the heavy helmets, breastplates,
shields, and spears, no longer hurl the lances which I had brought out
again from Genseric's arsenal."
"They are of course required to arm themselves," said Zazo. "So why--"
"Because most have sold the ancient weapons or exchanged them for
jewels, wine, dainties, or female slaves; or else for arms that are
mere ornaments and toys. I allow no one to enter the army with this
rubbish; and before they are properly equipped, the victory and the
Empire might be lost. But it is true: they can no longer carry
Genseric's armor. They would fall in a short time. They are swearing
because we are now in the very hottest months."
"Are we to tell the enemy that the Vandals fight only in the winter?"
cried Zazo, laughing.
"Therefore to fill the ranks of our foot soldiers I have already
obtained many thousand Moorish mercenaries," the King replied. "Of
course these sons of the desert, variable, impetuous, changeful, like
the sands of their home, are a poor substitute for German strength. But
I have gained twenty chiefs with about ten thousand men."
"Is Cabaon, the graybeard of countless years, among them?" asked
Gibamund.
"No, he delays his answer."
"It is a pity. He is the most powerful of them all! And his prophetic
renown extends far beyond his tribe," observed Zazo.
"Well, we shall have better assistants than the Moorish robbers," said
Gibamund, consolingly. "The brave Visigoths in Spain."
"Have you yet received an answer from their king?"
"Yes and no! King Theudis is shrewd and cautious. I urged upon him
earnestly (I wrote the letter myself; I did not leave it to Verus) that
Constantinople was not threatening us Vandals solely; that the imperial
troops could easily cross the narrow straits from Ceuta, if we were
once vanquished. I offered him an alliance. He answered evasively: he
must first be sure of what we could accomplish in the war."
"What does he mean by that?" cried Zazo, angrily. "I suppose he wants
to wait till the end of the conflict. Whether we conquer or are
vanquished, we shall no longer need him!"
"I wrote again, still more urgently. His answer will soon come."
"But the Ostrogoths?" asked Gibamund, eagerly. "What do they reply?"
"Nothing at all."
"That is bad," said Gibamund.
"I wrote to the Regent: I stated that I was innocent of Hilderic's
shameful deed. I warned her against Justinian, who was threatening her
no less than us; I reminded her of the close kinship of our nations--"
"You have not yet stooped to entreaties?" asked Zazo, indignantly.
"By no means. I besought nothing. I merely requested, as our just
right, that the Ostrogoths at least would not aid our foes. As yet I
have had no answer. But worse than the lack of allies, the most
perilous thing is the utter, foolish undervaluation of the enemy among
our own people," added the King.
"Yes! They say, Why should we weary ourselves with drilling and arming?
The little Greeks won't dare to attack us! And if they really do come,
the grandsons of Genseric will destroy the grandsons of Basiliscus just
as Genseric destroyed him."
"But we are no longer Genseric's Vandals!" Gelimer lamented. "Genseric
brought with him an army of heroes, brave, trained by twenty years of
warfare with other Germans and with the Romans in the mountains of
Spain, simple, plain in tastes, rigid in morals. He closed the houses
of Roman pleasure in Carthage; he compelled all women of light fame to
marry or enter convents."
"But how that suited the husbands and the other nuns is not told,"
replied Zazo, laughing.
"And now, to-day, our youths are as corrupt as the most profligate
Romans. To the cruelty of the fathers"--the King sighed deeply--"is
added the dissipation, the intemperance, the effeminate indolence of
the sons. How can such a nation endure? It must succumb."
"But we Asdings," said Gibamund, drawing himself up to his full height,
while his eyes sparkled and a noble look transfigured his whole face,
"we are unsullied by such stains."
"What sins have we--you and we two committed," Zazo added, "that we
must perish?"
Again the King sighed heavily, his brow clouded, he lowered his eyes.
"We? Do we not bear the curse which--But hush! Not a word of that! It
is the last straw of my hope that I, the King, at least wear this crown
without guilt. Were I obliged to accuse myself of that, woe betide me!
Oh--whose is this cold hand? You, Verus? You startled me."
"He steals in noiselessly, like a serpent," Zazo muttered in his beard.
The priest--he had retained, even as chancellor, the ecclesiastical
robe--had entered unobserved; how long before, no one knew. His eyes
were fixed intently upon Gelimer, as he slowly withdrew the hand he had
laid upon his friend's bare arm.
"Yes, my sovereign, keep this anxiety of conscience. Guard your soul
from guilt. I know your nature; it would crush you."
"You shall not make my brother still more gloomy," cried Zazo,
indignantly.
"Gelimer and guilt!" exclaimed Gibamund, throwing his arm around the
King's neck.
"He is only too conscientious, too much given to pondering," Zazo went
on. "Really, Gelimer, you, too, are no longer like Genseric's Vandals.
You are infected also; not by Roman vices, but by Roman or Greek or
Christian brooding over subtle questions. To put it more courteously:
gnosticism, theosophy, or mysticism? I know nothing about it, cannot
even think of it. How glad I am that our father did not send me to be
educated by the priests and philosophers! He soon discovered that
Zazo's hard skull was fit only for the helmet, not to carry a reed
behind the ear. But you! I always felt as though I were going into a
dungeon when I visited you in your gloomy, high-walled monastery, in
the solitude of the desert. Many, many years you dreamed away there
among the books--lost."
"Not lost!" replied Gibamund. "He found time to become the chief hero
of his people. On him rests the hope of the Vandals."
"On the whole House of the Asdings! We are not degenerates," answered
the King. "But can a single family--even though it is the reigning
one--stay the sinking of a whole nation? Uplift one that has fallen so
low?"
"Hardly," said Verus, shaking his head. "For who can say of himself
that he is free from sin? And," he added slowly, suddenly raising his
eyes and fixing them full upon Gelimer, "the sins of the fathers--"
"Stay," exclaimed the King, groaning aloud, as if in anguish. "Not that
thought now--when I must act, create, accomplish. It will paralyze me."
He pressed his hand over his eyes and brow.
"Even at the present time," the priest continued, "sin is dominant
everywhere among the people. It cries aloud to Heaven for vengeance.
Just now I was obliged, to comfort a dying man--"
"Even as Chancellor of the Kingdom, he does not forget the duties of
the priest," said Gelimer, turning to his brothers.
"To go near the southern gate. Again, from that grove devoted to every
vice, there fell upon my ear the uproar, the infernal jubilee of evil
revel. Those shameless songs--"
"What?" cried the King, wrathfully, striking the marble table with his
clinched fist. "Do they dare? Did I not order, before my departure for
Hippo, that all these games and festivals should cease? Did I not fix
yesterday as the final limit, after which the grove must be cleared and
all its houses closed? I sent three hundred lancers to see that my
commands were obeyed. What are they doing?"
"Those who are no longer dancing and drinking are asleep, weary of
carousing, full of wine, which they drank, like all who were there. I
saw a little group snoring under the archway of the gate."
"I will give them a terrible awakening," cried the King. "Must sin
actually devour us?"
"That grove is beyond cure," said Zazo.
"What the sword cannot do, the flames will," exclaimed the King,
threateningly. "I will sweep through them like the wrath of God! Up,
follow me, my brothers!" He rushed out of the room.
"Order the hundreds of horsemen to mount, Gibamund," said Zazo, as they
crossed the threshold,--"the household troop, under faithful Markomer.
For the Vandals no longer obey the King's word unless at the same time
they see the glitter of the King's sword."
The archdeacon, muttering softly to himself and shaking his head,
slowly followed the three Asdings.