At mid-day Procopius rode into Ravenna.

He carried with him four letters: the letter of Justinian to Belisarius, the letters of the King of the Franks to Cethegus and Belisarius, and a letter from Belisarius to Witichis.

This last had been written by Procopius and dictated by Cethegus.

The ambassador had no suspicion of the mood in which he should find the King of the Goths and his beautiful Queen.

The healthy but simple mind of the King had begun to darken, if not to despair, under the pressure of continual misfortune. The murder of his only child, the terrible wrench of parting from his beloved wife, had shaken him to the very soul; but he had borne it all in the hope of securing victory to the Goths.

And now this victory obstinately tarried.

In spite of all efforts, the state of his people became more hopeless every month. With the single exception of the battle fought and won on the march to Rome, fortune had never smiled upon the Goths.

The siege of Rome, undertaken with such proud hopes, had ended in a woeful retreat and the loss of three-fourths of the army. New strokes of fortune, bad news that followed each other like rapid blows, increased the King's depression, until it degenerated into a state of dull despair.

Almost all Italy, except Ravenna, was lost. Belisarius, while yet in Rome, had sent a fleet to Genoa, under the command of Mundila the Herulian, and Ennes the Isaurian. The troops had landed without resistance, had conquered the sea-ruling harbour of Genoa, and, from that point, almost all Liguria.

Datius, the Bishop of Mediolanum, himself invited the Byzantines to that important city. Thence they easily won Bergomum, Comum, and Novaria.

On the other side, the discouraged Goths in Clusium and the half-ruined Dertona surrendered to the besiegers and were led prisoners out of Italy.

Urbinum, after a brave resistance, was taken by the Byzantines; also Forum Cornelii and the whole district of Æmilia by Johannes. The Goths failed to retake Ancona, Ariminum, and Mediolanum.

Still worse news presently arrived to increase the despondency of the King. For meanwhile famine was making ravages in the wide districts of Æmilia, Picenum and Tuscany.

There were neither men, cattle, nor horses to serve the plough. The people fled into the woods and mountains, made bread of acorns, and devoured grass and weeds.

Devastating maladies were the consequence of insufficient or unwholesome nourishment.

In Picenum alone perished fifty thousand souls; a still greater number succumbed to hunger and pestilence on the other side of the Ionian Gulf, in Dalmatia, Pale and thin, those still living tottered to the grave; their skins became black and like leather; their glassy eyes started from the sockets; their intestines burned as if with fire.

The vultures despised the corpses of the victims of pestilence; but human flesh was devoured by men. Mothers killed and ate their newly-born children.

In a farm near Ariminum only two Roman women had remained alive. These women murdered and devoured, one after another, seventeen men, who, singly, had sought a shelter in their house. The eighteenth awoke as they were about to strangle him in his sleep. He killed the fiendish women, and discovered the fate of their earlier victims.

Lastly, the hopes placed in the Franks and Longobardians were utterly destroyed.

The Franks, who had already received large sums for the promised army of alliance, were silent. The messengers of the King, who were sent to urge the fulfilment of their promise, were detained at Mettis, Aurelianum, and Paris; no answer came from these courts.

The King of the Longobardians sent word that he could decide nothing without the consent of his warlike son Alboin. That the latter was absent in search of adventures. Perhaps he would at some time reach Italy; he was an intimate friend of Narses. Then he could observe the country for himself, and advise his father and his countrymen as to the course to be taken.

It is true that the important fortress of Auximum withstood, for months, all the efforts of the powerful army which besieged it under Belisarius, accompanied by Procopius. But it wrung the King's heart when a messenger (who had, with much difficulty, stolen his way through the two investing armies to Ravenna) brought him the following message from the heroic Earl Wisand:

"When Auximum was entrusted to my care, thou saidst that therewith I should hold the keys of Ravenna; yea, of the kingdom. Thou badest me resist manfully until thou camest thyself with thy whole army to my assistance. We have manfully resisted not only Belisarius, but famine. Where is thy relief? Woe to us if thy words are true, and with this fortress the keys of our kingdom fall into the enemy's hands! Come therefore, and help us; more for the kingdom's sake than for our own!"

This messenger was soon followed by a second: Burcentius, a soldier belonging to the besieging army, who had been bribed with much gold. His message ran--the short letter was written in blood:

"We have now only the weeds that grow between the stones to eat. We cannot hold out longer than four days more."

As this last messenger was returning with the King's reply, he fell into the hands of the besiegers, who burnt him alive in sight of the Goths before the walls of Auximum.

And the King could give no help.

The small party of Goths in Auximum still resisted, although Belisarius cut off the supply of water by destroying the aqueducts and poisoning the remaining wells with the corpses of men and animals, thrown in with lime.

Wisand still fiercely repelled every attack. On one of these occasions Belisarius only escaped death at the sacrifice of one of his body-guard.

Finally, CÆsena, the last of the Gothic towns on the Æmilia, was the first to fall; and then FÆsulÆ, which was besieged by Cyprianus and Justinus.

"My poor FÆsulÆ!" exclaimed the King, when he learned this last disaster, for he had been the Count of that town, and close to it lay the house where he had lived so happily with Rauthgundis;--"My poor FÆsulÆ! the Huns will run riot in my deserted home!"

When, later, the garrison taken prisoner at FÆsulÆ were led in chains before the eyes of the defenders of Auximum, and reported to the latter the hopelessness of any relief from Ravenna, the famished troops of Wisand compelled him to surrender.

He stipulated for himself a free escort to Ravenna. His men were led prisoners out of Italy.

And, so deeply sunk was the courage and patriotism of the conquered troops, that, led by Earl Sisifrid of Sarsina, they accepted service against their own countrymen under the flag of Belisarius.

The victor had strongly garrisoned Auximum and then led the army back to the camp before Ravenna, where he now again took the command, which had been entrusted to Cethegus during his absence.

It was as if a curse rested upon the head of the Gothic King, who so sorely felt the weight of his crown.

As he could not ascribe the cause of his failure to any weakness or oversight on his own part; as he did not doubt in the justice of the Gothic cause, and as his simple piety could see nothing but the hand of Heaven in all his misfortunes, he conceived the torturing thought that God was punishing the Goths for some unforgiven sin committed by himself, a conviction imparted to his conscience by the then dominating doctrine of the Old Testament no less than by many features of the old Germanic legends.

Day and night the King was tortured by this idea, which undermined his strength and resolution. Now he tried to discover his secret guilt; now he reflected how he could at least turn aside the curse from his people.

He would long since have abdicated, but that such an act at such a moment would have been considered cowardly both by himself and others. So this escape from his misery--the quickest and best--was closed to him.

His soul was bowed to the very earth. He often sat motionless for hours, silent and staring at vacancy; at times shaking his head or sighing deeply.

The daily recurring sight of this resigned suffering, this dumb and hopeless bearing of an oppressive fate, was not, as we have said, without effect on Mataswintha. She thought that lately the eyes of Witichis rested upon her with an expression of sorrow and even of beneficence.

And vague hope--which is so difficult to destroy in a living heart--remorse and compassion, attracted her more powerfully than ever to the suffering King.

They were now often thrown together by some common errand of mercy.

For some weeks the inhabitants of Ravenna had begun to suffer want, while the besiegers ruled the sea from Ancona, and received plentiful provisions from Calabria and Sicily.

None but rich citizens could afford to pay the high price asked for corn.

The King's kind heart did not hesitate, when he had provided his troops, to share the wealth of his magazines--which, as we have seen, contained sufficient for the wants of all for more than double the time required for the arrival of the Franks--amongst the poor of the city. He also hoped for the arrival of many ships laden with corn, which the Goths had collected in the northern districts of the Padus, and which lay in that river, waiting for an opportunity to reach Ravenna.

In order to avoid any misuse of his bounty, or extravagance in the granting of rations, the King himself superintended the distribution; and Mataswintha, who one day met him among the groups of grateful people, placed herself near him upon the marble steps of the Basilica of Saint Apollonaris, and helped him to fill the baskets with bread.

It was a touching sight to see this royal pair standing before the church doors, distributing their gift to the people.

As they were standing thus, Mataswintha remarked among the crowd--for many country-people had fled to the city from all sides--sitting upon the lowest step of the Basilica, a woman in a simple brown mantle, which was half drawn over her head.

This woman did not press forward with the others to demand bread, but leaned against a high sarcophagus, with her head resting upon her hand, and, half concealed by the corner pillar of the Basilica, looked sharply and fixedly at the Queen.

Mataswintha thought that the woman was restrained by fear, pride, or shame, from mixing with the more importunate beggars who pushed and crowded each other upon the steps, and she gave Aspa a basket of bread, telling her to go down and give it to the woman. With care she heaped up the sweet-scented bread with both her hands.

As she looked up, she met the eye of the King, which rested upon her with a more soft and friendly expression than she had ever seen before.

She started slightly, and the blood rushed into her cheeks as she cast down her beautiful eyes.

When she again looked up and glanced towards the woman in the brown mantle, she perceived that the place by the sarcophagus was empty. The woman had disappeared.

She had not observed, while filling the basket, that a man, clad in a buffalo-skin and a steel cap, who had been standing behind the woman, had caught her arm and drawn her away with gentle violence.

"Come," he had said; "this is no place for thee."

And, as if in a dream, the woman had answered:

"By God, she is wonderfully lovely!"

"I thank thee, Mataswintha," said the King, in a friendly manner, when the rations for the day had been distributed.

The look, the tone, the words, penetrated her heart.

Never before had he called her by her name; he had ever met and spoken to her only as the "Queen."

How happy those few words from his mouth had made her; and yet how heavily his kindness weighed upon her guilty soul!

Evidently she had earned his more affectionate feeling by her active compassion for the poor.

"Oh, he is good!" she cried to herself, half weeping with emotion. "I also will be good!"

As, occupied by this thought, she entered the court of the left wing of the palace, which was assigned to her--the King inhabited the right wing--Aspa hurried to meet her.

"A messenger from the camp," she eagerly whispered. "He brings a secret message from the Prefect--a letter, in Syphax's handwriting--in our language. He waits for a reply."

"Leave me!" cried Mataswintha, frowning. "I will hear and read nothing.--But who are these?" And she pointed to the steps leading from the court to her apartments.

There, upon the cold stones, crouched women, children, and sick people, clothed in rags--a group of misery.

"Beggars," said Aspa; "poor people. They have lain there the whole morning. They will not be driven away."

"They shall not be driven away," said Mataswintha, drawing near.

"Bread, Queen! Bread, daughter of the Amelungs!" cried many voices.

"Give them gold, Aspa. All that thou hast with thee; and fetch----"

"Bread, bread. Queen--not gold! No more bread is to be had for money in all the city."

"It is dispensed freely outside the King's magazines. I have just come thence. Why were you not there?"

"Queen! we could not get through the crowd," said a haggard woman. "I am aged, and my daughter here is sick, and that old man is blind. The strong and young push us away. For three days we tried to go in vain. We could not get through."

"Yes, and we starve," grumbled the old man. "O Theodoric! my lord and King, where art thou? Under thy rule we had enough and to spare! Then the poor and sick were not deprived of bread. But this unhappy King----"

"Be silent," said Mataswintha. "The King, my husband"--and a lovely flush rose into her cheeks--"does more than you deserve. Wait here. I will bring you bread. Follow me, Aspa." And she hastened away.

"Whither goest thou?" asked the slave, astonished.

Mataswintha drew her veil closely over her face as she answered:

"To the King!"

When she reached the antechamber of the King's apartments, the door-keeper, who recognised her with amazement, begged her to wait a moment.

"An ambassador from Belisarius has been admitted to a private audience. He has been in the room already for some time, and no doubt will soon leave it."

Just then the door of the King's apartment was opened, and Procopius stood hesitating upon the threshold.

"King of the Goths," he said, as he once again turned round, "is that your last word?"

"My last; as it was my first," answered the King, with dignity.

"I will give you time--I will remain in Ravenna till to-morrow----"

"From this moment you are welcome as a guest, but not as an ambassador."

"I repeat: if the city be taken by storm, all the Goths who are taller than the sword of Belisarius--he has sworn it--will be killed! The women and children will be sold into slavery. You understand that Belisarius will suffer no barbarians in his Italy. The death of a hero may be tempting to you, but think of the helpless people--their blood will accuse you before the throne of God----"

"Ambassador, you, as well as we, are in God's hand. Farewell."

And these words were uttered with such majesty, that the Byzantine was obliged to go, however reluctantly.

The simple dignity of the King had had a strong effect upon him; but still more upon the listening Queen.

As Procopius slowly shut the door, he saw Mataswintha standing before him, and started back, dazzled by her great beauty. He greeted her reverently.

"You are the Queen of the Goths!" he said. "You must be she."

"I am," said Mataswintha. "Would that I had never forgotten it!"

And she passed him with a haughty step.

"These Germans, both men and women," said Procopius, as he went out, "have eyes such as I have never seen before!"