Up came a tremendous Goth, easily forcing his way. "Ha, ha! I am glad you are tired of running, you swift-footed Greeks! I could no longer pant after you! Your legs are superior to ours; let us see if your arms be so too. Ha! why do you fall back, my lads? Because of him on the roan? What of him?" "Sir, that must be a King among the southerners; one can hardly bear the glance of his angry eye." "That would indeed be curious. Ah! that must be Belisarius! I am glad to meet thee, thou bold hero!" he cried across to Belisarius. "Dismount, and let us measure the strength of our arms. Look, I too am on foot. Thou wilt not?" he cried angrily. "Must I fetch thee down from thy hack?" And he swung his immense spear in his right hand. "Turn, sir, avoid him!" cried Aigan: "that giant hurls small masts!" "Turn, general," repeated the hypaspistes anxiously. But Belisarius, raising his short sword, rode quietly a horse's length nearer to the Goth. Whizzing came the mighty spear, straight at his breast. But just before it touched, a swift stroke of his short Roman sword, and the spear fell harmless on one side. "Hail to Belisarius, hail!" cried the Byzantines, and they pressed forward anew. "A famous stroke!" laughed Hildebad angrily. "Let us see if thy fence can parry _this_!" And, bending forward, he lifted from the ploughed field an old jagged boundary-stone, swung it in both hands backward and forward, lifted it above his head, and hurled it with all his might at the advancing hero. A cry from the Byzantines--Belisarius fell backwards from his horse. All was over. "Belisarius down! Woe, woe! All is lost!" cried the Byzantines, as the tall form disappeared, and fled madly towards the camp. A few ran on without pause until they reached the gates of Rome. It was in vain that the lance and spear-bearers threw themselves desperately against the Goths; they could only save their chief, but not the battle. The first sword-stroke of Hildebad, who now rushed up to Belisarius, was received on the faithful breast of Maxentius. But also a Gothic horseman, who was the next to reach the place, and who had killed seven men before he could make his way to the magister militum, fell from his horse. His followers found him pierced by thirteen wounds. But he was still alive, and he was one of the few who fought through and outlived the whole war--Wisand, the bandelarius. Belisarius, who, lifted on to his horse by Aigan and Valentinus, his groom, had quickly recovered his senses, raised his general's staff in vain, and cried to the fugitives to stand. They could not and would not hear. In vain he struck at them right and left; he was irresistibly carried away by the press to the very camp. There, behind the solid gates, he at last succeeded in arresting the pursuit of the Goths. "All honour is lost," he said indignantly; "let us at least save our lives."