"Everything?" said the Prefect with a smile. "That is much." "Cease your mockery, and do not refuse admiration to nobleness of mind, you, who yourself are noble!" "I? I know nothing of it." "As soon as Belisarius recovered his senses," continued Procopius, "Bessas naturally informed him of all that had passed. He described to him minutely how you had ordered the Tiburtinian Gate to be kept closed, when Belisarius lay outside in his blood, with Teja raging at his heels. He told him that you commanded that his body-guard should be beaten down if they attempted to open the gate by force. He repeated your every word, also your cry: 'Rome first, then Belisarius!' And he demanded your head in the Council. I trembled; but Belisarius said: 'He did right! Here, Procopius, take him my sword, and the armour which I wore that day, as a sign that I thank him.' And in the report to the Emperor he dictated these words to me: 'Cethegus saved Rome, and Cethegus alone! Send him the patricianship of Byzantium.'" "Many thanks! I did not save Rome for Byzantium!" observed Cethegus. "You need not tell Belisarius that, you un-Attic Roman!" "I am in no Attic humour, you life-preserver! What was your reward?" "Peace. He knows nothing of it, and shall never learn it." "Syphax, wine! I cannot bear so much magnanimity. It makes me weak. Well, what was the joke with the ambush?" "Friend, it was no joke, but as terrible earnest as I have ever seen. Belisarius was saved by a hair's-breadth." "Yes; it was one of those hairs which are always in the way of these Goths! They are clumsy fools, one and all!" "You speak as if you were sorry that Belisarius was not killed!" "It would have served him right. I had warned him thrice. He ought by this time to know what becomes an old general and what a young brawler." "Listen," said Procopius, looking at him earnestly. "You have won the right to speak thus at the Mausoleum. Formerly, when you depreciated this man's heroism----" "You thought I spoke in envy of the brave Belisarius? Hear it, ye immortal gods!" "Yes; certainly your Gepidian laurels----" "Leave those boyish deeds alone! Friend, if necessary, a man must despise death, but else he must cherish his life carefully. For only the living laugh and rule, not the dumb dead. This is my wisdom, call it cowardice if you will. Therefore--there was an ambush. Tell me briefly, how went the fight!"