Just then Teja, returning, tore open the curtain of the tent; his face was still paler than before; his dark eyes flashed; but his voice was as quiet as ever as he said: "Break up the camp. King Witichis. Our ships have fallen into the enemy's hands at Ostia. They have sent the head of Earl Odoswinth into the camp. And upon the walls of Rome, before the very eyes of our sentinels, they slaughter the cattle taken from the Goths. Large reinforcements from Byzantium, under Valerian and Euthalius--Huns, Slaves and Antians--have been brought into the Tiber by many ships. For Johannes has marched through Picenum." "And Earl Ulithis?" "Has been killed and his troops beaten. Ancona and Ariminum are taken, and----" "Is that not yet all?" cried the King. "No, Witichis. Johannes threatens Ravenna, He is only a few miles distant from that city. And urgent haste is necessary." CHAPTER XV. The day after the arrival of this news, so fateful for the Goths, King Witichis abandoned the siege of Rome and led his thoroughly disheartened troops out of the four remaining camps. The siege had lasted a whole year and nine days. All courage and strength, exertion and sacrifice, had been unavailing. Silently the Goths marched past the proud walls, against which their power and good-fortune had been wrecked. Silently they suffered the taunting words cast at them from the battlements by Romans and Byzantines. They were too much absorbed by their grief and rage to feel hurt by such mockery. But when the horsemen of Belisarius, issuing from the Pincian Gate, would have pursued them, they were fiercely repulsed, for Earl Teja led the Gothic rearguard. So the Gothic army, avoiding the strongholds occupied by the enemy--Narnia, Spoletium and Perusia--marched with expedition from Rome through Picenum to Ravenna, where they arrived in time to crush the dangerous symptoms of rebellion among the population, some of whom, upon hearing of the misfortunes of the barbarians, had already entered into secret negotiations with Johannes. As the Goths approached the latter withdrew into the fortress of Ariminum, his last important conquest. In Ancona lay Konon, the navarchus of Belisarius, with the Thracian spearmen and many ships of war. The King, however, had not taken to Ravenna the whole of the army which had besieged Rome, but had, during the march, left several regiments to garrison the fortresses which he passed. One thousand men he had left under Gibimer in Clusium; another thousand in Urbs Vetus, under Albila; five hundred men in Tudertum under Wulfgis; in Auximum four thousand men under Earl Wisand, the brave bandalarius; in Urbinum two thousand under Morra; and in Cæsena and Monsferetrus five hundred. He sent Hildebrand to Verona, Totila to Tarvisium, and Teja to Ticinum, for the north-eastern part of the peninsula was also endangered by Byzantine troops, coming from Istria.