Cethegus cast a look at those who stood outside; they had evidently heard all. Glancing at Antonina, he now went to the door and closed it carefully. Antonina thanked him by a look. She again drew near her husband, but he had thrown himself upon the ground before his couch, striking his clenched fist upon his brow and stammering: "O Justinian! have I deserved this from you? It is too much, too much!" And the strong man burst into tears. At this Cethegus contemptuously turned away. "Farewell," he said in a low voice to Procopius, "It disgusts me to see men blubber!" CHAPTER XVII. Lost in thought, the Prefect left the tent, and went round the camp to the rather distant outwork, where he had entrenched himself and his Isaurians before the Gate of Honorius. It was situated on the south side of the city, near the harbour wall of Classis, and the way led partly along the sea-shore. Although the lonely wanderer was at this moment preoccupied by the great thought which had become the pulse of his life, although he was oppressed by anxiety as to how Belisarius--that man of impulse--would act, and worried with impatience for the arrival of the answer from the Franks, his attention was yet involuntarily attracted by the singular appearance of the landscape, the sky, and the sea. It was October; but the season had seemed for weeks to have altered its laws. For almost two months it had never rained. Not a cloud, not a stripe of mist had been seen in this usually so humid part of the country. But now, quite suddenly--it was towards sunset--Cethegus remarked in the east, above the sea horizon, a single, dense, and coal-black cloud. The setting sun, although free from mist, shed no rays. Not a breath of air rippled the leaden surface of the sea; not the smallest wavelet played upon the strand. Not an olive-leaf moved in all the wide plain; not even the easily-shaken reeds in the marshy ditches trembled. No cry of an animal, no flight of a bird could be heard or perceived; and a strange choking smell, as if of sulphur, seemed to lie oppressively over land and sea, and to check respiration. The mules and horses in the camp kicked uneasily against the posts to which they were tied. A few camels and dromedaries, which Belisarius had brought with him from Africa, buried their heads in the sand. The wanderer heaved a deep breath, and looked about him in surprise. "How sultry! Just as it is before the 'wind of death' arises in the deserts of Egypt," he said to himself. "Sultry everywhere--outside and inside. Upon whose head will the long-withheld fury of Nature and Passion be let loose?" He entered his tent. Syphax accosted him. "Sir, if I were at home, I should think that the poisonous breath of the God of the Desert was coming over us." And he handed a letter to the Prefect. It was the answer of the King of the Franks. Hastily Cethegus tore open the great shining seal. "Who brought it?"