"What is it!" cried Totila, starting up and still dreaming; "the enemy? where?" "No, my boy; this time it is again Uliaris, and not Belisarius, who awakens thee. But, by the Thunderer! this cannot last much longer!" "Uliaris, thou bleedest! thy head is bandaged!" "Bah! 'twas but a stray arrow! Fortunately no poisoned one. I got it last night. Thou must know that things are at a bad pass; much worse than ever before. The bloody Johannes--may God slay him!--digs under our Castle Tiberius like a badger, and if he gets _that_--then farewell, Neapolis! Yester even he finished a battery upon the hill above us, and now he throws burning arrows upon our heads. I tried last night to drive him out of his works, but it was no use. They were seven to one against us, and I gained nothing by it but this wound on my grey head." "The battery must come down," said Totila reflectively. "The devil it must! but it will not! I have still more to tell. The citizens begin to get unruly. Belisarius daily shoots a hundred blunt arrows into the city, to which is tied the inscription: 'Rebel for freedom!' They have more effect than a thousand pointed darts. Already, here and there, stones are cast from the roofs upon my poor fellows. If this goes on--we cannot, with a thousand men, keep off forty thousand Greeks outside and thirty thousand Neapolitans inside. Therefore I think--" and his eyes looked very gloomy. "What thinkest thou?" "We will burn down a portion of the city--at least the suburbs----" "So that the inhabitants may like us all the better? No, Uliaris, they shall not have cause to call us 'barbarians.' I know of better means--they are starving; yesterday I brought in four shiploads of oil, com, and wine; this I will divide amongst them." "Oil and corn if thou wilt! But not the wine! That I claim for my Goths. They have drunk cistern-water long enough, the nasty stuff!" "Good, thirsty hero, you shall have the wine for yourselves." "Well? and still no news from Ravenna, or from Rome?" "None! Yesterday I sent off my fifth messenger." "May God destroy our King! Listen, Totila, I don't believe we shall ever get alive out of these worm-eaten walls." "Nor I either," said Totila quietly, and offered his guest a cup of wine. Uliaris looked at him; then he drank and said: "Dear fellow! thou art pure as gold, and thy Cæcubian too. And if I must die here, like an old bear amongst the dogs--I am at least glad that I have learned to know thee so well; thee and thy Cæcubian." With this rough but friendly speech the grey old Goth left the ship. Totila sent corn and wine to the garrison in the castle, with which the soldiers regaled themselves far into the night. But the next morning, when Uliaris looked forth from the tower of the castle, he rubbed his eyes. For on the battery upon the hill waved the blue flag of the Goths. Totila had landed in the night in the rear of the enemy, and had taken the works by storm.