CHAPTER VIII. Shortly after, Cethegus once more stood before the still seductive woman, whom he had known in youth. She was lying stretched upon her couch in the room in which we have before seen her. Galatea frequently handed to her a small onyx-cup, filled with the drops prescribed by her Persian physician. Grecian doctors no longer sufficed. "I thank you, Theodora," said Cethegus, after a friendly greeting, "and if I must thank any other than myself--and a woman!--I would rather owe something to my early friend than to another." "Listen, Prefect," said Theodora, looking gravely at him. "You would be just the man--shall I say the barbarian or the Roman?--to first kiss a Cleopatra whom a Cæsar and an Antony had adored, and then take her in triumph to the Capitol in order to strangle her, as, perhaps, Octavianus once intended, if that sly Queen had not been beforehand with him. Cleopatra has always been my model. 'Tis true, I have never found a Cæsar. But the asp, perhaps, will not be wanting. But you need not thank me. I have spoken and acted out of conviction. The insolence which we have suffered from these Goths must be smothered in blood. Perhaps I have not always been such a faithful wife as Justinian believed; but I was always his best and truest adviser. Belisarius and Narses cannot be sent together, and still less singly, to Italy. You shall go. You are a hero, a general, and a statesman, and yet you are too weak to harm Justinian." "Thanks for your good opinion," said Cethegus. "Friend, you are a general without an army, an Emperor without an empire, a pilot without a ship. But enough of this--you will not believe me. I send you to Italy because I believe that you hate the barbarians with all your heart. The second general, whom the imperial distrust will undoubtedly send after you, shall be Areobindos. He will not trouble you much! I am rejoiced that I can thus serve not only my old companion but also the Empire. Ah, Cethegus, our youth! To you men it is either golden hopes or golden memories: to a woman it is life itself! Oh for a single day of the time when I sent you roses and you sent me verses!" "Your roses were beautiful, Theodora, but my verses were poor." "They were fine to me, for they were addressed to me! My choice of you, which is necessary for the Empire, is sweetened by old and new hate as well as by old love. Belisarius must not rise to new honours. He must fall, and this time fall low and for ever. As sure as I live!" "And Narses? I should understand and like it better if you were to ruin that head without an arm, than this arm without a head." "Patience! One after the other." "What has the good-natured hero done to you?" "He? Nothing. But his wife! that clumsy Antonina, whose whole triumph lies in her good health." And the delicate Empress clenched her little white fist, the fingers of which had become more transparent than ever.