"Take him up! I will give safe-conduct to the noble corpse and the noble bearers. Now, my men, follow me back to the fight!" CHAPTER XX. But the fight was over: as Alboin and the Prefect discovered, to their great disgust, when they again reached Taginæ. The Prefect, just as he had entered the pine-wood and was about to follow the King's track, had been overtaken by a messenger from Liberius, who sent word for him to return immediately. Narses was insensible, and the peril of the situation necessitated immediate counsel. Narses insensible--Liberius perplexed--the victory they had thought certain, endangered--these circumstances weighed more with the Prefect than the doubtful expectation of dealing the death-stroke to the half-dead King. In haste Cethegus galloped back to Taginæ the way that he had come. When he reached the town he found Liberius, who cried: "Too late! I have already settled and agreed to everything. A truce! The rest of the Goths march off!" "What?" thundered Cethegus--he would gladly have poured all the blood of the Goths upon the grave of his darling as a sacrifice. "They march? A truce? Where is Narses?" "He lies insensible in his litter; he has been taken with severe convulsions. The fright, the surprise--it prostrated him, and no wonder." "What surprise? Speak, man!" And Liberius briefly related how they had forced their way into Taginæ with fearful loss of blood, "for the Goths stood like a wall"--had been obliged to storm house by house, even room by room--"we were obliged to hack to pieces by inches one of their leaders, who ran Anzalas through as he leaped into the first breach, before we could force our way into the town over his body." "Who was he?" asked Cethegus earnestly. "I hope Earl Teja?" "No; Earl Thorismuth. When we had finished our bloody work, and Narses was about to let himself be carried into the town, he met in the gate a messenger from our left wing--which no more exists! It was Zeuxippos, wounded, and accompanied by Gothic heralds." "Who has----?" "He whom you just named--Earl Teja! He guessed or learned that Zeuxippos was threatening his centre, that the King was wounded--and, well knowing that he would arrive too late to turn the course of events at Taginæ, he came to a bold and desperate resolution. He suddenly gave up his post of expectation on the hills, threw himself upon our left wing, which was slowly advancing up the hill opposite to him, beat it at the first onset, pursued the fugitives into their camp, and there made prisoners of ten thousand of our men, and all the captains, amongst them my Orestes and Zeuxippos. He sent Gothic heralds to Narses, who took Zeuxippos with them to witness to the truth of what they said, and demanded an immediate truce of twenty-four hours." "Impossible!" "Otherwise he swore to slay all his ten thousand prisoners---together with the captains." "That is no matter," observed Cethegus.