"Not much longer!" said Teja gravely, as he seated himself. "We will remain here, outside the curtain. Look! how magnificently the bay and the coast of Surrentum shine in the glowing light left by the setting sun--the blue sea is changed to crimson blood! Truly, the Southland could afford no more beauteous frame with which to enclose the last battle of the Goths. Well, may the picture be worthy of its setting! The end is coming. How wonderfully everything that I foreboded--dreamed, and sang--has been fulfilled!" And the King supported his head upon both his hands. Only when the silver tones of a harp was heard, did he again look up. Adalgoth had, unseen, fetched the King's small harp from behind the curtain. "Thou shalt hear," he said, "how I have completed thy song of the Ravine; or I might have said, how it has completed itself. Dost thou remember that night in the wilderness of ivy, marble, and laurel in Rome? It was not a battle already fought, a battle of ancient days, of which thou didst sing. No! in a spirit of prophecy, thou hast sung our last heroic battle here." And he played and sang: "Where arise the cliffs of lava, On Vesuvius' glowing side, Tones of deepest woe and wailing, Evening's peace and calm deride. For the brave dead's direst curses Rest upon the rocky tomb, Where the Gothic hero-nation Will fulfil their glorious doom." "Yes," said Teja, "glorious, my Adalgoth! Of that glory no fate and no Narses shall deprive us. The awful judgment, which our beloved Totila challenged, has fallen heavily upon himself, his people, and his God. No Heavenly Father has, as that noble man imagined, weighed our destinies in a just balance. We fall by the thousand treacheries of the Italians and the Byzantines, and by the brute superiority of numbers. But _how_ we fall, unshaken, proud even in our decay, can be decided by no fate, but only by our own worth. And after us? Who after us will rule in this land? Not for long these wily Greeks--and not the native strength of the Italians. Numerous tribes of Germans still exist on the other side of the mountains--and I nominate them our heirs and our avengers." And he softly took up the harp which Adalgoth had laid down, and sang in a low voice as he looked down upon the rapidly darkening sea. The stars glittered over his head; and at rare intervals he struck a chord. "Extinguished is the brightest star Of our Germanic race! O Dietrich, thou beloved of Bern, Thy shield is bruised, defaced. Unblemished truth and courage fail-- The coward wins--the noble fly; Rascals are lords of all the world-- Up, Goths, and let us die!