"O wicked Rome, O southern gleam, O lovely, heavenly blue! O rolling blood-stained Tiber-stream-- O Southerns, all untrue! Still cherishes the North its sons Of courage true and high; Vengeance will roll its thunders soon-- Then, up! and let us die!" "The melody pleases me," said Adalgoth; "but is it already finished? What is the end?" "'The end can only be sung in time to the stroke of the sword," said Teja. "Soon, methinks, thou wilt also hear this end." And he rose from his seat. "Go, my Adalgoth," he said; "leave me alone. I have already kept thee far too long from"--and he smiled through all his sadness--"from the loveliest of all duchesses. You have but few of such evening hours to spend together, my poor children! If I could but save your young and budding lives----" He passed his hand across his brow. "Folly!" he then cried; "you are but a part of the doomed nation--perhaps the loveliest." Adalgoth's eyes had filled with tears as the King mentioned his young wife. He now went up to Teja and laid his hand inquiringly upon his shoulder. "Is there no hope? She is so young!" "None," answered Teja; "for no saving angel will come down from heaven. We have still a few days before famine commences its inroads. Then I will make a speedy end. The warriors shall sally forth and fall in battle." "And the women, the children--the defenceless thousands?" "I cannot help them. I am no god. But not a Gothic woman or maiden need fall into slavery under the Byzantines, unless they choose shame instead of a free death. Look there, my Adalgoth--in the dark night the glow of the mountain is fully seen. Seest thou, there, a hundred paces to the right.--Ha! how splendidly the fiery smoke rushes from the gloomy mouth!--When the last guardian of the pass has fallen--one leap into that abyss--and no insolent Roman hand shall touch our pure women. Thinking of _them_--more than of us, for we can fall anywhere thinking of the Gothic women, I chose for our last battle-field--Vesuvius!" And Adalgoth, no longer weeping, but with enthusiasm, threw himself into Teja's arms. CHAPTER VII. A few days after Cethegus had taken up his chosen position on the left of Narses with his mercenaries, the report came to the camp of the Byzantines that the Goths in the Mausoleum of Hadrian had been overpowered. So now all Rome was in the hands of the Romans; not a single Goth, and, as Cethegus exultingly thought, not a single Byzantine, ruled in his Rome. If he could now succeed in throwing his Isaurians, under the command of the tribunes, into Rome, the Prefect would be in a much more favourable position, opposed to Narses, than he had ever been opposed to Belisarius, with whom he had been obliged to share the possession of the city.