"But I write this letter, because I wish to close our long friendship--to which you have put an end by your treacherous attack upon my hero, Belisarius--with a last sign of affection. I wish to warn and to save you, if it yet be possible. Seven letters which I sent you have evidently never reached you, otherwise you would not still be dwelling in the camp of Narses, as his army-reports affirm. So I will entrust this eighth letter to my slave, Agnellus, a fisherman's son from Stabiæ, where you are now encamped. I will give him his freedom, and recommend this letter to him as my last commission. For, although I ought to hate you, I still love you, Cethegus! It is hard to abandon you, and I would gladly save you. When, shortly after your departure, I returned to Byzantium--already on the way the news of the arrest of Belisarius (on account of treachery!) came upon me like a thunderbolt--I believed at first that you, like the Emperor, had been deceived. In vain I tried to gain a hearing from Justinian; he raged against all who had ever been united in ties of friendship to Belisarius. In vain I strove to see Antonina by every means in my power. She was strictly guarded (thanks to your hints) in the Red House. In vain I proved to Tribonianus the impossibility of treachery on the part of Belisarius. He shrugged his shoulders and said: 'I cannot comprehend it! But the proof is striking; this senseless denial of the visits of Anicius. He is lost!' And he was lost. The sentence was pronounced; Belisarius was condemned to death; Antonina to banishment. The Emperor mercifully _mitigated_ the sentence of Belisarius into banishment--far from Antonina's exile--the loss of sight, and confiscation of his property. This terrible judgment lay heavy upon all Byzantium. No one believed in the guilt of Belisarius except the Emperor and the judges. But no one was able to prove his innocence, or change his fate. I was resolved to go with him into banishment; the one-armed with the blind. Then--and may he be blessed for it for ever!--his great enemy, Narses, saved him! He whom I once named to you as the greatest man of the age." "To be sure," said Cethegus to himself, "and now he will also be the most magnanimous."