"My brother Megas," quietly answered the Byzantine--who had now collected himself--"had the order to offer to the Prefect of Rome"--and here he again bowed--"the newly-invented double-catapults for the walls of Rome. He embarked long before me; so I thought that he had already arrived, and was gone to you in Rome. But his freight is very heavy. I am rejoiced to become personally acquainted with the most powerful man of the West, the glorious defender of the Tomb of Hadrian." But Cethegus cast another sharp look at Johannes, and, abruptly bowing to all present, turned to go. When he had gone a few paces he suddenly looked back, and caught sight of Johannes, with both his fists raised in anger, scolding at the talkative young archon. A cold shudder ran through the Prefect. He intended to reach his tent by the shortest cut, and, without waiting for Syphax and his discoveries, to mount his horse and hasten to Rome without taking leave. The shortest way to get to his tent was to leave the camp of Johannes, and walk along the straight line of the semicircle formed by the whole encampment. In front of him a few Persian bowmen were riding out of the camp commanded by Johannes. And some peasants who had sold wine to the soldiers were also permitted to pass unhindered by the sentinels. These sentries were all Longobardians, to whom, as everywhere, the exits of this camp were entrusted by Narses. As Cethegus was about to follow his countrymen, these sentries stopped him with their spears. He caught at the shafts and angrily pushed them aside. At this one of the Longobardians blew his horn; the others pressed more closely round Cethegus. "By order of Narses!" said Autharis, the captain. "And those?" asked Cethegus, pointing to the peasants and the Persians. "Those are not you," said the Longobardian. At the sound of the horn a troop of guards had hurried up. They bent their bows. Cethegus silently turned his back on them and returned to his tent by the way that he had come. Perhaps it was only his suddenly-aroused mistrust which made him imagine that all the Byzantines and Longobardians whom he passed regarded him with half-jeering, half-compassionate looks. When he reached his tent he asked the Isaurian sentry: "Is Syphax back?" "Yes, sir, long since. He is impatiently waiting for you in the tent. He is wounded." Cethegus quickly pushed aside the curtains and entered. Syphax, deadly pale beneath his bronzed skin, rushed to meet him, embraced his knees, and whispered in passionate and desperate excitement: "O my master! my lion! You are ensnared--lost--nothing can save you!" "Compose yourself, slave!" said Cethegus. "You bleed?" "It is nothing! They would not permit me to return to your camp--they began to struggle with me as if in joke, but their dagger-stabs were bitter earnest." "Who? Whose dagger-stabs?" "The Longobardians, master, who have placed double guards at all the entrances of your camp."