"Yes," he was saying, "at every moment I am reminded by my missing hand of a folly. I do not, however, repent it. I should do the same thing again even if it cost me my eyesight. It was a folly of the heart, and to be capable of that is the greatest happiness. I have never been able really to love a woman. My only love was and is--Belisarius! I know very well--you need not draw down the corners of your mouth so contemptuously, friend--I see very clearly the weaknesses and imperfections of my hero. But that is exactly what is sweet in a heart-folly--to love the foibles of your idol more than the merits of other people. And so--to cut my story short--it was during the last Persian war that, one day, I warned the lion-hearted general not to ride through a dangerous wood with a scanty escort. Of course he did it all the more, the dear fool; and of course Procopius, the wise fool, rode with him. All happened just as I had expected. The whole wood was suddenly filled with Persians. It seemed as if the wind had shaken the withered leaves from the trees, and every leaf was an axe or a spear. It was very like the ambush before the Tiburtinian Gate. Balan, the faithful piebald, bore his master for the last time. Stuck full of spears, he fell dead to the ground. I assisted the hero to mount my own horse. But a Persian prince, who was almost as tall as his name was long--the pleasant fellow was called Adrastaransalanes--aimed a blow at the magister militum which, in my hurry, I received upon my right arm--for my shield was occupied in protecting Belisarius against a Saracen. The blow was well meant; if it had reached my hero's helmless head, it would have cracked it like a nutshell. As it was, it only cut off my fore-arm as if it had never been part of my body." "Of course Belisarius escaped, and of course Procopius was taken prisoner," said the guest, shaking his head. "Quite right, you commander of perspicacity, as my friend Adrastaransalanes would call you. But the same man with his long body, scimitar, and name--you will not insist upon my repeating it--was so moved by my 'elephantine magnanimity,' as he expressed himself, that he very soon set me free without ransom. He only begged for a ring which had been on the finger of my former right hand: as a remembrance, he said. Since then it is all over with my campaigns," added Procopius more gravely. "But in this loss of my pen-hand I see a punishment. I have written with it many a useless or not perfectly sincere word. However, if a like punishment overtook all the writers of Byzantium, there would soon be not a two-handed man left who could write. Writing is now a much slower and more difficult process with me. But that is good, for then, at every word one considers whether it is worth the trouble of inscribing or whether one is justified in doing so."