"Your counsel is a command wherever the desert sand extends. Only I grieve for the man with the mournful eyes. He has shown favor to many of our people, granted hospitality to many of our tribes; what return shall they make to their friend?" "Hospitality unto death! Not fight his battles, not share his booty; but if he comes to them seeking shelter and protection, divide the last date with him, shed the last drop of blood in his defence. Up, strike the basin! We will depart ere the sun wakes. Untether the camels!" The old man rose hastily. The youth dealt the copper kettle that hung beside the tent a blow with his curved scimetar. The brown-skinned men, women, and children were astir like a swarm of ants. When the sun rose above the horizon, the oasis was empty, desolate, silent as death. Far in the south whirled upward a cloud of dust and sand which the north wind seemed to be driving farther and farther inland. CHAPTER IV PROCOPIUS TO CETHEGUS: We are still marching forward, and certainly as if we were in a friendly country. Our heroes, even the Huns, have understood, thanks less to my marching orders than to actual experience, that they cannot steal as many provisions as the people will voluntarily bring if they are to be paid instead of being robbed. Belisarius is winning all the provincials by kindness. So the colonists flock from all directions to our camp and sell us everything we need, at low prices. When we are obliged to spend the night in the open fields we carefully fortify the camp. When it can be done we remain at night in cities, as, for instance, in Leptis and Hadrumetum. The Bishop, with the Catholic clergy, comes forth to meet us, as soon as our Huns appear. The Senators and the most aristocratic citizens soon follow. The latter willingly allow themselves to be "forced "; that is, they wait till we are in the forum, so, in case we should all be thrown by our undiscoverable foes into the sea before we reach Carthage, they can attribute their friendliness to us to our cruel violence. With the exception of a few Catholic priests I have not seen a Roman in Africa for whom I felt the slightest respect. I almost think that they, the liberated, are even less worthy than we, the liberators.