"Who were you, dainty child, that found a solitary death here?" said the holy man, deeply touched. "For there is no trace of a companion near. A child, or a girl just entering maidenhood? But, at any rate, a Christian--no Moor; here on her neck, fastened by a silver chain, is a gold cross. And beside it a strange ornament,--a bronze half-circle with characters inscribed on it, not Latin, Greek, nor Hebrew. No matter. The girl's bones shall not remain scattered in the desert. The Christian shall sleep in consecrated ground. The peasants must help me to bury her here or in the neighborhood." He went to Decimum. The traces of the Vandal battle had long since vanished. The village children who had then fled were now grown men, the owners of the houses and fields. The peasant to whom the hermit related his touching discovery listened attentively. But when the latter spoke of the bronze half-circle with the singular characters, he interrupted him, exclaiming: "Strange! In the hill-tomb, the great stone vault outside of our village,--I own the hill, and vines grow on the southern slope,--there lies, according to trustworthy tradition, a Vandal boy-prince who fell here, and beside him a mighty warrior, a terrible giant, who is said to have remained faithfully by his side. The priests say he was a monster, a god of thunder, one of the old pagan gods of the Barbarians, with whose fall fortune deserted them. Well, the giant has hanging on his arm a half-circle exactly like the one you describe. Perhaps the two belonged together? Who knows? We cannot dig a grave in the desert; even if we try, the wind will blow it away. Come, I'll harness the horses to my wagon; we will go out to the dead woman and lay her beside the giant; his grave has already been consecrated by the priests." This was done. But when they had placed the delicate form beside the mighty one, and the monk had muttered a prayer, he asked: "Tell me, friend,--I saw with joyful surprise that you had left all the ornaments upon the dead; and that you should receive nothing for your trouble with the poor girl's skeleton is not exactly--" "Peasant custom, do you mean? You are right, holy father. But you see. King Gelimer, who once reigned here, enjoined upon my father after the battle to take faithful care of the graves; he was to keep them as if they were a sanctuary until Gelimer should return and carry the bodies to Carthage. King Gelimer never returned to Decimum. But my father, on his deathbed, committed the care of this tomb to me; and so shall I, before I die, to the curly-headed boy who helped us to carry the little skeleton. For King Gelimer was kind to every one,--to us Romans, too,--and had done my father many a favor in the days of the Vandals. Already many say he was no man, but a demon,--a wicked one, according to some, a good one, most declare. But, man or demon, good he certainly was; for my father has often praised him." So little Eugenia at last reached her hero's side.