A somewhat oracular reply! This Sphinx--she looks, I have already told you, exactly like one--would undoubtedly have given her wreath and herself just as willingly to the victorious Vandals. After all, what does the Carthaginian care for either Vandals or Byzantines? She is the prize of the stronger, the conqueror--perhaps to his destruction. But I think the Sphinx has now found her [OE]dipus. If one of this strange pair of lovers must perish, it will hardly be my friend Fara. He took me to her; he has some regard for me, because I can read and write. He had evidently praised me. In vain. She scanned me from head to foot, and from foot to head, it did not consume much time; I am not very tall,--then, with a contemptuous curl of her full red lips, she moved far away from me. I will not assert that I am handsome, while Fara, next to Belisarius, is certainly the stateliest of all our six and thirty thousand men. But I was indignant that my mortal part at once so repelled her that she did not even desire to know the immortal side. I am angered against her, I wish her no evil; but it would neither greatly surprise, nor deeply grieve me, if she should come to a bad end. CHAPTER X Belisarius is pushing the work on the walls day and night. Besides the whole army and the crews of the ships, he has employed the citizens. They grumble, saying that we came to liberate them, and now compel them to harder labor than Gelimer ever imposed. The vast extent of the city wall shows many gaps and holes; we think that may be the reason the King did not retreat into his capital after the lost battle. Verus, who, even in secular matters, holds a high place in the esteem of the "Tyrant" (this, according to Justinian's command, is the name we must give the champion of his people's liberty), is said, according to the statements of the prisoners, to have advised the King from the first to shut himself up in Carthage and let us besiege him there. If that is true, the priest knows more about lamps than he does of war, but that is natural. The very first night, our General says, we could have slipped in through some gap, especially as many thousand Carthaginians were ready to show us such holes. And we should have captured the whole Vandal grandeur at one blow, as if in a mouse-trap; while now we must seek the enemy in the desert. The King instantly rejected the counsel. * * * * * The goddess Tyche is the one woman in whom I often really feel tempted to believe. And also in Ate,--Discord. To you, Ate and Tyche, mighty sisters, not to Saint Cyprian, we must light lanterns to show our gratitude. The goddess of Fortune is not weary of playing ball with the destinies of the Vandals, but she could not do it, if Ate had not placed this ball in her hands.