"You _will_ not cross?" cried Zazo, furiously. "Then you _must_!" With these words he tore Genseric's dragon banner from the hand of the horseman at his right and shouting: "Bring back the standard and your honor!" he hurled it with all his strength across the stream into the midst of the Byzantines. Loud cries rose from friends and enemies. One of the Byzantines instantly snatched the banner from the ground, raised it aloft, and was hurrying with it to Belisarius. But he did not go far. For when they saw the treasure of the kingdom in the hands of the foe, all the Vandals, on horseback and on foot, following their nobles, rushed down the slope into the stream and the midst of the enemy. By Zazo's side, on a powerful stallion, rode a strange figure,--a monk without helmet, shield, or breastplate; he wore a gray cowl and carried a sword. Breaking a passage through the hostile ranks, he reached the captor of the scarlet banner, tore it from his hand, and, with a single sword-stroke, cleft helmet and skull. It was Valerianus, the commander of the lance-bearers. The victor swung the rescued standard high aloft, and instantly fell from his horse, pierced by five lances. But Gundobad, the Gunding, raised the banner from the hand of the sinking figure. "Here, to the rescue," he shouted, "kinsmen of the Gundings! Here, you boars!" Immediately his brother and the whole troop of boar helms gathered around him; the banner and its bearer were cut out for the moment. The ranks of the foe nearest to the Vandal banner wavered, yielded. "Victory!" shouted the Vandals, pressing boldly forward, singing,-- "Forward to battle! Follow the standard, The fame-heralded Consort of victory." They struck their sword-blades on their shields till the sound echoed far and wide. "Victory!" cried Hilda, exultantly, as she witnessed the whole magnificent spectacle. CHAPTER XV Belisarius also witnessed it from his station on the hill. "Fly," he cried to Procopius; "fly to Fara and the Herulians! They must swing to the left and take those red rags." "And the Huns?" asked Procopius under his breath. "Look yonder; they are riding slowly forward, but not westward, not against the Vandals." "Obey! This German war dance around the red banner must first be put to a bloody end, or their Teutonic battle fiend will take possession of them, and then all is over. My face alone will keep the Huns in check, should there be need of it." Meanwhile the dragon banner had again changed bearers. All the lances and arrows were aimed at the dangerous emblem, visible far and wide. Gundobad's horse fell; its rider did not rise again. But his brother Gundomar took the standard from the dying noble's hand and ran the point of its shaft into the throat of Cyprianus, the second leader of the Thracians, whose battle-axe had cleft Gundobad's helmet and head as he tried to spring up from his dead charger.