"I will obey, divine mistress," he now lisped again in the most affected tone. "Forward!" Then as the poor blacks--he had adopted the fashionable tone so completely--really did not hear him at all, he now roared like a bear: "Forward, you dogs, I tell you!" striking, with a strength no one would have expected from the rose-garlanded dandy, the nearest slave a blow on the back which felled him to the ground. The man rose again without a sound, and with the seven others grasped the heavily gilded poles; the litter soon vanished in the throng. "Did you see _her_?" asked the wearer of the wolf-skin. "Yes. She is like a black panther, or like this country: beautiful, passionate, treacherous, and deadly. Come, Theudigisel! Let us go to the lake too. Most of the Vandals are gathering there. We shall have an opportunity to know them thoroughly. Here is a shorter foot-path, leading across the turf." "Stay! don't stumble, my lord! What is lying there directly across the way?" "A soldier--in full armor--a Vandal!" "And sound asleep in the midst of all this uproar." "He must be very drunk." The older man pushed the prostrate figure with the handle of his spear. "Who are you, fellow?" "I?--I?" The startled warrior propped himself on one elbow; he was evidently trying to think. "I believe I am--Gunthamund, son of Guntharic." "What are you doing here?" "You see. I am on guard. What are you laughing at? I am on guard to prevent any carousing in the grove. Where are the others? Have you no wine? I am horribly thirsty." And he sank back in the tall soft grass. "So these are the guards of the Vandals! Do you still counsel, my brave duke, as you advised,--beyond the sea?" The other, shaking his head, followed silently. Both vanished in the throng of people who were now pressing from every direction toward the lake. CHAPTER XII ON the southern shore of this tree-girdled water, opposite to the little harbor, walled with marble, into which it ran at the northern end, were high board platforms hung with gay costly stuffs, erected for specially distinguished guests, who were numbered by hundreds; a balcony draped with purple silk, extending far out into the sea, was reserved for the most aristocratic spectators. Now the soft moonlight resting on the mirrorlike surface of the lake was suddenly outshone by a broad red glare, which lasted for several minutes. As it died away, a blue, then a green light blazed up, brilliantly illuminating the groups of spectators on the shore, the white marble buildings in the distance, the statues among the shrubbery, and especially the surface of the lake itself and the magnificent spectacle it presented.