Part 21 (1/2)
”It concerns the prisoners in the dungeons of the citadel. When, against the entreaties of the whole nation and Zazo's urgency especially, Gelimer protected the lives of Hilderic and Euages, changing the sentence of death p.r.o.nounced by the Council of the Nation to imprisonment, he was obliged to promise Zazo that at least he would never liberate the prisoners without his consent.”
”I wished to release them now. But Zazo has my promise, and he could not be softened.”
”He is right,--a rare instance,” said Verus.
”What? You, the priest, counsel against pity and pardon?” asked Hilda, in astonishment.
”I am also chancellor of this kingdom. The former King would be far too dangerous if he were set at liberty. Romans, Catholics,--he is said secretly to have joined this church,--might gather round him, and 'the rightful King of the Vandals' would be a much-desired weapon against the 'Tyrant' Gelimer. The prisoners will be better off where they are.
Their lives are safe--”
”They have repeatedly requested an audience; they wish to justify themselves. These pet.i.tions--”
”Were always granted. I have heard them myself.”
”What resulted from them?”
”Nothing that I did not already know. Did you not feel the armor under Hilderic's robe, wrest the dagger from his hand yourself?”
”Alas, yes! Yet I so easily distrust myself. Ambition, desire for this crown (one of my heaviest sins), made me only too ready to believe in Hilderic's guilt. And now the captive King, protesting his innocence, appealing to a warning letter received by him on that day, which would explain and prove everything, requests another trial. Yet you have fulfilled the prisoner's wish and searched for it in the place he named?”
”Certainly,” said Verus, quietly, his lifeless features growing even more rigid, more sternly controlled. ”That letter is an invention. As Hilderic repeatedly a.s.serted that he had concealed it in a secret drawer of 'Genseric's Golden Chest,'--you know the coffer, Gibamund?--I searched the whole chest with my own hands and alone. I even found the secret drawer and opened it; nothing of the kind was there. Nay, at the prisoner's earnest entreaties, I had the coffer carried to his dungeon and examined by himself in the presence of witnesses. He, too, found nothing.”
”And no one could have previously removed the letter?” asked Gelimer.
”You and I alone have the keys to the chest which contains the most important doc.u.ments. But I must leave you now,” said the priest. ”I have many letters to write to-night. Farewell!”
”I thank you, my Verus. May the angel of the Lord watch over me in Heaven as faithfully as you watch and care for me on earth.”
The priest closed his eyes a moment, then smiling faintly, nodded, saying: ”That is my prayer also.”
He glided noiselessly across the threshold.
CHAPTER XXI
Hilda followed Verus's retreating figure with a long, long look; at last, with a slight shake of her beautiful head, she went up to Gelimer and said: ”Do not be angry, my King, if I ask a question which nothing gives me the right to utter, except my anxiety for your welfare, and that of all our people.”
”And my love for you, brave sister-in-law,” replied Gelimer, gently stroking her flowing golden hair, and seating himself on the couch again. ”For,” he added, smiling, ”though you are a wicked pagan and often cherish--as I well know--secret resentment, nay, animosity, against me, I love you, foolish, impetuous young heart.”
She sank down at his feet, on a high, soft cus.h.i.+on covered with leopard skins, while Gibamund paced slowly up and down the s.p.a.cious hall, often gazing out through the lofty arched window over the wide sea. No light was burning in the apartment; but the full moon, which meanwhile had risen above the dark flood and the harbor wall, poured in the full splendor of her rays, which, falling on the features of the three n.o.ble human beings, illumined them with a spectral light.
”I will not,” Hilda began, ”as Zazo and my Gibamund have repeatedly done, until you wrathfully forbade it, warn you against this priest, who--”
With neither impatience nor anger, Gelimer interrupted: ”Who first discovered the wiles of Pudentius; who revealed to us the treachery of Hilderic; to whom alone I am indebted for my escape from a.s.sa.s.sination that night; who has saved the kingdom of the Vandals from the snare.”
Gibamund paused in his walk.
”Yes, it is true. I had almost said, _unfortunately_ true. For I would rather have owed it to any other man.”
”It is so strikingly true that even our Zazo, who at first accused him harshly to me, could scarcely find any objection to mutter, when I took the brilliant man among my councillors and intrusted to him (for he is an expert in letter-writing) the care of the correspondence. And how unweariedly he has toiled since, priest and chancellor at the same time! I marvel at the number of papers he lays before me every morning; I do not believe he sleeps three hours.”
”Men who neither sleep nor fight, drink nor kiss, are unnatural to me,”