"My poor Fæsulæ!" exclaimed the King, when he learned this last disaster, for he had been the Count of that town, and close to it lay the house where he had lived so happily with Rauthgundis;--"My poor Fæsulæ! the Huns will run riot in my deserted home!"
When, later, the garrison taken prisoner at Fæsulæ were led in chains before the eyes of the defenders of Auximum, and reported to the latter the hopelessness of any relief from Ravenna, the famished troops of Wisand compelled him to surrender.
He stipulated for himself a free escort to Ravenna. His men were led prisoners out of Italy.
And, so deeply sunk was the courage and patriotism of the conquered troops, that, led by Earl Sisifrid of Sarsina, they accepted service against their own countrymen under the flag of Belisarius.
The victor had strongly garrisoned Auximum and then led the army back to the camp before Ravenna, where he now again took the command, which had been entrusted to Cethegus during his absence.
It was as if a curse rested upon the head of the Gothic King, who so sorely felt the weight of his crown.
As he could not ascribe the cause of his failure to any weakness or oversight on his own part; as he did not doubt in the justice of the Gothic cause, and as his simple piety could see nothing but the hand of Heaven in all his misfortunes, he conceived the torturing thought that God was punishing the Goths for some unforgiven sin committed by himself, a conviction imparted to his conscience by the then dominating doctrine of the Old Testament no less than by many features of the old Germanic legends.
Day and night the King was tortured by this idea, which undermined his strength and resolution. Now he tried to discover his secret guilt; now he reflected how he could at least turn aside the curse from his people.
He would long since have abdicated, but that such an act at such a moment would have been considered cowardly both by himself and others. So this escape from his misery--the quickest and best--was closed to him.
His soul was bowed to the very earth. He often sat motionless for hours, silent and staring at vacancy; at times shaking his head or sighing deeply.
The daily recurring sight of this resigned suffering, this dumb and hopeless bearing of an oppressive fate, was not, as we have said, without effect on Mataswintha. She thought that lately the eyes of Witichis rested upon her with an expression of sorrow and even of beneficence.