He drew his dark mantle closely round his shoulders, and disappeared like a shadow into the night.
The next morning, before cockcrow, a veiled woman rode out of the camp. A man in a brown war-mantle walked beside her, holding her horse's bridle, and ever and again looking into her veiled face.
At an arrow's length behind them rode a servant, with a bundle at his back, where hung a heavy club.
They went on their way for some time in silence.
At last they reached a woody eminence; behind them lay the broad plain where stood the Gothic camp and the city of Ravenna; before them, to the north-west, the road which led to the Via Æmilia.
"The sun is just rising. I have sworn that it shall find thee free. Farewell, my Witichis!"
"Hurry not so away from me," he said, pressing her hand.
"I must keep my word if my heart breaks! It must be!"
"I leave my life behind me; thou hast yet a life before thee."
"The life of a King for his people, as thine oath demands."
"It was right to swear it; it is a duty to keep it. And thou wilt think of me in the gilded halls of Rome, as I of thee in my hut, deep in the ravine. Thou wilt not forget thy wife, nor the ten years of our faith and love, nor our sweet boy."
"Oh, my wife, my wife!" cried the tortured man, pressing his face against the saddle-bow, and putting both arms around her.
She bent over him and laid her hand upon his head.
Meanwhile Wachis had overtaken them; he looked at the group for a short time, and then he could bear it no longer.
He pulled his master gently by the mantle.
"Master, listen; I can give you good advice. Do you not hear me?"
"Come with us! Up, away! Mount my horse and ride away with Mistress Rauthgundis. I will follow afterwards. Leave those who torture you till the bright drops stand in your eyes; leave them, and all the rubbish of crown and kingdom. It has brought you no happiness. They do not mean well by you. Who would part man and wife for a dead crown? Up and away, I say! And I know a rocky nest where no one can find you but an eagle or a chamois."
"Shall thy master run away from his kingdom, like a bad slave from the mill?"
"Farewell, Witichis. Here, take the locket with the blue ribbon; the ringlet of our boy is in it, and one," she whispered, kissing him on the forehead, and hanging the locket round his neck, "one of Rauthgundis'. Farewell, thou, my heart's life!"