When Cethegus had taken his morning bath in an adjoining tent, and was returning to his breakfast, he heard Syphax making a great noise as he approached through the lines of tents.
"No!" he was shouting; "this fish is for the Prefect. I have paid for it in hard cash. The great Narses will not wish to eat other people's fish!"
And with these words he tore himself loose from Alboin, and from several Longobardians, as well as from a slave belonging to Narses, who were trying to detain him.
Cethegus stopped. He recognised the slave. It was the cook of the generally sick and always temperate general, whose art was scarcely practised except for his master's guests.
"Sir," the well-educated Greek said to the Prefect, in his native language, "do not blame me for this unseemly turmoil. What does a sea-mullet matter to me! But these long-bearded barbarians forced me to take possession, at any cost, of this fish-basket, which your slave was bringing from the boats."
A glance which Cethegus exchanged with Syphax sufficed. The Longobardian had not understood what had been said. Cethegus gave Syphax a blow on the cheek, and cried in Latin:
"Good-for-nothing, insolent slave! will you never learn manners? Shall not the sick general have the best there is?"
And he roughly snatched the basket from the Moor and gave it to the slave.
"Here is the basket. I hope Narses will enjoy the fish."
The slave, who thought he had refused the gift distinctly enough, took the basket with a shake of his head.
"What can it all mean?" he asked in Latin as he went away.
"It means," answered Alboin, who followed him, "that the best fish is _not_ hidden in the basket, but somewhere else."
As soon as Syphax entered the tent, he eagerly felt in his waterproof belt of crocodile-skin for a roll of papyrus, which he handed to the Prefect.
"Only slightly. The Longobardians pretended, when they saw me swimming in the water, to take me for a dolphin, and shot their arrows at me."
"Nurse yourself--a solidus for every drop of your blood!--the letter is worth blood and gold, as it seems. Nurse yourself! and bid the Isaurians let no one enter."
And now, alone in his tent, the Prefect began to read.
His features grew darker and darker. Ever deeper became the wrinkle in the centre of his mighty forehead; ever more harshly and firmly compressed his lips.