The King fastened such a terrible look upon the trembling hostages, as they listened to this news, that two of them could not endure to wait till the end, but then and there killed themselves by dashing their heads against the stony walls which surrounded them.
When the Goths from Rome had sworn to the truth of their story, the King silently turned away and left the garden. An hour after, the heads of the three hundred hostages stared ghastly down from the summit of the walls.
"It was not alone to fulfil this terrible judgment that I came here," Teja said to Adalgoth: "I have also to reveal a sacred secret."
And he invited him and the other leaders of the troops to a solemn and joyless midnight banquet. When the sad feast was over, the King made a sign to old Hildebrand, who nodded, and took a dimly burning torch from the iron ring into which it was stuck on the centre column of the vaulted hall, saying:
"Follow me, children of these latter days, and take your shields with you."
It was the third hour of the July night; the stars glittered in the sky. Out of the hall, silently following the King and the aged master-at-arms, there stepped Guntharis and Adalgoth, Aligern, Grippa, Ragnaris, and Wisand the standard-bearer. Wachis, the King's shield-bearer, closed the procession, carrying a second torch.
Opposite the castle garden rose an ancient round tower, named the Tower of Theodoric, because that great King had restored it. Old Hildebrand was the first to enter this tower with his torch, but instead of leaving the ground-floor, which contained only the empty tower-room, the old man halted, knelt down, and carefully measured fifteen spans of his large hand from the door, which he had closed behind them, to the centre of the room. The whole floor seemed to be composed of three colossal slabs of granite. When Hildebrand had measured the fifteen spans, he held his thumb upon the spot at which he had arrived, and struck his battle-axe against the floor; it sounded hollow. Boring the point of his axe into a scarcely-visible crack in the stone, he signed to his companions to stand aside on his left; when they had done so, he pushed a portion of the slab to the right. A chasm, as deep as the tower was high above them, revealed itself to the astonished eyes of those present.