Only when he was
alone did he reflect upon the narrowness of his escape from those
fierce plunderers, and horror shook him. There remained but half a
day's journey to his villa. He was so impatient to arrive there, and
to dismiss the horsemen, that though utterly wearied, he lay awake
through many hours of darkness, hearing the footsteps of men who
patrolled the streets, and listening with anxious ear for any sound
of warning.
He rose in the twilight, and again held conference with those of the
townsmen who were stoutest in the Gothic cause. To them he announced
that he should travel this day as far as Arpinum (whither he was
conducting a lady who desired to enter a convent hard by that city),
and thence should proceed in search of Totila, for whom, he assured
his hearers, he carried letters of summons from the leading
churchmen at Rome. This news greatly cheered the unhappy Aletrians,
who had been troubled by the thought that the Goths were heretics.
If Roman ecclesiastics closed their eyes to this obstacle, the
inhabitants of a little mountain town evidently need nurse no
scruples in welcoming the conqueror.
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