The Greek
commander, Totila well knew, would not sally forth and risk an
engagement: to storm the battlements would be an idle, if not a
fatal, attempt; and how, with so small an army, could he encompass
so vast a wall? To guard the entrance to the river with his ships,
and to isolate Rome from every inland district of Italy, seemed to
the Gothic king the only sure way of preparing his final triumph.
But time pressed; however beset with difficulties, Belisarius would
not linger for ever beyond Hadria. The resistance of Tibur excited
Totila's impatience, and at length stirred his wrath. Osuin heard a
terrible threat fall from his lips, and the same evening whispered
it to Athalfrida.
'He will do well,' answered his wife, with brows knit.
On the morrow, Athalfrida and Veranilda sat together in the gardens,
or what once had been the gardens, of Hadrian's palace, and looked
forth over the vast brown landscape, with that gleam upon its limit,
that something pale between earth and air, which was the Tyrrhene
Sea. Over the sky hung thin grey clouds, broken with strips of hazy
blue, and softly suffused with warmth from the invisible sun.
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