Chapter XV: Empress and Chamberlain

It was a gloomy day in March, 963, when an unwonted stir of officials, chamberlains, and equerries was seen to throng the gates, corridors, and chambers of the Sacred Palace. The empress, in her private apartments, lay pale and feeble on her couch, after the very recent birth of her fourth child, Anna, destined one day to be the wife of Vladimir, prince of the Russians. The roses on Theophano's cheek were now faded to a marble hue, and, as her lovely head lay in sleep, she looked like one of the dying daughters of Niobe as carved by the hand of Praxiteles. But the noise of urgent messengers at the door roused her from her slumber, and in her soft voice, which retained its imperious tone with all its exquisite modulation, she bade them tell her what was being reported. Her deep eyes seemed even more lustrous and penetrating than ever, as they shone from out the unwonted pallor of her face. "Tell me, Glaucopis, what they say," she murmured.

"Most august lady," said the nurse, "the physicians have strictly forbidden us to disturb your Majesty with any news."

"Romanus is dead?" she gasped out with a fierce gleam in her eyes as she raised herself on her arm from the pillow; "when--how--where is his body?"

"Madam, the emperor is being brought into the sacred chamber--not dead, but fainting, unconscious, and, they say, dying. He insisted, in spite of all the warnings of his physicians, on going out to hunt the boar last night in the forest, and he was seized with a fainting-fit early this morning. We can hear the bearers of his litter even now in the corridor."

"And has my messenger returned from Cæsaria?" asked the Augusta, eagerly, catching her breath with excitement.

A small, sealed slip of parchment was handed to the empress. She tore open the scrip, and a fierce gleam shot from her eyes as she read the Armenian words "I come."

She raised herself on her couch with a strange force of will, and had herself supported between two black eunuchs of the chamber and carried into the sacred koitôn, where at that very moment they were bearing to his death-bed the still unconscious form of the Basileus. The gaunt limbs of the once stalwart Romanus were a sight hardly so pitiful as his emaciated and bloodless countenance, now plainly stamped with the hue of death. As the physicians and chamberlains carefully stripped off the rough accoutrements of the chase, and laid him gently in his silken robe on the bed, his wife gazed intently upon him, with a look of penetration and anxiety rather than of sorrow or of love. Was he dead? Was he dying? What space of time could she count as her own? To whom could she turn for help?

"Madam," whispered the chief physician, "he still lives. His marvellous strength of constitution, and strict care, may even yet save him for a short space. The one chance of life is perfect rest, absolute silence. The slightest exertion, the smallest excitement, will be instantly fatal. He asks for a draught of strong Samian wine, but we dare not give it; it will be certain death. Let us implore your Majesty to leave him to us, to spare him the shock of an interview. It would be his death."

Theophano did not move nor answer; she gazed intently into the face of the dying king. At last his eyes opened and the flicker of a feeble smile played round his drawn lips. She bent down and kissed them.

"Anastasia," he murmured, "forgive me, pardon all my wrong. I have always loved you--ever since I went mad for your sake in the hermit's chapel of St. Demetrius in the Asian forest, and for love of you risked the golden throne which I am now leaving to you. May you be happy in it, my early love, my only love, and guard our children till they can fill it better than I have done!"

"Are you leaving it to me, indeed?" asked the empress, eagerly; "have you sealed such a will? Is any testament signed?"

"It shall be, if you wish it," murmured the dying man; "send for my secretaries and the keeper of the archives."

Here the physician drew the empress aside and earnestly whispered in her ear: "It would be certain death for him to make such an effort. His one chance of life is absolute rest."

"It is the will of his Majesty," said Theophano, imperiously, "that all present should withdraw, all--save this scribe," she added, turning to a secret agent of her own. "Close and secure these doors in the name of your sovereign lord!" she called aloud to the ushers and guards of the sacred koitôn.

"My will is that my beloved wife, the empress, be regent of this empire during the minority of my sons, the Basileis, Basil and Constantine," murmured, or, rather, gasped the dying man, almost mechanically repeating the words that Theophano dictated aloud to him, or nodding a feeble assent, while the scribe copied them down in official form.

A loud altercation was now heard at the door of the chamber, and a terrified chamberlain announced that the great parakeimomenos himself, the eunuch Bringas, insisted on his right to enter the chamber by virtue of his office--that of the imperial "Bedfellow."

"It is the will of his Majesty that he withdraw and wait in the anteroom," hissed the empress. "Guards, do your duty, in the name of your sovereign!" and Bringas was forcibly thrust back from the chamber.

"Bringas--will be--your counsellor--your minister," gasped the dying king, as he heard the name of his terrible master.

"And shall not the glorious lord general of the east be confirmed in his office?" whispered Theophano, with the eagerness of frenzy. But the strain of this interview had already overcome the flickering strength of the dying man, who fell back in another fainting-fit that almost seemed death.

Then Theophano bade the scribe fetch from her own chamber a flagon of strong cordial that stood beside her bed. She moistened the lips of her dying lord, and as he sipped a few spoonfuls of the drink a last spurt of life came back to him. He opened his eyes, and even raised his head, hoarsely calling for the cup. A mouthful seemed to give him new strength. "Since you desire it, my beloved," he gasped, "I confirm the lord domestic of the east in his supreme command. To Nicephorus I leave this throne, my children, my wife. He alone is worthy to possess them. They are his. May he keep them." He then grasped the flagon nervously, and with hungry eyes besought his wife to give it him--besought with his eyes, for he was now speechless.

Theophano knelt down beside the low couch, and, folding her arms round her half-conscious lord, she raised him on his pillows. Then she held the flagon to his lips and gave it him to drink. He sucked in the strong wine like a beast that has been dying of thirst, until the action of swallowing had ceased to be possible. The last dregs of the cup oozed out of the corners of his mouth and poured over his bare throat. He lay back--dead.

Theophano gazed on him with a look of triumph. Then she seized the parchment whereon the scribe had written down the last will of the emperor. She took up the pen and placed it in the still soft hand of the dead man; holding his hand in her own, she made the pen rudely inscribe his name--

_Romanos, Basileus Romaiôn._

For a brief space she stood there over the dead body of her husband, herself pale and faint with the effort, looking like a marble statue of the angel of death, as she pondered what should be her next act, for she well knew how tremendous a crisis was at hand.

Her meditations were broken by loud and angry altercations at the door, and soon there burst into the chamber the gigantic form of the parakeimomenos. The eunuch Bringas had now placed himself at the head of the chief officials and members of the council of state. He brought Michael, the chancellor of the exchequer; Symeon, the chief secretary; Sisinnios, the head of the senate; magistroi, patricians, protospathaires, basilikoi, with a strong force of ushers and palace guards. The physicians proved the death of the emperor, and closed his eyes. Theophano, at the first sound of the interruption, had on her part summoned from her private apartments her own creatures, secretaries, chamberlains, and guards. The two factions now confronted each other, ranged on opposite sides of the imperial couch, whereon lay the yet untended corpse of the Basileus, Bringas at the head of the council of state on the one side, Theophano on the other side, holding in her hands the last testament of the dead king.

"As parakeimomenos, grand chamberlain of his late Majesty, and president of the council of state, it is my right to order the ceremony for the burial of our late lord Romanus, and, furthermore, to provide for the urgent needs of this empire of Rome until the accession of our young Basileus," said Bringas, in a voice of proud command. "You, madam, for whom our late revered sovereign has made no written provision, as I am authorized to declare, may withdraw to the apartments reserved for the secluded widowhood of the relict of an autocrat of the Romans."

With a will as strong and a voice as clear, Theophano replied: "Here I, as Regent of the empire by the last will of my late beloved lord and emperor, summon the council to receive my commands. There is no great chamberlain of any dead man. The death of an emperor dissolves his council of state. Here is the testament of my lord Romanus, signed by his own hand, as these secretaries and lawyers who were present at the execution of it will testify on the sacred Gospels and the ikon of the Mother of God." And with a look of triumph and defiance Theophano held aloft the scroll, and in a firm voice read it aloud to the amazed and hesitating throng.

"A forged document!" shouted Bringas. "I know that no such testament exists. Its authenticity must be proved by something more than Gospels and ikons. Let us have this document, madam, and it shall be duly examined by the judges of the law."

The eunuch and his party advanced to wrest the parchment from the empress by force, when a new interruption arose, and another large party entered the chamber. It was the patriarch Polyeuctus, bearing the miracle-working crucifix from the high altar of the Holy Wisdom, with his canons and acolytes carrying the host. He had hastened to the palace on the news of the agony of the emperor, and was profoundly shocked to find that he had arrived too late to administer the last rites. In words of passionate grief the venerable prelate deplored the terrible calamity which had fallen on the royal house by the sudden death of the Basileus, unhouselled, unanealed, in his sins. He bitterly reproached both factions, who stood beside the untended corpse of their sovereign, contending for mastery. He listened to the claim of Bringas, he inspected the testament which Theophano still held in her clutch, and he suffered two scribes to swear on the ikon that they had heard the emperor dictate the words and had seen him sign it with his own hand.

"My children, my daughter, princes, senators, and officers of Rome," said the venerable patriarch, "it will bring down on us and on this empire the judgment of God and His Son, that we should strive for power among ourselves, while the unanointed body of our late lord lies here in its abandonment. Our first duty is to provide for the funeral rites. As to the succession to this throne, the regency of the empire, it is the appointed task of the senate and patricians to ordain these in due course of law and custom. The senate has been convoked and is now about to meet. Thither let those who have the right to sit in it repair. As I hurried past the Augusteon hither, I saw the streets filled with excited crowds of citizens. I would warn you both, who stand here in contention such as this city will not witness with any patience, that we heard no shouts of 'Long live the venerated Augusta!' nor of 'Long live the lord great chamberlain!' The only name that now echoes through our city, where men congregate and speak, is the name of Nicephorus Phocas, the ever-victorious general of the eastern armies."

The keen intellects of Theophano and of Bringas at once perceived all the risks of a popular revolution in the midst of a disputed succession; and both factions admitted the force of the patriarch's appeal, as well as the imminent peril to the state and to their own lives, if the government remained unsettled for another hour. At the meeting of the senate, which immediately followed, the eloquence and authority of the patriarch succeeded in securing a settlement which was in the nature of a compromise. Theophano was duly installed as regent during the minority of her two sons, but she was forced to accept the mighty eunuch and his confederates, the late ministers, and to reappoint them to the offices they held. Bringas saw himself thus invested with practical mastery of the state, while the patriarch and the majority of the senate supported the demand of the regent, that Nicephorus should be retained in supreme command as grand marshal of the east.

The duel between Theophano and Bringas was only withdrawn from public view; it was carried on as fiercely as ever. The Regent despatched messenger after messenger to the general to hasten his return to the capital. The eunuch, on his side, was exerting all his arts to keep the great soldier on the frontier and secretly to put him away. At the next meeting of the council, which the woman was unable to attend, prostrated as she was by the desperate efforts she had made in her delicate condition, the wily Bringas thus spoke:

"Lords of the council and ministers of state, our first duty after providing for the funeral of our late sovereign, the august autocrat now with God, will be to secure the throne of his infant children, the Basileis, to whom the succession falls of right and by his own device. Their rights are menaced by many enemies, both without and within the realm, perhaps not least by the disordered ambition of one who ought to be their most disinterested friend. But of all the disordered ambitions by which this empire is beset, the danger most urgent and imminent is to be found in the far east. A fortunate soldier, intoxicated with the favor of his emperor and--may we not say?--the smiles of his empress, has seduced the giddy populace of this city to welcome him as their idol and prepare to raise him to the very purple itself. I hold the evidence of this conspiracy to bring about a revolution and proclaim him as Basileus. The government, the dynasty itself, stands on the edge of an abyss. His triumph would mean confusion in this city, exile, confiscation--death, no doubt--for each of us. My lords, I propose a peremptory order to Nicephorus Phocas to prosecute the war towards the east, and not to come west of the Anatolian theme on pain of attainder and death."

"If this evidence is made public," said Michael, "the people will soon forsake their favorite and justify the precautions we take." And the councillors seemed ready to accept the proposal.

The wily eunuch saw his opportunity, and sought to push it home. "Indeed, my lords," he said, with an insinuating tone, "it would be wiser perhaps if we went further and secretly named some illustrious soldier with authority to supersede and arrest so dangerous a man. The late reigns of our autocrats Constantine Born-in-the-Purple, and his son, Romanus, have introduced a dangerous laxity towards treason. Time was when a popular general, suspected of rebellion, was seized and deprived of his eyesight. Methinks we should all feel our heads safer on our shoulders if the hero of the hour were treated as was Belisarius when he was degraded by the great Justinian, or as another Phocas who was justly put to death by our ancestors."

But here the eunuch overshot his mark. The arch-priest of St. George of the Stoudion vehemently protested against such language as applied to the victorious chief who had laid Islam low; and the rest of the council dreaded the fury of the people if the hero were sacrificed by his rivals. The council parted; nor could Bringas obtain from it anything more than a peremptory order to Nicephorus to prosecute the war to the borders as far as the Tigris and the Euphrates.

The astute minister was not easily beaten from his purpose, knowing, as he did, that his hold on power, and perhaps his liberty and even his life, depended on the issue. Profiting by the enforced absence of the regent, whose exertions had brought on a dangerous collapse, he inveighed at every council, in public and in private, against the ambitious schemes of the great commander of the east, and he opened secret negotiations with officers on the general's own staff. These intrigues were countermined and reported to Nicephorus by agents of Theophano, who spied out all the machinations of the eunuch. He and his partisans still believed the general to be preparing for a fresh advance into Syria; they were sitting in council in the privy chamber of the cenourgion and considering a new scheme to isolate Nicephorus from his friends, when loud shouts were heard in the streets and squares, and even from the palace itself could be seen a crowd of small craft and boats under the very walls of the Boucoleon Port. A chamberlain burst into the council-hall with the tremendous news that Nicephorus himself was in the act of landing from the Asiatic shore and was actually making his way to the palace by the new basilica built by the Emperor Basil I.

"Our agents have played us false, then," stammered Bringas, "in keeping his journey secret. But he cannot have brought his army, or even a division of it, without our knowledge."

"My lord," said the chamberlain, "we have certain intelligence that he has hurried hither by forced posts--alone, or with only a few of his personal followers."

"The Lord has delivered him into our hands!" shouted Bringas in triumph; "we will have him seized as a traitor and a rebel before he can rouse the city or gather an armed force. Put out his eyes, and he will give no more trouble!" And the swarthy countenance of the eunuch glowed with a fierce gleam, as a beast of prey that has seized his victim. The roar of the populace outside grew louder and nearer, minute by minute, and more than one councillor shrank from signing the order which Bringas had already got prepared for the executioners whose duty it was to blind prisoners with red-hot needles.

Suddenly the door of the hall was thrown open, and Nicephorus Phocas, in the military uniform of his service, burst in upon the council, attended only by his faithful Digenes and three or four other officers.

"In the name of our sovereigns, the Basileis, I order the arrest of this traitor and rebel! He is conspiring against their throne, and is defying the command of the state to remain on the Asian frontier. Guards, seize that man and bind him fast! I answer as lawful authority for this order!" said Bringas, in a voice of thunder.

"I am no traitor nor rebel!" said Nicephorus, proudly, with slow and measured utterance. "I come here as magistros and grand domestic of the eastern armies to swear allegiance to our young Basileis, and to their mother, the lawful regent by the will of our late emperor. I come to claim my right to a public triumph for my victorious campaigns in Syria against the infidel, and I come to claim my right, by the will of our late lord, to be invested as general-in-chief of the armies of the east."

"The pretexts of a traitor!" cried Bringas, fiercely. "Guards, do your duty and seize this rebel!"

Nicephorus stood almost alone in the midst of a hostile council of his enemies, supported by ministers of the state and by a strong armed force. Fearless as he was, the general now felt that his precipitate act had driven him into a veritable den of wild beasts thirsting for his blood.

Again the door opened, this time on the side of the empress's apartments, and Theophano appeared, pale as death, and hardly able to stand, with a proud gleam in her royal eyes. She was borne along by chamberlains, and attended by her own officials, and by those members of the council of state on whom she could count. She calmly moved towards the imperial throne and took her seat as president--empress and regent by undisputed right.

"My lords," she said, with dignity, "the general of the eastern armies is here by our imperial summons, to take the oath of fealty to myself as regent and to my sons, the Basileis, to be duly invested in the great command which my late lord committed to him, and to present to the people, as of old, the triumph in the Hippodrome for the victories by which he has justified his title to that high office."

"Surely, madam," the eunuch broke in, "the triumph should be adjourned until the campaign of the east is concluded. The accursed Chamdas is still unbroken. He yet holds his inner fortress of Aleppo, and it is to be seen if he will not be soon as formidable as ever."

"My lord great chamberlain and lords of the council," replied the regent, "the victories that the marshal of the east has won are the most glorious of which Rome can boast since the ages of our ancestors, Heraclius or Justinian, of pious and immortal memory. Crete has been restored to our empire after lying for a hundred and fifty years under the iron heel of the infidel. The spoil, the wealth, the stores that are the prize of war exceed anything ever yet seen in New Rome. The boundaries of the empire have been moved again east to the rivers of Mesopotamia. No captain since Belisarius has ever won such renown, and, let me remind you, such popular favor and trust. We must decree him the triumph that is his of right; for let me warn you that to refuse it, while the city is wild with excitement and our bravest troops are making their cantonments resound with shouts for their 'ever-victorious commander,' would be to imperil the security of our state, to shake the dynasty to its foundations, and, indeed, to risk the very lives of those who are known to be his public enemies." And she turned with a dangerous flash in her eyes upon the eunuch. "And for the loyalty of the lord general, my lords," she added, "I myself, Augusta and regent, am ready to answer."

Here the roar of the vast crowds around the palace, and shouts borne over sea and land, of our "Ever-victorious Nicephorus Phocas!" joined to the powerful and indeed unanswerable appeal of the empress, made the council waver, and drove dismay into the soul of Bringas. He dared no longer to resist openly, and made politic excuses while he signed the orders for the installation of the chief as generalissimo and for his immediate celebration of the triumph.

"The council has risen," said Theophano, in her grandest tone, "and the ceremony of homage to ourselves and to our sons and the installation of the grand domestic shall take place forthwith in our privy chamber," and she beckoned imperiously to Nicephorus to attend her at once.

Homage and installation were duly performed according to the ceremonial of that most ceremonious of courts. All were at last dismissed, but a secret message from the empress recalled the general to a private interview alone in her own cabinet.

He fell on his knees, and, seizing her hand in his, he kissed it with passion. Looking up to her with all the fervor with which he had ever invoked the Mother of God in his prayers, he murmured: "My queen, my savior, my good angel, you have saved my life and my honor!"

"I have saved your life, indeed, and at the risk of my own. I may die of this battle for your sake, but I shall die with joy. My hero, my lord and master, you and I are henceforth one. We will rule Rome together, side by side, or die in each other's arms."

Then Theophano bent down to the hero, as he knelt at her feet; she threw her bare arms round his neck and printed on his brow a long, melting, fervid kiss, which thrilled through the veteran to the marrow of his bones.

At this moment the curtain over the door of the cabinet was half pushed aside by a massive arm in an embroidered robe. Bringas had ventured to make a last appeal to the Regent, and had suddenly sought her in her privy cabinet.

Standing behind them, himself unseen, he watched the embrace, and stealthily withdrew without a word. It burst on the astute mind of the eunuch like a thunderclap how it was that he had been outwitted and rebuffed. He saw his own danger, and the forces arrayed against him. He was no longer dealing merely with the intrigues of a woman and the ambition of a soldier. He saw that the man and the woman, who of all Rome had the greatest influence, were now bound together in love as well as in policy. He felt how strong was the combination against him, but it made him more fiercely resolved to win in the strife.

The wild excitement of the great city would not suffer the triumph to be delayed beyond the days required to bring across from Asia picked detachments of the victorious army, the principal prisoners of war, and the trophies, spoils, and standards. The ceremonies began with a solemn Pannychid--a succession of magnificent Te Deums chanted in the great church continuously all through the night, in presence of a crowd of dignitaries, senators, officials, soldiers, and prelates, adorned in state robes, amid a blaze of lamps from a thousand chandeliers, while the ladies of the court crowded into the galleries beneath the mosaic domes of the Holy Wisdom. Then took place the triumph itself, on a scale even more magnificent than that which Nicephorus had celebrated on his return from Crete. From the country round, and from the towns on the Thracian and Asian shores and on both sides of the Bosphorus, masses of people poured in, so that the enormous city was one continuous throng from Golden Horn to Golden Gate. From early dawn the vast procession of troops on foot and on horse, of prisoners in chains, camels, horses, trophies, and gold and silver vessels, was extended along the "middle" street, which had been decorated for the occasion with wreaths, flowers, tapestries, flags, and Byzantine, or what we now call "Venetian," masts.

At length the Hippodrome was reached. On its tiers of seats up to the marble colonnades were seated one hundred thousand spectators in gala dress, according to their rank. The cataphracti or mailed cuirassiers came first, and were followed by detachments of light-armed bow-men from the Anatolian mountains, and Macedonian shield-men in close phalanx. After them advanced Thracian and Albanian spearmen, wild Scythian Cossacks, and at last a corps of Varangian battle-axe foot-soldiers of the guard. Next were led detachments of the finest Arab chargers, taken from the stable of Chamdas's own palace, with their brilliant trappings, arms, and accoutrements of gorgeous tones and Oriental fantasy of ornament. Then came the camels taken from the Saracens, bearing the embroideries, standards, pennons, carpets, tents, kettle-drums, and trumpets, with the general spoil of variegated colors and in confused mass. A wild shout arose from the benches on either side as the Hagarene captives in white tunics were driven forward; and, as they were forced to prostrate themselves in the dust before the imperial balcony, the whole circus, at the signal of the precentors of the factions, broke out into the ceremonial chant as ordained in the book of rites:

"Glory to God who has given us this triumph over the children of Hagar! Glory to God who has laid in the dust the cities of the Saracens! Glory to God who has confounded those who mock at the Mother of God!

"By the just judgment of God our enemies have been thrust down! The horse and his rider hath He cast into the sea!

"Thy right hand, O Lord, hath become glorious in power. Thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy.

"Who is like unto Thee, O Lord; who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, doing wonders?

"Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed!

"The Lord shall reign forever and ever!"

So the Te Deum rang, led by the trained choirs of the factions, each under their musical directors. The entire audience of the circus joined in, and the familiar chant was taken up by the vast crowds outside the Hippodrome, until from some hundred thousand voices in unison the song of triumph was borne across the waters far away.

It was a scene that combined the barbarous splendors of a triumph by the Scipios and Cæsars of old Rome, the fierce exultation of the tribes of Israel recorded in the book of Exodus, and the majestic pomp of a Te Deum celebrated as a religious rite with all the fervor of the Orthodox Church.

The long procession of the trophies and spoils of the Saracens of Syria and Aleppo was closed by that trophy which, to the people of Byzantium, outweighed in value all the gold and silver, the gems, the embroideries, the Damascene arms, and the enamels. This was a silver-gilt and jewelled case containing battered fragments of the camel's-hair tunic of St. John the Baptist. This inestimable relic had fallen into the hands of the infidel on the capture of the Holy City by Omar. For more than three centuries it had remained in the hands of the Hagarenes. The recovery of this precious relic had seemed to the delighted populace a glory to be placed beside the restoration of the true cross to Jerusalem by the Emperor Heraclius.[1]

[1] This holy tunic of the Baptist was kept reverentially in Constantinople for 240 years, when it became the prize of the Latin conquerors in 1204, and was carried off by Robert de Clari to the abbey of Corbie.

As the last notes of the chant died away, the hero of the hour was seen to enter the Hippodrome from the Forum of Constantine, from whence the roar of the people had already reached the expectant crowds in the circus. Nicephorus, in his golden panoply, covered with the crimson military cloak, stood in the brazen chariot of state which was drawn by four milk-white chargers led by grooms on foot. As he advanced slowly round the vast circus, the shouts of the assembly broke out with a frenzy of cheers; and the choirs took up the chant again: "Long live the ever-victorious commander! Son of God, give him many happy years! Son of God, strengthen his arm in battle! Son of God, give the victory to this Thy people of Rome! Long years to our Basileis, whose loyal servants we are! May this holy empire of Rome be preserved forever and ever!"

With these prayers to Heaven resounding in the great amphitheatre, the victorious marshal advanced to the eastern end, at which stood the cathisma, or imperial tribune, where Theophano, in her robes of state, blazing with gold brocade and jewels, sat between her two infants, the joint Basileis, Basil II. and Constantine VIII., as they were destined to become. The milk-white chargers were reined in and the car was halted at the foot of the stairs. Then Nicephorus, escorted by chamberlains and officers, both military and civil, stepped from his chariot and ascended the staircase to the imperial throne. There he ungirt his sword and laid it at the feet of the empress; and, prostrating himself on the ground, he offered his homage by kissing the fringe of her robe and by placing his hands upon the knees of the two wondering royal children.

Amid thunders of applause from the vast arena and renewed chants of "Long life to the ever-victorious commander! Long years to our august Basileis! God preserve this holy empire of Rome!"--the soldier rose to his feet. His queen beamed down on him from her jewelled throne with looks of mingled love, triumph, and admiration, that burned into his inmost soul. And as he retreated slowly backward from the royal presence he saw the cruel glare of envy and hatred which Bringas and his partisans cast on him. The smiles of the queen and the scowls of the ministers were alike full of warning and charged with destiny. If the hatred of the mighty statesman was a menace to his life, the favor of the sovereign seemed to summon him to mount to a dizzy and perilous height.

Shaken to his soul by a storm of forebodings, amazement, hope, and passion, Nicephorus drew himself free from the throng of flatterers, friends, and rivals; and, wrapping himself in a trooper's cloak, so as not to be recognized, the triumphant general had himself rapidly borne away to his own modest home in a distant quarter of the city. There, tearing off his accoutrements and all insignia of office and rank, he flung himself on his simple couch in solitary seclusion; and, falling on his knees before a small ikon of Mary, he prayed to the Mother of God to guide his steps in the dark wilderness in which he found himself entangled. Transported out of himself far above the vociferous pageants of that exhausting day, Nicephorus gave himself, with all the mystical imagination of his Oriental nature, to visions wherein he beheld the Queen of Heaven offering him a place among the blessed saints who had forsaken things of the earth for that peace which the world cannot give.