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I beg you, Hormisdas, not to doubt my power, although it may seem as though stubbornness met me on every hand. Go; and you too, Nevita, and all the rest, each to his post;—I will follow when the troops are all gathered out on the plains.

[All except the and  go out to the right.

[''After a time, rises from the stone where he has been seated and goes up to the Emperor.''] My sick brother!

Rather wounded than sick. The deer that is pierced by the hunter's shaft seeks the thicket where its fellows cannot see it. I could no longer endure to be seen in the streets of Antioch;—and now I shrink from showing myself to the army.

No one sees you, friend; for they grope in blindness. But you shall be as a physician to restore their sight, and then they shall behold you in your glory.

[Gazing down into the ravine.] How far beneath us! How tiny they seem, as they wind their way forward, amid thicket and brushwood, along the rocky river-bed!

When we stood at the mouth of this defile, all the leaders, as one man, made for the pass. It meant an hour's way shortened, a little trouble spared,—on the road to death.