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That and no less is the matter which his lips must settle. Now speak, Excellency." "Madam," I said slowly, "to the best of my wit I have considered the letter sent to me under the seal and sign of the Emperor Nicephorus.
Nicephorus was astonished by the bold and rapid march of the commander of the faithful, who repassed, in the depth of winter, the snows of Mount Taurus: his stratagems of policy and war were exhausted; and the perfidious Greek escaped with three wounds from a field of battle overspread with forty thousand of his subjects.
The body of Valens had been saved from insult; but the head of Nicephorus was exposed on a spear, and his skull, enchased with gold, was often replenished in the feasts of victory. The Greeks bewailed the dishonor of the throne; but they acknowledged the just punishment of avarice and cruelty.
"Now," he went on, waving them about in a half-drunken fashion, "this General Olaf of yours says that these are the same figs which were sent to the Caesar, I mean the blind priest, Father Nicephorus. Don't you, Olaf?" "Yes, Sire," I answered, "they were placed in that bottle in my presence and sealed with my seal." "Well, those figs were sent by me, and this Olaf tells us they are poisoned.
"You are right, your excellency, I am the abbot of the Monastery of St. Nicephorus in Antioch. But I repeat that I am assured that what I have to say is for the ear of the Empress Theodora only." The eunuch was evidently puzzled, and his curiosity aroused by the old man's persistence.
Being blind, he could not see to administer the Element, and therefore his hand was guided by one of his imperial brethren, who also had been made a priest. The tongue of this priest had been slit, but now and again he gibbered some direction into the ear of Nicephorus.
Excavations now going on at Monasterace, some ten miles further on, may decide that the town lay there. Some are in favour of the miserable village of Foca, near at hand; or of other sites. The name of Foca seems to point, rather, to a settlement of the regenerator Nicephorus Phocas.
"The lady and the Caesar," said Hereward, "as you partly heard yourself, are to meet in fight; if the Countess wins, of course she remains the wife of the noble Count of Paris; if she loses, she becomes the paramour of the Caesar Nicephorus Briennius." "Saints and angels forbid!" said Count Robert; "were they to permit such treason to triumph, we might be pardoned for doubting their divinity!"
The emperor Nicephorus, who restored for a moment the discipline and glory of the Roman name, was desirous of bestowing the honors of martyrdom on the Christians who lost their lives in a holy war against the infidels. But this political law was defeated by the opposition of the patriarch, the bishops, and the principal senators; and they strenuously urged the canons of St.
Little did I know then that ere long their fate would be his own, and that a mother's hand would deal it out to him. They caught sight of me seated beneath the tree, and chattered like startled starlings, till at length Nicephorus understood. "What say you, dear brothers?" he asked, "that the new governor of the prison is seated yonder? Well, why should we fear him?
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