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.