Then said the usurper to the empress: “Go and see if you know this man.”
“Oh, my good lord,” said the empress, when she returned from the hall, “whom can I believe? are there, then, two Jovinians?”
“I will myself go and determine,” rejoined the usurper, as he took the empress by her hand, and, leading her into the great hall, placed her on the throne beside himself.
“Kinsfolk and nobles,” said the usurper, “by the oaths ye have sworn, determine between me and this man.”
And the empress answered: “Let me, as in duty bound, speak first. Heaven be my witness, I know not which is my lord and husband.”
Thereupon the feigned Jovinian rose and spake: “Nobles and friends, hearken! that man is your emperor and your master; hear ye him; know that he did exalt himself above that which was right, and make himself equal unto God. Verily he hath been rewarded; he hath suffered much indignity and wrong, and, of God’s will, ye knew him not; he hath repented him of his grievous sin, and the scourge is now removed; he has made such satisfaction as man can make. Hear ye him, know him, obey him.”
As the feigned emperor thus addressed the astonished nobles, his features seemed illumined with a fair and spiritual light, his imperial robes fell from off him, and he stood confessed before the assembly an angel of God, clothed in white raiment. And, as he ended his speech, he bowed his head, and vanished from their sight.
Jovinian returned to his throne, and for three years reigned with so much mercy and justice, that his subjects had no cause to regret the change of their emperor. And it came to pass, after the space of three years, the same angel appeared to him in a dream, and warned him of his death. So Jovinian dictated his troublous life to his secretaries, that it might remain as a warning unto all men against worldly pride, and an incitement to the performance of our religious duties. And when he had so done, he meekly resigned himself, and fell asleep in death.
“So much for the story, as a story; now for the moral, with all that eccentric spirit of refinement and abstraction with which the age was characterized,” said Herbert.
“The moral in this case is less eccentric than in many to which I hope we shall come before Christmas is over.”