CHAPTER 15.
THE CITY AND THE GODS.
We return once more to the Gothic encampment in the suburbs eastward ofthe Pincian Gate, and to Hermanric and the warriors under his command,who are still posted at that particular position on the great circle ofthe blockade.
The movements of the young chieftain from place to place expressed, intheir variety and rapidity, the restlessness that was agitating hismind. He glanced back frequently from the warriors around him to theremote and opposite quarter of the suburbs, occasionally directing hiseyes towards the western horizon, as if anxiously awaiting the approachof some particular hour of the coming night. Weary at length ofpursuing occupations which evidently irritated rather than soothed hisimpatience, he turned abruptly from his companions, and advancingtowards the city, paced slowly backwards and forwards over the wasteground between the suburbs and the walls of Rome.
At intervals he still continued to examine the scene around him. Amore dreary prospect than now met his view, whether in earth or sky,can hardly be conceived.
The dull sunless day was fast closing, and the portentous heaven gavepromise of a stormy night. Thick, black layers of shapeless cloud hungover the whole firmament, save at the western point; and here lay astreak of pale, yellow light, enclosed on all sides by the firm,ungraduated, irregular edges of the masses of gloomy vapour around it.A deep silence hung over the whole atmosphere. The wind was voicelessamong the steady trees. The stir and action in the being of nature andthe life of man seemed enthralled, suspended, stifled. The air wasladen with a burdensome heat; and all things on earth, animate andinanimate, felt the oppression that weighed on them from the higherelements. The people who lay gasping for breath in the famine-strickencity, and the blades of grass that drooped languidly on the dry swardbeyond the walls, owned the enfeebling influence alike.
As the hours wore on and night stealthily and gradually advanced, amonotonous darkness overspread, one after another, the objectsdiscernible to Hermanric from the solitary ground he still occupied.Soon the great city faded into one vast, impenetrable shadow, while thesuburbs and the low country around them vanished in the thick darknessthat gathered almost perceptibly over the earth. And now the soleobject distinctly visible was the figure of a weary sentinel, who stoodon the frowning rampart immediately above the rifted wall, and whosedrooping figure, propped upon his weapon, was indicated in hard reliefagainst the thin, solitary streak of light still shining in the coldand cloudy wastes of the western sky.
But as the night still deepened, this one space of light faded,contracted, vanished, and with it disappeared the sentinel and the lineof rampart on which he was posted. The rule of the darkness now becameuniversal. Densely and rapidly it overspread the whole city withstartling suddenness; as if the fearful destiny now working itsfulfilment in Rome had forced the external appearances of the nightinto harmony with its own woe-boding nature.
Then, as the young Goth still lingered at his post of observation, thelong, low, tremulous, absorbing roll of thunder afar off became grandlyaudible. It seemed to proceed from a distance almost incalculable; tobe sounding from its cradle in the frozen north; to be journeying aboutits ice-girdled chambers in the lonely poles. It deepened rather thaninterrupted the dreary, mysterious stillness of the atmosphere. Thelightning, too, had a summer softness in its noiseless and frequentgleam. It was not the fierce lightning of winter, but a warm, fitfulbrightness, almost fascinating in its light, rapid recurrence, tingedwith the glow of heaven, and not with the glare of hell.
There was no wind--no rain; and the air was as hushed as if it sleptover chaos in the infancy of a new creation.
Among the various objects displayed, instant by instant, by the rapidlightning to the eyes of Hermanric, the most easily and most distinctlyvisible was the broad surface of the rifted wall. The large, loosestones, scattered here and there at its base, and the overhanging lidof its broad rampart, became plainly though fitfully apparent in thebrief moments of their illumination. The lightning had played for sometime over that structure of the fortifications, and the bare groundthat stretched immediately beyond them, when the smooth prospect whichit thus gave by glimpses to view, was suddenly chequered by a flight ofbirds appearing from one of the lower divisions of the wall, andflitting uneasily to and fro at one spot before its surface.
As moment after moment the lightning continued to gleam, so the blackforms of the birds were visible to the practised eye of theGoth--perceptible, yet evanescent, as sparks of fire or flakes ofsnow--whirling confusedly and continually about the spot whence theyhad evidently been startled by some unimaginable interruption. Atlength, after a lapse of some time, they vanished as suddenly as theyhad appeared, with shrill notes of affright which were audible evenabove the continuous rolling of the thunder; and immediatelyafterwards, when the lightning alternated with the darkness, thereappeared to Hermanric, in the part of the wall where the birds had beenfirst disturbed, a small red gleam, like a spark of fire lodged in thesurface of the structure. Then this was lost; a longer obscurity thanusual prevailed in the atmosphere, and when the Goth gazed eagerlythrough the next succession of flashes, they showed him the momentaryand doubtful semblance of a human figure, standing erect on the stonesat the base of the wall.
Hermanric started with astonishment. Again the lightning ceased. Inthe ardour of his anxiety to behold more, he strained his eyes with thevain hope of penetrating the obscurity around him. The darkness seemedinterminable. Once again the lightning flashed brilliantly out. Helooked eagerly towards the wall--the figure was still there.
His heart throbbed quickly within him, as he stood irresolute on thespot he had occupied since the first peal of thunder had struck uponhis ear. Were the light and the man--one seen but for an instant, theother still perceptible--mere phantoms of his erring sight, dazzled bythe quick recurrence of atmospheric changes through which it had acted?Or did he indubitably behold a human form, and had he really observed amaterial light? Some strange treachery, some dangerous mystery mightbe engendering in the besieged city, which it would be his duty toobserve and unmask. He drew his sword, and, at the risk of beingobserved through the lightning, and heard during the pauses in thethunder, by the sentinel on the wall, resolutely advanced to the veryfoot of the fortifications of hostile Rome.
He heard no sound, perceived no light, observed no figure, as, afterseveral unsuccessful attempts to reach the place where they stood, heat length paused at the loose stones which he knew were heaped at thebase of the wall. The next moment he was so close to it, that he couldpass his sword-point over parts of its rugged surface. He had scarcelyexamined thus a space of more than ten yards, before his weaponencountered a sharp, jagged edge; and a sudden presentiment assured himinstantly that he had found the spot where he had beheld the momentarylight, and that he stood on the same stone which had been occupied bythe figure of the man.
After an instant's hesitation, he was about to mount higher on theloose stones, and examine more closely the irregularity he had justdiscovered in the wall, when a vivid flash of lightning, unusuallyprolonged, showed him, obstructing at scarcely a yard's distance hisonward path, the figure he had already distantly beheld from the plainbehind.
There was something inexpressibly fearful in his viewless vicinity,during the next moment of darkness, to this silent, mysterious form, soimperfectly shown by the lightning that quivered over its half-revealedproportions. Every pulse in the body of the Goth seemed to pause as hestood, with ready weapon, looking into the gloomy darkness, and waftingfor the next flash. It came, and displayed to him the man's fierceeyes glaring steadily down upon his face; another gleam, and he beheldhis haggard finger placed upon his lip in token of silence; a third,and he saw the arm of the figure pointing towards the plain behind him;and then in the darkness that followed, a hot breath played upon hisear, and a voice whispered to him, through a pause in the rolling ofthe thunder--'Follow me.'
The next instant Hermanric felt the momentary
contact of the man'sbody, as with noiseless steps he passed him on the stones. It was notime to deliberate or to doubt. He followed close upon the stranger'sfootsteps, gaining glimpses of his dark form moving onward before,whenever the lightning briefly illuminated the scene, until theyarrived at a clump of trees, not far distant from the houses in thesuburbs that were occupied by the Goths under his own command.
Here the stranger paused before the trunk of a tree which stood betweenthe city wall and himself, and drew from beneath his ragged cloak asmall lantern, carefully covered with a piece of cloth, which he nowremoved, and holding the light high above his head, regarded the Gothwith a steady and anxious scrutiny.
Hermanric attempted to address him first, but the appearance of theman, barely visible though it was by the feeble light of his lantern,was so startling and repulsive, that the half-formed words died away onhis lips. The face of the stranger was of a ghastly paleness; hishollow cheeks were seamed with deep wrinkles; and his eyes glared withan expression of ferocious suspicion. One of his arms was covered withold bandages, stiff with coagulated blood, and hung paralysed at hisside. The hand that held the light trembled, so that the lanterncontaining it vibrated continuously in his unsteady grasp. His limbswere lank and shrivelled almost to deformity, and it was with evidentdifficulty that he stood upright on his feet. Every member of his bodyseemed to be wasting with a gradual death, while his expression, ardentand forbidding, was stamped with all the energy of manhood, and all thedaring of youth.
It was Ulpius! The wall was passed! The breach was made good!
After a protracted examination of Hermanric's countenance and attire,the man, with an imperious expression, strangely at variance with hisfaltering voice, thus addressed him:--
'You are a Goth?'
'I am,' rejoined the young chief; 'and you are--'
'A friend of the Goths,' was the quick answer.
An instant of silence followed. The dialogue was then again begun bythe stranger.
'What brought you alone to the base of the ramparts?' he demanded, andan expression of ungovernable apprehension shot from his eyes as hespoke.
'I saw the appearance of a man in the gleam of the lightning,' answeredHermanric. 'I approached it, to assure myself that my eyes had notdeluded me, to discover--'
'There is but one man of your nation who shall discover whence I cameand what I would obtain,' interrupted the stranger fiercely; 'that manis Alaric, your king.'
Surprise, indignation, and contempt appeared in the features of theGoth, as he listened to such a declaration from the helpless outcastbefore him. The man perceived it, and motioning him to be silent,again addressed him.
'Listen!' cried he. 'I have that to reveal to the leader of yourforces which will stir the heart of every man in your encampment, ifyou are trusted with the secret after your king has heard it from mylips! Do you still refuse to guide me to his tent?'
Hermanric laughed scornfully.
'Look on me,' pursued the man, bending forward, and fixing his eyeswith savage earnestness upon his listener's face. 'I am alone, old,wounded, weak,--a stranger to your nation,--a famished and a helplessman! Should I venture into your camp--should I risk being slain for aRoman by your comrades--should I dare the wrath of your imperious rulerwithout a cause?'
He paused; and then, still keeping his eyes on the Goth, continued inlower and more agitated tones--
'Deny me your help, I will wander through your camp till I find yourking! Imprison me, your violence will not open my lips! Slay me, youwill gain nothing by my death! But aid me, and to the latest moment ofyour life you will rejoice in the deed! I have words of terribleimport for Alaric's ear,--a secret in the gaining of which I have paidthe penalty thus!'
He pointed to his wounded arm. The solemnity of his voice, the roughenergy of his words, the stern determination of his aspect, thedarkness of the night that was round them, the rolling thunder thatseemed to join itself to their discourse, the impressive mystery oftheir meeting under the city walls, all began to exert their powerfuland different influences over the mind of the Goth, changing insensiblythe sentiments at first inspired in him by the man's communications.He hesitated, and looked round doubtfully towards the lines of the camp.
There was a long silence, which was again interrupted by the stranger.
'Guard me, chain me, mock at me if you will,' he cried, with raisedvoice and flashing eyes, 'but lead me to Alaric's tent! I swear to youby the thunder pealing over our heads, that the words I would speak tohim will be more precious in his eyes than the brightest jewel he couldravish from the coffers of Rome.'
Though visibly troubled and impressed, Hermanric still hesitated.
'Do you yet delay?' exclaimed the man, with contemptuous impatience.'Stand back! I will pass on by myself into the very heart of yourcamp! I entered on my project alone--I will work its fulfilment withouthelp! Stand back!'
And he moved past Hermanric in the direction of the suburbs, with thesame look of fierce energy on his withered features which had markedthem so strikingly at the outset of his extraordinary interview withthe young chieftain.
The daring devotion to his purpose, the reckless toiling after adangerous and doubtful success, manifested in the words and actions ofone so feeble and unaided as the stranger, aroused in the Goth thatsentiment of irrepressible admiration which the union of moral andphysical courage inevitably awakens. In addition to the incentive toaid the man thus created, an ardent curiosity to discover his secretfilled the mind of Hermanric, and further powerfully inclined him toconduct his determined companion into Alaric's presence--for by suchproceeding only could he hope, after the man's firm declaration that hewould communicate in the first instance to no one but the king, topenetrate ultimately the object of his mysterious errand. Animated,therefore, by such motives as these, he called to the stranger to stop,and briefly communicated to him his willingness to conduct himinstantly to the presence of the leader of the Goths.
The man intimated by a sign his readiness to accept the offer. Hisphysical powers were now evidently fast failing, but he still totteredpainfully onward as they moved to the headquarters of the camp,muttering and gesticulating to himself almost incessantly. Once onlydid he address his conductor during their progress; and then with astartling abruptness of manner, and in tones of vehement anxiety andsuspicion, he demanded of the young Goth if he had ever examined thesurface of the city wall before that night. Hermanric replied in thenegative; and they then proceeded in perfect silence.
Their way lay through the line of encampment to the westward, and wasimperfectly lighted by the flame of an occasional torch or the glow ofa distant watch-fire. The thunder had diminished in frequency, but hadincreased in volume; faint breaths of wind soared up fitfully from thewest, and already a few raindrops fell slowly to the thirsty earth.The warriors not actually on duty at the different posts of observationhad retired to the shelter of their tents; none of the thousand idlersand attendants attached to the great army appeared at their usualhaunts; even the few voices that were audible sounded distant and low.The night-scene here, among the ranks of the invaders of Italy, was asgloomy and repelling as on the solitary plains before the walls of Rome.
Ere long the stranger perceived that they had reached a part of thecamp more thickly peopled, more carefully illuminated, more stronglyfortified, than that through which they had already passed; and theliquid, rushing sound of the waters of the rapid Tiber now caught hissuspicious and attentive ear. They still moved onward a few yards; andthen paused suddenly before a tent, immediately surrounded by manyothers, and occupied at all its approaches by groups of richly-armedwarriors. Here Hermanric stopped an instant to parley with thesentinel, who, after a short delay, raised the outer covering of theentrance to the tent, and the moment after the Roman adventurer beheldhimself standing by his conductor's side in the presence of the Gothicking.
The interior of Alaric's tent was lined with skins, and illuminated byone small lamp, fast
ened to the centre pole that supported its roof.The only articles of furniture in the place were some bundles of fursflung down loosely on the ground, and a large, rudely-carved woodenchest, on which stood a polished human skull, hollowed into a sort ofclumsy wine-cup. A thoroughly Gothic ruggedness of aspect, a statelyNorthern simplicity prevailed over the spacious tent, and was indicatednot merely in its thick shadows, its calm lights, and its freedom frompomp and glitter, but even in the appearance and employment of itsremarkable occupant.
Alaric was seated alone on the wooden chest already described,contemplating with bent brow and abstracted gaze some old Runiccharacters, traced upon the carved surface of a brass and silvershield, full five feet high, which rested against the side of the tent.The light of the lamp falling upon the polished surface of theweapon--rendered doubly bright by the dark skins behind it--wasreflected back upon the figure of the Goth chief. It glowed upon hisample cuirass; it revealed his firm lips, slightly curled by anexpression of scornful triumph; it displayed the grand, muscularformation of his arm, which rested--clothed in tightly-fittingleather--upon his knee; it partly brightened over his short, lighthair, and glittered steadily in his fixed, thoughtful, manly eyes,which were just perceptible beneath the partial shadow of hiscontracted brow; while it left the lower part of his body and his righthand, which was supported on the head of a huge, shaggy dog couching athis side, shadowed almost completely by the thick skins heapedconfusedly against the sides of the wooden chest. He was so completelyabsorbed in the contemplation of the Runic characters, traced among thecarved figures on his immense shield, that he did not notice the entryof Hermanric and the stranger until the growl of the watchful dogsuddenly disturbed him in his occupation. He looked up instantly, hisquick, penetrating glance dwelling for a moment on the young chieftain,and then resting steadily and inquiringly on his companion's feeble andmutilated form.
Accustomed to the military brevity and promptitude exacted by hiscommander in all communications addressed to him by his inferiors,Hermanric, without waiting to be interrogated or attempting to prefaceor excuse his narrative, shortly related the conversation that hadtaken place between the stranger and himself on the plain near thePincian Gate; and then waited respectfully to receive the commendationor incur the rebuke of the king, as the chance of the moment mighthappen to decide.
After again fixing his eyes in severe scrutiny on the person of theRoman, Alaric spoke to the young warrior in the Gothic language thus:--
'Leave the man with me--return to your post, and there await whatevercommands it may be necessary that I should despatch to you to-night.'
Hermanric immediately departed. Then, addressing the stranger for thefirst time, and speaking in the Latin language, the Gothic leaderbriefly and significantly intimated to his unknown visitant that theywere now alone.
The man's parched lips moved, opened, quivered; his wild, hollow eyesbrightened till they absolutely gleamed, but he seemed incapable ofuttering a word; his features became horribly convulsed, the foamgathered about his lips, he staggered forward and would have fallen tothe ground, had not the king instantly caught him in his strong grasp,and placed him on the wooden chest that he had hitherto occupiedhimself.
'Can a starving Roman have escaped from the beleaguered city?' mutteredAlaric, as he took the skull cup, and poured some of the wine itcontained down the stranger's throat.
The liquor was immediately successful in restoring composure to theman's features and consciousness to his mind. He raised himself fromthe seat, dashed off the cold perspiration that overspread hisforehead, and stood upright before the king--the solitary, powerlessold man before the vigorous lord of thousands, in the midst of hiswarriors--without a tremor in his steady eye or a prayer for protectionon his haughty lip.
'I, a Roman,' he began, 'come from Rome, against which the invader warswith the weapon of famine, to deliver the city, her people, herpalaces, and her treasures into the hands of Alaric the Goth.'
The king started, looked on the speaker for a moment, and then turnedfrom him in impatience and contempt.
'I lie not,' pursued the enthusiast, with a calm dignity that affectedeven the hardy sensibilities of the Gothic hero. 'Eye me again! CouldI come starved, shrivelled, withered thus from any place but Rome?Since I quitted the city an hour has hardly passed, and by the way thatI left it the forces of the Goths may enter it to-night.'
'The proof of the harvest is in the quantity of the grain, not in thetongue of the husbandman. Show me your open gates, and I will believethat you have spoken truth,' retorted the king, with a rough laugh.
'I betray the city,' resumed the man sternly, 'but on one condition;grant it me, and--'
'I will grant you your life,' interrupted Alaric haughtily.
'My life!' cried the Roman, and his shrunken form seemed to expand, andhis tremulous voice to grow firm and steady in the very bitterness ofhis contempt, as he spoke. 'My life! I ask it not of your power! Thewreck of my body is scarce strong enough to preserve it to me a singleday! I have no home, no loves, no friends, no possessions! I live inRome a solitary in the midst of the multitude, a pagan in a city ofapostates! What is my life to me? I cherish it but for the service ofthe gods, whose instruments of vengeance against the nation that hasdenied them I would make you and your hosts! If you slay me, it is asign to me from them that I am worthless in their cause. I shall diecontent.'
He ceased. The king's manner, as he listened to him, gradually lostthe bluntness and carelessness that had hitherto characterised it, andassumed an attention and a seriousness more in accordance with his highstation and important responsibilities. He began to regard thestranger as no common renegade, no ordinary spy, no shallow impostor,who might be driven from his tent with disdain; but as a man importantenough to be heard, and ambitious enough to be distrusted.Accordingly, he resumed the seat from which he had risen during theinterview, and calmly desired his new ally to explain the condition, onthe granting of which depended the promised betrayal of the city ofRome.
The pain-worn and despondent features of Ulpius became animated by aglow of triumph as he heard the sudden mildness and moderation of theking's demand; he raised his head proudly, and advanced a few steps, ashe thus loudly and abruptly resumed:--
'Assure to me the overthrow of the Christian churches, theextermination of the Christian priests, and the universal revival ofthe worship of the gods, and this night shall make you master of thechief city of the empire you are labouring to subvert!'
The boldness, the comprehensiveness, the insanity of wickednessdisplayed in such a proposition, and emanating from such a source, soastounded the mind of Alaric, as to deprive him for the moment ofspeech. The stranger, perceiving his temporary inability to answerhim, broke the silence which ensued and continued--
'Is my condition a hard one? A conqueror is all-powerful; he canoverthrow the worship, as he can overthrow the government of a nation.What matters it to you, while empire, renown, and treasure are yours,what deities the people adore? Is it a great price to pay for an easyconquest, to make a change which threatens neither your power, yourfame, nor your wealth? Do you marvel that I desire from you such arevolution as this? I was born for the gods, in their service Iinherited rank and renown, for their cause I have suffered degradationand woe, for their restoration I will plot, combat, die! Assure methen by oath, that with a new rule you will erect our ancient worship,and through my secret inlet to the city I will introduce men enough ofthe Goths to murder with security the sentinels at the guard-houses,and open the gates of Rome to the numbers of your whole invadingforces. Think not to despise the aid of a man unprotected and unknown!The citizens will never yield to your blockade; you shrink from riskingthe dangers of an assault; the legions of Ravenna are reported on theirway hitherward. Outcast as I am, I tell it to you here, in the midstof your camp--your speediest assurance of success rests on my discoveryand on me!'
The king started suddenly from his seat. 'What fool or madman!' hecried,
fixing his eyes in furious scorn and indignation on thestranger's face, 'prates to me about the legions of Ravenna and thedangers of an assault! Think you, renegade, that your city could haveresisted me had I chosen to storm it on the first day when I encampedbefore its walls? Know you that your effeminate soldiery have laidaside the armour of their ancestors, because their puny bodies are toofeeble to bear its weight, and that the half of my army here treblesthe whole number of the guards of Rome? Now, while you stand beforeme, I have but to command, and the city shall be annihilated with fireand sword, without the aid of one of the herd of traitors coweringbeneath the shelter of its ill-defended walls!'
As Alaric spoke thus, some invisible agency seemed to crush, body andmind, the lost wretch whom he addressed. The shock of such an answeras he now heard seemed to strike him idiotic, as a flash of lightningstrikes with blindness. He regarded the king with a bewildered stare,waving his hand tremulously backwards and forwards before his face, asif to clear some imaginary darkness off his eyes; then his arm fellhelpless by his side, his head drooped upon his breast, and he moanedout in low, vacant tones, 'The restoration of the gods--that is thecondition of conquest--the restoration of the gods!'
'I come not hither to be the tool of a frantic and forgottenpriesthood,' cried Alaric disdainfully. 'Wherever I meet with youraccursed idols I will melt them down into armour for my warriors andshoes for my horses; I will turn your temples into granaries and cutyour images of wood into billets for the watchfires of my hosts!'
'Slay me and be silent!' groaned the man, staggering back against theside of the tent, and shrinking under the merciless words of the Gothlike a slave under the lash.
'I leave the shedding of such blood as yours to your fellow Romans,'answered the king; 'they alone are worthy of the deed.'
No syllable of reply now escaped the stranger's lips, and after aninterval of silence Alaric resumed, in tones divested of their formerfiery irritation, and marked by a solemn earnestness that conferredirresistible dignity and force on every word that he uttered.
'Behold the characters engraven there!' said he, pointing to theshield; 'they trace the curse denounced by Odin against the greatoppressor, Rome! Once these words made part of the worship of ourfathers; the worship has long since vanished, but the words remain;they seal the eternal hatred of the people of the North to the peopleof the South; they contain the spirit of the great destiny that hasbrought me to the walls of Rome. Citizen of a fallen empire, themeasure of your crimes is full! The voice of a new nation callsthrough me for the freedom of the earth, which was made for man, andnot for Romans! The rule that your ancestors won by strength theirposterity shall no longer keep by fraud. For two hundred years, hollowand unlasting truces have alternated with long and bloody wars betweenyour people and mine. Remembering this, remembering the wrongs of theGoths in their settlements in Thrace, the murder of the Gothic youthsin the towns of Asia, the massacre of the Gothic hostages in Aquileia,I come--chosen by the supernatural decrees of Heaven--to assure thefreedom and satisfy the wrath of my nation, by humbling at its feet thepower of tyrannic Rome! It is not for battle and bloodshed that I amencamped before yonder walls. It is to crush to the earth, by famineand woe, the pride of your people and the spirit of your rulers; totear from you your hidden wealth, and to strip you of your boastedhonour; to overthrow by oppression the oppressors of the world; to denyyou the glories of a resistance, and to impose on you the shame of asubmission. It is for this that I now abstain from storming your city,to encircle it with an immovable blockade!'
As the declaration of his great mission burst thus from the lips of theGothic king, the spirit of his lofty ambition seemed to diffuse itselfover his outward form. His noble stature, his fine proportions, hiscommanding features, became invested with a simple, primeval grandeur.Contrasted as he now was with the shrunken figure of the spirit-brokenstranger, he looked almost sublime.
A succession of protracted shuddering ran through the Pagan's frame,but he neither wept nor spoke. The unavailing defence of the Temple ofSerapis, the defeated revolution at Alexandria, and the abortiveintrigue with Vetranio, were now rising on his memory, to heighten thehorror of his present and worst overthrow. Every circumstanceconnected with his desperate passage through the rifted wall revived,fearfully vivid, on his mind. He remembered all the emotions of hisfirst night's labour in the darkness, all the miseries of his secondnight's torture under the fallen brickwork, all the woe, danger, anddespondency that accompanied his subsequent toil--persevered in underthe obstructions of a famine-weakened body and a helpless arm--until hepassed, in delusive triumph, the last of the hindrances in thelong-laboured breach. One after another these banished recollectionsreturned to his memory as he listened to Alaric's rebukingwords--reviving past infirmities, opening old wounds, inflicting newlacerations. But, saving the shudderings that still shook his body, nooutward witness betrayed the inward torment that assailed him. It wastoo strong for human words, too terrible for human sympathy;--hesuffered it in brute silence. Monstrous as was his plot, the moralpunishment of its attempted consummation was severe enough to be worthyof the projected crime.
After watching the man for a few minutes more, with a glance ofpitiless disdain, Alaric summoned one of the warriors in attendance;and, having previously commanded him to pass the word to the sentinels,authorising the stranger's free passage through the encampment, he thenturned, and, for the last time, addressed him as follows:--
'Return to Rome, through the hole whence, reptile-like, youemerged!--and feed your starving citizens with the words you have heardin the barbarian's tent!'
The guard approached, led him from the presence of the king, issued thenecessary directions to the sentinels, and left him to himself. Oncehe raised his eyes in despairing appeal to the heaven that frowned overhis head; but still, no word, or tear, or groan, escaped him. He movedslowly on through the thick darkness; and turning his back on the city,passed, careless whither he strayed, into the streets of the desolateand dispeopled suburbs.