CHAPTER 17.
THE HUNS.
More than an hour after Hermanric had left the encampment, a manhurriedly entered the house set apart for the young chieftain'soccupation. He made no attempt to kindle either light or fire, but satdown in the principal apartment, occasionally whispering to himself ina strange and barbarous tongue.
He had remained but a short time in possession of his comfortlesssolitude, when he was intruded on by a camp-follower, bearing a smalllamp, and followed closely by a woman, who, as he started up andconfronted her, announced herself as Hermanric's kinswoman, and eagerlydemanded an interview with the Goth.
Haggard and ghastly though it was from recent suffering and longagitation, the countenance of Goisvintha (for it was she) appearedabsolutely attractive as it was now opposed by the lamp-light to theface and figure of the individual she addressed. A flat nose, aswarthy complexion, long, coarse, tangled locks of deep black hair, abeardless, retreating chin, and small, savage, sunken eyes, gave acharacter almost bestial to this man's physiognomy. His broad, brawnyshoulders overhung a form that was as low in stature as it was athleticin build; you looked on him and saw the sinews of a giant strung in thebody of a dwarf. And yet this deformed Hercules was no solitary errorof Nature--no extraordinary exception to his fellow-beings, but theactual type of a whole race, stunted and repulsive as himself. He wasa Hun.
This savage people, the terror even of their barbarous neighbours,living without government, laws, or religion, possessed but one feelingin common with the human race--the instinct of war. Their historicalcareer may be said to have begun with their early conquests in China,and to have proceeded in their first victories over the Goths, whoregarded them as demons, and fled at their approach. The hostilitiesthus commenced between the two nations were at length suspended by thetemporary alliance of the conquered people with the empire, andsubsequently ceased in the gradual fusion of the interests of each inone animating spirit--detestation of Rome.
By this bond of brotherhood, the Goths and the Huns became publiclyunited, though still privately at enmity--for the one nation rememberedits former defeats as vividly as the other remembered its formervictories. With various disasters, dissensions, and successes, theyran their career of battle and rapine, sometimes separate, sometimestogether, until the period of our romance, when Alaric's besiegingforces numbered among the ranks of their barbarian auxiliaries a bodyof Huns, who, unwillingly admitted to the title of Gothic allies, weredispersed about the army in subordinate stations, and of whom theindividual above described was one of those contemptuously favoured bypromotion to an inferior command, under Hermanric, as a Gothic chief.
An expression of aversion, but not of terror, passed over Goisvintha'sworn features as she approached the barbarian, and repeated her desireto be conducted to Hermanric's presence. For the second time, however,the man gave her no answer. He burst into a shrill, short laugh, andshook his huge shoulders in clumsy derision.
The woman's cheek reddened for an instant, and then turned again tolivid paleness as she thus resumed--
'I came not hither to be mocked by a barbarian, but to be welcomed by aGoth! Again I ask you, where is my kinsman, Hermanric?'
'Gone!' cried the Hun. And his laughter grew more wild and discordantas he spoke.
A sudden tremor ran through Goisvintha's frame as she marked the mannerof the barbarian and heard his reply. Repressing with difficulty heranger and agitation, she continued, with apprehension in her eyes andentreaty in her tones--
'Whither has he gone? Wherefore has he departed? I know that the hourI appointed for our meeting here has long passed; but I have suffered asickness of many weeks, and when, at evening, I prepared to set forth,my banished infirmities seemed suddenly to return to me again. I wasborne to my bed. But, though the woman who succoured me bid me remainand repose, I found strength in the night to escape them, and throughstorm and darkness to come hither alone--for I was determined, though Ishould perish for it, to seek the presence of Hermanric, as I hadpromised by my messengers. You, that are the companion of his watch,must know whither he is gone. Go to him, and tell him what I havespoken. I will await his return!'
'His business is secret,' sneered the Hun. 'He has departed, butwithout telling me whither. How should I, that am a barbarian, knowthe whereabouts of an illustrious Goth? It is not for me to know hisactions, but to obey his words!'
'Jeer not about your obedience,' returned Goisvintha with breathlesseagerness. 'I say to you again, you know whither he is gone, and youmust tell me for what he has departed. You obey him--there is money tomake you obey me!'
'When I said his business was secret, I lied not,' said the Hun,picking up with avidity the coins she flung to him--'but he has notkept it secret from me! The Huns are cunning! Aha, ugly and cunning!'
Suspicion, the only refined emotion in a criminal heart, halfdiscovered to Goisvintha, at this moment, the intelligence that was yetto be communicated. No word, however, escaped her, while she signedthe barbarian to proceed.
'He has gone to a farm-house on the plains beyond the suburbs behindus. He will not return till daybreak,' continued the Hun, tossing hismoney carelessly in his great, horny hands.
'Did you see him go?' gasped the woman.
'I tracked him to the house,' returned the barbarian. 'For many nightsI watched and suspected him--to-night I saw him depart. It is but ashort time since I returned from following him. The darkness did notdelude me; the place is on the high-road from the suburbs--the firstby-path to the westward leads to its garden gate. I know it! I havediscovered his secret! I am more cunning than he!'
'For what did he seek the farm-house at night?' demanded Goisvinthaafter an interval, during which she appeared to be silently fixing theman's last speech in her memory; 'are you cunning enough to tell methat?'
'For what do men venture their safety and their lives, their money andtheir renown?' laughed the barbarian. 'They venture them for women!There is a girl at the farm-house; I saw her at the door when the chiefwent in!'
He paused; but Goisvintha made no answer. Remembering that she wasdescended from a race of women who slew their wounded husbands,brothers, and sons with their own hands when they sought them afterbattle dishonoured by a defeat; remembering that the fire of the oldferocity of such ancestors as these still burnt at her heart;remembering all that she had hoped from Hermanric, and had plottedagainst Antonina; estimating in all its importance the shock of theintelligence she now received, we are alike unwilling and unable todescribe her emotions at this moment. For some time the stillness inthe room was interrupted by no sounds but the rolling of the thunderwithout, the quick, convulsive respiration of Goisvintha, and theclinking of the money which the Hun still continued to tossmechanically from hand to hand.
'I shall reap good harvest of gold and silver after to-night's work,'pursued the barbarian, suddenly breaking the silence. 'You have givenme money to speak--when the chief returns and hears that I havediscovered him, he will give me money to be silent. I shall drinkto-morrow with the best men in the army, Hun though I am!'
He returned to his seat as he ceased, and began beating in monotonousmeasure, with one of his pieces of money on the blade of his sword,some chorus of a favourite drinking song; while Goisvintha, standingpale and breathless near the door of the chamber, looked down on himwith fixed, vacant eyes. At length a deep sigh broke from her; herhands involuntarily clenched themselves at her side; her lips movedwith a bitter smile; then, without addressing another word to the Hun,she turned, and softly and stealthily quitted the room.
The instant she was gone, a sudden change arose in the barbarian'smanner. He started from his seat, a scowl of savage hatred and triumphappeared on his shaggy brows, and he paced to and fro through thechamber like a wild beast in his cage. 'I shall tear him from thepinnacle of his power at last!' he whispered fiercely to himself. 'Forwhat I have told her this night, his kinswoman will hate him--I knew itwhile she spoke! For his
desertion of his post, Alaric may dishonourhim, may banish him, may hang him! His fate is at my mercy; I shallrid myself nobly of him and his command! More than all the rest of hisnation I loathe this Goth! I will be by when they drag him to thetree, and taunt him with his shame, as he has taunted me with mydeformity.' Here he paused to laugh in complacent approval of hisproject, quickening his steps and hugging himself joyfully in thebarbarous exhilaration of his triumph.
His secret meditations had thus occupied him for some time longer, whenthe sound of a footstep was audible outside the door. He recognised itinstantly, and called softly to the person without to approach. At thesignal of his voice a man entered--less athletic in build, but indeformity the very counterpart of himself. The following discourse wasthen immediately held between the two Huns, the new-comer beginning itthus:--
'Have you tracked him to the door?'
'To the very threshold.'
'Then his downfall is assured! I have seen Alaric.'
'We shall trample him under our feet!--this boy, who has been set overus that are his elders, because he is a Goth and we are Huns! But whatof Alaric? How did you gain his ear?'
'The Goths round his tent scoffed at me as a savage, and swore that Iwas begotten between a demon and a witch. But I remembered the timewhen these boasters fled from their settlements; when our tribesmounted their black steeds and hunted them like beasts! Aha, theirvery lips were pale with fear in those days.'
'Speak of Alaric--our time is short,' interrupted the other fiercely.
'I answered not a word to their taunts,' resumed his companion, 'but Icalled out loudly that I was a Gothic ally, that I brought messages toAlaric, and that I had the privilege of audience like the rest. Myvoice reached the ears of the king: he looked forth from his tent, andbeckoned me in. I saw his hatred of my nation lowering in his eye aswe looked on one another, but I spoke with submission and in a softvoice. I told him how his chieftain whom he had set over us secretlydeserted his post; I told him how we had seen his favoured warrior formany nights journeying towards the suburbs; how on this night, as onothers before, he had stolen from the encampment, and how you had goneforth to track him to his lurking-place.'
'Was the tyrant angered?'
'His cheeks reddened, and his eyes flashed, and his fingers trembledround the hilt of his sword while I spoke! When I ceased he answeredme that I lied. He cursed me for an infidel Hun who had slandered aChristian chieftain. He threatened me with hanging! I cried to him tosend messengers to our quarters to prove the truth ere he slew me. Hecommanded a warrior to return hither with me. When we arrived, themost Christian chieftain was nowhere to be beheld--none knew whither hehad gone! We turned back again to the tent of the king; his warrior,whom he honoured, spoke the same words to him as the Hun whom hedespised. Then the wrath of Alaric rose. "This very night," he cried,"did I with my own lips direct him to await my commands with vigilanceat his appointed post! I would visit such disobedience with punishmenton my own son! Go, take with you others of your troop--your comradewho has tracked him will guide you to his hiding-place--bring himprisoner into my tent!" Such were his words! Our companions wait uswithout--lest he should escape let us depart without delay.'
'And if he should resist us,' cried the other, leading the way eagerlytowards the door; 'what said the king if he should resist us?'
'Slay him with your own hands.'