CHAPTER 18.
THE FARM-HOUSE.
As the night still advanced, so did the storm increase. On the plainsin the open country its violence was most apparent. Here no livingvoices jarred with the dreary music of the elements; no flaming torchesopposed the murky darkness or imitated the glaring lightning. Thethunder pursued uninterruptedly its tempest symphony, and the fiercewind joined it, swelling into wild harmony when it rushed through thetrees, as if in their waving branches it struck the chords of a mightyharp.
In the small chamber of the farm-house sat together Hermanric andAntonina, listening in speechless attention to the increasing tumult ofthe storm.
The room and its occupants were imperfectly illuminated by the flame ofa smouldering wood fire. The little earthenware lamp hung from itsusual place in the ceiling, but its oil was exhausted and its light wasextinct. An alabaster vase of fruit lay broken by the side of thetable, from which it had fallen unnoticed to the floor. No otherarticles of ornament appeared in the apartment. Hermanric's downcasteyes and melancholy, unchanging expressions betrayed the gloomyabstraction in which he was absorbed. With one hand clasped in his,and the other resting with her head on his shoulder, Antonina listenedattentively to the alternate rising and falling of the wind. Herbeauty had grown fresher and more woman-like during her sojourn at thefarm-house. Cheerfulness and hope seemed to have gained at length allthe share in her being assigned to them by nature at her birth. Evenat this moment of tempest and darkness there was more of wonder and awethan of agitation and affright in her expression, as she sathearkening, with flushed cheek and brightened eye, to the progress ofthe nocturnal storm.
Thus engrossed by their thoughts, Hermanric and Antonina remainedsilent in their little retreat, until the reveries of both weresuddenly interrupted by the snapping asunder of the bar of wood whichsecured the door of the room, the stress of which, as it bent under therepeated shocks of the wind, the rotten spar was too weak to sustainany longer. There was something inexpressibly desolate in the flood ofrain, wind, and darkness that seemed instantly to pour into the chamberthrough the open door, as it flew back violently on its frail hinges.Antonina changed colour, and shuddered involuntarily, as Hermanrichastily rose and closed the door again, by detaching its rude latchfrom the sling which held it when not wanted for use. He looked roundthe room as he did so for some substitute for the broken bar, butnothing that was fit for the purpose immediately met his eye, and hemuttered to himself as he returned impatiently to his seat: 'While weare here to watch it the latch is enough; it is new and strong.'
He seemed on the point of again relapsing into his former gloom, whenthe voice of Antonina arrested his attention, and aroused him for themoment from his thoughts.
'Is it in the power of the tempest to make you, a warrior of a race ofheroes, thus sorrowful and sad?' she asked, in accents of gentlereproach. 'Even I, as I look on these walls that are so eloquent of myhappiness, and sit by you whose presence makes that happiness, canlisten to the raging storm, and feel no heaviness over my heart! Whatis there to either of us in the tempest that should oppress us withgloom? Does not the thunder come from the same heaven as the sunshineof the summer day? You are so young, so generous, so brave,--you haveloved, and pitied, and succoured me,--why should the night language ofthe sky cast such sorrow and such silence over you?'
'It is not from sorrow that I am silent,' replied Hermanric, with aconstrained smile, 'but from weariness with much toil in the camp.'
He stifled a sigh as he spoke. His head returned to its old downcastposition. The struggle between his assumed carelessness and his realinquietude was evidently unequal. As she looked fixedly on him, withthe vigilant eye of affection, the girl's countenance saddened withhis. She nestled closer to his side and resumed the discourse inanxious and entreating tones.
'It is haply the strife between our two nations which has separated usalready, and may separate us again, that thus oppresses you,' said she;'but think, as I do, of the peace that must come, and not of thewarfare that now is. Think of the pleasures of our past days, and ofthe happiness of our present moments,--thus united, thus living,loving, hoping for each other; and, like me, you will doubt not of thefuture that is in preparation for us both! The season of tranquillitymay return with the season of spring. The serene heaven will then bereflected on a serene country and a happy people; and in those days ofsunshine and peace, will any hearts among all the glad population bemore joyful than ours?'
She paused a moment. Some sudden thought or recollection heightenedher colour and caused her to hesitate ere she proceeded. She was aboutat length to continue, when a peal of thunder, louder than any whichhad preceded it, burst threateningly over the house and drowned thefirst accents of her voice. The wind moaned loudly, the rain splashedagainst the door, the latch rattled long and sharply in its socket.Once more Hermanric rose from his seat, and approaching the fire,placed a fresh log of wood upon the dying embers. His dejection seemednow to communicate itself to Antonina, and as he reseated himself byher side, she did not address him again.
Thoughts, dreary and appalling beyond any that had occupied it before,were rising in the mind of the Goth. His inquietude at the encampmentin the suburbs was tranquillity itself compared to the gloom which nowoppressed him. All the evaded dues of his nation, his family, and hiscalling; all the suppressed recollections of the martial occupation hehad slighted, and the martial enmities he had disowned, now revivedavengingly in his memory. Yet, vivid as these remembrances were, theyweakened none of those feelings of passionate devotion to Antonina bywhich their influence within him had hitherto been overcome. Theyexisted with them--the old recollections with the new emotions--thestern rebukings of the warrior's nature with the anxious forebodings ofthe lover's heart. And now, his mysterious meeting with Ulpius;Goisvintha's unexpected return to health; the dreary rising and furiousprogress of the night tempest, began to impress his superstitious mindas a train of unwonted and meaning incidents, destined to mark thefatal return of his kinswoman's influence over his own actions andAntonina's fate.
One by one, his memory revived with laborious minuteness every incidentthat had attended his different interviews with the Roman girl, fromthe first night when she had strayed into his tent to the last happyevening that he had spent with her at the deserted farm-house. Thentracing further backwards the course of his existence, he figured tohimself his meeting with Goisvintha among the Italian Alps; hispresence at the death of her last child, and his solemn engagement, onhearing her recital of the massacre at Aquileia, to avenge her on theRomans with his own hands. Roused by these opposite pictures of thepast, his imagination peopled the future with images of Antonina againendangered, afflicted, and forsaken; with visions of the impatientarmy, spurred at length into ferocious action, making universal havocamong the people of Rome, and forcing him back for ever into theiravenging ranks. No decision for resistance or resignation to flightpresented itself to his judgment. Doubt, despair, and apprehensionheld unimpeded sway over his impressible but inactive faculties. Thenight itself, as he looked forth on it, was not more dark; the wildthunder, as he listened to it, not more gloomy; the name of Goisvintha,as he thought on it, not more ominous of evil, than the sinistervisions that now startled his imagination and oppressed his weary mind.
There was something indescribably simple, touching, and eloquent in thevery positions of Hermanric and Antonina as they now sat together--theonly members of their respective nations who were united in affectionand peace--in the lonely farm-house. Both the girl's hands wereclasped over Hermanric's shoulder, and her head rested on them, turnedfrom the door towards the interior of the room, and so displaying herrich, black hair in all its luxuriance. The head of the Goth was stillsunk on his breast, as though he were wrapped in a deep sleep, and hishands hung listlessly side by side over the scabbard of his sheathedsword, which lay across his knees. The fire flamed only at intervals,the fresh log that had been placed on it not having been thor
oughlykindled as yet. Sometimes the light played on the white folds ofAntonina's dress; sometimes over the bright surface of Hermanric'scuirass, which he had removed and laid by his side on the ground;sometimes over his sword, and his hands, as they rested on it; but itwas not sufficiently powerful or lasting to illuminate the room, thewalls and corners of which it left in almost complete darkness.
The thunder still pealed from without, but the rain and wind hadpartially lulled. The night hours had moved on more swiftly than ournarrative of the events that marked them. It was now midnight.
No sound within the room reached Antonina's ear but the quick rattlingof the door-latch, shaken in its socket by the wind. As one by one themoments journeyed slowly onward, it made its harsh music with asmonotonous a regularity as though it were moved by their progress, andkept pace with their eternal march. Gradually the girl found herselflistening to this sharp, discordant sound, with all the attention shecould have bestowed at other times on the ripple of a distant rivuletor the soothing harmony of a lute, when, just as it seemed adaptingitself most easily to her senses, it suddenly ceased, and the nextinstant a gust of wind, like that which had rushed through the opendoor on the breaking of the rotten bar, waved her hair about her faceand fluttered the folds of her light, loose dress. She raised her headand whispered tremulously to Hermanric--
'The door is open again--the latch has given way!'
The Goth started from his reverie and looked up hastily. At thatinstant the rattling of the latch recommenced as suddenly as it hadceased, and the air of the room recovered its former tranquillity.
'Calm yourself, beloved one,' said Hermanric gently; 'your fancy hasmisled you--the door is safe.'
He parted back her dishevelled hair caressingly as he spoke. Incapableof doubting the lightest word that fell from his lips, and hearing nosuspicious or unwonted sound in the room, she never attempted tojustify her suspicions. As she again rested her head on his shoulder,a vague misgiving oppressed her heart, and drew from her anirrepressible sigh; but she gave her apprehensions no expression inwords. After listening for a moment more to assure himself of thesecurity of the latch, the Goth resumed insensibly the contemplationsfrom which he had been disturbed; once more his head drooped, and againhis hands returned mechanically to their old listless position, side byside, on the scabbard of his sword.
The faint, fickle flames still rose and fell, gleaming here and sinkingthere, the latch sounded sharply in its socket, the thunder yet utteredits surly peal, but the wind was now subsiding into fainter moans, andthe rain began to splash faintly and more faintly against the shutterswithout. To the watchers in the farm-house nothing was altered to theeye, and little to the ear. Fatal security! The last few minutes haddarkly determined their future destinies--in the loved and cherishedretreat they were now no longer alone.
They heard no stealthy footsteps pacing round their dwelling, they sawno fierce eyes peering into the interior of the farm-house through achink in the shutters, they marked no dusky figure passing through thesoftly and quickly opened door, and gliding into the darkest corner ofthe room. Yet, now as they sat together, communing in silence withtheir young, sad hearts, the threatening figure of Goisvintha stood,shrouded in congenial darkness, under their protecting roof and intheir beloved chamber, rising still and silent almost at their verysides.
Though the fire of her past fever had raged again through her veins,and though startling visions of the murders at Aquileia had flashedbefore her mind as the wild lightning before her eyes, she had tracedher way through the suburbs and along the high-road, and down thelittle path to the farm-house gate, without straying, withouthesitating. Regardless of the darkness and the storm, she had prowledabout the house, had raised the latch, had waited for a loud peal ofthunder ere she passed the door, and had stolen shadow-like into thedarkest corner of the room, with a patience and a determination thatnothing could disturb. And now, when she stood at the goal of her worstwishes, even now, when she looked down upon the two beings by whom shehad been thwarted and deceived, her fierce self-possession did notdesert her; her lips quivered over her locked teeth, her bosom heavedbeneath her drenched garments, but neither sighs nor curses, not even asmile of triumph or a movement of anger escaped her.
She never looked at Antonina; her eyes wandered not for a moment fromHermanric's form. The quickest, faintest gleam of firelight thatgleamed over it was followed through its fitful course by her eagerglance, rapid and momentary as itself. Soon her attention was fixedwholly upon his hands, as they lay over the scabbard of his sword; andthen, slowly and obscurely, a new and fatal resolution sprung up withinher. The various emotions pictured in her face became resolved intoone sinister expression, and, without removing her eyes from the Goth,she slowly drew from the bosom-folds of her garment a long sharp knife.
The flames alternately trembled into light and subsided into darknessas at first; Hermanric and Antonina yet continued in their oldpositions, absorbed in their thoughts and in themselves; and stillGoisvintha remained unmoved as ever, knife in hand, watchful, steady,silent as before.
But beneath the concealment of her outward tranquillity raged acontention under which her mind darkened and her heart writhed. Twiceshe returned the knife to its former hiding-place, and twice she drewit forth again; her cheeks grew paler and paler, she pressed herclenched hand convulsively over her bosom, and leant back languidlyagainst the wall behind her. No thought of Antonina had part in thisgreat strife of secret emotions; her wrath had too much of anguish init to be spent against a stranger and an enemy.
After the lapse of a few moments more, her strength returned--herfirmness was aroused. The last traces of grief and despair that hadhitherto appeared in her eyes vanished from them in an instant. Rage,vengeance, ferocity, lowered over them as she crept stealthily forwardto the very side of the Goth, and, when the next gleam of the fireplayed upon him, drew the knife fiercely across the back of his hands.The cut was true, strong, and rapid--it divided the tendons from firstto last--he was crippled for life.
At that instant the fire touched the very heart of the log that hadbeen laid on it. It crackled gaily; it blazed out brilliantly. Thewhole room was as brightly illuminated as if a Christmas festival ofancient England had been preparing within its walls!
The warm, cheerful light showed the Goth the figure of his assassin,ere the first cry of anguish had died away on his lips, or the firststart of irrepressible horror ceased to vibrate through his frame. Thecries of his hapless companion, as the whole scene of vengeance,treachery, and mutilation flashed in one terrible instant before hereyes, seemed not even to reach his ears. Once he looked down upon hishelpless hands, when the sword rolled heavily from them to the floor.Then his gaze directed itself immovably upon Goisvintha, as she stoodat a little distance from him, with her blood-stained knife, silent ashimself.
There was no fury--no defiance--not even the passing distortion ofphysical suffering in his features, as he now looked on her. Blank,rigid horror--tearless, voiceless, helpless despair, seemed to havepetrified the expression of his face into an everlasting form,unyouthful and unhopeful--as if he had been imprisoned from hischildhood, and a voice was now taunting him with the pleasures ofliberty, from a grating in his dungeon walls. Not even when Antonina,recovering from her first agony of terror, pressed her convulsivekisses on his cold cheek, entreating him to look on her, did he turnhis head, or remove his eyes from Goisvintha's form.
At length the deep steady accents of the woman's voice were heardthrough the desolate silence.
'Traitor in word and thought you may be yet, but traitor in deed younever more shall be!' she began, pointing to his hands with her knife.'Those hands, that have protected a Roman life, shall never grasp aRoman sword, shall never pollute again by their touch a Gothic weapon!I remembered, as I watched you in the darkness, how the women of myrace once punished their recreant warriors when they fled to them froma defeat. So have I punished you! The arm that served not the causeof sist
er and sister's children--of king and king's nation--shall serveno other! I am half avenged of the murders at Aquileia, now that I amavenged on you! Go, fly with the Roman you have chosen to the city ofher people! Your life as a warrior is at an end!'
He made her no answer. There are emotions, the last of a life, whichtear back from nature the strongest barriers that custom raises torepress her, which betray the lurking existence of the first rudesocial feeling of the primeval days of a great nation, in the breastsof their most distant descendants, however widely their acquirements,their prosperities, or their changes may seem to have morally separatedthem from their ancestors of old. Such were the emotions now awakenedin the heart of the Goth. His Christianity, his love, his knowledge ofhigh aims, and his experience of new ideas, sank and deserted him, asthough he had never known them. He thought on his mutilated hands, andno other spirit moved within him, but the ancient Gothic spirit ofcenturies back; the inspiration of his nation's early Northern songsand early Northern achievements--the renown of courage and thesupremacy of strength.
Vainly did Antonina, in the midst of the despair that still possessedher, yearn for a word from his lips or a glance from his eyes; vainlydid her trembling fingers, tearing the bandages from her robe, stanchthe blood on his wounded hands; vainly did her voice call on him to flyand summon help from his companions in the camp! His mind was faraway, brooding over the legends of the battle-fields of his ancestors,remembering how, even in the day of victory, they slew themselves ifthey were crippled in the fray, how they scorned to exist for otherinterests than the interests of strife, how they mutilated traitors asGoisvintha had mutilated him! Such were the objects that enchained hisinward faculties, while his outward senses were still enthralled by thehorrible fascination that existed for him in the presence of theassassin by his side. His very consciousness of his existence, thoughhe moved and breathed, seemed to have ceased.
'You thought to deceive me in my sickness, you hoped to profit by mydeath,' resumed Goisvintha, returning contemptuously her victim'sglance. 'You trusted in the night, and the darkness, and the storm;you were secure in your boldness, in your strength, in the secrecy ofthis lurking-place that you have chosen for your treachery, but yourstratagems and your expectations have failed you! At Aquileia I learntto be wily and watchful as you! I discovered your desertion of thewarriors and the camp; I penetrated the paths to your hiding-place; Ientered it as softly as I once departed from the dwelling where mychildren were slain! In my just vengeance I have treated you astreacherously as you would have treated me! Remember your murderedbrother; remember the child I put into your arms wounded and receivedfrom them dead; remember your broken oaths and forgotten promises, andmake to your nation, to your duties, and to me, the atonement--the lastand the only one--that in my mercy I have left in your power--theatonement of death.'
Again she paused, and again no reply awaited her. Still the Gothneither moved nor spoke, and still Antonina--kneeling unconsciouslyupon the sword, now useless to him for ever--continued to stanch theblood on his hands with a mechanical earnestness that seemed to shutout the contemplation of every other object from her eyes. The tearsstreamed incessantly down her cheeks, but she never turned towardsGoisvintha, never suspended her occupation.
Meanwhile, the fire still blazed noisily on the cheerful hearth; butthe storm, as if disdaining the office of heightening the human horrorof the farm-house scene, was rapidly subsiding. The thunder pealedless frequently and less loudly, the wind fell into intervals ofnoiseless calm, and occasionally the moonlight streamed, in momentarybrightness, through the ragged edges of the fast breaking clouds. Thebreath of the still morning was already moving upon the firmament ofthe stormy night.
'Has life its old magic for you yet?' continued Goisvintha, in tones ofpitiless reproach. 'Have you forgotten, with the spirit of yourpeople, the end for which your ancestors lived? Is not your sword atyour feet? Is not the knife in my hand? Do not the waters of theTiber, rolling yonder to the sea, offer to you the grave of oblivionthat all may seek? Die then! In your last hour be a Goth; even to theRomans you are worthless now! Already your comrades have discoveredyour desertion; will you wait till you are hung for a rebel? Will youlive to implore the mercy of your enemies, or, dishonoured anddefenceless, will you endeavour to escape? You are of the blood of myfamily, but again I say it to you--die!'
His pale lips trembled; he looked round for the first time at Antonina,but his utterance struggled ineffectually, even yet, against unyieldingdespair. He was still silent.
Goisvintha turned from him disdainfully, and approaching the fire satdown before it, bending her haggard features over the brilliant flames.For a few minutes she remained absorbed in her evil thoughts, but noarticulate word escaped her; and when at length she again abruptlybroke the silence, it was not to address the Goth or to fix her eyes onhim as before.
Still cowering over the fire, apparently as regardless of the presenceof the two beings whose happiness she had just crushed for ever as ifthey had never existed, she began to recite, in solemn, measured,chanting tones, a legend of the darkest and earliest age of Gothichistory, keeping time to herself with the knife that she still held inher hand. The malignity in her expression, as she pursued heremployment, betrayed the heartless motive that animated it, almost aspalpably as the words of the composition she was repeating: thus shenow spoke:--
'The tempest-god's pinions o'ershadow the sky, The waves leap to welcome the storm that is nigh, Through the hall of old Odin re-echo the shocks That the fierce ocean hurls at his rampart of rocks, As, alone on the crags that soar up from the sands, With his virgin SIONA the young AGNAR stands; Tears sprinkle their dew on the sad maiden's cheeks, And the voice of the chieftain sinks low while he speaks:
"Crippled in the fight for ever, Number'd with the worse than slain; Weak, deform'd, disabled!--never Can I join the hosts again! With the battle that is won AGNAR'S earthly course is run!
"When thy shatter'd frame must yield, If thou seek'st a future field; When thy arm, that sway'd the strife, Fails to shield thy worthless life; When thy hands no more afford Full employment to the sword; Then, preserve--respect thy name; Meet thy death--to live is shame! Such is Odin's mighty will; Such commands I now fulfil!"'
At this point in the legend, she paused and turned suddenly to observeits effect on Hermanric. All its horrible application to himselfthrilled through his heart. His head drooped, and a low groan burstfrom his lips. But even this evidence of the suffering she wasinflicting failed to melt the iron malignity of Goisvintha'sdetermination.
'Do you remember the death of Agnar?' she cried. 'When you were achild, I sung it to you ere you slept, and you vowed as you heard it,that when you were a man, if you suffered his wounds you would die hisdeath! He was crippled in a victory, yet he slew himself on the day ofhis triumph; you are crippled in your treachery, and have forgottenyour boy's honour, and will live in the darkness of your shame! Haveyou lost remembrance of that ancient song? You heard it from me in themorning of your years; listen, and you shall hear it to the end; it isthe dirge for your approaching death!'
She continued--
"SIONA, mourn not!--where I go The warriors feel nor pain nor woe; They raise aloft the gleaming steel, Their wounds, though warm, untended heal; Their arrows bellow through the air In showers, as they battle there; In mighty cups their wine is pour'd, Bright virgins throng their midnight board!
"Yet think not that I die unmov'd; I mourn the doom that sets me free, As I think, betroth'd--belov'd, On all the joys I lose in thee! To form my boys to meet the fray, Where'er the Gothic banner streams; To guard thy night, to glad thy day, Made all the bliss of AGNAR'S dreams-- Dreams that must now be all forgot, Earth's joys have passed from AGNAR'S lot!
"See, athwart the face of light Float the clouds of sullen Night! Odin's warriors watch for me
By the earth-encircling sea! The water's dirges howl my knell; 'Tis time I die--Farewell-Farewell!"
'He rose with a smile to prepare for the spring, He flew from the rock like a bird on the wing; The sea met her prey with a leap and a roar, And the maid stood alone by the wave-riven shore!
The winds mutter'd deep, with a woe-boding sound, As she wept o'er the footsteps he'd left on the ground; And the wild vultures shriek'd, for the chieftain who spread Their battle-field banquets was laid with the dead!'
As, with a slow and measured emphasis, Goisvintha pronounced the lastlines of the poem she again approached Hermanric. But the eyes of theGoth sought her no longer. She had calmed the emotions that she hadhoped to irritate. Of the latter divisions of her legend, those onlywhich were pathetic had arrested the lost chieftain's attention, andthe blunted faculties of his heart recovered their old refinement as helistened to them. A solemn composure of love, grief, and pity appearedin the glance of affection that he now directed on the girl'sdespairing countenance. Years of good thoughts, an existence of tendercares, an eternity of youthful devotion spoke in that rapt, momentary,eloquent gaze, and imprinted on his expression a character ineffablybeautiful and calm--a nobleness above the human, and approaching theangelic and divine.
Intuitively Goisvintha followed the direction of his eyes, and looked,like him, on the Roman girl's face. A lowering expression of hatredreplaced the scorn that had hitherto distorted her passionate features.Mechanically her hand again half raised the knife, and the accents ofher wrathful voice once more disturbed the sacred silence of affectionand grief.
'Is it for the girl there that you would still live?' she criedsternly. 'I foreboded it, coward, when I first looked on you! Iprepared for it when I wounded you! I made sure that when my angeragain threatened this new ruler of your thoughts and mover of youractions, you should have lost the power to divert it from her again!Think you that, because my disdain has delayed it, my vengeance on heris abandoned? Long since I swore to you that she should die, and I willhold to my purpose! I have punished you; I will slay her! Can youshield her from the blow to-night, as you shielded her in your tent?You are weaker before me than a child!'
She ceased abruptly, for at this moment a noise of hurrying footstepsand contending voices became suddenly audible from without. As sheheard it, a ghastly paleness chased the flush of anger from her cheeks.With the promptitude of apprehension she snatched the sword ofHermanric from under Antonina, and ran it through the staples intendedto hold the rude bar of the door. The next instant the footstepssounded on the garden path, and the next the door was assailed.
The good sword held firm, but the frail barrier that it sustainedyielded at the second shock and fell inwards, shattered, to the floor.Instantly the gap was darkened by human forms, and the firelight glowedover the repulsive countenances of two Huns who headed the intruders,habited in complete armour and furnished with naked swords.
'Yield yourself prisoner by Alaric's command,' cried one of thebarbarians, 'or you shall be slain as a deserter where you now stand!'
The Goth had risen to his feet as the door was burst in. The arrivalof his pursuers seemed to restore his lost energies, to deliver him atonce from an all-powerful thraldom. An expression of triumph anddefiance shone over his steady features when he heard the summons ofthe Hun. For a moment he stooped towards Antonina, as she clungfainting round him. His mouth quivered and his eye glistened as hekissed her cold cheek. In that moment all the hopelessness of hisposition, all the worthlessness of his marred existence, all theignominy preparing for him when he returned to the camp, rushed overhis mind. In that moment the worst horrors of departure and death, thefiercest rackings of love and despair, assailed but did not overcomehim. In that moment he paid his final tribute to the dues ofaffection, and braced for the last time the fibres of manlydauntlessness and Spartan resolve!
The next instant he tore himself from the girl's arms, the oldhero-spirit of his conquering nation possessed every nerve in hisframe, his eye brightened again gloriously with its lost warrior-light,his limbs grew firm, his face was calm, he confronted the Huns with amien of authority and a smile of disdain, and, as he presented to themhis defenceless breast, not the faintest tremor was audible in hisvoice, while he cried in accents of steady command--
'Strike! I yield not!'
The Huns rushed forward with fierce cries, and buried their swords inhis body. His warm young blood gushed out upon the floor of thedwelling which had been the love-shrine of the heart that shed it.Without a sigh from his lips or a convulsion on his features, he felldead at the feet of his enemies; all the valour of his disposition, allthe gentleness of his heart, all the vigour of his form, resolved inone humble instant into a senseless and burdensome mass!
Antonina beheld the assassination, but was spared the sight of thedeath that followed it. She fell insensible by the side of her youngwarrior--her dress was spotted with his blood, her form was motionlessas his own.
'Leave him there to rot! His pride in his superiority will not servehim now--even to a grave!' cried the Hun leader to his companions, ashe dried on the garments of the corpse his reeking sword.
'And this woman,' demanded one of his comrades, 'is she to be liberatedor secured?'
He pointed as he spoke to Goisvintha. During the brief scene of theassassination, the very exercise of her faculties seemed to have beensuspended. She had never stirred a limb or uttered a word.
The Hun recognised her as the woman who had questioned and bribed himat the camp. 'She is the traitor's kinswoman and is absent from thetents without leave,' he answered. 'Take her prisoner to Alaric; shewill bear us witness that we have done as he commanded us. As for thegirl,' he continued, glancing at the blood on Antonina's dress, andstirring her figure carelessly with his foot, 'she may be dead too, forshe neither moves nor speaks, and may be left like her protector to liegraveless where she is. For us, it is time that we depart--the king isimpatient of delay.'
As they led her roughly from the house, Goisvintha shuddered, andattempted to pause for a moment when she passed the corpse of the Goth.Death, that can extinguish enmities as well as sunder loves, rose awfuland appealing as she looked her last at her murdered brother, andremembered her murdered husband. No tears flowed from her eyes, nogroans broke from her bosom; but there was a pang, a last momentarypang of grief and pity at her heart as she murmured while they forcedher away--'Aquileia! Aquileia! have I outlived thee for this!'
The troops retired. For a few minutes silence ruled uninterruptedlyover the room where the senseless girl still lay by the side of allthat was left to her of the object of her first youthful love. But erelong footsteps again approached the farm-house door, and two Goths, whohad formed part of the escort allotted to the Hun, approached the youngchieftain's corpse. Quickly and silently they raised it in their armsand bore it into the garden. There they scooped a shallow hole withtheir swords in the fresh, flower-laden turf, and having laid the bodythere, they hastily covered it, and rapidly departed without returningto the house.
These men had served among the warriors committed to Hermanric'scommand. By many acts of frank generosity and encouragement, the youngchieftain had won their rough attachment. They mourned his fate, butdared not obstruct the sentence, or oppose the act that determined it.At their own risk they had secretly quitted the advancing ranks oftheir comrades, to use the last privilege and obey the last dictate ofhuman kindness; and they thought not of the lonely girl as they nowleft her desolate, and hurried away to reassume their appointedstations ere it was too late.
The turf lay caressingly round the young warrior's form; its crushedflowers pressed softly against his cold cheek; the fragrance of the newmorning wafted its pure incense gently about his simple grave! Aroundhim flowered the delicate plants that the hand of Antonina had raisedto please his eye. Near him stood the dwelling, sacred to the firstand last kiss that he had impressed upon her lips; and about him, onall sid
es, rose the plains and woodlands that had engrossed, with herimage, the devotion of all her dearest thoughts. He lay, in his death,in the midst of the magic circle of the best joys of his life! It wasa fitter burial-place for the earthly relics of that bright andgenerous spirit than the pit in the carnage-laden battle-field, or thedesolate sepulchres of a northern land!