CHAPTER 24.
THE GRAVE AND THE CAMP.
While the second and last embassy from the Senate proceeds towards thetent of the Gothic king, while the streets of Rome are deserted by allbut the dead, and the living populace crowd together in speechlessexpectation behind the barrier of the Pincian Gate, an opportunity isat length afforded of turning our attention towards a scene from whichit has been long removed. Let us now revisit the farm-house in thesuburbs, and look once more on the quiet garden and on Hermanric'sgrave.
The tranquility of the bright warm day is purest around the retiredpath leading to the little dwelling. Here the fragrance of wild flowersrises pleasantly from the waving grass; the lulling, monotonous hum ofinsect life pervades the light, steady air; the sunbeams, interceptedhere and there by the clustering trees, fall in irregular patches ofbrightness on the shady ground; and, saving the birds whichoccasionally pass overhead, singing in their flight, no living creatureappears on the quiet scene, until, gaining the wicket-gate which leadsinto the farm-house garden, we look forth upon the prospect within.
There, following the small circular footpath which her own perseveringsteps have day by day already traced, appears the form of a solitarywoman, pacing slowly about the mound of grassy earth which marks thegrave of the young Goth.
For some time she proceeds on her circumscribed round with as muchundeviating, mechanical regularity, as if beyond that narrow space rosea barrier which caged her from ever setting foot on the earth beyond.At length she pauses in her course when it brings her nearest to thewicket, advances a few steps towards it, then recedes, and recommencesher monotonous progress, and then again breaking off on her round,finally succeeds in withdrawing herself from the confines of the grave,passes through the gate, and following the path to the high-road,slowly proceeds towards the eastern limits of the Gothic camp. Thefixed, ghastly, unfeminine expression on her features marks her as thesame woman whom we last beheld as the assassin at the farm-house, butbeyond this she is hardly recognisable again. Her formerly powerfuland upright frame is bent and lean; her hair waves in wild, white locksabout her shrivelled face; all the rude majesty of her form hasdeparted; there is nothing to show that it is still Goisvintha hauntingthe scene of her crime but the savage expression debasing hercountenance and betraying the evil heart within, unsubdued as ever inits yearning for destruction and revenge.
Since the period when we last beheld her, removed in the custody of theHuns from the dead body of her kinsman, the farm-house had been theconstant scene of her pilgrimage from the camp, the chosen refuge whereshe brooded in solitude over her fierce desires. Scorning to punish awoman whom he regarded as insane for an absence from the tents of theGoths which was of no moment wither to the army or to himself, Alarichad impatiently dismissed her from his presence when she was broughtbefore him. The soldiers who had returned to bury the body of theirchieftain in the garden of the farm-house, found means to inform hersecretly of the charitable act which they had performed at their ownperil, but beyond this no further intercourse was held with her by anyof her former associates.
All her actions favoured their hasty belief that her faculties weredisordered, and others shunned her as she shunned them. Her dailyallowance of food was left for her to seek at a certain place in thecamp, as it might have been left for an animal too savage to becherished by the hand of man. At certain periods she returned secretlyfrom her wanderings to take it. Her shelter for the night was not theshelter of her people before the walls of Rome; her thoughts were nottheir thoughts. Widowed, childless, friendless, the assassin of herlast kinsman, she moved apart in her own secret world of bereavement,desolation, and crime.
Yet there was no madness, no remorse for her share in accomplishing thefate of Hermanric, in the dark and solitary existence which she nowled. From the moment when the young warrior had expiated with his deathhis disregard of the enmities of his nation and the wrongs of hiskindred, she thought of him only as of one more victim whose dishonourand ruin she must live to requite on the Romans with Roman blood, andmatured her schemes of revenge with a stern resolution which time, andsolitude, and bodily infirmity were all powerless to disturb.
She would pace for hours and hours together, in the still night and inthe broad noonday, round and round the warrior's grave, nursing hervengeful thoughts within her, until a ferocious anticipation of triumphquickened her steps and brightened her watchful eyes. Then she wouldenter the farm-house, and, drawing the knife from its place ofconcealment in her garments, would pass its point slowly backwards andforwards over the hearth on which she had mutilated Hermanric with herown hand, and from which he had advanced, without a tremor, to meet thesword-points of the Huns. Sometimes, when darkness had gathered overthe earth, she would stand--a boding and menacing apparition--upon thegrave itself, and chaunt, moaning to the moaning wind, fragments ofobscure Northern legends, whose hideous burden was ever of anguish andcrime, of torture in prison vaults, and death by the annihilatingsword--mingling with them the gloomy story of the massacre at Aquileia,and her fierce vows of vengeance against the households of Rome. Theforager, on his late return past the farm-house to the camp, heard theharsh, droning accents of her voice, and quickened his onward step.The venturesome peasant from the country beyond, approaching undercover of the night to look from afar on the Gothic camp, beheld herform, shadowy and threatening, as he neared the garden, and fledaffrighted from the place. Neither stranger nor friend intruded on herdread solitude. The foul presence of cruelty and crime violatedundisturbed the scenes once sacred to the interests of tenderness andlove, once hallowed by the sojourn of youth and beauty!
But now the farm-house garden is left solitary, the haunting spirit ofevil has departed from the grave, the footsteps of Goisvintha havetraced to their close the same paths from the suburbs over which theyoung Goth once eagerly hastened on his night journey of love; andalready the walls of Rome rise--dark, near, and hateful--before hereyes. Along these now useless bulwarks of the fallen city she wanders,as she has often wandered before, watching anxiously for the firstopening of the long-closed gates. Let us follow her on her way.
Her attention was now fixed only on the broad ramparts, while shepassed slowly along the Gothic tents towards the encampment at thePincian Gate. Arrived there, she was aroused for the first time fromher apathy by an unwonted stir and confusion prevailing around her.She looked towards the tent of Alaric, and beheld before it the wastedand crouching forms of the followers of the embassy awaiting theirsentence from the captain of the Northern hosts. In a few moments shegathered enough from the words of the Goths congregated about this partof the camp to assure her that it was the Pincian Gate which had givenegress to the Roman suppliants, and which would therefore, in allprobability, be the entrance again thrown open to admit their return tothe city. Remembering this, she began to calculate the numbers of theconquered enemy grouped together before the king's tent, and thenmentally added to them those who might be present at the interviewproceeding within--mechanically withdrawing herself, while thusoccupied, nearer and nearer to the waste ground before the city walls.
Gradually she turned her face towards Rome: she was realising a daringpurpose, a fatal resolution, long cherished during the days and nightsof her solitary wanderings. 'The ranks of the embassy,' she muttered,in a deep, thoughtful tone, 'are thickly filled. Where there are manythere must be confusion and haste; they march together, and know nottheir own numbers; they mark not one more or one less among them.'
She stopped. Strange and dark changes of colour and expression passedover her ghastly features. She drew from her bosom the bloodyhelmet-crest of her husband, which had never quitted her since the dayof his death; her face grew livid under an awful expression of rage,ferocity, and despair, as she gazed on it. Suddenly she looked up atthe city--fierce and defiant, as if the great walls before her weremortal enemies against whom she stood at bay in the death-struggle.
'The widowed and the childless shall drink of thy bl
ood!' she cried,stretching out her skinny hand towards Rome, 'though the armies of hernation barter their wrongs with thy people for bags of silver and gold!I have pondered on it in my solitude, and dreamed of it in my dreams!I have sworn that I would enter Rome, and avenge my slaughteredkindred, alone among thousands! Now, now, I will hold to my oath!Thou blood-stained city of the coward and the traitor, the enemy of thedefenceless, and the murderer of the weak! thou who didst send forth toAquileia the slayers of my husband and the assassins of my children, Iwait no longer before thy walls! This day will I mingle, daring allthings, with thy returning citizens and penetrate, amid Romans, thegates of Rome! Through the day will I lurk, cunning and watchful, inthy solitary haunts, to steal forth on thee at nights, a secretminister of death! I will watch for thy young and thy weak once inunguarded places; I will prey, alone in the thick darkness, upon thyunprotected lives; I will destroy thy children, as their fathersdestroyed at Aquileia the children of the Goths! Thy rabble willdiscover me and arise against me; they will tear me in pieces andtrample my mangled body on the pavement of the streets; but it will beafter I have seen the blood that I have sworn to shed flowing under myknife! My vengeance will be complete, and torments and death will beto me as guests that I welcome, and as deliverers whom I await!'
Again she paused--the wild triumph of the fanatic on the burning pilewas flashing in her face--suddenly her eyes fell once more upon thestained helmet-crest; then her expression changed again to despair, andher voice grew low and moaning, when she thus resumed:--
'I am weary of my life; when the vengeance is done I shall be deliveredfrom this prison of the earth--in the world of shadows I shall see myhusband, and my little ones will gather round my knees again. Theliving have no part in me; I yearn towards the spirits who wander inthe halls of the dead.'
For a few minutes more she continued to fix her tearless eyes on thehelmet-crest. But soon the influence of the evil spirit revived in allits strength; she raised her head suddenly, remained for an instantabsorbed in deep thought, then began to retrace her steps rapidly inthe direction by which she had come.
Sometimes she whispered softly, 'I must be doing ere the time fail me:my face must be hidden and my garments changed. Yonder, among thehouses, I must search, and search quickly!' Sometimes she reiteratedher denunciations of vengeance, her ejaculations of triumph in herfrantic project. At the recapitulation of these the remembrance ofAntonina was aroused; and then a bloodthirsty superstition darkened herthoughts, and threw a vague and dreamy character over her speech.
When she spoke now, it was to murmur to herself that the victim who hadtwice escaped her might yet be alive; that the supernatural influenceswhich had often guided the old Goths, on the day of retribution, mightstill guide her; might still direct the stroke of her destroyingweapon--the last stroke ere she was discovered and slain--straight tothe girl's heart.
Thoughts such as these--wandering and obscure--arose in close, quicksuccession within her; but whether she gave them expression in word andaction, or whether she suppressed them in silence, she never wavered orhalted in her rapid progress. Her energies were braced to allemergencies, and her strong will suffered them not for an instant torelax.
She gained a retired street in the deserted suburbs, and looking roundto see that she was unobserved, entered on of the houses abandoned byits inhabitants on the approach of the besiegers. Passing quicklythrough the outer halls, she stopped at length in one of the sleepingapartments; and here she found, among other possessions left behind inthe flight, the store of wearing apparel belonging to the owner of theroom.
From this she selected a Roman robe, upper mantle, and sandals--themost common in colour and texture that she could find--and folding themup into the smallest compass, hid them under her own garments. Then,avoiding all those whom she met on her way, she returned in thedirection of the king's tent; but when she approached it, branched offstealthily towards Rome, until she reached a ruined building half-waybetween the city and the camp. In this concealment she clothed herselfin her disguise, drawing the mantle closely round her head and face;and from this point--calm, vigilant, determined, her hand on the knifebeneath her robe, her lips muttering the names of her murdered husbandand children--she watched the high-road to the Pincian Gate.
There for a short time let us leave her, and enter the tent of Alaric,while the Senate yet plead before the Arbiter of the Empire for mercyand peace.
At the moment of which we write, the embassy had already exhausted itspowers of intercession, apparently without moving the leader of theGoths from his first pitiless resolution of fixing the ransom of Romeat the price of every possession of value which the city contained.There was a momentary silence now in the great tent. At one extremityof it, congregated in a close and irregular group, stood the weariedand broken-spirited members of the Senate, supported by such of theirattendants as had been permitted to follow them; at the other appearedthe stately forms of Alaric and the warriors who surrounded him as hiscouncil of war. The vacant space in the middle of the tent was strewnwith martial weapons, separating the representatives of the two nationsone from the other; and thus accidentally, yet palpably, typifying thefierce hostility which had sundered in years past, and was still tosunder for years to come, the people of the North and the people of theSouth.
The Gothic king stood a little in advance of his warriors, leaning onhis huge, heavy sword. His steady eye wandered from man to man amongthe broken-spirited senators, contemplating, with cold and cruelpenetration, all that suffering and despair had altered for the worsein their outward appearance. Their soiled robes, their wan cheeks,their trembling limbs were each marked in turn by the cool, sarcasticexamination of the conqueror's gaze. Debased and humiliated as theywere, there were some among the ambassadors who felt the insult thussilently and deliberately inflicted on them the more keenly for theirvery helplessness. They moved uneasily in their places, and whisperedamong each other in low and bitter accents.
At length one of their number raised his downcast eyes and broke thesilence. The old Roman spirit, which long years of voluntary frivolityand degradation had not yet entirely depraved, flushed his pale, wastedface as he spoke thus:--
'We have entreated, we have offered, we have promised--men can do nomore! Deserted by our Emperor and crushed by pestilence and famine,nothing is now left to us but to perish in unavailing resistancebeneath the walls of Rome! It was in the power of Alaric to wineverlasting renown by moderation to the unfortunate of an illustriousnation; but he has preferred to attempt the spoiling of a glorious cityand the subjugation of a suffering people! Yet let him remember,though destruction may sate his vengeance, and pillage enrich hishoards, the day of retribution will yet come. There are still soldiersin the empire, and heroes who will lead them confidently to battle,though the bodies of their countrymen lie slaughtered around them inthe streets of pillaged Rome!'
A momentary expression of wrath and indignation appeared on Alaric'sfeatures as he listened to this bold speech; but it was almostimmediately replaced by a scornful smile of derision.
'What! ye have still soldiers before whom the barbarian must tremblefor his conquests!' he cried. 'Where are they? Are they on theirmarch, or in ambush, or hiding behind strong walls, or have they losttheir way on the road to the Gothic camp? Ha! here is one of them!' heexclaimed, advancing towards an enfeebled and disarmed guard of theSenate, who quailed beneath his fierce glance. 'Fight, man!' he loudlycontinued; 'fight while there is yet time, for imperial Rome! Thysword is gone--take mine, and be a hero again!'
With a rough laugh, echoed by the warriors behind him, he flung hisponderous weapon as he spoke towards the wretched object of hissarcasm. The hilt struck heavily against the man's breast; he staggeredand fell helpless to the ground. The laugh was redoubled among theGoths; but now their leader did not join in it. His eye glowed intriumphant scorn as he pointed to the prostrate Roman, exclaiming--
'So does the South fall beneath the sword of th
e North! So shall theempire bow before the rule of the Goth! Say, as ye look on theseRomans before us, are we not avenged of our wrongs? They die notfighting on our swords; they live to entreat our pity, as children thatare in terror of the whip!'
He paused. His massive and noble countenance gradually assumed athoughtful expression. The ambassadors moved forward a fewsteps--perhaps to make a final entreaty, perhaps to depart in despair;but he signed with his hand in command to them to be silent and remainwhere they stood. The marauder's thirst for present plunder, and theconqueror's lofty ambition of future glory, now stirred in strongconflict within him. He walked to the opening of the tent, andthrusting aside its curtain of skins, looked out upon Rome in silence.The dazzling majesty of the temples and palaces of the mighty city, asthey towered before him, gleaming in the rays of the uncloudedsunlight, fixed him long in contemplation. Gradually, dreams of afuture dominion amid those unrivalled structures, which now waited buthis word to be pillaged and destroyed, filled his aspiring soul, andsaved the city from his wrath. He turned again toward the shrinkingambassadors--in a voice and look superior to them as a being of ahigher sphere--and spoke thus:--
'When the Gothic conqueror reigns in Italy, the palaces of her rulersshall be found standing for the places of his sojourn. I will ordain alower ransom; I will spare Rome.'
A murmur arose among the warriors behind him. The rapine anddestruction which they had eagerly anticipated was denied them for thefirst time by their chief. As their muttered remonstrances caught hisear, Alaric instantly and sternly fixed his eyes upon them; and,repeating in accents of deliberate command, 'I will ordain a lowerransom; I will spare Rome,' steadily scanned the countenances of hisferocious followers.
Not a word of dissent fell from their lips; not a gesture of impatienceappeared in their ranks; they preserved perfect silence as the kingagain advanced towards the ambassadors and continued--
'I fix the ransom of the city at five thousand pounds of gold; atthirty thousand pounds of silver.'
Here he suddenly ceased, as if pondering further on the terms he shouldexact. The hearts of the Senate, lightened for a moment by Alaric'sunexpected announcement that he would moderate his demands, sank withinthem again as they thought on the tribute required of them, andremembered their exhausted treasury. But it was no time now toremonstrate or to delay; and they answered with one accord, ignorantthough they were of the means of performing their promise, 'The ransomshall be paid.'
The king looked at them when they spoke, as if in astonishment that menwhom he had deprived of all freedom of choice ventured still to assertit by intimating their acceptance of terms which they dared notdecline. The mocking spirit revived within him while he thus gazed onthe helpless and humiliated embassy; and he laughed once more as heresumed, partly addressing himself to the silent array of the warriorsbehind him--
'The gold and silver are but the first dues of the tribute; my armyshall be rewarded with more than the wealth of the enemy. You men ofRome have laughed at our rough bearskins and our heavy armour, youshall clothe us with your robes of festivity! I will add to the goldand silver of your ransom, four thousand garments of silk, and threethousand pieces of scarlet cloth. My barbarians shall be barbarians nolonger! I will make patricians, epicures, Romans of them!'
The members of the ill-fated embassy looked up as he paused, in muteappeal to the mercy of the triumphant conqueror; but they were not yetto be released from the crushing infliction of his rapacity and scorn.
'Hold!' he cried, 'I will have more--more still! You are a nation offeasters;--we will rival you in your banquets when we have stripped youof your banqueting robes! To the gold, the silver, the silk, and thecloth, I will add yet more--three thousand pounds weight of pepper,your precious merchandise, bought from far countries with your lavishwealth!--see that you bring it hither, with the rest of the ransom, tothe last grain! The flesh of our beasts shall be seasoned for us likethe flesh of yours!'
He turned abruptly from the senators as he pronounced the last words,and began to speak in jesting tones and in the Gothic language to thecouncil of warriors around him. Some of the ambassadors bowed theirheads in silent resignation; others, with the utter thoughtlessness ofmen bewildered by all that they had seen and heard during the interviewthat was now close, unhappily revived the recollection of the brokentreaties of former days, by mechanically inquiring, in the terms ofpast formularies, what security the besiegers would require for thepayment of their demands.
'Security!' cried Alaric fiercely, instantly relapsing as they spokeinto his sterner mood. 'Behold yonder the future security of the Gothsfor the faith of Rome!' and flinging aside the curtain of the tent, hepointed proudly to the long lines of his camp, stretching round allthat was visible of the walls of the fallen city.
The ambassadors remembered the massacre of the hostages of Aquileia,and the evasion of the payment of tribute-money promised in formerdays, and were silent as they looked through the opening of the tent.
'Remember the conditions of the ransom,' pursued Alaric in warningtones, 'remember my security that the ransom shall be quickly paid! Soshall you live for a brief space in security, and feast and be merryagain while your territories yet remain to you. Go! I have spoken--itis enough!'
He withdrew abruptly from the senators, and the curtain of the tentfell behind them as they passed out. The ordeal of the judgment wasover; the final sentence had been pronounced; the time had alreadyarrived to go forth and obey it.
The news that terms of peace had been at last settled filled the Romanswho were waiting before the tent with emotions of delight, equallyunalloyed by reflections on the past or forebodings for the future.Barred from their reckless project of flying to the open country by theGoths surrounding them in the camp, shut out from retreating to Rome bythe gates through which they had rashly forced their way, exposed intheir helplessness to the brutal jeers of the enemy while they waitedin a long agony of suspense for the close of the perilous interviewbetween Alaric and the Senate, they had undergone every extremity ofsuffering, and had yielded unanimously to despair when the intelligenceof the concluded treaty sounded like a promise of salvation in theirears.
None of the apprehensions aroused in the minds of their superiors bythe vastness of the exacted tribute now mingled with the unreflectingecstasy of their joy at the prospect of the removal of the blockade.They arose to return to the city from which they had fled in dismay,with cries of impatience and delight. They fawned like dogs upon theambassadors, and even upon the ferocious Goths. On their departurefrom Rome they had mechanically preserved some regularity in theirprogress, but now they hurried onward without distinction of place ordiscipline of march--senators, guards, plebeians, all were huddledtogether in the disorderly equality of a mob.
Not one of them, in their new-born security, marked the ruined buildingon the high-road; not one of them observed the closely-robed figurethat stole out from it to join them in their rear; and then, withstealthy footstep and shrouded face, soon mingled in the thickest oftheir ranks. The attention of the ambassadors was still engrossed bytheir forebodings of failure in collecting the ransom; the eyes of thepeople were fixed only on the Pincian Gate; their ears were open to nosounds but their own ejaculations of delight. Not one disguisedstranger only, but many, might now have joined them in their tumultuousprogress, alike unquestioned and unobserved.
So they hastily re-entered the city, where thousands of heavy eyes werestrained to look on them, and thousands of attentive ears drank intheir joyful news from the Gothic camp. Then were heard in alldirections the sounds of hysterical weeping and idiotic laughter, thelow groans of the weak who died victims of their sudden transport, andthe confused outbursts of the strong who had survived all extremities,and at last beheld their deliverance in view.
Still silent and serious, the ambassadors now slowly penetrated thethrong on their way back to the Forum; and as they proceeded the crowdgradually dispersed on either side of them. Enemies, f
riends, andstrangers, all whom the ruthless famine had hitherto separated ininterests and sympathies, were now united together as one family, bythe expectation of speedy relief.
But there was one among the assembly that was now separating who stoodalone in her unrevealed emotions, amid the rejoicing thousands aroundher. The women and children in the throng, as, preoccupied by theirown feeling, they unheedfully passed her by, saw not the eager,ferocious attention in her eyes, as she watched them steadily till theywere out of sight. Within their gates the stranger and the enemywaited for the treacherous darkness of night, and waited unobserved.Where she had first stood when the thick crowd hemmed her in, there shestill continued to stand after they slowly moved past her and spacegrew free.
Yet beneath this outward calm and silence lurked the wildest passionsthat ever raged against the weak restraint of human will; even the firmself-possession of Goisvintha was shaken when she found herself withinthe walls of Rome.
No glance of suspicion had been cast upon her; not one of the crowd hadapproached to thrust her back when she passed through the gates withthe heedless citizens around her. Shielded from detection, as much bythe careless security of her enemies as by the stratagem of herdisguise, she stood on the pavement of Rome, as she had vowed to stand,afar from the armies of her people--alone as an avenger of blood!
It was no dream; no fleeting, deceitful vision. The knife was underher hand; the streets stretched before her; the living beings whothronged them were Romans; the hours of the day were already on thewane; the approach of her vengeance was as sure as the approach ofdarkness that was to let it loose. A wild exultation quickened in herthe pulses of life, while she thought on the dread projects of secretassassination and revenge which now opposed her, a solitary woman, indeadly enmity against the defenceless population of a whole city.
As her eyes travelled slowly from side to side over the moving throng;as she thought on the time that might still elapse ere the discoveryand death--the martyrdom in the cause of blood--which she expected anddefied, would overtake her, her hands trembled beneath her robe, andshe reiterated in whispers to herself: 'Husband, children,brother--there are five deaths to avenge! Remember Aquileia! RememberAquileia!'
Suddenly, as she looked from group to group among the departing people,her eyes became arrested by one object; she instantly stepped forwards,then abruptly restrained herself and moved back where the crowd wasstill thick, gazing fixedly ever in the same direction. She saw thevictim twice snatched from her hands--at the camp and in thefarm-house--a third time offered to her grasp in the streets of Rome.
The chance of vengeance last expected was the chance that had firstarrived. A vague, oppressing sensation of awe mingled with the triumphat her heart--a supernatural guidance seemed to be directing her withfell rapidity, through every mortal obstacle, to the climax of herrevenge!
She screened herself behind the people; she watched the girl from themost distant point; but concealment was now vain--their eyes had met.The robe had slipped aside when she suddenly stepped forward, and inthat moment Antonina had seen her.
Numerian, moving slowly with his daughter through the crowd, felt herhand tighten round his, and saw her features stiffen into suddenrigidity; but the change was only for an instant. Ere he could speak,she caught him by the arm, and drew him forward with convulsive energy.Then, in accents hardly articulate, low, breathless, unlike her wontedvoice, he heard her exclaim, as she struggled on with him, 'She isthere--there behind us! to kill me, as she killed him! Home! home!'
Exhausted already, through long weakness and natural infirmity, by therough contact of the crowd, bewildered by Antonina's looks and actions,and by the startling intimation of unknown peril, conveyed to him inher broken exclamations of affright, Numerian's first impulse, as hehurried onward by her side, led him to entreat protection and help fromthe surrounding populace. But even could he have pointed out to themthe object of his dread amid that motley throng of all nations, theappeal he now made would have remained unanswered.
Of all the results of the frightful severity of privation suffered bythe besieged, none were more common than those mental aberrations whichproduced visions of danger, enemies, and death, so palpable as to makethe persons beholding them implore assistance against the hideouscreation of their own delirium. Accordingly, most of those to whom theentreaties of Numerian were addressed passed without noticing them.Some few carelessly bid him remember that there were no enemies now;that the days of peace were approaching; and that a meal of good food,which he might soon expect to enjoy, was the only help for a famishedman. No one, in that period of horror and suffering, which was nowdrawing to a close, saw anything extraordinary in the confusion of thefather and the terror of the child. So they pursued their feebleflight unprotected, and the footsteps of Goisvintha followed them asthey went.
They had already commenced the ascent of the Pincian Hill, whenAntonina stopped abruptly, and turned to look behind her. Many peopleyet thronged the street below; but her eyes penetrated among them,sharpened by peril, and instantly discerned the ample robe and the tallform, still at the same distance from them, and pausing as they hadpaused. For one moment, the girl's eyes fixed in the wild, helplessstare of terror on her father's face; but the next, that mysteriousinstinct of preservation, which is co-existent with the instinct offear--which gifts the weakest animal with cunning to improve itsflight, and takes the place of reason, reflection, and resolve, whenall are banished from the mind--warned her against the fatal error ofpermitting the pursuer to track her to her home.
'Not there! not there!' she gasped faintly as Numerian endeavoured tolead her up the ascent. 'She will see us as we enter thedoors!--through the streets! Oh, father, if you would save me! we maylose her in the streets!--the guards, the people are there! Back!back!'
Numerian trembled as he marked the terror in her looks and gestures;but it was vain to question or oppose her. Nothing short of forcecould restrain her,--no commands or entreaties could draw from her morethan the same breathless exclamation: 'Onward, father; onward, if youwould save me!' She was insensible to every sensation but fear,incapable of any other exertion than flight.
Turning and winding, hurrying forward ever at the same rapid pace, theypassed unconsciously along the intricate streets that led to the riverside; and still the avenger tracked the victim, constant as the shadowto the substance; steady, vigilant, unwearied, as a bloodhound on a hotscent.
And now, even the sound of the father's voice ceased to be audible inthe daughter's ears; she no longer felt the pressure of his hand, nolonger perceived his very presence at her side. At length, frail andshrinking, she again paused, and looked back. The street they hadreached was very tranquil and desolate: two slaves were walking at itsfurther extremity. While they were in sight, no living creatureappeared in the roadway behind; but as soon as they had passed away, ashadow stole slowly forward over the pavement of a portico in thedistance, and the next moment Goisvintha appeared in the street.
The sun glared down fiercely over her dark figure as she stopped andfor an instant looked stealthily around her. She moved to advance, andAntonina saw no more. Again she turned to renew her hopeless flight;and again her father--perceiving only as the mysterious cause of herdread a solitary woman, who, though she followed, attempted not toarrest, or even to address them--prepared to accompany her to the last,in despair of all other chances of securing her safety.
More and more completely did her terror now enchain her faculties, asshe still unconsciously traced her rapid way through the streets thatled to the Tiber. It was not Numerian, not Rome, not daylight in agreat city, that was before her eyes: it was the storm, theassassination, the night at the farm-house, that she now lived throughover again.
Still the quick flight and the ceaseless pursuit were continued, as ifneither were ever to have an end; but the close of the scene was,nevertheless, already at hand. During the interval of the passagethrough the streets, Numerian's mind had gra
dually recovered from itsfirst astonishment and alarm; at length he perceived the necessity ofinstant and decisive action, while there was yet time to save Antoninafrom sinking under the excess of her own fears. Though a vague, awfulforeboding of disaster and death filled his heart, his resolution topenetrate at once, at all hazards, the dark mystery of impending dangerindicated by his daughter's words and actions, did not fail him; for itwas aroused by the only motive powerful enough to revive all thatsuffering and infirmity had not yet destroyed of the energy of hisformer days--the preservation of his child. There was something of theold firmness and vigour of the intrepid reformer of the Church, in hisdim eyes, as he now stopped, and enclosing Antonina in his arms,arrested her instantly in her flight.
She struggled to escape; but it was faintly, and only for a moment.Her strength and consciousness were beginning to abandon her. Shenever attempted to look back; she felt in her heart that Goisvintha wasstill behind, and dared not to verify the frightful conviction with hereyes. Her lips moved; but they expressed an altered and a vainpetition: 'Hermanric! O Hermanric!' was all they murmured now.
They had arrived at the long street that ran by the banks of the Tiber.The people had either retired to their homes or repaired to the Forumto be informed of the period when the ransom would be paid. No one butGoisvintha was in sight as Numerian looked around him; and she, afterhaving carefully viewed the empty street, was advancing towards them ata quickened pace.
For an instant the father looked on her steadily as she approached, andin that instant his determination was formed. A flight of steps at hisfeet led to the narrow doorway of a small temple, the nearest buildingto him.
Ignorant whether Goisvintha might not be secretly supported bycompanions in her ceaseless pursuit, he resolved to secure this placefor Antonina, as a temporary refuge at least; while standing before it,he should oblige the woman to declare her purpose, if she followed themeven there. In a moment he had begun the ascent of the steps, with theexhausted girl by his side. Arrived at the summit, he guided herbefore him into the doorway, and stopped on the threshold to look roundagain. Goisvintha was nowhere to be seen.
Not duped by the woman's sudden disappearance into the belief that shehad departed from the street--persisting in his resolution to lead hisdaughter to a place of repose, where she might most immediately feelherself secure, and might therefore most readily recover herself-possession, Numerian drew Antonina with him into the temple. Helingered there for a moment, ere he departed to watch the street fromthe portico outside.
The light in the building was dim,--it was admitted only from a smallaperture in the roof, and through the narrow doorway, where it wasintercepted by the overhanging bulk of the outer portico. A crookedpile of dark heavy-looking substances on the floor, rose high towardsthe ceiling in the obscure interior. Irregular in form, flung togetherone over the other in strange disorder, for the most part dusky in hue,yet here and there gleaming at points with a metallic brightness, theseobjects presented a mysterious, indefinite, and startling appearance.It was impossible, on a first view of their confused arrangement, todiscover what they were, or to guess for what purpose they could havebeen pile together on the floor of a deserted temple. From the momentwhen they had first attracted Numerian's observation, his attention wasfixed on them, and as he looked a faint thrill of suspicion--vague,inexplicable, without apparent cause or object--struck chill to hisheart.
He had moved a step forward to examine the hidden space at the back ofthe pile, when his further advance was instantly stopped by theappearance of a man who walked forth from it dressed in the floating,purple-edged robe and white fillet of the Pagan priests. Before eitherfather or daughter could speak, even before they could move to depart,he stepped up to them, and, placing his hand on the shoulder of each,confronted them in silence.
At the moment when the stranger approached, Numerian raised his hand tothrust him back, and, in so doing, fixed his eyes on the man'scountenance, as a ray of light from the doorway floated over it.Instantly his arm remained outstretched and rigid, then it dropped tohis side, and the expression of horror on the face of the child becamereflected, as it were, on the face of the parent. Neither moved underthe hand of the dweller in the temple when he laid it heavily on each,and both stood before him speechless as himself.