THE DESOLATION.
A long deep sigh was all that Theodore would now give to the pain of
parting. It was over, finished, and endured! and he stood there, calm
but grave, prepared for the long cold lapse of the next seven years.
Oh, sad and sorrowful is it, more melancholy, if not more painful,
than any other state of human being--fertile as existence is in woes
and miseries--when over the summer and the sunshiny days of early
youth are brought the premature storms of manhood, the hurricane of
angry passions, or the deep and settled clouds of disappointment and
despair! Oh, sad and sorrowful is it, when the half-open flower of the
heart is broken off by the rude footstep of adverse fate ere it has
time to expand into beauty! Oh, sad and sorrowful is it, when by the
rough hand of circumstance the fresh bloom is brushed from the fruit
ere it be ripe!
Yet such was the fate of Theodore. Endowed with ardent feelings,
strong passions, powerful energies both of mind and body, he had been
called, while those feelings were in their first freshness, while
those passions were in their early fervour, ere those energies had
been strengthened by time or instructed by experience, to mingle with
scenes, and take part in events, which few even of the mightiest and
most mature minds of accomplished manhood could pass through, without
bearing away the indelible stains left by feelings blighted, or the
rude scars inflicted by evil passions. He had loved, and he had been
beloved. He had tasted once of the nectar cup of the gods, which,
when pressed by a pure lip, instils into the heart a spirit of
immortality--and his lip had pressed it purely. Then had been called
forth the exertion of that great attribute of manhood, the power of
protecting, aiding, directing weaker beings in moments of terror and
danger. Then came the mingling of that most bitter draught, when grief
and indignation are all that are offered to allay the thirst of a lip
burning for revenge. Then came the ignominy of flight from an enemy
alike hated and despised; then the temptation conquered, to pamper
vengeance by treason; and then the mighty struggle where life was
played for as a dicer's stake, and every energy of heart and brain was
called into fierce activity, when human blood was spilt, and mortal
being extinguished by his hand, to save from death, or worse than
death, those he most loved on earth. And there he now stood, that
wayward, fated being, around whom within the last month so many
lightnings had played, left alone amid men with whom he had no
community of feeling.
Those hours of agony and excitement had indeed made him a man before
his time, and well, well might they take the bloom off his young
heart; yet though the siren voice of expectation might have lost part
of its sweetness; though the chord which once vibrated to every joy
might now possess no longer its elastic tone; though there was the
gray shade of doubt mingling with every bright colour which went to
paint the future, and the enchanter could charm no more; still there
was within his bosom, in his love for Ildica, a sweet source of
unpolluted happiness, a well of youthful feelings undefined, a
fountain of bright clear waters, where wearied hope might come and
drink and be refreshed. As he stood there in his loneliness, the value
of that spring of secret enjoyment was displayed in all its
brightness. He knew, he felt that there was his treasure; and, with
that support and conscious innocence alone, he prepared to face the
future, be it what it might.
The rapid process of thought had ran over in a few minutes all the
varied particulars of his situation, the much of gloomy and dark, and
the small but intense spot of guiding light; and, ere the few Huns who
remained with him showed any disposition to move, he himself turned
towards their leader, and demanded what was to ensue.
"Are you able to sit a horse?" demanded Edicon, gazing on his
features, still pale with loss of blood.
"I am," replied Theodore, "if the journey be not long."
"Then we must follow the king," replied Edicon; "but I have his
commands to make the stations suit your capability. There is your
sword," he continued, giving him the weapon which had dropped from his
hand when the blow of Ardaric had for the time disabled his right arm.
"You are to be treated in no way as a bondman."
"Keep it for me," replied Theodore, putting it aside with the back of
his hand; "I will never go armed into my native land with the enemies
of my country."
Edicon laughed aloud. "Is there anything else," he demanded, "that
your fancy would have! I am ordered to humour thee to the utmost."
"There was one faithful freedman," said Theodore, "whom I saw not with
the rest who departed just now. I would gladly hear of his fate: I
left him with the horses on the hill."
"What! a giant?" demanded Edicon. "I saw such a one contending like a
madman with our whole army. If it be of him you speak, most probably
he is dead. I saw him fall beneath a blow which would have slain a
bull. At all events, he is in the hands of Attila the King; for I
heard him bid his people see to the brave African. Is there aught
else?"
"I would fain," said Theodore, with a sigh, "I would fain recover the
horse I rode. It was my father's charger: but I fear that it is vain,
for I left it upon the hill."
"What, the black horse with the white star on his forehead?" demanded
Edicon.
"The same," answered Theodore, with some surprise. "Have you seen
him?"
"I saw him with you on the other side of the Danube, some four days
ago," replied Edicon, "when Attila came down from the interior to meet
you."
"To meet me!" exclaimed Theodore, with a faint smile; "he could not
come to meet me; for I crossed the Danube by accident, not from any
long-conceived purpose."
"So it might be," answered the chief, "and yet the king knew that you
were coming, and went down to meet you. Do you not believe that there
are men who see the coming events as clearly as we see the past? But
it matters not," he added; "we left the tribe of Vultingours upon the
hill. Perchance the horse may have fallen into their hands; if so,
thou shalt have him."
He then spoke a few words in their own tongue to some of the Huns
near, two of whom instantly sprang upon their horses and galloped up
the hill. While they were gone, Theodore and Edicon lay down in the
shade upon the grass; and the young Roman endeavoured to induce his
companion to pursue to some clearer point of explanation the vague
hints which had been given regarding his first meeting with Attila;
but the wily barbarian was not to be led onward beyond the precise
line by which he chose to bound his communication; and as soon as
Theodore attempted to gain further information, he started up, and
busied himself in giving orders to the wild warriors around him.
In a few minutes the two Huns returned, leading down at a quick pace
the horse of the young Roman, which, snorting and rearing, resisted
the unfamiliar hands by which he was guided. In a moment, however, the
voice of his master rendered him tame and docile as a lamb; and
Theodore could perceive, by the smiles and gestures of the barbarians,
whose affection for, and command over, their own horses were even then
proverbial, that he had risen highly in their esteem by the love and
obedience which the noble beast displayed towards him.
When at length all was prepared, he mounted, though with much pain and
difficulty from his wounds; but when once on his horse's back he
experienced no further inconvenience, except from weakness; and,
riding side by side with Edicon, he proceeded slowly on the same track
which Attila and his troops had previously taken.
A little farther to the east, the woods again swept down to the very
banks, seeming to present an impervious barrier against their advance
in that direction; but still the Scythian horsemen rode on direct
towards the forest, and, separating on the very edge, each took his
path by himself, winding along with extraordinary skill and dexterity,
and keeping up their communication with each other by shrill, sharp
cries. They had apparently left the direction taken by Attila and his
myriads; for the grass of the forest bore no trace of having been
trodden down by the feet of those innumerable horsemen; and the green
boughs on either side, clad in the refreshing garmenture of the early
year, neither scorched by the summer's sun nor withered by the
autumn's wind, were unbroken and undisturbed. With slow and heavy wing
rose up the feathered tenants of the wood, on the passage of strangers
through those spots of which they had held solitary possession for so
many years: the beasts started away from their path, almost under the
horses' feet; and everything indicated that calm tranquillity had
reigned there for many a year, while the civilized world beyond had
been torn by faction, turbulence, and war.
For nearly three miles the branch of the great Dacian forest, which
they were now traversing, continued unbroken, but at the end of that
distance it again suddenly ceased, and, issuing out upon a wide
savanna, the little band of Huns reunited, and rode rapidly on.
Another wood succeeded, but of less extent, and bearing evident
traces, in many parts, of the destroying axe. It, too, was soon
crossed; and when Theodore had again reached its extreme limit,
another scene, more gloomy, more painful, more terrible, broke upon
his eye.
It was a cultivated land laid desolate! The corn, just losing its
fresh green, and touched with the golden hand of summer, was beaten
down, and trodden into the very ground from which it grew; the fences
and partitions were swept away, and the scattered remnants thereof,
mingled with the produce which they were intended to protect, spread
wide over the trampled and ruined country. The huts and cottages of a
lowly but industrious population were seen around; but the roof had
fallen in, and the blackened and smouldering rafters told the tale of
destruction but too well. In the midst of the field lay a husbandman
with a javelin wound in his throat, and at the door of one of the
cottages, stretched across that threshold which her feet had so often
passed with joy and gladness, was the body of a young mother, with her
golden hair streaming on the ground, her white arms extended
motionless above her head, now tranquil in death, but telling still
the tale of agonized emotion past, of supplication urged in vain, and
unanswered appeals unto mysterious Heaven; and there, beside her,
seeking with plaintive cries its wonted food, crept on towards her
bosom her infant child, its little hands dabbling in the stream of
gore that welled from the fond loved home of infancy, the dear
maternal breast now for ever cold and feelingless.
"Oh God, the child!" cried Theodore, as they rode by.
Edicon gazed on it with a stern dark brow. "There will be many such,"
he said, and it was all his reply.
The young Roman's heart swelled within him with the choking agony of
fruitless indignation. He could do naught to succour, to save, or to
defend; and bending down his eyes upon the arching neck of his proud
charger, he strove not to see the many miseries of the land through
which he passed. He could not shut his eyes to all, however. Every now
and then the horse would recoil from a corpse stretched across his
way. Every now and then the crashing fall of some burning cottage or
Roman watch-tower, which were thick upon the road towards Viminacium,
would make him start and look up, and behold new traces of ruin,
slaughter, and desolation.
They passed by a hamlet where once many happy hearths had gathered
round a small Christian church; but the hearths were strewed with the
rafters that had covered them; the voice of the pastor and the hearts
of the congregation were now still in death; the church was void, its
walls smoking, its pavements stained with blood, and its altar
profaned; and silence reigned equally where the merry laugh and the
gay song had rejoiced in the blessings of God, and where the voice of
supplication or of gratitude had been raised to him in prayer or
adoration.
They passed by a villa built in the graceful and the mighty times of
Trajan, while the name of Rome was awful over all the earth; but its
halls and vestibules, its courts and gardens, were strewed with its
fragments of works of art, and blackened with the fire which had
destroyed its fair proportions.
Oh how glad was Theodore, when the gray coming on of twilight gave him
the hope that night would soon shut out from his weary eyes the sight
of such scenes of horror and devastation. But, alas! even when
darkness spread over the whole sky, the earth beneath--as he rode
along, across the high grounds which there sweep down to the
Danube--seemed glowing in a thousand spots with the lurid light of
wide-spread conflagration; and Theodore beheld the destiny of his
native land. Fire consumed each dwelling's roof-tree, and blood
drowned out the ashes.
At length, at the bottom of the hills, where a small wood skirted one
of the little rivers they had to cross, they came suddenly upon a
number of fires, round which were seated some thousands of the
barbarians. On the approach of Edicon and his party, numbers of them
started up, and, leaving the loud rude merry-making in which they were
engaged, gathered around the new comers, with wild gestures and quick
vociferous tongues talking, laughing, shouting, and screaming, while
the fitful gleams of the fire displayed, in strong, unpleasant light
and shade, their strange attire and harsh repulsive countenances. Food
of various kinds and in great abundance was set before Theodore and
those who escorted him; but the young Roman felt no power to eat, and
only quenched the burning of his lip, while he strove to drown
remembrance of his griefs in two full cups of wine.
"We must on with the first light to-morrow morning," said Edicon, "and
therefore it were better for you to take what sleep you can, though,
perhaps, being a Roman, you cannot find slumber on such a couch as
nature provided for man, and under such a tent as the starry sky."
"Sleep!" cried Theodore, "sleep! Do you expect me to sleep after such
a day as this? Such sleep, however, as I can gain may as well be taken
here as anywhere else," and, wrapping his mantle round his head, he
cast himself down near one of the fires. For repose he sought not, for
he neither hoped nor expected to find it, but he sought to shut out
from his sight the fierce forms and savage merriment of those who had
just devastated his country. With his eyes closed, and his mantle
round his head, he saw them not, it is true, but still the wild peals
of barbarian laughter rang in his ears, as they caroused around the
fires; still imagination called up to his view the rude, ill-favoured
countenances of the Huns; still memory presented to his fevered brain
all the sad and painful sights which he had beheld during the day.
Thus passed by the greater part of the night; for, even when the Huns,
giving themselves up to slumber, left silence to recover her empire
over the scene from which their rude revels had banished her, bitter
remembrance haunted the young Roman still, and drove far away from his
troubled breast that soft and soothing guest which visits so
unwillingly the couch of pain or wo. About an hour before dawn,
exhaustion, however, conquered thought; and when Edicon roused him to
proceed, he was sleeping, if the name of sleep could be applied to
that dull, unrefreshing want of consciousness into which he had fallen
for the time. He started up, however, ready to go on, ay, and willing;
for although he could hope to find but little better or fairer in the
things before him, yet every scene in which he was placed was, for the
time, so hateful to him, that it was a relief and consolation even to
change.
The road lay still by the side of the Danube; but, after leaving their
night's resting-place, it was evident that they were coming fast upon
the great host of Attila himself. Multitudes of small wagons covered
the way. Thousands of straggling parties were seen in every direction;
and at length, after riding on for about two hours, they came in sight
of the towers of a city, rising up from the banks of the river. At the
same moment, as they stood upon the hill above it, a shout came up to
the ear so loud, so fierce, so demoniacal, that it seemed to Theodore
that the very fiends of hell had burst forth to mingle with the dark
innumerable multitudes that he beheld whirling round that devoted town
like the waves of some mighty vortex in the stormy oceans of the
north.
Another and another yell succeeded; and as Edicon still led on down
the hill, screams of anguish could be distinguished mixing with the
shout, and fire might be seen bursting forth from various parts of the
city.
"Viminacium is taken!" said the Hunnish leader: "we shall find the
king in the market-place; ride close by me, and let us on."