GOISVINTHA'S RETURN.
It was morning. The sun had risen, but his beams were partially
obscured by thick heavy clouds, which scowled already over the
struggling brightness of the eastern horizon. The bustle and animation
of the new day gradually overspread the Gothic encampment in all
directions. The only tent whose curtain remained still closed, and
round which no busy crowds congregated in discussion or mingled in
labour, was that of Hermanric. By the dying embers of his watchfire
stood the young chieftain, with two warriors, to whom he appeared to be
giving some hurried directions. His countenance expressed emotions of
anxiety and discontent, which, though partially repressed while he was
in the presence of his companions, became thoroughly visible, not only
in his features, but in his manner, when they left him to watch alone
before his tent.
For some time he walked regularly backwards and forwards, looking
anxiously down the westward lines of the encampment, and occasionally
whispering to himself a hasty exclamation of doubt and impatience.
With the first breath of the new morning, the delighting meditations
which had occupied him by his watchfire during the darkness of the
night had begun to subside. And now, as the hour of her expected return
gradually approached, the image of Goisvintha banished from his mind
whatever remained of those peaceful and happy contemplation in which he
had hitherto been absorbed. The more he thought on his fatal
promise--on the nation of Antonina--on his duties to the army and the
people to whom he belonged, the more doubtful appeared to him his
chance of permanently protecting the young Roman without risking his
degradation as a Goth, and his ruin as a warrior; and the more sternly
and ominously ran in his ears the unassailable truth of Goisvintha's
parting taunt--'You must remember your promise, you cannot save her if
you would!'
Wearied of persisting in deliberations which only deepened his
melancholy and increased his doubts; bent on sinking in a temporary and
delusive oblivion the boding reflections that overcame him in spite of
himself, by seeking--while its enjoyment was yet left to him--the
society of his ill-fated charge, he turned towards his tent, drew aside
the thick, heavy curtains of skins which closed its opening, and
approached the rude couch on which Antonina was still sleeping.
A ray of sunlight, fitful and struggling, burst at this moment through
the heavy clouds, and stole into the opening of the tent as he
contemplated the slumbering girl. It ran its flowing course up her
uncovered hand and arm, flew over her bosom and neck, and bathed in a
bright fresh glow, her still and reposing features. Gradually her
limbs began to move, her lips parted gently and half smiled, as if in
welcome to the greeting of the light; her eyes slightly opened, then
dazzled by the brightness that flowed through their raised lids,
tremblingly closed again. At length thoroughly awakened, she shaded
her face with her hands, and sitting up on the couch, met the gaze of
Hermanric fixed on her in sorrowful examination.
'Your bright armour, and your glorious name, and your merciful words,
have remained with me even in my sleep,' said she, wonderingly; 'and
now, when I awake, I see you before me again! It is a happiness to be
aroused by the sun which has gladdened me all my life, to look upon you
who have given me shelter in my distress! But why,' she continued, in
altered and enquiring tones, 'why do you gaze upon me with doubting and
mournful eyes?'
'You have slept well and safely,' said Hermanric, evasively, 'I closed
the opening of the tent to preserve you from the night-damps, but I
have raised it now, for the air is warming under the rising sun--'
'Are you wearied with watching?' she interrupted, rising to her feet,
and looking anxiously into his face. But he spoke not in reply. His
head was turned towards the door of the tent. He seemed to be
listening for some expected sound. It was evident that he had not
heard her question. She followed the direction of his eyes. The sight
of the great city, half brightened, half darkened, as its myriad
buildings reflected the light of the sun, or retained the shadows of
the clouds, brought back to her remembrance her last night's petition
for her father's safety. She laid her hand upon her companion's arm to
awaken his attention, and hastily resumed:--
'You have not forgotten what I said to you last night? My father's
name is Numerian. He lives on the Pincian Mount. You will save him,
Hermanric--you will save him! You will remember your promise!'
The young warrior's eyes fell as she spoke, and an irrepressible
shudder shook his whole frame. The last part of Antonina's address to
him, was expressed in the same terms as a past appeal from other lips,
and in other accents, which still clung to his memory. The same
demand, 'Remember your promise,' which had been advanced to urge him to
bloodshed, by Goisvintha, was now proffered by Antonina, to lure him to
pity. The petition of affection was concluded in the same terms as the
petition of revenge. As he thought on both, the human pity of the one,
and the fiend-like cruelty of the other, rose in sinister and
significant contrast on the mind of the Goth, realising in all its
perils the struggle that was to come when Goisvintha returned, and
dispelling instantaneously the last hopes that he had yet ventured to
cherish for the fugitive at his side.
'No assault of the city is commanded--no assault is intended. Your
father's life is safe from the swords of the Goths,' he gloomily
replied, in answer to Antonina's last words.
The girl moved back from him a few steps as he spoke, and looked
thoughtfully round the tent. The battle-axe that Hermanric had secured
during the scene of the past evening, still lay on the ground, in a
corner. The sight of it brought back a flood of terrible recollections
to her mind. She started violently; a sudden change overspread her
features, and when she again addressed Hermanric, it was with quivering
lips and in almost inarticulate words.
'I know now why you look on me so gloomily,' said she; 'that woman is
coming back! I was so occupied by my dreams and my thoughts of my
father and of you, and my hopes for days to come, that I had forgotten
her when I awoke! But I remember all now! She is coming back--I see
it in your sorrowful eyes--she is coming back to murder me! I shall
die at the moment when I had such hope in my life! There is no
happiness for me! None!--none!'
The Goth's countenance began to darken. He whispered to himself
several times, 'How can I save her?' For a few minutes there was a
deep silence, broken only by the sobs of Antonina. He looked round at
her after an interval. She held her hands clasped over her eyes. The
tears were streaming through her parted fingers; her bosom heaved as if
her emotions would burst their way through it in some palpable form;
and her limbs trembled so, that she could scarcely support herself.
Unconsciously, as he looked on her, he passed his arm round her slender
form, drew her hands gently from her face, and said to her, though his
heart belied his words as he spoke, 'Do not be afraid--trust in me!'
'How can I be calm?' she cried, looking up at him entreatingly; 'I was
so happy last night, so sure that you could preserve me, so hopeful
about to-morrow--and now I see by your mournful looks, I know by your
doubting voice, that to soothe my anguish you have promised me more
than you can perform! The woman who is your companion, has a power
over us both, that it is terrible even to think of! She will return,
she will withdraw all mercy from your heart, she will glare upon me
with her fearful eyes, she will kill me at your feet! I shall die
after all I have suffered and all I have hoped! Oh, Hermanric, while
there is yet time let us escape! You were not made to shed blood--you
are too merciful! God never made you to destroy! You cannot yearn
towards cruelty and woe, for you have aided and protected me! Let us
escape! I will follow you wherever you wish! I will do whatever you
ask! I will go with you beyond those far, bright mountains behind us,
to any strange and distant land; for there is beauty everywhere; there
are woods that may be dwelt in, and valleys that may be loved, on all
the surface of this wide great earth!'
The Goth looked sadly on her as she paused; but he gave her no
answer--the gloom was deepening over his heart--the false words of
consolation were silenced on his lips.
'Think how many pleasures we should enjoy, how much we might see!'
continued the girl, in soft, appealing tones. 'We should be free to
wander wherever we pleased; we should never be lonely; never be
mournful; never be wearied! I could listen to you day after day, while
you told me of the country where your people were born! I could sing
you sweet songs that I have learned upon the lute! Oh, how I have wept
in my loneliness to lead such a life as this! How I have longed that
such freedom and joy might be mine! How I have thought of the distant
lands that I would visit, of the happy nations that I would discover,
of the mountain breezes that I would breathe, of the shady places that
I would repose in, of the rivers that I would follow in their course,
of the flowers I would plant, and the fruits I would gather! How I
have hoped for such an existence as this! How I have longed for a
companion who might enjoy it as I should! Have you never felt this joy
that I have imagined to myself, you who have been free to wander
wherever you pleased? Let us leave this place, and I will teach it to
you if you have not. I will be so patient, so obedient, so happy! I
will never be sorrowful; never repining--but let us escape--Oh,
Hermanric, let us escape while there is yet time! Will you keep me
here to be slain? Can you drive me forth into the world alone?
Remember that the gates of the city and the doors of my home are now
closed to me! Remember that I have no mother, and that my father has
forsaken me! Remember that I am a stranger on the earth which was made
for me to be joyful in! Think how soon the woman who has vowed that
she will murder me will return; think how terrible it is to be in the
fear of death; and while there is time let us depart--Hermanric,
Hermanric, if you have pity for me, let us depart!'
She clasped her hands, and looked up in his face imploringly. The
manner of Hermanric had expressed more to her senses, sharpened as they
were by peril, than his words could have conveyed, even had he
confessed to her the cause of the emotions of doubt and apprehension
that oppressed his mind. Nothing could more strikingly testify to the
innocence of her character and the seclusion of her life, than her
attempt to combine with her escape from Goisvintha's fury, the
acquisition of such a companion as the Goth. But to the forlorn and
affectionate girl who saw herself--a stranger to the laws of the social
existence of her fellow creatures--suddenly thrust forth friendless
into the unfriendly world, could the heart have naturally prompted any
other desire, than anxiety to secure the companion after having
discovered the protector? In the guilelessness of her character, in
her absolute ignorance of humanity, of the influence of custom, of the
adaptation of difference of feeling to difference of sex, she vainly
imagined that the tranquil existence she had urged on Hermanric, would
suffice for the attainment of her end, by presenting the same
allurements to him, a warrior and a Goth, that it contained for her--a
lonely, thoughtful, visionary girl! And yet, so wonderful was the
ascendancy that she had acquired by the magic of her presence, the
freshness of her beauty, and the novelty of her manner, over the heart
of the young chieftain, that he, who would have spurned from him with
contempt any other woman who might have addressed to him such a
petition as Antonina's, looked down sorrowfully at the girl as she
ceased speaking, and for an instant hesitated in his choice.
At that moment, when the attention of each was fixed on the other, a
third person stealthily approached the opening of the tent, and
beholding them together thus, burst into a bitter, taunting laugh.
Hermanric raised his eyes instantly; but the sound of that harsh
unwomanly voice was all-eloquent to Antonina's senses. She hid her
face against the Goth's breast, and murmured breathlessly--'She has
returned! I must die! I must die!'
She had returned! She perceived Hermanric and Antonina in a position,
which left no doubt that a stronger feeling than the mere wish to
protect the victim of her intended revenge, had arisen, during her
absence, in the heart of her kinsman. Hour after hour, while she had
fulfilled her duties by the beds of Alaric's invalided soldiery, had
she brooded over her projects of vengeance and blood. Neither the
sickness nor the death which she had beheld around her, had possessed
an influence powerful enough over the stubborn ferocity which now alone
animated her nature, to lure it to mercy or awe it to repentance.
Invigorated by delay, and enlarged by disappointment, the evil passion
that consumed her had strengthened its power, and aroused the most
latent of its energies, during the silent vigil that she had just held.
She had detested the girl on the evening before, for her nation; she
now hated her for herself.
'What have you to do with the trappings of a Gothic warrior?' she
cried, in mocking accents, pointing at Hermanric with a long
hunting-knife which she held in her hand. 'Why are you here in a
Gothic encampment? Go, knock at the gates of Rome, implore her guards
on your knees to admit you among the citizens, and when they ask you
why--show them the girl there! Tell them that you love her, that you
would wed her, that it is nothing to you that her people have murdered
your brother and his children! And then, when you yourself have
begotten sons, Gothic bastards infected with Roman blood, be a Roman at
heart yourself, send your children forth to complete what your wife's
people left undone at Aquileia--by murdering me!'
She paused and laughed scornfully. Then her humour suddenly changed,
she advanced a few steps, and continued in a louder and sterner tone:--
'You have broken your faith; you have lied to me; you have forgotten
your wrongs and mine; but you have not yet forgotten my parting words
when I left you last night! I told you that she should be slain, and
now that you have refused to avenge me, I will make good my words by
killing her with my own hand! If you would defend her, you must murder
me. You must shed her blood or mine!'
She stepped forward, her towering form was stretched to its highest
stature, the muscles started into action on her bare arms as she raised
them above her head. For one instant, she fixed her glaring eyes
steadily on the girl's shrinking form--the next, she rushed up and
struck furiously with the knife at her bare neck. As the weapon
descended, Hermanric caught her wrist. She struggled violently to
disengage herself from his grasp, but in vain.
The countenance of the young warrior grew deadly pale, as he held her.
For a few minutes he glanced eagerly round the tent, in an agony of
bewilderment and despair. The conflicting interests of his duty
towards his sister, and his anxiety for Antonina's preservation, filled
his heart to distraction. A moment more he hesitated, and during that
short delay, the despotism of custom had yet power enough to prevail
over the promptings of pity. He called to the girl--withdrawing his
arm which had hitherto been her support,--'Go, have mercy on me, go!'
But she neither heeded nor heard him. She fell on her knees at the
woman's feet, and in a low moaning voice faltered out:--
'What have I done that I deserve to be slain? I never murdered your
children; I never yet saw a child but I loved it; if I had seen your
children, I should have loved them!'
'If I had preserved to this time the child that I saved from the
massacre, and you had approached him,' returned the woman fiercely, 'I
would have taught him to strike at you with his little hands! When you
spoke to him, he should have spat upon you for answer--even thus!'
Trembling, exhausted, terrified as she was, the girl's Roman blood
rushed over her pale cheeks as she felt the insult. She turned towards
Hermanric, looked up at him appealingly, attempted to speak, and then
sinking lower upon the ground, wept bitterly.
'Why do you weep and pray and mouth it at him?' shrieked Goisvintha,
pointing to Hermanric with her disengaged hand. 'He has neither
courage to protect you, nor honour to aid me. Do you think that I am
to be moved by your tears and entreaties? I tell you that your people
have slain my husband and my children, and that I hate you for that. I
tell you that you have lured Hermanric into love for a Roman and
unfaithfulness to me, and I will slay you for doing it! I tell you
that there is not a living thing of the blood of your country, or the
name of your nation, throughout the length and breadth of this empire,
that I would not destroy if I had the power! If the very trees on the
road hither could have had feeling, I would have torn the bark from
their stems with my own hands! If a bird, native of your skies, had
flown into my bosom from very tameness and sport, I would have crushed
it dead at my feet! And do you think that you shall escape? Do you
think that I will not avenge the deaths of my husband and my children
upon you, after this?'
As she spoke, she mechanically unclenched her hands. The knife dropped
to the ground. Hermanric instantly stooped and secured it. For a
moment she stood before him released from his grasp, motionless and
speechless. Then, starting as if struck by a sudden idea, she moved
towards the opening of the tent, and, in tones of malignant triumph,
addressed him thus:--
'You shall not save her yet! You are unworthy of your nation and your
name! I will betray your cowardice and treachery to your brethren in
the camp!' And she ran to the outside of the tent, calling in a loud
voice to a group of young warriors who happened to be passing at a
short distance. 'Stay, stay!
Fritigern--Athanaric--Colias--Suerid--Witheric--Fravitta! Hasten
hitherward! Hermanric has a captive in his tent--a prisoner whom it
will rejoice to see! Hitherward! hitherward!'
The group she addressed contained some of the most turbulent and
careless spirits of the whole Gothic army. They had just been released
from their duties of the past night, and were at leisure to comply with
Goisvintha's request. She had scarcely concluded her address before
they turned and hurried eagerly up to the tent, shouting to Hermanric,
as they advanced, to make his prisoner visible to them in the open air.
They had probably expected to be regaled by the ludicrous terror of
some Roman slave whom their comrade had discovered lurking in the empty
suburbs; for when they entered the tent, and saw nothing but the
shrinking figure of the unhappy girl, as she crouched on the earth at
Hermanric's feet, they all paused with one accord, and looked round on
each other in speechless astonishment.
'Behold her!' cried Goisvintha, breaking the momentary silence. 'She
is the Roman prisoner that your man of valour there has secured for
himself! For that trembling child he has forgotten the enmities of his
people! She is more to him already than army, general, or companions.
You have watched before the city during the night; but he has stood
sentinel by the maiden of Rome! Hope not that he will share in your
toils, or mix in your pleasures more. Alaric and the warriors have
lost his services--his future king cringes there at his feet!'
She had expected to arouse the anger and excite the jealousy of the
rough audience she addressed; but the result of her envenomed jeers
disappointed her hopes. The humour of the moment prompted the Goths to
ridicule, a course infinitely more inimical to Antonina's interests
with Hermanric than menaces or recrimination. Recovered from their
first astonishment, they burst into a loud and universal laugh.
'Mars and Venus caught together! But, by St. Peter, I see not Vulcan
and the net!' cried Fravitta, who having served in the armies of Rome,
and acquired a vague knowledge there of the ancient mythology, and the
modern politics of the Empire, was considered by his companions as the
wit of the battalion to which he was attached.
'I like her figure,' growled Fritigern, a heavy, phlegmatic giant,
renowned for his imperturbable good humour and his prowess in drinking.
'What little there is of it looks so limp that Hermanric might pack her
into his light baggage and carry her about with him on his shoulders
wherever he goes!'
'By which process you would say, old sucker of wine-skins, that he will
attain the double advantage of always keeping her to himself, and
always keeping her warm,' interrupted Colias, a ruddy, reckless boy of
sixteen, privileged to be impertinent in consideration of his years.
'Is she Orthodox or Arian?' gravely demanded Athanaric, who piqued
himself on his theological accomplishments and his extraordinary piety.
'What hair she has!' exclaimed Suerid, sarcastically. 'It is as black
as the horse-hides of a squadron of Huns!'
'Show us her face! Whose tent will she visit next?' cried Witheric,
with an insolent laugh.
'Mine!' replied Fritigern, complacently. 'What says the chorus of the
song?
'Money and wine Make beauty mine!
I have more of both than any of you. She will come to my tent!'
During the delivery of these clumsy jests, which followed one upon
another with instantaneous rapidity, the scorn at first expressed in
Hermanric's countenance became gradually replaced by a look of
irrepressible anger. As Fritigern spoke, he lost all command over
himself, and seizing his sword, advanced threateningly towards the
easy-tempered giant, who made no attempt to recede or defend himself,
but called out soothingly, 'Patience, man! patience! Would you kill an
old comrade for jesting? I envy you your good luck as a friend, not as
an enemy!'
Yielding to the necessity of lowering his sword before a defenceless
man, Hermanric was about to reply angrily to Fritigern, when his voice
was drowned in the blast of a trumpet, sounding close by the tent. The
signal that it gave was understood at once by the group of jesters
still surrounding the young Goth. They turned, and retired without an
instant's delay. The last of their number had scarcely disappeared,
when the same veteran who had spoken with Hermanric, on the departure
of Goisvintha the evening before, entered and thus addressed him:--
'You are commanded to post yourself with the division that now awaits
you, at a place eastward of your present position, which will be shown
you by a guide. Make ready at once--you have not an instant to delay.'
As the words passed the old man's lips, Hermanric turned and looked on
Goisvintha. During the presence of the Goths in the tent, she had sat
listening to their rough jeers in suppressed wrath and speechless
disdain; now she rose and advanced a few steps. But there suddenly
appeared an unwonted hesitation in her gait; her face was pale; she
breathed fast and heavily. 'Where will you shelter her now?' she
cried, addressing Hermanric, and threatening the girl with her
outstretched hands. 'Abandon her to your companions, or leave her to
me; she is lost either way! I shall triumph--triumph!'--
At this moment her voice sank to an unintelligible murmur; she tottered
where she stood. It was evident that the long strife of passions
during her past night of watching, and the fierce and varying emotions
of the morning, suddenly brought to a crisis, as they had been, by her
exultation when she heard the old warrior's fatal message, had at
length overtasked the energies even of her powerful frame. Yet one
moment more she endeavoured to advance, to speak, to snatch the hunting
knife from Hermanric's hand; the next she fell insensible at his feet.
Goaded almost to madness by the successive trials that he had
undergone; Goisvintha's furious determination to thwart him, still
present to his mind; the scornful words of his companions yet ringing
in his ears; his inexorable duties demanding his attention without
reserve or delay; Hermanric succumbed at last under the difficulties of
his position, and despairingly abandoned all further hope of effecting
the girl's preservation. Pointing to some food that lay in a corner of
the tent, and to the country behind, he said to her, in broken and
gloomy accents, 'Furnish yourself with those provisions, and fly, while
Goisvintha is yet unable to pursue you. I can protect you no longer!'
Until this moment, Antonina had kept her face hidden, and had remained
still crouching on the ground; motionless, save when a shudder ran
through her frame as she listened to the loud, coarse jesting of the
Goths; and speechless, except that when Goisvintha sank senseless to
the earth, she uttered an exclamation of terror. But now, when she
heard the sentence of her banishment proclaimed by the very lips which
but the evening before had assured her of shelter and protection, she
rose up instantly, cast on the young Goth a glance of such speechless
misery and despair, that he involuntarily quailed before it; and then,
without a tear or a sigh, without a look of reproach, or a word of
entreaty, petrified and bowed down beneath a perfect trance of terror
and grief, she left the tent.
Hurrying his actions with the reckless energy of a man determined on
banishing his thoughts by his employments, Hermanric placed himself at
the head of his troop, and marched quickly onwards in an eastward
direction past the Pincian Gate. Two of his attendants who happened to
enter the tent after his departure, observing Goisvintha still extended
on the earth, proceeded to transport her to part of the camp occupied
by the women who were attached to the army; and then, the little
sheltering canopy which made the abode of the Goth, and which had
witnessed so large a share of human misery and so fierce a war of human
contention in so few hours, was left as silent and lonely as the
deserted country in which Antonina was now fated to seek a refuge and a
home.