THE CITY AND THE GODS.
We return once more to the Gothic encampment in the suburbs eastward of
the Pincian Gate, and to Hermanric and the warriors under his command,
who are still posted at that particular position on the great circle of
the blockade.
The movements of the young chieftain from place to place expressed, in
their variety and rapidity, the restlessness that was agitating his
mind. He glanced back frequently from the warriors around him to the
remote and opposite quarter of the suburbs, occasionally directing his
eyes towards the western horizon, as if anxiously awaiting the approach
of some particular hour of the coming night. Weary at length of
pursuing occupations which evidently irritated rather than soothed his
impatience, he turned abruptly from his companions, and advancing
towards the city, paced slowly backwards and forwards over the waste
ground between the suburbs and the walls of Rome.
At intervals he still continued to examine the scene around him. A
more dreary prospect than now met his view, whether in earth or sky,
can hardly be conceived.
The dull sunless day was fast closing, and the portentous heaven gave
promise of a stormy night. Thick, black layers of shapeless cloud hung
over the whole firmament, save at the western point; and here lay a
streak of pale, yellow light, enclosed on all sides by the firm,
ungraduated, irregular edges of the masses of gloomy vapour around it.
A deep silence hung over the whole atmosphere. The wind was voiceless
among the steady trees. The stir and action in the being of nature and
the life of man seemed enthralled, suspended, stifled. The air was
laden with a burdensome heat; and all things on earth, animate and
inanimate, felt the oppression that weighed on them from the higher
elements. The people who lay gasping for breath in the famine-stricken
city, and the blades of grass that drooped languidly on the dry sward
beyond the walls, owned the enfeebling influence alike.
As the hours wore on and night stealthily and gradually advanced, a
monotonous darkness overspread, one after another, the objects
discernible to Hermanric from the solitary ground he still occupied.
Soon the great city faded into one vast, impenetrable shadow, while the
suburbs and the low country around them vanished in the thick darkness
that gathered almost perceptibly over the earth. And now the sole
object distinctly visible was the figure of a weary sentinel, who stood
on the frowning rampart immediately above the rifted wall, and whose
drooping figure, propped upon his weapon, was indicated in hard relief
against the thin, solitary streak of light still shining in the cold
and cloudy wastes of the western sky.
But as the night still deepened, this one space of light faded,
contracted, vanished, and with it disappeared the sentinel and the line
of rampart on which he was posted. The rule of the darkness now became
universal. Densely and rapidly it overspread the whole city with
startling suddenness; as if the fearful destiny now working its
fulfilment in Rome had forced the external appearances of the night
into harmony with its own woe-boding nature.
Then, as the young Goth still lingered at his post of observation, the
long, low, tremulous, absorbing roll of thunder afar off became grandly
audible. It seemed to proceed from a distance almost incalculable; to
be sounding from its cradle in the frozen north; to be journeying about
its ice-girdled chambers in the lonely poles. It deepened rather than
interrupted the dreary, mysterious stillness of the atmosphere. The
lightning, too, had a summer softness in its noiseless and frequent
gleam. It was not the fierce lightning of winter, but a warm, fitful
brightness, almost fascinating in its light, rapid recurrence, tinged
with the glow of heaven, and not with the glare of hell.
There was no wind--no rain; and the air was as hushed as if it slept
over chaos in the infancy of a new creation.
Among the various objects displayed, instant by instant, by the rapid
lightning to the eyes of Hermanric, the most easily and most distinctly
visible was the broad surface of the rifted wall. The large, loose
stones, scattered here and there at its base, and the overhanging lid
of its broad rampart, became plainly though fitfully apparent in the
brief moments of their illumination. The lightning had played for some
time over that structure of the fortifications, and the bare ground
that stretched immediately beyond them, when the smooth prospect which
it thus gave by glimpses to view, was suddenly chequered by a flight of
birds appearing from one of the lower divisions of the wall, and
flitting uneasily to and fro at one spot before its surface.
As moment after moment the lightning continued to gleam, so the black
forms of the birds were visible to the practised eye of the
Goth--perceptible, yet evanescent, as sparks of fire or flakes of
snow--whirling confusedly and continually about the spot whence they
had evidently been startled by some unimaginable interruption. At
length, after a lapse of some time, they vanished as suddenly as they
had appeared, with shrill notes of affright which were audible even
above the continuous rolling of the thunder; and immediately
afterwards, when the lightning alternated with the darkness, there
appeared to Hermanric, in the part of the wall where the birds had been
first disturbed, a small red gleam, like a spark of fire lodged in the
surface of the structure. Then this was lost; a longer obscurity than
usual prevailed in the atmosphere, and when the Goth gazed eagerly
through the next succession of flashes, they showed him the momentary
and doubtful semblance of a human figure, standing erect on the stones
at the base of the wall.
Hermanric started with astonishment. Again the lightning ceased. In
the ardour of his anxiety to behold more, he strained his eyes with the
vain hope of penetrating the obscurity around him. The darkness seemed
interminable. Once again the lightning flashed brilliantly out. He
looked eagerly towards the wall--the figure was still there.
His heart throbbed quickly within him, as he stood irresolute on the
spot he had occupied since the first peal of thunder had struck upon
his ear. Were the light and the man--one seen but for an instant, the
other still perceptible--mere phantoms of his erring sight, dazzled by
the quick recurrence of atmospheric changes through which it had acted?
Or did he indubitably behold a human form, and had he really observed a
material light? Some strange treachery, some dangerous mystery might
be engendering in the besieged city, which it would be his duty to
observe and unmask. He drew his sword, and, at the risk of being
observed through the lightning, and heard during the pauses in the
thunder, by the sentinel on the wall, resolutely advanced to the very
foot of the fortifications of hostile Rome.
He heard no sound, perceived no light, observed no figure, as, after
several unsuccessful attempts to reach the place where they stood, he
at length paused at the loose stones which he knew were heaped at the
base of the wall. The next moment he was so close to it, that he could
pass his sword-point over parts of its rugged surface. He had scarcely
examined thus a space of more than ten yards, before his weapon
encountered a sharp, jagged edge; and a sudden presentiment assured him
instantly that he had found the spot where he had beheld the momentary
light, and that he stood on the same stone which had been occupied by
the figure of the man.
After an instant's hesitation, he was about to mount higher on the
loose stones, and examine more closely the irregularity he had just
discovered in the wall, when a vivid flash of lightning, unusually
prolonged, showed him, obstructing at scarcely a yard's distance his
onward path, the figure he had already distantly beheld from the plain
behind.
There was something inexpressibly fearful in his viewless vicinity,
during the next moment of darkness, to this silent, mysterious form, so
imperfectly shown by the lightning that quivered over its half-revealed
proportions. Every pulse in the body of the Goth seemed to pause as he
stood, with ready weapon, looking into the gloomy darkness, and wafting
for the next flash. It came, and displayed to him the man's fierce
eyes glaring steadily down upon his face; another gleam, and he beheld
his haggard finger placed upon his lip in token of silence; a third,
and he saw the arm of the figure pointing towards the plain behind him;
and then in the darkness that followed, a hot breath played upon his
ear, and a voice whispered to him, through a pause in the rolling of
the thunder--'Follow me.'
The next instant Hermanric felt the momentary contact of the man's
body, as with noiseless steps he passed him on the stones. It was no
time to deliberate or to doubt. He followed close upon the stranger's
footsteps, gaining glimpses of his dark form moving onward before,
whenever the lightning briefly illuminated the scene, until they
arrived at a clump of trees, not far distant from the houses in the
suburbs that were occupied by the Goths under his own command.
Here the stranger paused before the trunk of a tree which stood between
the city wall and himself, and drew from beneath his ragged cloak a
small lantern, carefully covered with a piece of cloth, which he now
removed, and holding the light high above his head, regarded the Goth
with a steady and anxious scrutiny.
Hermanric attempted to address him first, but the appearance of the
man, barely visible though it was by the feeble light of his lantern,
was so startling and repulsive, that the half-formed words died away on
his lips. The face of the stranger was of a ghastly paleness; his
hollow cheeks were seamed with deep wrinkles; and his eyes glared with
an expression of ferocious suspicion. One of his arms was covered with
old bandages, stiff with coagulated blood, and hung paralysed at his
side. The hand that held the light trembled, so that the lantern
containing it vibrated continuously in his unsteady grasp. His limbs
were lank and shrivelled almost to deformity, and it was with evident
difficulty that he stood upright on his feet. Every member of his body
seemed to be wasting with a gradual death, while his expression, ardent
and forbidding, was stamped with all the energy of manhood, and all the
daring of youth.
It was Ulpius! The wall was passed! The breach was made good!
After a protracted examination of Hermanric's countenance and attire,
the man, with an imperious expression, strangely at variance with his
faltering voice, thus addressed him:--
'You are a Goth?'
'I am,' rejoined the young chief; 'and you are--'
'A friend of the Goths,' was the quick answer.
An instant of silence followed. The dialogue was then again begun by
the stranger.
'What brought you alone to the base of the ramparts?' he demanded, and
an expression of ungovernable apprehension shot from his eyes as he
spoke.
'I saw the appearance of a man in the gleam of the lightning,' answered
Hermanric. 'I approached it, to assure myself that my eyes had not
deluded me, to discover--'
'There is but one man of your nation who shall discover whence I came
and what I would obtain,' interrupted the stranger fiercely; 'that man
is Alaric, your king.'
Surprise, indignation, and contempt appeared in the features of the
Goth, as he listened to such a declaration from the helpless outcast
before him. The man perceived it, and motioning him to be silent,
again addressed him.
'Listen!' cried he. 'I have that to reveal to the leader of your
forces which will stir the heart of every man in your encampment, if
you are trusted with the secret after your king has heard it from my
lips! Do you still refuse to guide me to his tent?'
Hermanric laughed scornfully.
'Look on me,' pursued the man, bending forward, and fixing his eyes
with savage earnestness upon his listener's face. 'I am alone, old,
wounded, weak,--a stranger to your nation,--a famished and a helpless
man! Should I venture into your camp--should I risk being slain for a
Roman by your comrades--should I dare the wrath of your imperious ruler
without a cause?'
He paused; and then, still keeping his eyes on the Goth, continued in
lower and more agitated tones--
'Deny me your help, I will wander through your camp till I find your
king! Imprison me, your violence will not open my lips! Slay me, you
will gain nothing by my death! But aid me, and to the latest moment of
your life you will rejoice in the deed! I have words of terrible
import for Alaric's ear,--a secret in the gaining of which I have paid
the penalty thus!'
He pointed to his wounded arm. The solemnity of his voice, the rough
energy of his words, the stern determination of his aspect, the
darkness of the night that was round them, the rolling thunder that
seemed to join itself to their discourse, the impressive mystery of
their meeting under the city walls, all began to exert their powerful
and different influences over the mind of the Goth, changing insensibly
the sentiments at first inspired in him by the man's communications.
He hesitated, and looked round doubtfully towards the lines of the camp.
There was a long silence, which was again interrupted by the stranger.
'Guard me, chain me, mock at me if you will,' he cried, with raised
voice and flashing eyes, 'but lead me to Alaric's tent! I swear to you
by the thunder pealing over our heads, that the words I would speak to
him will be more precious in his eyes than the brightest jewel he could
ravish from the coffers of Rome.'
Though visibly troubled and impressed, Hermanric still hesitated.
'Do you yet delay?' exclaimed the man, with contemptuous impatience.
'Stand back! I will pass on by myself into the very heart of your
camp! I entered on my project alone--I will work its fulfilment without
help! Stand back!'
And he moved past Hermanric in the direction of the suburbs, with the
same look of fierce energy on his withered features which had marked
them so strikingly at the outset of his extraordinary interview with
the young chieftain.
The daring devotion to his purpose, the reckless toiling after a
dangerous and doubtful success, manifested in the words and actions of
one so feeble and unaided as the stranger, aroused in the Goth that
sentiment of irrepressible admiration which the union of moral and
physical courage inevitably awakens. In addition to the incentive to
aid the man thus created, an ardent curiosity to discover his secret
filled the mind of Hermanric, and further powerfully inclined him to
conduct his determined companion into Alaric's presence--for by such
proceeding only could he hope, after the man's firm declaration that he
would communicate in the first instance to no one but the king, to
penetrate ultimately the object of his mysterious errand. Animated,
therefore, by such motives as these, he called to the stranger to stop,
and briefly communicated to him his willingness to conduct him
instantly to the presence of the leader of the Goths.
The man intimated by a sign his readiness to accept the offer. His
physical powers were now evidently fast failing, but he still tottered
painfully onward as they moved to the headquarters of the camp,
muttering and gesticulating to himself almost incessantly. Once only
did he address his conductor during their progress; and then with a
startling abruptness of manner, and in tones of vehement anxiety and
suspicion, he demanded of the young Goth if he had ever examined the
surface of the city wall before that night. Hermanric replied in the
negative; and they then proceeded in perfect silence.
Their way lay through the line of encampment to the westward, and was
imperfectly lighted by the flame of an occasional torch or the glow of
a distant watch-fire. The thunder had diminished in frequency, but had
increased in volume; faint breaths of wind soared up fitfully from the
west, and already a few raindrops fell slowly to the thirsty earth.
The warriors not actually on duty at the different posts of observation
had retired to the shelter of their tents; none of the thousand idlers
and attendants attached to the great army appeared at their usual
haunts; even the few voices that were audible sounded distant and low.
The night-scene here, among the ranks of the invaders of Italy, was as
gloomy and repelling as on the solitary plains before the walls of Rome.
Ere long the stranger perceived that they had reached a part of the
camp more thickly peopled, more carefully illuminated, more strongly
fortified, than that through which they had already passed; and the
liquid, rushing sound of the waters of the rapid Tiber now caught his
suspicious and attentive ear. They still moved onward a few yards; and
then paused suddenly before a tent, immediately surrounded by many
others, and occupied at all its approaches by groups of richly-armed
warriors. Here Hermanric stopped an instant to parley with the
sentinel, who, after a short delay, raised the outer covering of the
entrance to the tent, and the moment after the Roman adventurer beheld
himself standing by his conductor's side in the presence of the Gothic
king.
The interior of Alaric's tent was lined with skins, and illuminated by
one small lamp, fastened to the centre pole that supported its roof.
The only articles of furniture in the place were some bundles of furs
flung down loosely on the ground, and a large, rudely-carved wooden
chest, on which stood a polished human skull, hollowed into a sort of
clumsy wine-cup. A thoroughly Gothic ruggedness of aspect, a stately
Northern simplicity prevailed over the spacious tent, and was indicated
not merely in its thick shadows, its calm lights, and its freedom from
pomp and glitter, but even in the appearance and employment of its
remarkable occupant.
Alaric was seated alone on the wooden chest already described,
contemplating with bent brow and abstracted gaze some old Runic
characters, traced upon the carved surface of a brass and silver
shield, full five feet high, which rested against the side of the tent.
The light of the lamp falling upon the polished surface of the
weapon--rendered doubly bright by the dark skins behind it--was
reflected back upon the figure of the Goth chief. It glowed upon his
ample cuirass; it revealed his firm lips, slightly curled by an
expression of scornful triumph; it displayed the grand, muscular
formation of his arm, which rested--clothed in tightly-fitting
leather--upon his knee; it partly brightened over his short, light
hair, and glittered steadily in his fixed, thoughtful, manly eyes,
which were just perceptible beneath the partial shadow of his
contracted brow; while it left the lower part of his body and his right
hand, which was supported on the head of a huge, shaggy dog couching at
his side, shadowed almost completely by the thick skins heaped
confusedly against the sides of the wooden chest. He was so completely
absorbed in the contemplation of the Runic characters, traced among the
carved figures on his immense shield, that he did not notice the entry
of Hermanric and the stranger until the growl of the watchful dog
suddenly disturbed him in his occupation. He looked up instantly, his
quick, penetrating glance dwelling for a moment on the young chieftain,
and then resting steadily and inquiringly on his companion's feeble and
mutilated form.
Accustomed to the military brevity and promptitude exacted by his
commander in all communications addressed to him by his inferiors,
Hermanric, without waiting to be interrogated or attempting to preface
or excuse his narrative, shortly related the conversation that had
taken place between the stranger and himself on the plain near the
Pincian Gate; and then waited respectfully to receive the commendation
or incur the rebuke of the king, as the chance of the moment might
happen to decide.
After again fixing his eyes in severe scrutiny on the person of the
Roman, Alaric spoke to the young warrior in the Gothic language thus:--
'Leave the man with me--return to your post, and there await whatever
commands it may be necessary that I should despatch to you to-night.'
Hermanric immediately departed. Then, addressing the stranger for the
first time, and speaking in the Latin language, the Gothic leader
briefly and significantly intimated to his unknown visitant that they
were now alone.
The man's parched lips moved, opened, quivered; his wild, hollow eyes
brightened till they absolutely gleamed, but he seemed incapable of
uttering a word; his features became horribly convulsed, the foam
gathered about his lips, he staggered forward and would have fallen to
the ground, had not the king instantly caught him in his strong grasp,
and placed him on the wooden chest that he had hitherto occupied
himself.
'Can a starving Roman have escaped from the beleaguered city?' muttered
Alaric, as he took the skull cup, and poured some of the wine it
contained down the stranger's throat.
The liquor was immediately successful in restoring composure to the
man's features and consciousness to his mind. He raised himself from
the seat, dashed off the cold perspiration that overspread his
forehead, and stood upright before the king--the solitary, powerless
old man before the vigorous lord of thousands, in the midst of his
warriors--without a tremor in his steady eye or a prayer for protection
on his haughty lip.
'I, a Roman,' he began, 'come from Rome, against which the invader wars
with the weapon of famine, to deliver the city, her people, her
palaces, and her treasures into the hands of Alaric the Goth.'
The king started, looked on the speaker for a moment, and then turned
from him in impatience and contempt.
'I lie not,' pursued the enthusiast, with a calm dignity that affected
even the hardy sensibilities of the Gothic hero. 'Eye me again! Could
I come starved, shrivelled, withered thus from any place but Rome?
Since I quitted the city an hour has hardly passed, and by the way that
I left it the forces of the Goths may enter it to-night.'
'The proof of the harvest is in the quantity of the grain, not in the
tongue of the husbandman. Show me your open gates, and I will believe
that you have spoken truth,' retorted the king, with a rough laugh.
'I betray the city,' resumed the man sternly, 'but on one condition;
grant it me, and--'
'I will grant you your life,' interrupted Alaric haughtily.
'My life!' cried the Roman, and his shrunken form seemed to expand, and
his tremulous voice to grow firm and steady in the very bitterness of
his contempt, as he spoke. 'My life! I ask it not of your power! The
wreck of my body is scarce strong enough to preserve it to me a single
day! I have no home, no loves, no friends, no possessions! I live in
Rome a solitary in the midst of the multitude, a pagan in a city of
apostates! What is my life to me? I cherish it but for the service of
the gods, whose instruments of vengeance against the nation that has
denied them I would make you and your hosts! If you slay me, it is a
sign to me from them that I am worthless in their cause. I shall die
content.'
He ceased. The king's manner, as he listened to him, gradually lost
the bluntness and carelessness that had hitherto characterised it, and
assumed an attention and a seriousness more in accordance with his high
station and important responsibilities. He began to regard the
stranger as no common renegade, no ordinary spy, no shallow impostor,
who might be driven from his tent with disdain; but as a man important
enough to be heard, and ambitious enough to be distrusted.
Accordingly, he resumed the seat from which he had risen during the
interview, and calmly desired his new ally to explain the condition, on
the granting of which depended the promised betrayal of the city of
Rome.
The pain-worn and despondent features of Ulpius became animated by a
glow of triumph as he heard the sudden mildness and moderation of the
king's demand; he raised his head proudly, and advanced a few steps, as
he thus loudly and abruptly resumed:--
'Assure to me the overthrow of the Christian churches, the
extermination of the Christian priests, and the universal revival of
the worship of the gods, and this night shall make you master of the
chief city of the empire you are labouring to subvert!'
The boldness, the comprehensiveness, the insanity of wickedness
displayed in such a proposition, and emanating from such a source, so
astounded the mind of Alaric, as to deprive him for the moment of
speech. The stranger, perceiving his temporary inability to answer
him, broke the silence which ensued and continued--
'Is my condition a hard one? A conqueror is all-powerful; he can
overthrow the worship, as he can overthrow the government of a nation.
What matters it to you, while empire, renown, and treasure are yours,
what deities the people adore? Is it a great price to pay for an easy
conquest, to make a change which threatens neither your power, your
fame, nor your wealth? Do you marvel that I desire from you such a
revolution as this? I was born for the gods, in their service I
inherited rank and renown, for their cause I have suffered degradation
and woe, for their restoration I will plot, combat, die! Assure me
then by oath, that with a new rule you will erect our ancient worship,
and through my secret inlet to the city I will introduce men enough of
the Goths to murder with security the sentinels at the guard-houses,
and open the gates of Rome to the numbers of your whole invading
forces. Think not to despise the aid of a man unprotected and unknown!
The citizens will never yield to your blockade; you shrink from risking
the dangers of an assault; the legions of Ravenna are reported on their
way hitherward. Outcast as I am, I tell it to you here, in the midst
of your camp--your speediest assurance of success rests on my discovery
and on me!'
The king started suddenly from his seat. 'What fool or madman!' he
cried, fixing his eyes in furious scorn and indignation on the
stranger's face, 'prates to me about the legions of Ravenna and the
dangers of an assault! Think you, renegade, that your city could have
resisted me had I chosen to storm it on the first day when I encamped
before its walls? Know you that your effeminate soldiery have laid
aside the armour of their ancestors, because their puny bodies are too
feeble to bear its weight, and that the half of my army here trebles
the whole number of the guards of Rome? Now, while you stand before
me, I have but to command, and the city shall be annihilated with fire
and sword, without the aid of one of the herd of traitors cowering
beneath the shelter of its ill-defended walls!'
As Alaric spoke thus, some invisible agency seemed to crush, body and
mind, the lost wretch whom he addressed. The shock of such an answer
as he now heard seemed to strike him idiotic, as a flash of lightning
strikes with blindness. He regarded the king with a bewildered stare,
waving his hand tremulously backwards and forwards before his face, as
if to clear some imaginary darkness off his eyes; then his arm fell
helpless by his side, his head drooped upon his breast, and he moaned
out in low, vacant tones, 'The restoration of the gods--that is the
condition of conquest--the restoration of the gods!'
'I come not hither to be the tool of a frantic and forgotten
priesthood,' cried Alaric disdainfully. 'Wherever I meet with your
accursed idols I will melt them down into armour for my warriors and
shoes for my horses; I will turn your temples into granaries and cut
your images of wood into billets for the watchfires of my hosts!'
'Slay me and be silent!' groaned the man, staggering back against the
side of the tent, and shrinking under the merciless words of the Goth
like a slave under the lash.
'I leave the shedding of such blood as yours to your fellow Romans,'
answered the king; 'they alone are worthy of the deed.'
No syllable of reply now escaped the stranger's lips, and after an
interval of silence Alaric resumed, in tones divested of their former
fiery irritation, and marked by a solemn earnestness that conferred
irresistible dignity and force on every word that he uttered.
'Behold the characters engraven there!' said he, pointing to the
shield; 'they trace the curse denounced by Odin against the great
oppressor, Rome! Once these words made part of the worship of our
fathers; the worship has long since vanished, but the words remain;
they seal the eternal hatred of the people of the North to the people
of the South; they contain the spirit of the great destiny that has
brought me to the walls of Rome. Citizen of a fallen empire, the
measure of your crimes is full! The voice of a new nation calls
through me for the freedom of the earth, which was made for man, and
not for Romans! The rule that your ancestors won by strength their
posterity shall no longer keep by fraud. For two hundred years, hollow
and unlasting truces have alternated with long and bloody wars between
your people and mine. Remembering this, remembering the wrongs of the
Goths in their settlements in Thrace, the murder of the Gothic youths
in the towns of Asia, the massacre of the Gothic hostages in Aquileia,
I come--chosen by the supernatural decrees of Heaven--to assure the
freedom and satisfy the wrath of my nation, by humbling at its feet the
power of tyrannic Rome! It is not for battle and bloodshed that I am
encamped before yonder walls. It is to crush to the earth, by famine
and woe, the pride of your people and the spirit of your rulers; to
tear from you your hidden wealth, and to strip you of your boasted
honour; to overthrow by oppression the oppressors of the world; to deny
you the glories of a resistance, and to impose on you the shame of a
submission. It is for this that I now abstain from storming your city,
to encircle it with an immovable blockade!'
As the declaration of his great mission burst thus from the lips of the
Gothic king, the spirit of his lofty ambition seemed to diffuse itself
over his outward form. His noble stature, his fine proportions, his
commanding features, became invested with a simple, primeval grandeur.
Contrasted as he now was with the shrunken figure of the spirit-broken
stranger, he looked almost sublime.
A succession of protracted shuddering ran through the Pagan's frame,
but he neither wept nor spoke. The unavailing defence of the Temple of
Serapis, the defeated revolution at Alexandria, and the abortive
intrigue with Vetranio, were now rising on his memory, to heighten the
horror of his present and worst overthrow. Every circumstance
connected with his desperate passage through the rifted wall revived,
fearfully vivid, on his mind. He remembered all the emotions of his
first night's labour in the darkness, all the miseries of his second
night's torture under the fallen brickwork, all the woe, danger, and
despondency that accompanied his subsequent toil--persevered in under
the obstructions of a famine-weakened body and a helpless arm--until he
passed, in delusive triumph, the last of the hindrances in the
long-laboured breach. One after another these banished recollections
returned to his memory as he listened to Alaric's rebuking
words--reviving past infirmities, opening old wounds, inflicting new
lacerations. But, saving the shudderings that still shook his body, no
outward witness betrayed the inward torment that assailed him. It was
too strong for human words, too terrible for human sympathy;--he
suffered it in brute silence. Monstrous as was his plot, the moral
punishment of its attempted consummation was severe enough to be worthy
of the projected crime.
After watching the man for a few minutes more, with a glance of
pitiless disdain, Alaric summoned one of the warriors in attendance;
and, having previously commanded him to pass the word to the sentinels,
authorising the stranger's free passage through the encampment, he then
turned, and, for the last time, addressed him as follows:--
'Return to Rome, through the hole whence, reptile-like, you
emerged!--and feed your starving citizens with the words you have heard
in the barbarian's tent!'
The guard approached, led him from the presence of the king, issued the
necessary directions to the sentinels, and left him to himself. Once
he raised his eyes in despairing appeal to the heaven that frowned over
his head; but still, no word, or tear, or groan, escaped him. He moved
slowly on through the thick darkness; and turning his back on the city,
passed, careless whither he strayed, into the streets of the desolate
and dispeopled suburbs.