A silent pause of several minutes ensued, while the terrible monarch of the Huns thus suffered to burst forth so clear an indication of his hopes and purposes; and as he stood in the midst, still gazing up to the sky, with each firm and powerful limb in statue-like repose, his feet planted on the earth as if rooted to it, his broad chest thrown open, and his wide square forehead lifted to the morning sun, there was an air of might and majesty in his whole appearance which impressed those who beheld him with a belief in his power to accomplish fully that which he so boldly planned. Though far less in height than the chief of Gepidæ, yet Ardaric gazed upon him with reverence and awe; and Theodore, as he beheld him, and traced the light of potent intellect flashing from those dark eyes, while his lip pronounced his vast designs, could not but feel that there stood the most dangerous enemy that Rome had ever known.
At length Attila recalled his thoughts from those dreams of conquest, and, waving his hand towards the spot where the standards of his nation were gathered together, he exclaimed, in a voice which, though not apparently loud, came deep and distinct to every ear around, "Edicon! Edicon, come hither!"
A tall, dark man, with the shrewd face of a Greek, but the air and expression of a barbarian, sprang from his horse and advanced a pace or two into the open space around the king; but, as he came forward, Attila bade him bring the principal captives with him; and, pale, faint, and sick at heart, Flavia and her family, uncertain either of their own fate or of his, so closely, so dearly linked with them, approached the spot where the dark monarch stood with his naked sword still clasped in his sinewy hand. As they came near, the joy of having saved them burst all restraint; and Theodore, though the blood was still dropping from his garments, clasped them one by one in a brief but joyful embrace.
"You are safe, my mother!" he cried, "you are safe, my Ildica! Ammian, Eudochia, you are safe! you are safe, and at liberty! The king will send you securely to the land of the Alani."
"And you, my son, are a slave!" said Flavia. "You are a slave, and we shall never see you more!"
"Not so!" said Attila, gazing upon the group, and somewhat moved by their meeting. "He is no slave, but has bound himself to dwell with Attila not less than seven years. Neither do I ask him to war against his country, it would be doing wrong unto his nature; but I ask him to be a faithful and true friend to him who has saved his life, in every other thing. Edicon, thou art a scribe: write down this compact between Attila the King and Theodore the son of Paulinus, in order that no one may ever doubt that he did not betray his native land, or that Attila could not be generous to his enemy."
He spoke in the Latin tongue; and though he used not that language with ease, yet his meaning was distinct, and Flavia replied--"Act ever thus, oh monarch! and thou shalt conquer more by thy generosity than by the sword!" A hope might, perhaps, have crossed her mind, even while she spoke, that in so free and kindly a mood the monarch of the Huns might be induced to suffer her and her children to take up their abode in the same land with Theodore; but she thought of Ildica, of her young blossoming beauty, of her tender nurture, and her graceful mind, and she repressed the wish ere it was spoken; all she added was, "Oh, keep him not from us for ever!"
"I have pledged and plighted my word," replied the king, "that in seven years he shall be free to leave me if he will. More: if he show himself as faithful to me as he has been to his country, he shall, from time to time, have leave and opportunity to visit those he loves. But I have mightier things to think of now," he continued: "wait ye here till I provide for your safety. Ardaric, come thou with me; I go to tread upon the necks of the Romans." Thus saying, he sprang upon his horse, and issued a few brief commands in the Hunnic tongue. The dark masses of the barbarian horse began to move on by the river-side as if towards Idimum; and while they swept along, like the shadow of a cloud over a field of green corn, the monarch continued conversing with his attendant Edicon, without further notice of the captives. At length, when Theodore saw him about to depart, he ventured to ask, "Go you to Margus, oh king?"
Attila looked upon him with a smile so slight that it scarcely curled his lip, and replied, "Margus was mine ere I came hither! My people are skilful in dressing wounds," he added; "let them tend thine, for thou art bleeding still."
As he spoke, he raised his hand slightly on the bridle of his horse; the beast sprang forward across the meadow, and, followed by a troop of Huns who had remained upon the left, Attila galloped on in the same direction which his host had taken before him.
Only two bodies of barbarians continued upon the field; one, consisting of perhaps a hundred men, remained with Edicon, near the spot where Theodore and his companions stood; the other, fewer in number, were gathered farther down in the meadow, near which the struggle between Theodore and the Huns for the deliverance of the captives had first commenced. A glance showed the young Roman that they were in the act of removing or burying the dead; but objects of deeper interest called his attention elsewhere, for Flavia, Eudochia, Ammian, Ildica, gathered round him, gazing in his face, pale as it was with loss of blood, and looking upon him with the thankful eyes of beings whom he had delivered from bondage worse than death. How he had delivered them, by what means, or by what motives in the breast of the Hun that deliverance had been accomplished, was strange and incomprehensible to them all, even to Theodore himself; but that it was by his agency, on account of his valour, constancy, and faithfulness, none of them for a moment doubted; and as Ildica raised her large dark eyes to his face, they were full at once of love, of admiration, and of gratitude.
Oh, who can tell the mingled feelings of that hour, when sitting round him they loved--while one of the rude Huns, with the peculiar appliances of his nation, stanched the trickling blood and dressed his many wounds--those who had lately given way to despair, now spoke to each other the few glad words of reviving hope! Oh, who can tell the deep and fervid yearnings of the heart towards God in thankfulness for the mighty mercy just vouchsafed! Oh, who can tell the thrilling, the ecstatic sense of security, of peace, and of happy expectation which succeeded, after having been plunged in such a depth of grief, of care, and agony!
What though their thoughts might wander on into the vague future, and sad experience might cause a fear to cast its shadow over the prospect! What though Flavia's heart might feel a chilliness at the idea of strange lands, strange habits, and strange nations! What though Ildica and Theodore might look upon a probable separation of seven long years with grief and regret; yet oh, how such pitiful alloy sunk into nothing when mingled with the golden happiness of knowing that safety, liberty, and peace had been obtained after so fearful a struggle! Could Theodore gaze upon the lovely and beloved form of the sweet Dalmatian girl, and know how dreadful a fate might have befallen her, without feeling that life itself would have been a poor sacrifice to save her from such a doom? Could Ildica behold her lover, and recall the moments when last she saw him surrounded by fierce foes, and determined to die, that he might give her a chance of liberty, without feeling that a seven years' absence was but a cheap price for the life and safety of so noble, so devoted a being?
To part--to part, perhaps, for seven long, solitary years--would, in happier days, have seemed a fate too bitter for endurance; but now, the dark and fearful images from which that lot stood forth made it look bright and smiling. The hour of horror and danger had passed by; despair had given way: and though fear still lived, yet hope, hope was the victor for the time.
Their words were few but sweet, and they were uninterrupted; for the Huns, after the youth's wounds were dressed, pointed out to them some shady trees as a place to repose, and left them unrestrained, and almost unwatched. The barbarians knew well that the whole land around was in their king's possession, and feared not that any one could escape. The words of the captives, I have said, were few, but still those words were not unimportant, for they went to regulate the future fate of all. Each promised, when occasion served, to give tidings of their health and prospects, hopes and wishes, to a mutual relation in Rome, the noble Julius Lentulus, and each unloaded the mind to the other of every feeling which, in a moment such as that, the heart could experience, of every thought which the memory could recall.
As they thus sat and conversed, the slaves and attendants who had been captured with them crept gradually nearer and nearer, not yet comprehending fully the situation in which they were placed; feeling themselves to be prisoners, and yet marvelling that their limbs remained untied, after such a bold effort to escape, when they had been bound with leathern thongs before. Nearly one half, however, of the freedmen were absent; and painful sensations passed through the hearts of Theodore and Flavia when they looked around, and missed some old familiar face; but neither spoke their feelings on this point to the other. As the sun passed the meridian, however, two or three Huns from time to time came riding down the road, driving before them, with their short spears, several of the absent attendants; and while the day went on, a considerable part of the baggage, whereof Flavia's company had been pillaged on their first capture, was brought back without a word of explanation, and piled up round the trees underneath which she sat. Strange is it and unaccountable how the heart of man, which despises many a mighty warning, draws auguries for its hopes and fears from the pettiest occurrences that befall us in our course through life. When Flavia, and Ildica, and Theodore saw the litters, and chairs, and chariots, and bales of goods restored, and laid down in silence, a well-pleased smile beamed upon the face of each; not that either thought at that moment of comfort or convenience, or of all the little luxuries which the glass of civilization magnifies into necessaries; but that each one thence drew a renewed assurance that the barbarian monarch, into whose hands they had fallen, however fierce and bloodthirsty he might have shown himself to others, at all events meant well and kindly towards them.
Towards the third hour after noon, food rudely cooked, and a beverage peculiar to the people of Dacia, were set before them; and Edicon, sitting down to meat with them, pressed them to their meal, using the Latin tongue as purely as if it had been his own. He spoke of the empire of the Huns, of their might, their conquests, and their innumerable hordes; he spoke even of Bleda, the brother of the king, and monarch of one part of the nation: but the name of Attila he pronounced not; and, when it was mentioned by Theodore, he turned quickly to some other theme.
The sun had lost much of its heat by the time the meal was concluded; and, shortly after, a Hunnish horseman came down the road with fiery speed, and addressed a few quick words to Edicon.
That chief instantly turned and addressed Flavia. "Tricornium and Singidunum have fallen," he said, "and the way is clear before you. It is the will of the king that you commence your journey."
Flavia gazed upon Theodore, and Theodore upon those he loved; and the bright drops clustered in the dark eyes of Ildica like dew in the half-closed leaves of the morning. Eudochia, too, hung upon her brother's neck, and Ammian grasped his hand; but still the son of Flavia, with wilder and less regulated feelings than the rest, could not yet understand or appreciate the grief of Theodore at that moment of parting. "Would I were you, Theodore!" he exclaimed. "Gladly would I see the country and manners of these wild Huns; and oh, if I had a father's murder to avenge as you have, I would march on with that brave and mighty Attila, and smite the tyrant, Theodosius, on his throne."
"Could it be without the ruin of my country," replied Theodore; "but, alas, Ammian, that cannot be. Weep not, dear Ildica! Sorrow not, my mother, that for a time you must leave me here. Let us remember our condition a few hours ago, and be thankful to God that it is as it is even now. Far safer, too, are you under the guidance and protection of these powerful barbarians, than if, unaided and unguarded, we had attempted to penetrate into Noricum: far safer am I left here, with those who have spared me even when my sword was drawn against them, than if I were attempting to guide you through strange lands that I know not, and barbarian people who hate us for our very civilization. I trust implicitly to the word of Attila. He has promised us his favour and protection, and I fear not."
"Thou judgest rightly, Roman," joined in Edicon, who still stood by. "The word of Attila, whether for good or bad, has never yet been broken. His sentence is irreversible; his mind unchangeable. Fear nothing for the safety of your friends. Two hundred of our bravest warriors guard them to Singidunum, whence a tribe of the Heruli, with a messenger from the king, convey them onward to their destination. They are safe wherever they go, for Attila has promised them protection; and is not Attila lord of the earth?"
Still Ildica clung to him; still Flavia gazed upon him with wistful affection; and the heart of Theodore, while they prepared once more for their journey, swelled with feelings too painful for utterance. Weakened with loss of blood, wearied with terrible exertion, and forced to part for long, dim, uncertain years from those whom alone he loved on earth, his manly fortitude wavered; but the presence of the Huns and the pride of a Roman sustained him. He could not bear that barbarians should see him weep; and though he held them one by one to his bosom in the warm embrace of passionate affection--though he spoke to the very slaves and freedmen with the tenderness of old and fond regard--though he looked upon each familiar face and long-remembered feature with the clinging earnestness of love--yet he mastered the emotions of his bosom, and saw them prepared to go without a tear moistening his eye. One last kiss, one long, dear embrace, and Theodore turned away. Then came the sound of many feet, the neighing of horses, the cries of barbarian voices in the tone of command, the rustling and the rush of a moving crowd. Gradually the noise became less, the tongues sounded more faintly, the tramp of feet subsided into a lower and a lower murmur, and Theodore, looking round, found himself left alone, amid a small party of the Huns, with a feeling of deep desolation at his heart, such as he had never known before.
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."
In one dark, close-rushing stream the Huns were pouring into Viminacium, when Theodore, with unutterable agony of heart, approached the gates with those who held him a prisoner. It was an hour in which he could full well have died with scarcely a regret, for every sight and every sound around him spoke nothing but despair.
A few words from his conductor brought the barbarians who accompanied them pressing round the young Roman, so as to keep him distinct from all the multitude which had followed Attila to his first actual conquest in the Roman territory. But so dense, so rapid, was that living torrent, that after they had once entered the gates no one could move except in the same onward course; and, knee pressed against knee, horse jostling horse, forward they rushed, while nothing could be seen in the dark long street but an ocean of human heads, except where the flames burst forth from dwellings, palaces, and temples, and formed a fiery canopy above them.
To see beneath the horses' feet was not possible; but every now and then some dreadful indications, on which it were needless to dwell, showed Theodore that his charger's feet were passing over a pile of dead; and still, amid the clang and rush of those wild horsemen, burst forth from other parts of the city the same long, piercing, awful shrieks, which told that the work of massacre had not yet ceased within those ill-starred walls. Wherever, too, a street, branching to either side, gave a momentary view of what was passing beyond, groups of struggling forms were seen, with heaps of corpses, falling houses, and masterless horses galloping hither and thither, and rolling clouds of smoke writhing in dark masses amid the building.
Still, however, Edicon pursued his way straight on, though at every turning some body of the Huns left the onward path, bent on plunder or on bloodshed. At length the way opened out into the forum, whose wide space was covered with scattered groups of the barbarian host, whirling here and there, in obedience to commands emanating from a group who had forced their horses up the steps leading to the temple of Mars.
Here, in the forum, the Roman legionaries had made their last stand; and here, thick and many, lay the bodies of those slain by hands that had never learned to spare. Here, too, dismounted from their horses, and stripping the yet warm dead of their rich arms and vestments, were thousands of bloodstained groups of the conquerors: and here, penned up, and dying man by man, was the last determined cohort which resisted the barbarian force. Even at that very moment, as Edicon was forcing his way onward, that last lingering spark of resistance was extinguished; for Theodore could see one Hunnish horseman, followed by several others, urge his horse fiercely down the steep steps of the temple, and plunge into the midst of the multitude which was pressing round the brave men of Viminacium. A loud shout burst from the barbarians as that horseman hurled himself forward like a thunderbolt against the front of the cohort. Its line, which had remained firm even in despair, was rent in a moment, as an oak that has withstood the winds is rent by the lightning, and the Roman helmets disappeared in the dark mass of the Huns. Again that same horseman separated himself from the multitude, rode slowly back towards the temple, and urged his horse once more up the steep and slippery steps. Towards him Edicon pursued his way; and, as they came near, Theodore perceived that it was, indeed, towards him their journey had been directed.
There, advanced before the rest, Attila sat gazing from his battle-horse's back over the awful scene before his eyes; while near him an equestrian statue of Trajan, with his calm, thoughtful features, and a bronze group of a lion tearing a bull, contrasted strangely, and harmonized well with the fierce and heated aspect of the stern Hun, as, covered with blood and dust, he rolled his flashing dark eyes over that terrible scene of massacre, fire, and desolation.
"Oh," cried Theodore, as they came near the steps, "oh, beseech him to sheath the sword, and spare the unresisting!" and, as he spoke, he naturally urged on his horse, to plead the cause of his miserable countrymen with one who had shown himself, in his own case, not insensible to pity.
But Edicon caught his bridle quickly, exclaiming, "Speak to him not! Speak to him not, if you value life! See you not that the mighty spirit of war is upon him. Speak to a hungry lion tasting the first blood! Plead with the tiger for its prey! But cross not Attila in his hour of battle and victory! Bleda, his brother, might hear you, and spare you at the time to slay you for his pleasure after; but were you to cross Attila now, he might strike dead the man whom to-morrow he would cherish as a son."
At that moment, however, the eye of the monarch lighted on the garb of Theodore. "A Roman!" he cried, "a Roman before my eyes! Smite him to the ground! Give his heart to the vultures!"
The youth understood not his words, which were spoken in the Hunnish tongue, but the fierce gestures of the barbarian king were enough; and at the same moment a hundred spears were raised around to drink the Roman's blood.
"Let them do their will," he said, calmly, "let them do their will. Who would love life after such sights as these?"
But Edicon interposed. "Hold!" he cried, to those so prompt to obey in any work of blood--"hold! he is the king's friend. Attila knows him not. Oh king!" he continued, raising his voice, "thou hast promised this youth protection: wilt thou break thy promise?"
Attila rolled his eyes over the whole group in silence; and Edicon, with those who surrounded him, well knowing that the fierce and eager mood of their lord would pass away, retired slowly from his sight, leading Theodore with them. No tranquil spot, however, no place of refuge or repose, did that wide city now contain. Plunder was still going on, though slaughter, insatiable still, even when gorging upon thousands, had exhausted nearly all, but only halted for want of food. Some wretched woman, indeed, or some helpless child, was dragged every now and then from its ineffectual hiding-place, and a solitary scream or a dying groan marked the new victim. But the work of butchery was now wellnigh complete; and conflagration, spreading rapidly in every part, threatened to consume the barbarian victors themselves, in the burning city which they had captured and destroyed.
A small open space, near what was called Trajan's Gate, at length afforded a place of repose to Edicon and his party; and there, following the example of the Huns, Theodore alighted from his horse, and, sitting down upon one of the massy stone steps before a dwelling which had once belonged to some rich banker, and had been one of the first to be plundered by the barbarians, he covered his eyes with his hands, and tried to shut out even from memory the horrors which he had just beheld.
In vain--it was vain! Confused, countless, terrible images and feelings of destruction and despair rushed through his burning brain and his indignant heart, and drove him wellnigh to madness. At length two or three wild notes of some barbarian trumpet, loud, long, and melancholy, sounded through the streets, and were heard above the general roar of the Hunnish multitudes, coming from different quarters of the city. Edicon sprang up and mounted his horse; and, seeing Theodore remain in the same attitude of despair, he exclaimed, "Up, up, we must away! It is dangerous to linger."
Theodore rose slowly; and though the curling flames which at once struck his eye, flickering above all the buildings around, together with the shower of sparks and flakes of fire which were falling incessantly from the dense and lurid clouds of smoke above, showed that the words of Edicon were true, and that the warning voice of the trumpet had only been sounded in time; yet slow and heavily did the young Roman rise, as if he would willingly have remained to die in the flames of that vast holocaust to the barbarian god of warfare. In vain the Huns urged him to haste; he gazed upon them dark and gloomily, as if the bitterness of death itself were passed; and they, with all their power, could do no more.
With strange and unusual gentleness for one of so fierce and uncontrollable a nation, Edicon endeavoured to persuade him to follow them from the captured city. He offered no violence, he used no rude command; but, after every other argument had failed to quicken the movements of the young Roman, he added, as if he could have divined the only chord which--left strung and resonant where so many were broken--could still vibrate the touch, "Remember that there are others in the world to whom your life is dear; beings kind, beautiful, and beloved, who may need the protection of your arm, the consolation of your affection, and the shelter of your breast."
The tears rose in Theodore's eyes: but the thrilling life of human hopes and fears was once more kindled from among the dead ashes of despair; and, springing on his horse, he followed wherever they would.
Wild, and terrible, and extraordinary was the scene of confusion and disarray which followed, while the Huns, some fast and eagerly, some lingering with their appetite for plunder still unsated, poured forth from the gates of the burning city. Order and ranks were there none. Tumult and confusion, loud cries, wild laughter, shouts of triumph, and barbarous songs, dark masses whirling hither and thither, horses, which had lost their masters, seeking them familiarly through the crowd, the rush of innumerable multitudes, and the mighty hum of congregated myriads, formed all that was seen and heard over the wide green fields which surrounded what a few hours before had been Viminacium--except when, loud and slow, surmounting every other noise, were heard the long, melancholy notes of the barbarian trumpet, calling conquerors from the work of spoil and desolation.
Sweeping round in a semicircle upon the declivity of the hills which domineered the city, the host of Attila was at length gathered together, at the end of about two hours after Theodore had seen the barbarian monarch in the forum. The youth had set apart upon the edge of the hill gazing upon the dim multitudes, as they covered and struggled up the intervening space between the walls and the spot where he was placed. The same party of Huns which had always hitherto accompanied him, more to protect than to detain him, remained with him still, except, indeed, Edicon, who had left him for the time. At length, however, he reappeared, and, sitting down beside the youth, addressed him kindly.
"The king," he said, "has asked for you. The fierce cloud of strife has passed away from his heart, and the sun will shine upon those that approach him now. Let us draw near. Lo! yonder he stands, where you see the crowd upon that high knoll. The warriors are going to bring their booty before him. If thou hast any boon to ask at his hands, ask it now."
Theodore rose, and followed on foot, though there was a fevered weariness in his blood, a confused giddiness in his brain, which prevented him from clearly comprehending, or, indeed, from taking any interest in the words that were addressed to him. Even when he had approached the presence of him on whom his whole fate now depended, the objects passed before him as if in some unreal pageant, wherein he had no feelings engaged, and by which curiosity and admiration were hardly excited.
There sat Attila on horseback, and beside him a taller and a younger chieftain, with keen sharp eyes, and a low fierce brow. In his countenance there might be more of cunning, but there was less of power and intellect than in that of Attila; and, as Edicon caught the eye of the young stranger wandering over his form, he whispered, "That is Bleda, the brother of the king."
Theodore paused, where his companion paused, at no great distance from the spot where the two leaders stood, and looked on, while the whole host passed in long line before the kings and their immediate followers, casting down in a pile all the rich and costly plunder which had been acquired in the first capture of a Roman city. How often, in the course of the succeeding months, was that scene to be repeated! There were the chased and jewelled cups and chalices which had graced the merry banquet, and poured the libation of hope or gratitude; there the sacred vessels of the church; there the gems and ornaments torn from the neck of beauty, and from the violated limbs of the tender, the gentle, and the beloved. There was poured out the miser's long-accumulated store; there the early gift of young affection; there the inestimable product of ancient art; there the shining mass, only prized for its intrinsic value. Each object there cast down recorded some deed of profanation, either of sacred civil order, or of holy piety, or of the sweet sanctity of calm domestic life: each spoke trumpet-tongued against the horrid, the desolating trade of war; the honoured, lauded, and rewarded curse, parent of murder, violence, and wrong.
Theodore scarcely remarked the division of the spoil, though he perceived that no voice, no, not even that of Bleda, was raised against the stern but just allotment made by Attila. Each soldier received his share; and each seemed to hear with reverence the words of his leader, and to gaze with awe upon the countenance of him whose steps seemed destined to crush thrones into the dust, and on whose breath hung the fate of nations and of empires.
When the division was over, Attila turned his eyes upon Theodore. "Bid the Roman approach," he said; and the youth advanced to the spot where he sat on the same horse which had borne him through the sacking of the city. His countenance, however, was now mild and calm; and the tone in which he addressed to Theodore some simple words of greeting was kind and father-like. Bleda said nothing; but he rolled his fierce eyes over the form of the young stranger, and his whole countenance spoke the unmitigated hate which he felt towards everything that bore the Roman name.
Theodore listened to the words of the monarch calmly; and then at once replied, "Oh king! I have a boon to ask at thy hands; I beseech thee to grant it unto me."
"Speak," said Attila, in the tongue of the Alani; but Bleda muttered in the same language, "Dash his brains out with an axe! that were the best boon to give him."
Attila's brow darkened; but, without noticing further than by that heavy frown his brother's words, he bade the youth proceed.
"Thou art mighty, oh king!" said Theodore, "alas! too mighty; and, it may be, that, ere thou receivest defeat from the Roman arms" (Attila smiled), "many such a city as this that thou hast to-day destroyed may fall before thee--"
"Many shall fall!" interrupted Attila: "I will tread upon their towers from Margus to Byzantium. I will mow the land as with a scythe: I will shake the armies from before my path, as a lion shakes off the morning dew from his mane. The fortified cities will I lay low, and the open villages I will burn, and my horses shall eat up the grass of the whole land. There shall be no green thing, and no beautiful thing, and no living thing, left throughout the country, unless speedy compensation for the wrongs done to me and to my people avert the wrath, and turn away the storm: but yet, what wouldst thou?"
"This, oh king!" replied Theodore; "my eye cannot witness the desolation of my native land. Either my heart will cease to beat, or my brain will turn, if I behold more of such scenes as those which I have this day beheld. I am thine to do with as thou pleasest, and I will keep the promise I have made; but, I do beseech thee, send me afar from such sights. Let me go into thine own country; and I swear, by all that I hold sacred, to remain there tranquilly till thou returnest."
"I know not how that may be," replied the king: "thy life is dear to me, youth; and were a Roman now to show himself in the land of the Huns, without protection and support, except, indeed, as a captive, the stream of his days would soon fall into the great gulf of death."
"If thou takest me on," cried Theodore, "to witness the murder of my fellow-countrymen, the ruin and devastation of my native land, thou slayest me by a worse death than any of thy people can inflict."
"Well, thou shalt go back," replied Attila; "but I will send people with thee, to protect thee in my name, till thou art known and in safety in the land. I cannot spare thee, Edicon; but he shall choose others who can speak some of the languages thou knowest: ours thou wilt soon learn. Follow me until this night be over; to-morrow thou shalt depart. See to his repose, Edicon, and find him wherewithal to cover him from the night air. These Romans are not, as we are, familiar with the elements."
Edicon smiled; and Theodore felt the scorn which had fallen upon his nation; but he replied not, for the reproach was too true; and, retiring from the presence of Attila, he felt his heart relieved at the certainty of being no longer forced to contemplate with his own eyes all the horrors that awaited his native land.
In their eager and fiery course towards the destruction of the Roman empire, the Huns knew no pause, lingered for no repose. Ere noon, Viminacium was a heap of ashes; ere two hours more had passed, the division of their plunder had taken place; and, ere another had gone by, the unwearied myriads were again upon their way, to repeat the same scenes of slaughter and destruction. At nightfall they halted. The innumerable small wagons, which followed them with a celerity quite marvellous, formed at once the ramparts of their principal camp and the abode of such as were affected by some touch of softer manners. In the centre of the camp was raised the standard of the king, the rude black eagle crowned;[6]and round it, at the distance of about a hundred cubits, was drawn an inner circle of wagons; but in the clear and starry nights of summer, no tent or awning covered the head of Attila; and beneath that victorious banner, which he carried unchecked from Caucasus to Gaul, he lay stretched upon the hide of a wild bull, which his own hand had slain.
Round about the great camp were a number of smaller enclosures; some appropriated to different tribes and nations, who followed the multitude of the Huns in their career of victory and pillage; some assigned to various friends and officers of the great monarch himself. Nevertheless, the warrior horsemen of that innumerable host did not confine themselves, where they feared no attack, to the circle of their encampment, but, spreading over the plain around, spent the early hours of the night in feasting and revelry.
Theodore, with Edicon, who showed for him on all occasions kindness and consideration, which was little to be expected from one of so barbarous a race, followed full half an hour behind the general march of the army, in order to avoid those sights of occasional violence and cruelty which were sure to take place, even in the thinly-peopled part of the country which they now traversed. When they reached the spot, therefore, on which Attila had fixed for his encampment, night had already fallen; and for several miles around were to be seen blazing up a countless number of fires, with scarcely fifty yards from the one to the other, and with a circle of those wild soldiers surrounding and carousing about each. Little was the attention which they paid to the new-comers, as they rode through the midst of them; and Edicon, by frequently stopping to speak to those he knew, gave his companion a full insight into the habits of that roving people. We must not pause thereon, for this is not intended for a book of description; and yet it was a wild, strange scene that he beheld, full of matter of disgust and sorrow, and yet not without interest either. There all the vices of a savage state were displayed; while some peculiar virtues, and some of those strong enthusiasms which, though not virtues, find chords of sympathy in every noble heart, broke forth from time to time, and shed a lustre over the mingled whole.
At some of the fires, reclining or sitting in grotesque or picturesque attitudes, lay groups of the wild Scythians, in their strange but striking dresses, drinking deep of various liquors, which they had either compounded or plundered; and in the eyes of many the fiery gleam of intemperance was already shining, while with hoarse laughter and savage gesticulation they detailed the deeds of the day or mocked the agonies of their victims. Round other fires, again, gaming, with the same eagerness, the same loud words and fierce anxieties, so often to be found disgracing the capitals of civilized lands, might be observed other bodies of barbarians moved by another class of passions. Then, again, farther on, gazing with eager eyes, or listening with acute ears, and answering with bursts of thoughtless merriment, sat other bodies of the Huns, around some buffoon or jester,[7]in whose tale, or whose joke, or whose antic contortions their whole thoughts seemed to be engaged, forgetful of the bloody yesterday, unmindful of the bloody morrow. Farther still rose up the voice of song; and, in notes not unmelodious, some native minstrel sung of love and war; praised the beauties of some honoured fair, or extolled the valour of some mighty chief. There, too, around him might be seen, the dark countenances of those swarthy children of the North, moved by all the deep emotions which his song touched through the fine chords of association. There the youth leaned back; and, as he listened to the name of love, or heard the glowing words which painted some fair creation of the singer's mind, memory turned towards his native home, affection held up before his eyes the image of the one beloved, and his heart beat with eager palpitations at the gentler and the sweeter thoughts poured into his rude breast. There, too, might be seen the elder and the sterner soldier, who, when the song took up the tale of war, and told of things achieved by glorious courage, lands conquered, thrones acquired, and everlasting glory won, would half start from his grassy bed, and, resting on his arm, gaze with flashing eyes and stirred up enthusiasms upon the singer, and, with fond anticipations of the future, promise his own heart the glorious meed of deeds recorded in a song like that. Oh, beautiful, universal nature! noble feelings! touching harmonies of the musical heart of man! why, why among you must be thrown so many discords to bring out your sweetness? Why can we not have on earth the perfect harmony? where, from the lowest to the highest, from the most solemn to the gayest note, all may find place, and rise in one grand, all-comprising anthem to the God of all?[7]