Still the Goth neither moved nor spoke, and still Antonina--kneeling unconsciously upon the sword, now useless to him for ever--continued to stanch the blood on his hands with a mechanical earnestness that seemed to shut out the contemplation of every other object from her eyes. The tears streamed incessantly down her cheeks, but she never turned towards Goisvintha, never suspended her occupation.
Meanwhile, the fire still blazed noisily on the cheerful hearth; but the storm, as if disdaining the office of heightening the human horror of the farm-house scene, was rapidly subsiding. The thunder pealed less frequently and less loudly, the wind fell into intervals of noiseless calm, and occasionally the moonlight streamed, in momentary brightness, through the ragged edges of the fast breaking clouds. The breath of the still morning was already moving upon the firmament of the stormy night.
'Has life its old magic for you yet?' continued Goisvintha, in tones of pitiless reproach. 'Have you forgotten, with the spirit of your people, the end for which your ancestors lived? Is not your sword at your feet? Is not the knife in my hand? Do not the waters of the Tiber, rolling yonder to the sea, offer to you the grave of oblivion that all may seek? Die then! In your last hour be a Goth; even to the Romans you are worthless now! Already your comrades have discovered your desertion; will you wait till you are hung for a rebel? Will you live to implore the mercy of your enemies, or, dishonoured and defenceless, will you endeavour to escape? You are of the blood of my family, but again I say it to you--die!'
His pale lips trembled; he looked round for the first time at Antonina, but his utterance struggled ineffectually, even yet, against unyielding despair. He was still silent.
Goisvintha turned from him disdainfully, and approaching the fire sat down before it, bending her haggard features over the brilliant flames. For a few minutes she remained absorbed in her evil thoughts, but no articulate word escaped her; and when at length she again abruptly broke the silence, it was not to address the Goth or to fix her eyes on him as before.
Still cowering over the fire, apparently as regardless of the presence of the two beings whose happiness she had just crushed for ever as if they had never existed, she began to recite, in solemn, measured, chanting tones, a legend of the darkest and earliest age of Gothic history, keeping time to herself with the knife that she still held in her hand. The malignity in her expression, as she pursued her employment, betrayed the heartless motive that animated it, almost as palpably as the words of the composition she was repeating: thus she now spoke:--
'The tempest-god's pinions o'ershadow the sky, The waves leap to welcome the storm that is nigh, Through the hall of old Odin re-echo the shocks That the fierce ocean hurls at his rampart of rocks, As, alone on the crags that soar up from the sands, With his virgin SIONA the young AGNAR stands; Tears sprinkle their dew on the sad maiden's cheeks, And the voice of the chieftain sinks low while he speaks:--
"Crippled in the fight for ever, Number'd with the worse than slain; Weak, deform'd, disabled!--never Can I join the hosts again!--With the battle that is won AGNAR'S earthly course is run!
"When thy shatter'd frame must yield, If thou seek'st a future field; When thy arm, that sway'd the strife, Fails to shield thy worthless life; When thy hands no more afford Full employment to the sword; Then, preserve--respect thy name; Meet thy death--to live is shame! Such is Odin's mighty will; Such commands I now fulfil!"'
At this point in the legend, she paused and turned suddenly to observe its effect on Hermanric. All its horrible application to himself thrilled through his heart. His head drooped, and a low groan burst from his lips. But even this evidence of the suffering she was inflicting failed to melt the iron malignity of Goisvintha's determination.
'Do you remember the death of Agnar?' she cried. 'When you were a child, I sung it to you ere you slept, and you vowed as you heard it, that when you were a man, if you suffered his wounds you would die his death! He was crippled in a victory, yet he slew himself on the day of his triumph; you are crippled in your treachery, and have forgotten your boy's honour, and will live in the darkness of your shame! Have you lost remembrance of that ancient song? You heard it from me in the morning of your years; listen, and you shall hear it to the end; it is the dirge for your approaching death!'
She continued--
"SIONA, mourn not!--where I go The warriors feel nor pain nor woe; They raise aloft the gleaming steel, Their wounds, though warm, untended heal; Their arrows bellow through the air In showers, as they battle there; In mighty cups their wine is pour'd, Bright virgins throng their midnight board!
"Yet think not that I die unmov'd; I mourn the doom that sets me free, As I think, betroth'd--belov'd, On all the joys I lose in thee! To form my boys to meet the fray, Where'er the Gothic banner streams; To guard thy night, to glad thy day, Made all the bliss of AGNAR'S dreams--Dreams that must now be all forgot, Earth's joys have passed from AGNAR'S lot!
"See, athwart the face of light Float the clouds of sullen Night! Odin's warriors watch for me By the earth-encircling sea! The water's dirges howl my knell; 'Tis time I die--Farewell-Farewell!"
'He rose with a smile to prepare for the spring, He flew from the rock like a bird on the wing; The sea met her prey with a leap and a roar, And the maid stood alone by the wave-riven shore! The winds mutter'd deep, with a woe-boding sound, As she wept o'er the footsteps he'd left on the ground; And the wild vultures shriek'd, for the chieftain who spread Their battle-field banquets was laid with the dead!'
As, with a slow and measured emphasis, Goisvintha pronounced the last lines of the poem she again approached Hermanric. But the eyes of the Goth sought her no longer. She had calmed the emotions that she had hoped to irritate. Of the latter divisions of her legend, those only which were pathetic had arrested the lost chieftain's attention, and the blunted faculties of his heart recovered their old refinement as he listened to them. A solemn composure of love, grief, and pity appeared in the glance of affection that he now directed on the girl's despairing countenance. Years of good thoughts, an existence of tender cares, an eternity of youthful devotion spoke in that rapt, momentary, eloquent gaze, and imprinted on his expression a character ineffably beautiful and calm--a nobleness above the human, and approaching the angelic and divine.
Intuitively Goisvintha followed the direction of his eyes, and looked, like him, on the Roman girl's face. A lowering expression of hatred replaced the scorn that had hitherto distorted her passionate features. Mechanically her hand again half raised the knife, and the accents of her wrathful voice once more disturbed the sacred silence of affection and grief.
'Is it for the girl there that you would still live?' she cried sternly. 'I foreboded it, coward, when I first looked on you! I prepared for it when I wounded you! I made sure that when my anger again threatened this new ruler of your thoughts and mover of your actions, you should have lost the power to divert it from her again! Think you that, because my disdain has delayed it, my vengeance on her is abandoned? Long since I swore to you that she should die, and I will hold to my purpose! I have punished you; I will slay her! Can you shield her from the blow to-night, as you shielded her in your tent? You are weaker before me than a child!'
She ceased abruptly, for at this moment a noise of hurrying footsteps and contending voices became suddenly audible from without. As she heard it, a ghastly paleness chased the flush of anger from her cheeks. With the promptitude of apprehension she snatched the sword of Hermanric from under Antonina, and ran it through the staples intended to hold the rude bar of the door.