stragglers among the baggage
waggons, who still poured forth, apparently in interminable hosts, from
the concealment of the distant trees. The advanced troops, evidently
with the intention of examining the roads, still marched rapidly on,
until they gained the foot of the ascent leading to the crags to which
the woman still clung, and from which, with eager attention, she still
watched their movements.

Placed in a situation of the extremest peril, her strength was her only
preservative against the danger of slipping from her high and narrow
elevation. Hitherto the moral excitement of expectation had given her
the physical power necessary to maintain her position; but just as the
leaders of the guard arrived at the cavern, her over-wrought energies
suddenly deserted her; her hands relaxed their grasp; she tottered, and
would have sunk backwards to instant destruction, had not the skins
wrapped about her bosom and waist become entangled with a point of one
of the jagged rocks immediately around her. Fortunately--for she could
utter no cry--the troops halted at this instant to enable their horses
to gain breath. Two among them at once perceived her position and
detected her nation. They mounted the rocks; and, while one possessed
himself of the child, the other succeeded in rescuing the mother and
bearing her safely to the ground.

The snorting of horses, the clashing of weapons, the confusion of loud,
rough voices, which now startled the native silence of the solitary
lake, and which would have bewildered and overwhelmed most persons in
the woman's exhausted condition, seemed, on the contrary, to reassure
her feelings and reanimate her powers. She disengaged herself from her
preserver's support, and taking her child in her arms, advanced towards
a man of gigantic stature, whose rich armour sufficiently announced
that his position in the army was one of command.

'I am Goisvintha,' said she, in a firm, calm voice--'sister to
Hermanric. I have escaped from the massacre of the hostages of
Aquileia with one child. Is my brother with the army of the king?'

This declaration produced a marked change in the bystanders. The looks
of indifference or curiosity which they had at first cast on the
fugitive, changed to the liveliest expression of wonder and respect.
The chieftain whom she had addressed raised the visor of his helmet so
as to uncover his face, answered her question in the affirmative, and
ordered two sol