been regarded, the assemblage
of persons thus indicated to Goisvintha must have arrested inattention
itself. Near a confused mass of weapons, scattered on the ground,
reclined a group of warriors apparently listening to the low, muttered
conversation of three men of great age, who rose above them, seated on
pieces of rock, and whose long white hair, rough skin dresses, and lean
tottering forms appeared in strong contrast with the iron-clad and
gigantic figures of their auditors beneath. Above the old men, on the
highroad, was one of Alaric's waggons; and on the heaps of baggage
piled against its clumsy wheels had been chosen resting-place of the
future conqueror of Rome. The top of the vehicle seemed absolutely
teeming with a living burden. Perched in every available nook and
corner were women and children of all ages, and weapons and live stock
of all varieties. Now, a child--lively, mischievous,
inquisitive--peered forth over the head of a battering-ram. Now, a
lean, hungry sheep advanced his inquiring nostrils sadly to the open
air, and displayed by the movement the head of a withered old woman
pillowed on his woolly flanks. Here, appeared a young girl struggling,
half entombed in shields. There, gasped an emaciated camp-follower,
nearly suffocated in heaps of furs. The whole scene, with its
background of great woods, drenched in a vapour of misty rain, with its
striking contrasts at one point and its solemn harmonies at another,
presented a vast combination of objects that either startled or awed--a
gloomy conjunction of the menacing and the sublime.

Bidding Goisvintha wait near the waggon, one of her conductors
approached and motioned aside a young man standing near the king. As
the warrior rose to obey the demand, he displayed, with all the
physical advantages of his race, and ease and elasticity of movement
unusual among the men of his nation. At the instant when he joined the
soldier who had accosted him, his face was partially concealed by an
immense helmet, crowned with a boar's head, the mouth of which, forced
open at death, gaped wide, as if still raging for prey. But the man
had scarcely stated his errand, when he started violently, removed the
grim appendage of war, and hastened bare-headed to the side of the
waggon where Goisvintha awaited his approach.

The instant he was beheld by the woman, she hastened to meet him;
placed the wounded child in his arms, and greeted him with these
words:-