s from
her store of herbs; but Hermanric waited not to be a witness of her
skill. With one final look at the pale, exhausted child, he slowly
descended from the waggon, and approaching Goisvintha, drew her towards
a sheltered position near the ponderous vehicle. Here he seated
himself by her side, prepared to listen with the deepest attention to
her recital of the scenes of terror and suffering through which she had
so recently passed.

'You,' she began, 'born while our nation was at peace; transported from
the field of war to those distant provinces where tranquility still
prevailed; preserved throughout your childhood from the chances of
battle; advanced to the army in your youth, only when its toils are
past and its triumphs are already at hand--you alone have escaped the
miseries of our people, to partake in the glory of their approaching
revenge.

'Hardly had a year passed since you had been removed from the
settlements of the Goths when I wedded Priulf. The race of triflers to
whom he was then allied, spite of their Roman haughtiness, deferred to
him in their councils, and confessed among their legions that he was
brave. I saw myself with joy the wife of a warrior of renown; I
believed, in my pride, that I was destined to be the mother of a race
of heroes; when suddenly there came news to us that the Emperor
Theodosius was dead. Then followed anarchy among the people of the
soil, and outrages on the liberties of their allies, the Goths. Ere
long the call to arms arose among our nation. Soon our waggons of war
were rolled across the frozen Danube; our soldiers quitted the Roman
camp; our husbandmen took their weapons from their cottage walls; we
that were women prepared with our children to follow our husbands to
the field; and Alaric, the king, came forth as the leader of our hosts.

'We marched upon the territories of the Greeks. But how shall I tell
you of the events of those years of war that followed our invasion; of
the glory of our victories; of the hardships of our defences; of the
miseries of our retreats; of the hunger that we vanquished; of the
diseases that we endured; of the shameful peace that was finally
ratified, against the wishes of our king! How shall I tell of all
this, when my thoughts are on the massacre from which I have just
escaped--when these first evils, though once remembered in anguish,
are, even now, forgotten in the superior horrors that ensued!

'The truce was made. Al