r, in their vaunted city, from their
pampered citizens, among their cherished homes--in the spot where their
shameful counsels take root, and whence their ruthless treacheries
derive their bloody source! In the book that our teachers worship, I
have heard it read, that "the voice of blood crieth from the ground!"
This is the voice--Hermanric, this is the voice that I have heard! I
have dreamed that I walked on a shore of corpses, by a sea of blood--I
have seen, arising from that sea, my husband's and my children's
bodies, gashed throughout with Roman wounds! They have called to me
through the vapour of carnage that was around them;--'Are we yet
unavenged? Is the sword of Hermanric yet sheathed?' Night after night
have I seen this vision and heard those voice, and hoped for no respite
until the day that saw the army encamped beneath the walls of Rome, and
raising the scaling ladders for the assault! And now, after all my
endurance, how has that day arrived? Accursed be the lust of treasure!
It is more to the warriors, and to you, than the justice of revenge!'

'Listen! listen!' cried Hermanric entreatingly.

'I listen no longer!' interrupted Goisvintha. 'The tongue of my people
is as a strange language in my ears; for it talks but of plunder and of
peace, of obedience, of patience, and of hope! I listen no longer; for
the kindred are gone that I loved to listen to--they are all slain by
the Romans but you--and you I renounce!'

Deprived of all power of consideration by the violence of the emotions
awakened in his heart by Goisvintha's wild revelations of the evil
passion that consumed her, the young Goth, shuddering throughout his
whole frame, and still averting his face, murmured in hoarse, unsteady
accents: 'Ask of me what you will. I have no words to deny, no power
to rebuke you--ask of me what you will!'

'Promise me,' cried Goisvintha, seizing the hand of Hermanric, and
gazing with a look of fierce triumph on his disordered countenance,
'that this blockade of the city shall not hinder my vengeance! Promise
me that the first victim of our righteous revenge, shall be the first
one that appears before you--whether in war or peace--of the
inhabitants of Rome!'

'I promise,' cried the Goth. And those two words sealed the destiny of
his future life.

During the silence that now ensued between Goisvintha and Hermanric,
and while each stood absorbed in deep meditation, the dark prospect
spread around th