onward to the
Port of Aquileia and the sea.

'I looked around. The gates I knew were guarded and closed. By the
wall was the only prospect of escape; but its top was high and its
sides were smooth when I felt them with my hands. Despairing and
wearied, I laid my burdens down where they were hidden by the shade,
and walked forward a few paces, for to remain still was a torment that
I could not endure. At a short distance I saw a soldier sleeping
against the wall of a house. By his side was a ladder placed against
the window. As I looked up I beheld the head of a corpse resting on
its top. The victim must have been lately slain, for her blood still
dripped slowly down into an empty wine-pot that stood within the
soldier's reach. When I saw the ladder, hope revived within me. I
removed it to the wall--I mounted, and laid my dead child on the great
stones at its top--I returned, and placed my wounded boy by the corpse.
Slowly, and with many efforts, I dragged the ladder upwards, until from
its own weight one end fell to the ground on the other side. As I had
risen so I descended. In the sand of the river-bank I scraped a hole,
and buried there the corpse of the infant; for I could carry the weight
of two no longer. Then with my wounded child I reached some caverns
that lay onward near the seashore. There throughout the next day I lay
hidden--alone with my sufferings of body and my affliction of
heart--until the night came on, when I set forth on my journey to the
mountains; for I knew that at AEmona, in the camp of the warriors of my
people, lay the only refuge that was left to me on earth. Feebly and
slowly, hiding by day and travelling by night, I kept on my way until I
gained that lake among the rocks, where the guards of the army came
forward and rescued me from death.'

She ceased. Throughout the latter portion of her narrative her
demeanour had been calm and sad; and as she dwelt, with the painful
industry of grief, over each minute circumstance connected with the
bereavements she had sustained, her voice softened to those accents of
quiet mournfulness, which make impressive the most simple words, and
render musical the most unsteady tones. It seemed as if those tenderer
and kinder emotions, which the attractions of her offspring had once
generated in her character, had at the bidding of memory become
revivified in her manner while she lingered over the recital of their
deaths. For a brief space of ti