ught with it a flood of emotions that
overwhelmed him. All that he saw, all that he heard, connected itself
imperceptibly with that expression. A sudden darkness, neither to be
dissipated nor escaped, seemed to obscure his faculties in an instant.
He struggled mechanically through the crowd, descended the steps of the
ramparts, and returned to the solitary spot where he had first beheld
the woman and the child.

The city was blockaded! The Goths were bent then, on obtaining a peace
and not on achieving a conquest! The city was blockaded! It was no
error of the ignorant multitude--he had seen with his own eyes the
tents and positions of the enemy, he had heard the soldiers on the wall
discoursing on the admirable disposition of Alaric's forces, on the
impossibility of obtaining the smallest communication with the
surrounding country, on the vigilant watch that had been set over the
navigation of the Tiber. There was no doubt on the matter--the
barbarians had determined on a blockade!

There was even less uncertainty upon the results which would be
produced by this unimaginable policy of the Goths--the city would be
saved! Rome had not scrupled in former years to purchase the
withdrawal of all enemies from her distant provinces; and now that the
very centre of her glory, the very pinnacle of her declining power, was
threatened with sudden and unexpected ruin, she would lavish on the
Goths the treasures of the whole empire, to bribe them to peace and to
tempt them to retreat. The Senate might possibly delay the necessary
concessions, from hopes of assistance that would never be realised; but
sooner or later the hour of negotiation would arrive; northern rapacity
would be satisfied with southern wealth; and in the very moment when it
seemed inevitable, the ruin from which the Pagan revolution was to
derive its vigorous source, would be diverted from the churches of Rome.

Could the old renown of the Roman name have retained so much of its
ancient influence as to daunt the hardy Goths, after they had so
successfully penetrated the empire as to have reached the walls of its
vaunted capital? Could Alaric have conceived so exaggerated an idea of
the strength of the forces in the city as to despair, with all his
multitudes, of storming it with success? It could not be otherwise! No
other consideration could have induced the barbarian general to abandon
such an achievement as the destruction of Rome. With the chance