save her yet! You are unworthy of your nation and your
name! I will betray your cowardice and treachery to your brethren in
the camp!' And she ran to the outside of the tent, calling in a loud
voice to a group of young warriors who happened to be passing at a
short distance. 'Stay, stay!
Fritigern--Athanaric--Colias--Suerid--Witheric--Fravitta! Hasten
hitherward! Hermanric has a captive in his tent--a prisoner whom it
will rejoice to see! Hitherward! hitherward!'

The group she addressed contained some of the most turbulent and
careless spirits of the whole Gothic army. They had just been released
from their duties of the past night, and were at leisure to comply with
Goisvintha's request. She had scarcely concluded her address before
they turned and hurried eagerly up to the tent, shouting to Hermanric,
as they advanced, to make his prisoner visible to them in the open air.

They had probably expected to be regaled by the ludicrous terror of
some Roman slave whom their comrade had discovered lurking in the empty
suburbs; for when they entered the tent, and saw nothing but the
shrinking figure of the unhappy girl, as she crouched on the earth at
Hermanric's feet, they all paused with one accord, and looked round on
each other in speechless astonishment.

'Behold her!' cried Goisvintha, breaking the momentary silence. 'She
is the Roman prisoner that your man of valour there has secured for
himself! For that trembling child he has forgotten the enmities of his
people! She is more to him already than army, general, or companions.
You have watched before the city during the night; but he has stood
sentinel by the maiden of Rome! Hope not that he will share in your
toils, or mix in your pleasures more. Alaric and the warriors have
lost his services--his future king cringes there at his feet!'

She had expected to arouse the anger and excite the jealousy of the
rough audience she addressed; but the result of her envenomed jeers
disappointed her hopes. The humour of the moment prompted the Goths to
ridicule, a course infinitely more inimical to Antonina's interests
with Hermanric than menaces or recrimination. Recovered from their
first astonishment, they burst into a loud and universal laugh.

'Mars and Venus caught together! But, by St. Peter, I see not Vulcan
and the net!' cried Fravitta, who having served in the armies of Rome,
and acquired a vague knowledge there of the ancient mythology, and the